Ep. 581 - CoinMe COO Sung Choi - Life After Acquisition: Surprising Wins and Brutal Costs
Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Second in Command with Cameron Herold
4.9 • 225 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when a regulated fintech meets the wild swings of crypto and then gets acquired by a Web3 giant?
In this no-fluff conversation, Cameron Herold sits face-to-face with Sung Choi, COO of CoinMe, just months after their high-stakes Polygon Labs acquisition. They get blunt about what it really takes to survive in crypto, how to lead through M&A chaos without losing your best people, and why AI is rapidly rewriting the rules of operational excellence.
If you want to hear war stories and hard-earned lessons from the frontlines of scaling a volatile, regulated business, this is your episode. Don’t risk missing the sharpest insights on leadership, remote culture, and how to stay relevant through uncertainty. Listen now for playbook-level takeaways you won’t get anywhere else.
This episode is brought to you by our Silver Sponsor, Next Level Growth.
They help COOs and leadership teams build Elite Organizations through a proven, customizable framework built around the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations.
If you and your leadership team are ready to operate at the next level, take the Elite Organizations Assessment and receive a free 20-page customized report based on your answers, plus a complimentary one-hour coaching session with a Next Level Growth Partner and Business Guide to begin implementing tools that will help you build an even more elite business.
Complete the assessment here to get started - nextlevelgrowth.com/cooassessment
Timestamped Highlights
00:06 – The brutal reality of CoinMe’s early hardware dreams
11:10 – Why powering partners crushed owning infrastructure
13:04 – “M&A is like polyamorous dating” and what nobody tells you
17:14 – The tension of disclosure and keeping employees sane
22:25 – A surprising pivot: from bitcoin hype to stablecoin utility
26:29 – The regrets and rewards of abandoning office life
30:26 – How “work from anywhere” delivers hidden productivity
34:01 – Why AI is now their secret operating system
44:23 – The one leadership skill every modern COO must master
About the Guest
Sung Choi is the Chief Operating Officer at CoinMe, a leading regulated platform for stablecoin and crypto payments. With full-stack experience in scaling teams and driving innovation, he steered CoinMe through its pivotal acquisition by Polygon Labs. Sung Choi is recognized for blending real-world grit with bleeding-edge tech in fintech.
Mentioned Resources
- Polygon Labs
- Coinstar
- Pantera Capital
- Digital Currency Group (DCG)
- Gemini (AI tool)
- Claude (AI tool)
- ChatGPT
- iTex (formerly ubarter.com)
- Goldman Sachs
- OKRs framework
Important Links
- Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn
- Explore the COO Alliance - The World’s Leading Community for Seconds in Command
- Get Cameron’s book: Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO Book
- Take Cameron’s leadership course: Invest In Your Leaders Online Course (Use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month for 10% off)
- Chat or video call with AI Cameron via Delphi
The Second in Command Podcast is an original production hosted by Cameron Herold and co-hosted by Lindsay Smith. Brought to you by COO Alliance. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.
This episode is brought to you by our Silver Sponsor, Next Level Growth.
They help COOs and leadership teams build Elite Organizations through a proven, customizable framework built around the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations.
If you and your leadership team are ready to operate at the next level, take the Elite Organizations Assessment and receive a free 20-page customized report based on your answers, plus a complimentary one-hour coaching session with a Next Level Growth Partner and Business Guide to begin implementing tools that will help you build an even more elite business.
Complete the assessment here to get started - nextlevelgrowth.com/cooassessment
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We have to be very thoughtful about who we hire, but then we can invest more into those people |
| 0:05.0 | and make sure that we find the best fits for those roles, both from a management perspective, |
| 0:09.6 | but also a performance perspective. |
| 0:11.4 | So I think it just really heightened our hiring criteria to let us find the right people |
| 0:16.6 | that fit exactly what we need. |
| 0:18.7 | And I think being mission oriented also kind of helps some of this as well, |
| 0:21.9 | where if people really care about what they're doing, |
| 0:24.2 | they're less likely to go off and do a bunch of other things as well. |
| 0:27.1 | And I think having tight interview processes |
| 0:29.5 | helps find the right people who will remain focused. |
| 0:33.7 | So I think it's a little bit on the hiring, |
| 0:35.5 | it's a little bit on the management, |
| 0:36.9 | ultimately just finding the right candidates. |
| 0:41.9 | Welcome to the Second and Command podcast, produced by the C.O. Alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herald. |
| 0:50.4 | In the Second in Command podcast, we talked to top COOs who share the insights, strategies, and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. |
| 0:59.7 | And now, here's your host, Cameron Herald. |
| 1:06.6 | Sun Choi is today's COO guest on the Second of Command podcast, and his story sits right at the |
| 1:12.4 | intersection of compliance, partnerships, and scalable operations. He's a true chief behind the chief in |
| 1:18.6 | every sense. During the 2022 crypto downturn, he helped stabilize and reposition CoinMe, |
| 1:24.3 | wearing multiple hats across business development and marketing and operations, which he still does to this day. And under his leadership, CoinMe, wearing multiple hats across business development and marketing and operations, |
| 1:27.5 | which he still does to this day. |
| 1:29.5 | And under his leadership, CoinMe evolved from its B2B Bitcoin ATM routes into a B2B |
... |
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