“We’re attempting to shift cryptocurrency from this speculative asset class to driving actual world utility” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tells me. How? By commerce and micropayments. However now Coinbase has the who to construct it. Immediately the startup pronounces it’s employed away former Head Of Product for Indian ecommerce large Flipkart and Google Shopping VP of Product Surojit Chatterjee to grow to be Coinbase’s Chief Product Officer.
“I’ve at all times loved being related to expertise that’s on the point of altering how we reside” writes Chatterjee. “Google adverts has helped democratize commerce, Flipkart and ecommerce has revolutionized life in India, and I consider Coinbase goes to show standard finance on its head.”
Chatterjee spent over 11 years at Google over two stints, the primary as a founding member of Google’s cellular search Adverts product that’s grown to tens of billions in income per yr. When he begins at Coinbase subsequent week, Armstrong tells me he’ll assist Coinbase set up its complicated array of merchandise, together with its cryptocurrency alternate, pockets, stablecoin, incentivized crypto training platform Earn, and Coinbase Commerce that lets companies take funds in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and extra.
“Surojit is a big asset right here as a result of we’re a product led firm” Armstrong says. “We now have totally different leaders and so they more and more have obligations round P&L. Having one actually skilled Chief Product Officer that may mentor them and educate them to personal revenues and budgets — actually within the mannequin of Google — that can professionalize Coinbase.”
One alternative Armstrong hopes Chatterjee can assist Coinbase seize on is constructing merchandise for rising markets the place monetary infrastucture is weak. “Ecommerce is just not equally distributed all over the world. Micropayments don’t work that effectively . . . Him spending time dwelling in India, a creating market, he deeply understands cellular cash.” Given the explosion of telephone based mostly funds, the demonetization, and the prevalence of money on supply strategies in India that Flipkart handled, “his background is sort of best from that worldly perspective” Armstrong explains.
Chatterjee cites his upbringing as inspiration to ship “financial freedom for everybody”, as Armstrong says is Coinbase’s mission. “Rising up in India in a poor middle-class family, I noticed very carefully what a scarcity of liquid money does to a household’s life-style” Chatterjee recollects.
“As a child I’d go together with my mother to an area financial institution to withdraw cash. And consider me once I let you know that the method was epic!” It included withdrawl slips, tokens, and anxiously attempting to match present signatures to variations a long time previous. When India demonetized and made everybody alternate their money, “My dad, who was nearly 80 at the moment, stood in a queue for 5 hours to get 2000 Rs, which was the per-day restrict for the primary week. That’s lower than $30!” Digital cash may guarantee individuals at all times have entry to the whole lot they personal.
In developed international locations, Armstrong sees an opportunity for Chatterjee to allow digital content material creators to show their ardour into their career. “There’s tons of people that lurk on Reddit or Stack Overflow and reply questions . . . If there was actual cash on this stuff, these may very well be their full time jobs — contributing content material on customers generated social websites” Armstrong predicts. “I believe you’d see much more contributions as effectively.
Now may be the right time to rent Chatterjee since we’re in a lull interval for cryptocurrency within the wake of the push on the finish of 2018. “Crypto is at all times difficult to navigate. In these durations when it’s comparatively quiet, we are likely to do rather well” Armstrong says. The corporate grew market share, quantity, and app installs vs rivals between 50% and 100%, in keeping with the CEO. Referencing historical warfare technique, Armstrong concludes that “There’s years the place you simply need to practice the troopers and stockpile reousrces and also you’re mainly simply getting ready. We’re constructing the corporate, not simply responding to loopy hype.”