Brian Armstrong: From Airbnb to Coinbase's Billion-Dollar Status

Brian Armstrong is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. Born on January 25, 1983, near San Jose, California, to two parents who worked as engineers, Armstrong studied economics and computer science at Rice University in Texas.

He began his career with stints at IBM and Deloitte before moving into payments and fraud-prevention work at Airbnb. However, this experience left him frustrated with how slow and expensive it was to move money across borders, a frustration that became the seed of Coinbase.

In 2012, Armstrong pitched his bitcoin wallet startup at a Y Combinator demo day, describing it as the easiest way for newcomers to get started with Bitcoin. He co-founded Coinbase with Fred Ehrsam and within nine months had grown the company to more than 100,000 users.