Jesse Pollak: Base, Coinbase's path to building an L2

Into the Bytecode

This is my conversation with Jesse Pollak. He led retail engineering at Coinbase for many years — building Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Wallet. More recently, he is leading the development of Base, Coinbase's L2 built on the OP Stack.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - intro
(00:01:43) - sponsor: Optimism (optimism.io)
(00:03:07) - motivation behind Base
(00:11:12) - pitching Base to the Coinbase exec team
(00:14:24) - challenges of innovating on a schedule
(00:17:54) - failing repeatedly to find the right answer
(00:22:09) - decision to build an L2 with Michael
(00:23:30) - convincing Surojit Chatterjee, Coinbase’s CPO
(00:24:59) - launching Base internally
(00:31:58) - blockchains as serverless compute
(00:36:53) - uniswap as a serverless API for currency conversion
(00:39:30) - the power of small but leveraged teams
(00:42:31) - how to straddle product building in the onchain and offchain world
(00:45:25) - sponsor: Privy (privy.io)
(00:51:22) - the significance of THIS moment in Crypto
(00:53:56) - getting a 100M devs and 1B users onchain
(00:57:02) - how the NFT UX will change with Base
(01:10:13) - how crypto will be incorporated in applications
(01:14:00) - the risk of onchain heterogeneity
(01:17:27) - building privacy-oriented onchain platforms
(01:26:00) - upgrading the financial system
(01:28:33) - attending Quaker School
(01:34:43) - relentless positivity in life
(01:38:47) - building a better future

Jesse Pollak:
jesse.xyz on ETH - https://jesse.xyz/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/jessepollak
Github - https://github.com/jessepollak

Links:
Base - https://base.org/
Coinbase - https://www.coinbase.com/
Brian Armstrong - https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong
Surojit Chatterjee Coinbase’s CPO - https://www.coinbase.com/blog/welcome-surojit-chatterjee-coinbases-chief-product-officer
OP Stack - https://stack.optimism.io/
Uniswap - https://uniswap.org/
Goldfinch - https://goldfinch.finance/
Zora - https://zora.co/

Thank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible:
Optimism - https://optimism.io
Privy - https://privy.io

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Produced by - https://spectral.to

Disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.