CEO, Ripple
Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse: AI Layoffs are a ‘Travesty’
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse joins CoinDesk Live at Consensus 2026 in Miami with a wide-ranging conversation from the ...
About Brad Garlinghouse
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, has been active in media appearances discussing the company's legal history, regulatory developments, and industry growth. In a podcast recorded at the University of Kansas, Garlinghouse recounted that the SEC's 2020 lawsuit against Ripple nearly forced the company to close, describing the legal battle as a "parking ticket" that would have cost significant money. He stated that he met with SEC officials four times between 2017 and 2019 without a lawyer, and that no one suggested XRP might be a security, which he called "distasteful and maybe even unethical." Garlinghouse also discussed the "Peanut Butter Manifesto," a document he wrote at Yahoo advocating for focus over spreading resources thinly. Garlinghouse has been a vocal advocate for the CLARITY Act, which he said would provide regulatory certainty for the crypto industry. He criticized JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon for opposing the bill, calling Dimon's comments "negligence" and accusing him of trying to protect JPMorgan's profitable payments business. Garlinghouse noted that 90% of crypto trading occurs offshore and argued that clear U.S. rules would bring activity onshore. He predicted that the stablecoin market cap would reach $3 trillion by 2031, and expressed optimism about Ripple's acquisitions and its new AI developer toolkit for XRP.
Transcript (20 segments)
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Host0:00
Our next guest spent four years fighting the SEC and emerged with a landmark ruling for XRP. He then turned around and spent $4 billion rebuilding Ripple into a global payments powerhouse. Please welcome Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Brad, how's it going?
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Brad Garlinghouse0:20
Good to be here. A lot of stuff to talk about. It's a busy day. Let's get into it.
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Host0:24
It is a busy day. Bitcoin up above $80,000.
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Brad Garlinghouse0:28
Awesome. A lot of stories breaking throughout Consensus and overnight. I mean, what are you watching as we get the day started?
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Host0:34
I mean, I thought there were a couple big headlines overnight. I say this, the Bullish deal, obviously the biggest crypto deal ever. I think it's also an amazing example. I think not dissimilar to some of the acquisitions Ripple has made of traditional finance bridging to DeFi crypto, where Equinity I think had zero activity around all things crypto, tokenization, real world assets, and now being partnered with Bullish. I think it's a big unlock for both companies and not surprisingly the stock's way up on the news. Brad, there's almost no one better to talk about this. When we come to tokenization, we're here, the institutions are here, you guys are here. You've done a lot of the leg work to get these folks here. How does it feel to sort of see even with the Bullish deal that tokenization is the topic people are talking about?
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Brad Garlinghouse1:20
Yeah, I'll tell you, you've obviously been around the block also and seen this and to see how far we have come, I guess around the block, pun intended in this case, but you know, it does feel a little bit like a magical moment. I am glad to see Bitcoin back over 80. It's surprising to me that the market has been kind of in the doldrums despite a lot of things lining up for what I think is likely to be a nice set of things where crypto in general is more useful, even your previous guest, more leverable from a collateral point of view. And that's true of lots of different institutional players and I think that's certainly true of what we're doing at Ripple. The acquisitions you mentioned earlier, both with a company Hidden Road, the prime brokerage business, making XRP good collateral across lots of different institutional platforms is a big deal.
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Host2:13
You know, one of the other big headlines that came out last night, we spoke about it with Arthur Hayes this morning, is Coinbase having around 14% layoffs. Curious how you're watching that and what that indicates for people who are working in this industry and the broader macro environment.
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Brad Garlinghouse2:26
I have two thoughts on this. I mean, one is I have said for I don't know maybe a decade we can't just focus on speculation as a use case for crypto. And what I think you're seeing is, okay, yeah, we're in a relatively speaking bear market. And so, you know, Coinbase is very reactive to what's going on. And, you know, Kraken, not surprisingly, has delayed their IPO purportedly. Not surprising those things have happened when you're so dependent on a consumer speculation use case. The only thing I would say which maybe is a little bit controversial, you know, part of what Brian Armstrong said publicly was about how AI is a factor in those layoffs. For Ripple, yes, we are employing and using AI across everything we do to accelerate growth. The addressable market, the growth opportunity is so big. We're not thinking about AI as a tool to reduce headcount. We're thinking about it as an unlock and enabler to go after more products, more customers faster. And I think we're at a stage of the crypto market that is just an accelerant, not a hey, we can save money over here. I mean, if you're a public company, maybe you have some different levers you got to think about. Ripple has the advantage of being private.
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Host3:37
Well, it's not only Brian Armstrong who said that. I think we've heard that from the CEOs kind of pretty much across the board story. What do you think's going to happen given your perspective, right? Companies are laying off because they feel like AI is going to improve productivity, allow them to reduce headcount. Do you think they're going to have to make a reversal sometime in the future?
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Brad Garlinghouse3:57
I don't know if they'll make a reversal. I just think that some of these, I literally think it's a bit of a travesty for AI and it's like painting AI as the boogeyman. This is bad. And it's like every time we've seen new technologies come along, I just heard an interesting stat actually. When the automated teller machine, you may be too young for this, when the automated teller machine came out, people said bank tellers are going to lose all their jobs. 10 years later, there's twice as many bank tellers. And what the ATM allowed them to do is do more interesting things and cross-sell other products. And so I view AI as an unlock. And I think the companies that are hanging, frankly, maybe sometimes bad management on a hey, this is because of AI, I think it's unfortunate. AI is an unlock for a growth industry like digital assets, like blockchain infrastructure. It's an unlock to accelerate what we're doing to get more adoption faster. And I'm sure even what we've seen with Bullish and Equinity, what Ripple's doing around Ripple Treasury, bringing old school traditional finance, non-digital asset native onto chain is accelerated by things like AI.
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Host5:06
And it sounds like Brad, what I'm hearing from you is you're saying, hey, I spent years building this top team and now I just want to turn them into superheroes. I want to give them a superpower that says anything you could have imagined you can make happen. How are you applying that in a practical way across the company?
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Brad Garlinghouse5:24
Well, look, we have definitely engaged in kind of all aspects. Team finance is looking at how do we automate more activity so that we can unlock those people to do higher order things. Across marketing, more creative attribution. And then of course our core code writing is now, I think the stat was around 75% is enabled one way or another or written by AI now. Should that be more than 75%? We'll see how things progress. But we're definitely engaging fully, even getting smarter about which kind of targets we go after across our products. It's been an unlock but again not to how do we exit headcount, it's just to accelerate our adoption.
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Host6:04
I want to talk about regulation for a second. I think you know you've been through it with the regulators, come out on top. We now have clarity we're waiting for in the United States. Some progress has been made, there feels like there is some movement. I got to get your perspective here. Is it possible before midterms? There's a lot of optimism in the industry but as time moves on, I will bring the pessimistic perspective.
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Brad Garlinghouse6:29
Look, I have been pretty optimistic throughout, sometimes difficult, my own concern about like is this going to happen? I think we have seen a lot of, I don't think people can, it's been a big positive shift in the last week getting Senator Tillis on board and kind of getting not yet scheduled but likely a markup for either next week or the week after, the week of May 11th or May 18th. And I think if we get it out of committee, the likelihood that we get bipartisan support and get 60 votes on the Senate floor I think is very high. So, I've consistently, I think, been the optimist around this and so far I'm feeling more right than, despite people who thought maybe I was wrong. We'll see. We still got time. I agree with you. It's not there yet, but I'm pretty optimistic now.
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Host7:18
All right, Brad, I'm going to go on the main stage in a few minutes to talk with Kraken and Mastercard about really the brand that is crypto. I feel crypto itself as a brand has gone through a lot of ups and downs. Ripple as a brand is one that to me defies logic only because you have such a loyal fan base. The sort of XRP army online is so strong. Tell me about how you thought about building that and just the sort of the idea of all these people coming along this journey with you. What does that feel like?
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Brad Garlinghouse7:51
Yeah. Well, look, I'll start by saying I remember the first time I went to Davos, I ran into a central banker from another country and I'd met with him previously and he's like, I'm surprised you're here. You know, here crypto is still a bad word. Now, that was about 7 years ago and I think we have come as an industry a very long way where crypto is no longer a bad word. But on the topic of the XRP army, look, one of the greatest things about crypto in general is the community behind it. The people who see the opportunity for rewiring financial infrastructure using technologies that reduce cost, improve speed, like these are unlocks. The XRP army has been an unbelievable supportive group, allies. And I have also said to that community and to the entire crypto community, tribalism is bad for our industry. I've never been an XRP maxi and people who are out there kind of just, it's not going to be a one-chain world. It's going to be a multi-chain world. I want to see Bitcoin be successful. I love what's going on in the XRP ecosystem. I was in Vegas last week at XRP Las Vegas and it was the most vibrant, the most active that community has ever been. It was really spectacular.
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Host9:03
And it does feel like you're out there with a message, hold us accountable. Make us do the work.
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Brad Garlinghouse9:08
For sure. I mean, look, Ripple has always been the most interested advocate in the XRP ecosystem. We own a ton of XRP. That doesn't give us control of XRP. We're not proof of stake and how that architecture works. But, you know, we have always been leaning in and how do we do things that are good for the XRP ecosystem. All the acquisitions we made, all the building we're doing is in service of how do we accelerate the adoption, the usefulness of XRP, the liquidity of XRP, and the trust of XRP.
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Host9:35
All right, Brad, we got to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us at the desk and we hope you enjoy the rest of Consensus.
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Brad Garlinghouse9:40
Absolutely. Thanks, Red.