Coinbase Confirms Permanent Remote-First Work Policy

In a blog post published earlier this week, Brian Strong, CEO of Coinbase, announced the company would continue to work remotely after the coronavirus pandemic. Strong previously told Coinbase employees as stay-at-home orders begin to expire, Coinbase will continue to embrace being a “remote-first” company. 

Headquartered in San Francisco, Coinbase was forced to make the shift to remote work in March. In a letter to the Coinbase team, Armstrong shared that the experience of suddenly shifting to a remote environment had a “silver lining.” Overall, Armstrong shared, "it’s been less complicated to transition than we would have expected.” As a result, most Coinbase employees will have the privilege of choosing whether they want to work in an office or remotely.

Armstrong continued, citing two major considerations in making the decision to become a remote-first company. One consideration was strategic, while the other was more practical. 

He explained, “On a practical level, as countries around the world have emerged from quarantines, we’ve seen broad direction to adopt measures like six feet of separation between people in offices. This is likely to be our reality soon. To be concrete: with six feet between all employees in an office, even if we moved into every floor of our SF HQ, we wouldn’t have enough space to bring all current SF employees back, let alone hire more.”

As for Armstrong’s strategic considerations? The company has gone back and forth on remote work for some time and has now concluded “there will be substantial strategic advantages in a mix of remote and in-office work going forward.” Not only will a remote workforce allow Coinbase added economic freedoms, but it also means the company can hire top talent worldwide.

Coinbase isn’t the only tech company to announce its intentions to continue working remotely after the pandemic has subsided. Earlier this week, Square told its employees they can work from home permanently. The move came shortly after Twitter made a similar announcement to its employees. Meanwhile, companies such as Facebook and Google have directed their team members to work from home until 2021.