Latest / Core Memory / The Future of Money - EP 19 Zach Abrams

Transcript

The Future of Money - EP 19 Zach Abrams · Core Memory

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what is the thing like as you started the company what's like
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the the thing that
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you didn't do before that you now do and you realize you like
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the most oh god now
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you're interviewing me um i mean i i never had to run a
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business you know and and i
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guess part of that's miserable and is a ton of work but part of
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it's really fun the
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biggest thing about this whole thing i think is i'm like
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competitive and i played
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SPEAKER_00: competitive sports growing up and
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SPEAKER_00: I've never really,
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I've been like entrepreneurial about my career and that I would
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write books outside
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SPEAKER_00: of work and work on movies,
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SPEAKER_00: but this was like,
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SPEAKER_00: oh,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm in a game and like now I want to win.
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SPEAKER_00: It feels,
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SPEAKER_02: so it feels different from writing a book and like book doesn't feel as
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SPEAKER_02: entrepreneurial.
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SPEAKER_02: It feels more creative or something.
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those feel sort of entrepreneurial in the I always thought of
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each book or
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documentary it is it actually made me have more respect and a I
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think a better
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understanding of like the people I was covering because they
1:00
are like little
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startups in and of themselves but you know they're going to be
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kind of finite but
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there's always ups and downs and there's like things collapsing
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and you have things
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you have to fix and it's this journey and so so in that sense
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but not in the like
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there's money coming in,
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and there's money going out,
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and I have to make this work.
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SPEAKER_00: I think when you write a book, you're like,
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SPEAKER_00: I have to make this work,
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SPEAKER_00: but I feel pretty confident in my skills,
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SPEAKER_00: and I feel like there's so much in my control,
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SPEAKER_00: whereas on this,
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SPEAKER_00: it's like,
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SPEAKER_00: I think I can do my absolute best stuff,
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SPEAKER_00: and I still don't know fully if it's going to pan out.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I've been there.
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SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'm still there.
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All right,
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well,
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I don't do a crazy long intro or anything,
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but we can jump in if you're ready.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Zach Abrams, thank you for coming to the Podstude.
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SPEAKER_02: Excited to be here.
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SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try to introduce you, and if I miss anything, help me out.
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SPEAKER_00: But you're the CEO of Bridge, Stripe acquired Bridge.
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SPEAKER_00: Well,
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SPEAKER_00: last year it began,
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SPEAKER_00: and I think it closed this year for $1 billion,
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SPEAKER_00: and the company was only a couple years old.
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SPEAKER_00: You're a longtime executive in the fintech space.
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SPEAKER_00: You've done startups.
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You've worked for Square,
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other big companies,
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and then,
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yeah,
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created this rocket ship.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't want to freak my listeners out because I don't do a lot,
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SPEAKER_00: and I know crypto is not really the full right phrase here,
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SPEAKER_00: but I don't do a lot of fintech stuff,
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SPEAKER_00: and you guys are doing stable coins.
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pretty much had to learn actually what a stablecoin is in doing
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research for this episode.
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SPEAKER_00: So,
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SPEAKER_00: but I thought this was a good opportunity because I think,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: we try to make this accessible to a pretty wide audience.
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SPEAKER_00: So if I don't want people to get freaked out if they're not in FinTech,
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SPEAKER_00: because I think we're about to learn about the future of money,
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SPEAKER_00: what this stuff is,
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SPEAKER_00: where it's all heading.
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And I know we had a brief chat a couple of months ago and that
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was already like
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SPEAKER_00: pretty illuminating for me.
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SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
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And it's a lot simpler than rockets and artificial wounds and
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all the other things
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SPEAKER_02: that you normally talk about.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
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SPEAKER_00: Just before we kick off,
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SPEAKER_00: really briefly,
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I want to thank E1 Ventures for helping make this possible and
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give us some
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SPEAKER_00: support.
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very short little read there and with that okay we're off and
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running um where to
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begin well okay let's let's do let's do a little like explainer
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history lesson type
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SPEAKER_00: thing on what a stable coin is
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a stablecoin is a tokenized form of a dollar.
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SPEAKER_02: So you take a dollar, like a U.S.
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SPEAKER_02: dollar,
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SPEAKER_02: for instance,
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SPEAKER_02: and you put it into a bank account,
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and then you create a digital representation of that dollar
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that other people can
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SPEAKER_02: have.
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SPEAKER_02: And that's the extent of it.
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SPEAKER_00: And unlike crypto,
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SPEAKER_00: which often feels psychotic and full of risk and insanity,
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: these are backed by T-bills,
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SPEAKER_00: essentially,
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SPEAKER_00: right?
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_02: They're pegged to the U.S.
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SPEAKER_02: dollar and backed by U.S.
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SPEAKER_02: dollars or short-term treasuries, even long-term treasuries.
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SPEAKER_02: They're,
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SPEAKER_02: technically speaking,
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safer than even a bank deposit because your bank deposits are
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backed by loans and
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SPEAKER_02: so on.
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The stablecoin itself is one-for-one backed by cash and
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short-term treasuries.
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So you're trying to create this digital future of money type
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technology that has
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SPEAKER_00: the stability of the financial system behind it,
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SPEAKER_00: but more flexibility than what the traditional financial system is doing.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_02: It gives you the ability to hold and have a U.S.
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dollar,
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but then gives you the capabilities of having a digital type of
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asset.
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SPEAKER_02: And so that means that it's more easily transformed.
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SPEAKER_02: It's more accessible.
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SPEAKER_02: It can be stored in pretty much any country.
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SPEAKER_02: It can be custodied by someone else or it could be self-custodied.
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SPEAKER_02: It could be programmed.
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There's a lot of benefits that come with taking this sort of
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analog asset and digitizing it.
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SPEAKER_00: How far back does this idea go?
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Well,
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like,
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you know,
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most things in the crypto world,
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it starts with trading.
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And the first,
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you know,
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large scale stablecoin was Tether,
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which was launched...
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SPEAKER_02: I believe in 2017 or so.
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SPEAKER_02: And it was basically launched by an exchange,
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SPEAKER_02: Bifinex,
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SPEAKER_02: that really struggled to get access to the U.S.
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SPEAKER_02: banking system.
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SPEAKER_02: And folks were trying to trade Bitcoin or ETH or other assets.
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SPEAKER_02: And they wanted to settle those trades in U.S.
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SPEAKER_02: dollar equivalents because you don't always want to be risk-on,
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SPEAKER_02: for instance,
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SPEAKER_02: in buying more and more Bitcoin and
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And so they created this digital version of a dollar to enable
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someone with Bitcoin
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SPEAKER_02: to trade into a tokenized dollar and so on.
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SPEAKER_02: And then USDC launched in 2019.
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SPEAKER_02: And this is when I was my last year at Coinbase.
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And so Circle and Coinbase came together to launch that version
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of a stablecoin.
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SPEAKER_02: That was the first version that was really regulated in the US.
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SPEAKER_02: And then from there, things have kind of slowly and then suddenly scaled.
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So because you were at Coinbase and because you've been in
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fintech for so long,
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you're paying attention to all this stuff and just getting
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interested in it,
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SPEAKER_00: watching what's going on.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
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SPEAKER_02: When the last year I was at Coinbase,
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SPEAKER_02: we launched this and I was running the consumer business there.
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And our idea was to take USDC and use it to help Coinbase
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expand internationally
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and basically transform Coinbase from this trading application
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primarily based in
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SPEAKER_02: the US.
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and move to being a global neobank built on top of stablecoins
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because anyone in
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the world could hold this dollar format on top of which you
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could also offer
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SPEAKER_02: trading,
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SPEAKER_02: but you could settle into local currency,
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SPEAKER_02: you could issue cards on top of it.
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SPEAKER_02: And so we had this idea then, and it kind of stuck in my head.
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And it took a couple years for it to sort of turn into what
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became of Bridge,
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SPEAKER_02: but it mostly started then.
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SPEAKER_00: When you started Bridge in 2023?
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SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
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SPEAKER_00: And it actually started as like an NFT type thing.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly, which was a terrible idea.
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SPEAKER_00: Was it a novel take on NFTs or you were trying to make a marketplace?
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SPEAKER_02: It was... So Sean and I were...
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SPEAKER_02: I've just always really been interested in money.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: Sean and I actually started another company,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: back in 2012 that was a fintech company.
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SPEAKER_02: And then I, you know, joined Square.
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SPEAKER_02: It was just, and it wasn't like I always wanted to go.
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I was just drawn towards,
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you know,
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fintech money movement things for whatever reason.
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And so when Sean and I were both ready to start another
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company,
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we were naturally drawn towards
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SPEAKER_02: financial services.
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SPEAKER_02: My belief,
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SPEAKER_02: having reflected on a lot of the time in FinTech,
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SPEAKER_02: was people talk about platform shifts.
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SPEAKER_02: Right now, AI is the big platform shift.
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SPEAKER_02: Before that, there was the internet and mobile and cloud and so on.
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SPEAKER_02: These platform shifts are talked about like they're universal.
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The one platform shift impacts all industries equally,
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which is not really the case.
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SPEAKER_02: Mobile,
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SPEAKER_02: for instance,
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had almost no impact on financial services in terms of
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rearranging the top 100
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SPEAKER_02: companies and so on.
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And one of my reflections was that all of the big fintechs were
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basically card companies.
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Stripe was a card company and Square was a card company and
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Audion was a card
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company and Revolut started as a card company and NewBank
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started as a card
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SPEAKER_02: company.
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SPEAKER_02: And cards were actually this huge platform shift.
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that really changed who was important and rearranged value and
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created all this
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SPEAKER_02: opportunity for new startups to come in in the financial services space.
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And our view at the time was that stablecoins could be the next
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platform after cards.
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And this new core medium on top of which all this new financial
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infrastructure could get built.
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SPEAKER_02: And that was our belief,
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but we didn't really know exactly how and what was going to be
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built on top of this
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SPEAKER_02: new platform.
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SPEAKER_02: And so,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: the first version of that was like taking dollars,
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SPEAKER_02: converting them into stable coins to buy NFTs,
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SPEAKER_02: because at the time,
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SPEAKER_02: NFTs were really taking off.
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And then by the time that we had raised money and that we had
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built some version of
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SPEAKER_02: a product,
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there were like 90 other companies that were basically doing
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the same thing.
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And we realized that that take was going to be really
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competitive and honestly not
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SPEAKER_02: very interesting.
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And so we very quickly pivoted from that,
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you know,
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maybe a month after we had raised money.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the quick pivot is amazing.
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SPEAKER_00: I still have this NFT idea.
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SPEAKER_00: You can tell me if you think it's terrible.
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Like during the height of the craze,
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I too was like,
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how can I capitalize on this?
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SPEAKER_00: And I was just thinking, please, I'm sure there's flaws to this.
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SPEAKER_00: There are probably none.
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You know,
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I was thinking like with first edition books are always a
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thing.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh man, I can give somebody like the actual Word file.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, you could have the real first edition.
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SPEAKER_00: And then you run into these problems where
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You don't actually want to give someone the whole file because
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I'm sure Harper
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SPEAKER_00: Collins or Penguin would hate it if they just started printing my book.
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SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking like, oh, if you could give
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SPEAKER_00: like the first page and you have, but you have the digital first page.
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I still feel like this is a unique thing that the physical
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world cannot replicate.
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SPEAKER_02: I agree.
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I think that there is an immense market for digital scarcity or
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creating digital scarcity.
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SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you see this, like I'm, I'm optimistic about digital art.
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SPEAKER_02: I know that it's sort of, you know, there are strong opinions and
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a bunch of different a bunch of different camps but i have a
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lot of friends who
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collect the art and and for the same reasons why physical art
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is interesting
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digital art is very is very interesting as well and uh and and
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i think the same
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thing is true here you know you take a you take a book and you
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can digitize it and
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create scarcity and and then people can you know collect and uh
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and and and assign
12:27
the same either emotional value to to that good because it is
12:31
like it is scarce you
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SPEAKER_02: know and it shows your
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investment behind it or uh or or or invest in it because they
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think it's going to
12:39
be worth more yeah because well in a first edition run i mean
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they're printing tens
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of thousands of books if you're doing things right i guess um
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and with the word
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file i don't know i mean there really is only one where i
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produced this thing i
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kept picturing someone would buy it and they could put it in
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like a photo frame
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SPEAKER_00: that was illuminated or something like yeah like a digitized uh
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
13:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: I have a good friend who has all,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: Beeple art and,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: all over his house,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: and Beeple actually has a,
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SPEAKER_02: I think it is like a physical space in South Carolina,
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SPEAKER_02: where you can,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: buy his digital art and then like physically print it.
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SPEAKER_02: So you own both the digital and the physical.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of like an interesting way of printing it.
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SPEAKER_02: But you could do the same thing with the book.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: I think like a lot of things in crypto,
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there's a really interesting and valuable belief underpinning
13:40
the implementation of
13:42
SPEAKER_02: it.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: And then,
13:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:44
SPEAKER_02: in the tree,
13:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:45
SPEAKER_02: the tree of ways in which that idea could be implemented,
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SPEAKER_02: the crypto world chooses to go down the thinnest,
13:51
SPEAKER_02: gnarliest,
13:52
SPEAKER_02: most insane branch possible.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
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And in this case,
13:56
the world will probably come around to a more sane
14:00
implementation.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I will drop this in a second, but I was competing, I guess.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: This was mass NFT hysteria,
14:09
SPEAKER_00: and the bored apes were just taking off,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: and I was talking to the OpenSea guys about my idea,
14:15
SPEAKER_00: and they were,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: like,
14:17
SPEAKER_00: too busy to help very much with it,
14:19
SPEAKER_00: but they seemed semi-interested.
14:21
They're like,
14:21
but you got to get attention for it,
14:23
and I was like,
14:23
okay,
14:24
what if we...
14:25
What if I,
14:25
like,
14:26
send the actual book to space on a rocket or we,
14:29
like,
14:29
burn?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: I have, like, these galleys, these early copies you get.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think I have, like, the last, I don't know, 10 or 12 of them.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
14:38
SPEAKER_00: what if I put those on a rocket test stand and we have the rocket engine,
14:42
SPEAKER_00: like,
14:43
SPEAKER_00: burn them out of existence?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And then this digital file is, like, the last sort of early...
14:49
SPEAKER_00: copy.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: And then, and then you could take the video of them burning.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were going to do.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And then we were going to sell that.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: That was going to be part of the package.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You got the video and the, I should have done this.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
15:02
SPEAKER_02: I think,
15:03
SPEAKER_02: I do think there is a lot of,
15:05
SPEAKER_02: a lot of,
15:07
SPEAKER_02: there's like a there,
15:07
SPEAKER_02: there,
15:08
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:08
SPEAKER_02: and it needs,
15:09
SPEAKER_02: there's,
15:09
there's going to be a right place in time where that isn't made
15:14
more mainstream.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: All right.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: All right.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: You're just ahead of your time.
15:18
Yeah.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Or I missed,
15:19
I missed like the one moment where I could have made more money
15:23
than I ever will
15:24
SPEAKER_00: selling books off of like a publicity stunt.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, time will tell.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: So you guys switch in a month.
15:34
I mean,
15:35
that's pretty good to sort of feel,
15:37
realize you've changed course.
15:38
Although it must be weird,
15:39
you've already raised money and now you got to go back and...
15:42
SPEAKER_02: It was actually awful.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: It was, yeah, yeah.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: There was nothing good about that.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: We raised money, and we raised a pretty decent amount of money.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And then we're building this thing,
15:59
SPEAKER_02: and we had hired people,
16:01
SPEAKER_02: actually,
16:02
SPEAKER_02: and they were helping us build this version of the product.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: And then I basically just lost confidence in it completely.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: And Sean had not.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: And so this was like the hardest struggle we had as cofounders.
16:19
And eventually,
16:22
you know,
16:22
I had like kind of convinced him to move off of it.
16:25
But he really wanted to just like launch a first version and
16:28
iterate from that place.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: And my view was that we were
16:33
You know,
16:34
we were building in like completely,
16:36
you know,
16:37
the wrong direction.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: So,
16:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:39
SPEAKER_02: if you drill a well,
16:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:41
SPEAKER_02: an oil well in like the completely wrong location,
16:43
there's no amount of iterating around that location that's
16:46
going to produce oil.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: But this kept me up at night because I believed that,
16:52
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:52
SPEAKER_02: all these investors,
16:53
SPEAKER_02: all these people had like put faith in us to do this.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: And then actually I called one of our investors, our biggest investor.
17:01
And I called him and this is after like weeks of like not
17:04
sleeping and struggling
17:05
SPEAKER_02: with this pivot decision.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: I called him and he picks up the phone and I was like,
17:09
SPEAKER_02: hey,
17:09
SPEAKER_02: I have to like tell you that,
17:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
17:11
SPEAKER_02: this like idea that we had,
17:13
SPEAKER_02: I kind of like lost confidence in it and,
17:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
17:17
SPEAKER_02: we're going to pivot.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:19
You know,
17:19
and then he is like,
17:22
hmm,
17:22
he's like,
17:23
oh,
17:23
I thought that idea was terrible anyway.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, why didn't you tell me that?
17:31
SPEAKER_02: He was like, oh, you seemed excited about it, but I'm glad you moved on.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: And if you find another idea in a year, that would be great.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, my God, I put all this pressure on myself.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I was all completely manufactured.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: So they just like, they had confidence in you.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: They liked you guys.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: I guess so.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: That's what I learned in hindsight.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: I thought that it was all the idea.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you guys do change.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And then,
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
17:55
your investors have to be pretty happy because two years after
18:00
you change,
18:01
SPEAKER_00: you're selling the company for a billion dollars.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
18:06
We took a bit of time to find what became the current
18:11
implementation of Bridge.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: And probably around October or so, we started building that version.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't like a straight path from that to selling to Stripe.
18:25
It's not like we found that idea and then it was like,
18:27
oh,
18:27
this is clearly the thing.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: We started building our first version of the product.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: And then actually our bank partner dropped us.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: And then we started building another version of the product.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: And we were about to launch.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: We were all in San Francisco.
18:41
Because we were remote at the time,
18:43
we had all come back to San Francisco to launch.
18:46
And we were working 24-7 to get things ready with this very
18:50
first customer.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: And they were supposed to launch on a Monday.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: And on Sunday, the FTX meltdown happened.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
19:01
And so then,
19:02
you know,
19:03
basically by Monday morning,
19:04
everything had completely blown up.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And by Monday afternoon, that bank partner had dropped us.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: And then we started building again.
19:14
And then the next bank partner dropped us again,
19:16
you know,
19:16
which was Signature and...
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And then finally, we found a new bank partner.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: We rebuilt the whole platform, found totally new customers.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: We then launched around, I think it was like late March.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: And that's when the week we launched was the week that SVB collapsed.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: And then USDC, which was like the only regulated stablecoin, de-pegged.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: And,
19:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:43
SPEAKER_02: I basically spent Thursday,
19:45
Friday just trying to scramble and move our money around
19:47
because we had a bunch of
19:48
SPEAKER_02: money in SVB and we were,
19:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:50
and then we had like basically moved our money and we felt like
19:53
we were so smart.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: And then and because we just didn't have any capital at risk.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: And then I remember calling Sean on Friday and was like, you know,
20:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, my gosh.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Like,
20:05
SPEAKER_02: this is like,
20:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: we save like our money,
20:08
SPEAKER_02: but like the company,
20:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:10
SPEAKER_02: who's going to flood stable coins on Monday?
20:12
SPEAKER_02: And then Taylor,
20:14
SPEAKER_02: my wife and I,
20:14
SPEAKER_02: we went to dinner and we,
20:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:17
SPEAKER_02: she was like,
20:18
SPEAKER_02: so do you think you have a company on Monday?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I don't.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: I think so.
20:24
I mean,
20:25
and basically Sean and I were kind of like emotionally getting
20:28
ready.
20:28
And then Monday came around and all of the developers who were
20:31
building on our
20:32
SPEAKER_02: platform came back and were just moving as much money as before.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: And then that was clearly the nadir of the company.
20:39
And then from there we were just,
20:40
you know,
20:41
slowly building back and back and back.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: I was going to say, I mean, you've been through the gauntlet already.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's hard to imagine worse.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: It's not.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: Well,
20:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:52
SPEAKER_02: you talk to a lot of space companies,
20:54
SPEAKER_02: so it's like not terribly dissimilar from like the rocket blowing up.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's two versions.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: There's one,
21:00
SPEAKER_00: the rocket blows up,
21:02
SPEAKER_00: and then the extra bad one is where it comes back on the pad,
21:05
and you lose both the rocket and all the infrastructure that
21:08
you spend your money
21:10
SPEAKER_00: on.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
21:11
SPEAKER_02: I guess we kind of had both,
21:12
SPEAKER_02: but at a much smaller scale because the rocket blew up like FTX,
21:17
SPEAKER_02: and then it came down and blew up our bank.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Every time I've been to one of these first lodges, it's like they just...
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Wanted to clear the pad and get far enough out.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And I have actually been at one where it came back on the pad.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Very bad.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Much sadness.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: All right.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, OK.
21:38
I mean,
21:40
we'll kind of get to more of the journey,
21:42
I think,
21:42
by maybe trying to explain
21:45
SPEAKER_00: how this technology works just when we were having lunch when you started
21:49
describing how customers actually use this it was really
21:52
helpful for me and just
21:53
having been to i remember we were talking about nigeria i think
21:57
and having been
21:59
there myself i mean it's it's the financial system's a little
22:03
crazy everybody's
22:03
paying for everything with their cell phone numbers but then if
22:06
you were trying to
22:07
SPEAKER_00: think about doing any kind of international transfer moving naira um
22:14
SPEAKER_00: You have Nigerians all over the world who are doing these remittances,
22:17
SPEAKER_00: trying to send money back to their families.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's a crazy process.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of time in Mexico.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: It's the same sort of thing.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Can you explain to me how a stablecoin works in this particular case?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think it'll help people get their head around this.
22:33
yeah there are there are two general areas where stable coins
22:37
are uh clearly
22:39
working scaling have a large-scale product market fit the the
22:43
first is moving money
22:45
across borders and i can go into a bunch of use cases where
22:49
where we do that in uh
22:51
many different permutations you know in nigeria or mexico and
22:54
then the second is
22:55
SPEAKER_02: stable coins as this global financial building block on top of which
23:00
you can build one scaled fintech experience,
23:04
and I'll talk about that one in more detail.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: On the first one, moving money across borders, we see that in every way.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: We have customers like scale.ai who need to pay people out.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: They're doing data labeling all over the world.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: And those people could be in Argentina,
23:24
SPEAKER_02: they could be in Nigeria,
23:26
SPEAKER_02: they could be in India,
23:27
SPEAKER_02: they could be in a ton of different countries.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: Generally,
23:30
these folks are getting paid 10 cents or 50 cents or whatever
23:33
to data label scale
23:35
SPEAKER_02: prices,
23:36
SPEAKER_02: all the tasks and dollars.
23:38
And then two times a week,
23:40
every Tuesday,
23:40
Friday,
23:41
they pay all those people out.
23:43
And it would be very hard to do this with fiat because it's
23:46
very hard and very
23:48
SPEAKER_02: expensive,
23:48
especially to send very small sums of money to lots and lots of
23:52
different people.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Just because of the fees?
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Just because of the fees, yeah.
23:56
You know,
23:56
you're paying a large amount of fixed fees and a large amount
23:59
of variable fees.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: We also support something similar for the U.S.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: government where we're dispersing aid payments across LATAM.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: And they told us that before stablecoins,
24:08
SPEAKER_02: about 60 cents of every dollar was getting to the end recipient.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: And now about 99 cents of every dollar is getting to the end recipient.
24:15
So,
24:16
you know,
24:16
50% increase in the efficacy of the dollars that they're
24:21
distributing.
24:22
And then we see,
24:25
you know,
24:25
in another way,
24:27
we see SpaceX as a customer of ours.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: SpaceX is selling Starlink all over the world,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: and they're collecting local payments in all these different countries.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And it's oftentimes hard to get money back to the U.S.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: from all these different countries.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: So they will take local currency through us,
24:45
SPEAKER_02: convert that into stablecoins,
24:47
SPEAKER_02: and bring it back to the U.S.
24:49
And then we see stable coins used as a transmission layer to
24:53
move money across borders.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: So you might take money in the US dollars,
24:56
SPEAKER_02: convert it into a stable coin,
24:58
SPEAKER_02: move it into Mexico and then convert it into Mexican peso.
25:03
And there's customers like Felix Pago that are building fiat to
25:06
fiat cross border payments for
25:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:09
SPEAKER_02: for basically mostly remittances,
25:12
SPEAKER_02: and they are doing that all using a stablecoin rail.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: And so every different way in which money can move,
25:19
SPEAKER_02: you're taking a stablecoin in and you're paying it out,
25:21
SPEAKER_02: you're taking a dollar and you're sending a stablecoin elsewhere,
25:24
SPEAKER_02: you're using a stablecoin as a transmission leg.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: So many aspects of moving money across borders is very broken.
25:31
And one way to think about it is every country has its own file
25:34
format of money.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: And whenever you have to convert between file formats,
25:41
it's this really broken experience that's sort of been cobbled
25:45
together through
25:47
SPEAKER_02: decades of
25:49
SPEAKER_02: you know, hot fixes at banks.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: And stablecoins are the first universal file format for money.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: So you can actually store the first time,
26:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:00
SPEAKER_02: you can store this one asset type in all these different countries.
26:06
And then so people are using that to move money in all these
26:09
really interesting ways.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I cover, I'm easily tech savvy.
26:16
I cover technology,
26:16
even though I've,
26:17
I've FinTech hasn't always been my thing.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Um,
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, like, I guess I'm just professing my ignorance.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
26:25
SPEAKER_00: when I first started hearing about stablecoins,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: it was just like,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: oh,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: this is some crypto thing.
26:29
It's probably just got all the same,
26:31
you know,
26:31
usual baggage that that brings with it.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And then when,
26:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:36
SPEAKER_00: is that,
26:37
I don't even know if that's something you have to overcome
26:39
because the other people
26:40
SPEAKER_00: are more savvy than I am that you're dealing with?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, we we are for a long time.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: There's there's been, you know, we're just lumped into the crypto bucket.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: And the crypto bucket is, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: And that's why it was so hard to find bank partners.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: And it's so hard to explain to people what we do, you know, the
27:08
SPEAKER_02: When we would talk to people,
27:12
SPEAKER_02: oh,
27:12
SPEAKER_02: we're moving money with stablecoins,
27:15
SPEAKER_02: the first thing that people would think is,
27:17
SPEAKER_02: oh,
27:17
the only reason why you're doing that is because someone is
27:20
trying to move money
27:22
SPEAKER_02: outside the core financial system.
27:24
And the only reason why they try to do that is because they're
27:26
money laundering.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like messaging not that five years ago or ten years ago.
27:33
The only reason why you'd want to encrypt a message is because
27:36
you're trying to do
27:37
SPEAKER_02: something terrible.
27:38
The only reason you tried to use a digital asset is because
27:41
you're trying to do
27:41
SPEAKER_02: something bad,
27:42
SPEAKER_02: and we're just lumped into that bucket.
27:45
It's taken an enormous amount of work for us to claw our way
27:51
back to neutral,
27:52
SPEAKER_02: let alone get to some positive territory.
27:55
like what is the if i'm spacex and i'm doing these large
28:00
volumes of transactions
28:01
and at some point this money is in the stable coin and and not
28:07
in my hands or not
28:08
in some u.s bank that i've just been around for decades um what
28:13
is like what is the
28:13
highest risk i mean since this is tied to treasuries and and it
28:18
seems kind of low i
28:19
SPEAKER_00: mean the whole
28:20
It would be the same risk as the whole financial system would
28:23
have to be kind of
28:23
SPEAKER_00: cratering in some horrible way.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the largest risk to a stablecoin is the banks.
28:29
And this is what happened with SVB is that Circle held some
28:33
percentage of its cash
28:34
SPEAKER_02: with SVB and SVB went under.
28:37
So there was questions around whether Circle was going to have
28:41
all the collateral to back USDC.
28:46
But nobody had questions about all the reserves that were held
28:50
in treasuries or what have you.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: So actually the weakest point of a stablecoin,
28:55
SPEAKER_02: the highest risk point of a stablecoin,
28:57
SPEAKER_02: is the dollars held in a bank account.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And then...
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what did you guys, okay, so you have to overcome this.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: You have this new financial mechanism.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: You were not the first with a stable coin.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Like,
29:11
what did you guys figure out that other people hadn't to be
29:15
able to go to get
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Stripe to buy you after two years?
29:18
SPEAKER_02: We thought that stablecoins,
29:21
this belief that stablecoins would be a core new platform shift
29:27
in money was very
29:30
SPEAKER_02: contrarian.
29:32
And,
29:32
you know,
29:32
stablecoins were thought of as an asset that people use to
29:35
trade,
29:36
you
29:38
SPEAKER_02: But being a core part of the regulated financial system,
29:42
SPEAKER_02: a medium through which,
29:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:45
SPEAKER_02: large sums of money move,
29:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:47
SPEAKER_02: cross border,
29:50
SPEAKER_02: a platform on top of which the next generation of fintechs were built.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: People didn't think that at all at the time.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: Our company had two core premises.
29:59
One was that stablecoins would be important,
30:01
which at the time was very contrarian.
30:04
And then two was that there would be a lot of them,
30:06
which was also very,
30:07
very contrarian.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: And now both of them are more likely to come true.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: But that was it.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: And at the time we were,
30:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:17
SPEAKER_02: the Venn diagram of people who like know and believe in,
30:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:25
or know and like really understand the regulated financial
30:29
system and understand
30:32
SPEAKER_02: the crypto world was like zero.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
30:37
Because the crypto world had attracted like a certain audience
30:39
and then all the
30:41
folks who were in core fintechs were kind of like shunning the
30:45
crypto world for a
30:46
SPEAKER_02: long time.
30:47
And so since we sort of sat at that intersection,
30:49
that gave us a very unique advantage.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And you guys had to what?
30:53
You had to go to SpaceX or a scale and then just convince them
30:58
to give it a try and
30:59
SPEAKER_00: they just do that enough times and keep moving larger volumes?
31:03
SPEAKER_02: No,
31:03
SPEAKER_02: it was,
31:04
SPEAKER_02: it is like,
31:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:07
probably the most fortunate thing that's happened to us is that
31:12
so much of this
31:13
SPEAKER_02: space is shaped by people in the U.S.,
31:16
SPEAKER_02: And the stablecoins that are,
31:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:21
SPEAKER_02: all the stablecoin infrastructure is built in the U.S.,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: maintained by U.S.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: companies, you know, we're a U.S.
31:26
company,
31:27
but all of the product market fit for stablecoins is outside
31:30
the U.S.
31:31
and so we built these apis and and we actually you know we
31:35
started the company with
31:35
these two premises we believe that stable coins would be this
31:38
new you know payment
31:39
platform on top of which a bunch of new stuff would get built
31:42
but we did not start
31:43
the company because we believed that we were going to solve
31:45
this specific problem
31:46
SPEAKER_02: for this specific user so we actually didn't know who to go after
31:49
SPEAKER_02: And then when we launched our APIs,
31:51
SPEAKER_02: we actually had just ever since the beginning,
31:54
SPEAKER_02: this steady flow of inbound interest,
31:57
because there's been so much pent up demand outside the US to
32:02
use stable coins for
32:03
SPEAKER_02: cross border payments for,
32:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:06
SPEAKER_02: fintech applications and so on.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's just been been completely unmet.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: And so we feel,
32:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
32:13
SPEAKER_02: I would basically,
32:13
SPEAKER_02: at the beginning of the company,
32:14
SPEAKER_02: I would like tweet that was like,
32:16
SPEAKER_02: hello world,
32:17
SPEAKER_02: please someone,
32:18
SPEAKER_02: we have these APIs.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: And we'd get like,
32:20
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:21
five or six people who would inbound with like very interesting
32:25
cross-border
32:25
SPEAKER_02: payment use cases and so on.
32:27
And actually,
32:28
that's how the government use case,
32:30
the government payouts use case came to us.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: It was an inbound.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: They were looking for some way of dispersing this aid.
32:37
And they knew that if they didn't disperse this aid by the MD,
32:39
they'd just lose it.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: So they were like very desperate.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: And so they found out about us.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: They reached out to us.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: We were like, there's no way this is real.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: And then they sent us a Citrix, you know, meeting invite.
32:52
And that was like,
32:53
okay,
32:53
maybe this is actually,
32:54
because who else in the world uses Citrix?
32:57
SPEAKER_02: And then we got on the call and there was literally like,
33:01
SPEAKER_02: there was like 50 people,
33:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:03
SPEAKER_02: on the call and every,
33:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:04
SPEAKER_02: and...
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And they were like, oh, this is actually serious.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: And we were three people.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's been the story of the company since the very beginning.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: We needed to make like virtual employees.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: So like to wrap my head around your, what the traditional competition is.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not doing corporate scale stuff,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: but if I'm,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: I use wise to buy people in Mexico,
33:39
SPEAKER_00: we're building a house there.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm in any trouble for the things I was doing,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: just paying contractors to do work and using wise to send that.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And then obviously you always have to pay a fee with every transaction.
33:55
It's not horrendous,
33:56
although it's been going up and up and up all the time.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And so would I,
34:01
does it make sense for somebody like me to be doing this a
34:06
different way or it
34:07
SPEAKER_00: makes more sense if I'm a corporation or a government or,
34:10
Well,
34:11
it probably wouldn't make sense for you to use Bridge because
34:14
we serve developers.
34:15
So then we might serve Wise if Wise wanted to build using our
34:20
APIs to better serve
34:21
SPEAKER_02: the Mexican corridor.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: Like we serve a customer called Felix Pago,
34:26
SPEAKER_02: which is built,
34:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:27
SPEAKER_02: just focused on U.S.-Mexico remittances,
34:30
SPEAKER_02: which is the most competitive,
34:31
SPEAKER_02: the largest and most competitive remittance corridor in the world.
34:35
So they're going head to head with Wise and Remitly and all the
34:38
usual folks.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: And their advantage is that they're using stablecoin rails to build this
34:44
infrastructure that all these other companies have built over
34:47
the last decade.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: And through those rails, you can serve folks way more cheaply.
34:53
And,
34:53
you know,
34:54
the remittances sort of cases,
34:56
there's like three segments of the market.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: There's the consumer market,
34:59
SPEAKER_02: which is,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:03
SPEAKER_02: with stable coins,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: you can probably be half as expensive.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: So it's meaningful, but not like crazy.
35:08
SPEAKER_02: And then there's the enterprise market,
35:10
SPEAKER_02: which is like,
35:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Coca-Cola moving money between Mexico and the U.S.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: That's like super cheap.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's no room for stable coins there today.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: And then there's the middle area,
35:22
SPEAKER_02: which is B2B payments between,
35:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:24
SPEAKER_02: cross-border,
35:25
SPEAKER_02: which is a very broken segment of the market.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Costs hundreds of basis points.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: People are using Swift.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: It takes days.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: That's where we saw the most immediate product market fit.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: Because all these companies in LATAM,
35:37
SPEAKER_02: the Zulus,
35:38
SPEAKER_02: the Rios,
35:39
SPEAKER_02: the Bitso's of the world,
35:41
all coming to us to serve the B2B market because they were
35:46
clamoring for a
35:46
SPEAKER_02: different way of moving money cross-border.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: Why is that part so broken?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: I know you were talking about the file formats,
35:52
but all those fees are just from moving one currency on this
35:57
journey to another,
35:58
and people are just handing it off to each other through these
36:01
different systems
36:02
SPEAKER_00: and all taking a cut?
36:05
So the way a lot of payment problems are papered over in the
36:12
world,
36:12
like in the U.S.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: and definitely across border,
36:15
is basically by people just storing balances in those different
36:21
corridors.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: So Wise was probably the first major company to do this, I think.
36:26
But basically Wise holds a bunch of money in Mexico,
36:29
and they hold a bunch of money in the U.S.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: And so when you send money in the U.S.,
36:33
SPEAKER_02: They collect it in the U.S.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: through a local payment rail,
36:36
SPEAKER_02: and then they just pay out immediately from their balance in Mexico.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: So money doesn't actually move because moving money is super slow.
36:43
So they're basically using their own capital to circumvent
36:49
actually needing to move
36:50
SPEAKER_02: money because the existing,
36:52
SPEAKER_02: whenever you have to switch between file formats,
36:55
SPEAKER_02: it's never going to be a good customer experience.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: And the issue with that is that you have to hold money in both corridors,
37:01
SPEAKER_02: and that model does not work for big,
37:04
SPEAKER_02: chunky payments,
37:06
SPEAKER_02: like B2B payments.
37:08
And so those models have really scaled and gotten tons of
37:12
adoption with consumers.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: And they've scaled up to some B2B segments, but generally really low.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And so as a result,
37:23
the B2B segment has been stuck actually having to physically
37:26
move money between
37:27
SPEAKER_02: corridors.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: It was the hardest problem, hardest problem to solve.
37:30
And so in often cases,
37:31
you were paying 300 basis points or 400 basis points to move
37:34
money.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
37:36
And now that you guys have had success,
37:38
you've been bought for a billion dollars.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: I know I've mentioned that a couple of times.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: I think that needs to know.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Little celebration.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: So the traditional financial people, they've paid attention.
37:56
Did I not see JP Morgan and some other heavyweights have
38:02
decided that they would
38:02
SPEAKER_00: also like to play in the stablecoin arena?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:08
I think that everyone who moves meaningful amounts of money or
38:15
is a meaningful
38:16
financial services infrastructure player is going to want to do
38:20
something in
38:21
SPEAKER_02: stablecoins.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: A lot of the banks now are thinking about issuing stablecoins.
38:27
I think that every fintech is going to build services on top of
38:32
stablecoins.
38:34
Even a lot of card companies are going to be issuing cards on
38:37
top of stablecoins.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: It's just a better way to deliver financial services globally.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: What do you guys do?
38:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you say a card company, what do you mean by that?
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, we just launched.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: So stablecoins are this global financial building block.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: And before stablecoins, if you wanted to serve the U.S.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: consumer, the U.S.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: market, you would have a U.S.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: bank.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: And then maybe a U.S.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: bin sponsor for cards to basically serve the U.S.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: market.
39:08
And then if you wanted to go to Mexico,
39:09
you would have to do it all over again.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: A Mexican bank and a Mexican bin sponsor.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: And then in the U.K., you do it all over again.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: In Europe, you do it all over again.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: And this is what made international expansion so hard.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Like why Chime is basically in the U.S.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: or why Nubank is basically just in Brazil.
39:25
It's very hard for a financial services company to expand into
39:29
a bunch of different countries.
39:32
And stablecoins create this one store of value that you can
39:37
build on top of and
39:38
SPEAKER_02: deliver a financial service to 90,
39:42
SPEAKER_02: 100 different countries.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: And so you could build a balance on top of stablecoins
39:46
And you can enable people to store a balance and then do local
39:49
payments and then
39:50
SPEAKER_02: even issue a card on top of those stable coins.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Like you mean, like, I'm sorry, like a credit card.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Like a credit card.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: You said Stripe was a card company.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: You were listing some earlier.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: I just never thought of them quite...
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: Like that.
40:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: And so that's what's possible.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: So we see,
40:09
SPEAKER_02: anyway,
40:10
SPEAKER_02: so we launched a partnership with Ramp,
40:12
SPEAKER_02: where Ramp issues cards primarily for U.S.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: businesses, but it's hard for them to issue cards internationally.
40:18
They're going to partner with us to issue cards to businesses
40:21
globally globally.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: on top of a stablecoin balance.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: So if you're a Mexican business,
40:25
SPEAKER_02: you would fund your Ramp balance with MXN,
40:29
SPEAKER_02: we would settle it in stablecoins,
40:30
SPEAKER_02: then they could issue a card on top of it,
40:32
and then you could use the Ramp platform to manage all your
40:35
company's spend.
40:36
And so as this takes off,
40:37
I mean,
40:40
now you're part of Stripe,
40:41
massive financial organization.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: You guys are all smart and creative.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so where are the levers to compete here?
40:49
Is this,
40:50
you got to end up fighting over fees and some innovative
40:54
services or...
40:56
I think that,
40:57
well,
40:58
I think that card,
40:59
you mean how do we compete with card companies?
41:01
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm sorry.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Like,
41:03
since you've established stable coins as this legit thing and
41:07
the traditional
41:08
SPEAKER_00: players are coming in and like you said,
41:09
SPEAKER_00: you think this will be the basis for all kinds of stuff.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: It's like,
41:12
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
41:12
where are the battles to be fought and won if everybody is
41:17
starting to move this
41:18
SPEAKER_00: way?
41:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, man, I think that there's a lot.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, right now the space is attracting a lot of attention.
41:26
I think there's and there's a lot of questions around how the
41:29
space is going to unfold.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: Like just take stable coins themselves.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: You know,
41:34
you have a lot of different companies who want to issue stable
41:36
coins in a lot of
41:37
SPEAKER_02: different ways.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: So you have USDC that wants to sort of be the one global standard.
41:42
through which everyone handles the one dominant stablecoin to
41:47
rule them all.
41:48
Then you have a company like Bridge where we want to issue
41:51
stablecoins for everyone.
41:52
We have a very diametrically opposed view of the way the market
41:56
could play out with
41:58
SPEAKER_02: tons of companies having and managing their own stablecoins.
42:02
Then you have folks like Paxos who are somewhere in the middle
42:04
where they're
42:05
SPEAKER_02: issuing new stablecoins but bringing together consortiums of people.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: And then if you think about stablecoins as a financial asset,
42:13
SPEAKER_02: it's really this amazing tool because before a stablecoin,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: you basically,
42:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:20
you had a dollar and you could either put it into a savings
42:23
account or put it into
42:24
SPEAKER_02: a checking account.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, you had to pick
42:26
SPEAKER_02: what you wanted to do with a dollar.
42:27
SPEAKER_02: You either saved it or you spend it.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: And so a stable coin,
42:31
one of the amazing benefits of it is you can take this asset
42:35
and save it and then
42:36
get a transactional asset that you can spend so you can
42:38
actually get access to both
42:40
SPEAKER_02: attributes of a dollar in the same format.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: But if people primarily just want the yield,
42:46
SPEAKER_02: there's also tokenized treasuries and other ways of accessing the yield.
42:50
So there's even competition of like what the format will be to
42:54
access some of the
42:55
SPEAKER_02: underlying underlying benefits and tokenized money market funds.
42:59
So just even in the stable coin itself,
43:02
the market is incredibly nascent.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Like we,
43:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:04
the Genius Act is making its way through Congress and the
43:07
markets are just kind of
43:09
figuring out what the most efficient outcome will be and what
43:12
most people will want
43:13
SPEAKER_02: to build on top of.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know the financial system is rigid and...
43:22
Probably it's sort of like a good thing in some ways that it's
43:24
so hard to,
43:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:25
SPEAKER_00: all these mechanisms get put in place.
43:29
But I mean,
43:29
there must be...
43:31
It's kind of crazy to me that you guys pulled off.
43:33
You did pull off in such a short amount of time because it
43:36
illuminates that there
43:37
SPEAKER_00: was just like this immense amount of friction and that I would think the
43:44
SPEAKER_00: traditional players must be very...
43:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it was a lot of work.
43:48
You kind of made it look relatively easy,
43:50
you know what I mean,
43:51
to change the system.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
43:55
SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing that we really benefited from,
43:58
which is somewhat similar to what a lot of the AI companies are
44:02
benefiting from
44:03
SPEAKER_02: right now,
44:04
is that the markets are just so much bigger now that the world
44:09
is financially interconnected.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons,
44:13
SPEAKER_02: maybe not the only reason,
44:14
but a driver for this huge ARR growth in AI companies is that
44:20
you can now,
44:21
SPEAKER_02: thanks to Stripe and others,
44:22
you can now sell your product from day one to everyone all over
44:26
the world.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that we benefited from relative to all other fintechs,
44:32
SPEAKER_02: almost every other fintech,
44:34
SPEAKER_02: when they initially launched,
44:35
SPEAKER_02: had to pick one market,
44:37
SPEAKER_02: one very specific geography,
44:40
SPEAKER_02: one segment within that geography in which to compete.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: And we didn't have to do that.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: We just built this one platform and developers,
44:48
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:49
SPEAKER_02: we now have,
44:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:51
developers serving customers in 90 plus different countries on
44:54
top of bridge.
44:55
And so we're probably one of the first like really global
44:59
fintechs that has been
45:01
SPEAKER_02: built from day one.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to change gears a little bit.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: I know we could talk about these.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: It is fascinating.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: Honestly,
45:08
SPEAKER_00: because when you and I confessed to you,
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I think when we first met,
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
45:11
SPEAKER_00: this is not my thing.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: And then you got me interested in it.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And I know there are all these use cases we could talk about a ton.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to, there were a couple other things.
45:20
Kind of want to learn more about you and then just about money
45:23
in general.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: If that's okay.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: Money is very interesting.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: People can go read about bridge and some of these other bits and pieces.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: But like one of the things we talked about was...
45:35
SPEAKER_00: in this new world of AI and agents starting to do things for people.
45:44
Like this idea of an agent conducting transactions on your
45:49
behalf is one part of this thing.
45:53
And then sort of like micro,
45:54
tiny transactions is another part of all this.
46:00
yeah i don't know how are you what should the world be thinking
46:04
about in terms of
46:05
money in this ai era i mean i think that it's going to it it's
46:11
going to change
46:12
across like many many different many different dimensions so
46:16
you know i think
46:17
there's like a stable coin angle to it but there's also very
46:19
much not a stable coin
46:21
SPEAKER_02: angle to it uh on the on the stable coin side
46:25
SPEAKER_02: You know,
46:25
SPEAKER_02: I think that if one of two things,
46:28
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
46:28
SPEAKER_02: if both things happens,
46:29
SPEAKER_02: then there's a lot of use cases.
46:30
But if one of two things happens,
46:32
then there's going to be a huge role that stablecoins play.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: One is that you have these non-humans accruing balances.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: There's really no way for a non-human to store value today.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, in order to open a bank account, you have to be a human.
46:47
And you have to KYC and have an ID and a social security number
46:51
and so on.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: So if there is a use case for non-humans to store a balance,
46:56
SPEAKER_02: then stablecoins are almost certainly going to play a very large role.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: And then the second is that...
47:02
money needs to move at a velocity or in increments that are not
47:08
possible in the
47:09
SPEAKER_02: current fiat system.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: And so that could mean streaming of payments,
47:14
SPEAKER_02: which,
47:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:15
SPEAKER_02: it's very expensive to move fiat money.
47:17
So if you want to stream payments in somewhat real time,
47:21
that's going to need to be stablecoins.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: Or if you need to send very small sums of money,
47:25
like you're paying for compute and compute very similar to
47:28
scale AI and their data
47:29
SPEAKER_02: labelers,
47:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:30
SPEAKER_02: very small payments.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: It will need to be stable coins.
47:33
But I also think that cards,
47:35
for instance,
47:36
are going to play an enormous role.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: But the form factor of a card is going to need to change.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: For instance,
47:45
SPEAKER_02: if you have AI agents buying things on your behalf,
47:48
SPEAKER_02: you will probably,
47:51
SPEAKER_02: today you go and you get your one credit card.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's what you use.
47:55
But you're probably not just going to give that credit card to
47:58
every single AI
47:59
SPEAKER_02: agent,
47:59
SPEAKER_02: what have you.
48:00
The way that cards are going to have to work is you're going to
48:02
have to tokenize
48:03
that card and give many different versions of that card to all
48:07
these different AI
48:08
SPEAKER_02: agents,
48:09
SPEAKER_02: and maybe with a bunch of different rules on top of that card.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Right,
48:11
because you don't want some AI spending all maxing out your
48:15
card just because it
48:17
SPEAKER_00: had some weird idea of it.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: And you don't want that to happen.
48:21
SPEAKER_02: And then if it does happen, who's going to be on the hook for it?
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Are you going to be on the hook for it?
48:25
SPEAKER_02: Or is the merchant going to be on it?
48:26
SPEAKER_02: What if they ship the goods already?
48:28
SPEAKER_02: Or is the bank going to be on the hook for it?
48:30
SPEAKER_02: All these problems haven't been solved.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: This is happening now, right?
48:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: There's already agents spending money.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: And,
48:39
SPEAKER_02: and,
48:40
SPEAKER_02: and most of it,
48:40
SPEAKER_02: or I would say overwhelming majority of it is the,
48:43
SPEAKER_02: is the card use case is like,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: Stripe announced a bunch of stuff at,
48:48
SPEAKER_02: at sessions related,
48:50
SPEAKER_02: related to this,
48:50
SPEAKER_02: where you can basically give,
48:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:53
SPEAKER_02: your card information to,
48:55
SPEAKER_02: to,
48:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:56
a developer could integrate the Stripe API so that consumers
48:58
could give their card
48:59
information to an agent and then go out and make purchases on
49:02
their behalf.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: It's running cloud space or, or,
49:06
SPEAKER_02: It could buy a bicycle, you know?
49:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh,
49:08
so maybe it's like setting up a shopping service and just
49:13
testing things out or it
49:15
SPEAKER_00: needs a bicycle for some reason.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: It seems like that's going to be the way most things happen, you know?
49:19
Like if everything from like,
49:21
oh,
49:22
I need to buy a new pair of skis,
49:23
I go into some...
49:27
SPEAKER_02: I ask it what the best version of skis is.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: I say,
49:29
SPEAKER_02: buy it,
49:29
SPEAKER_02: send it to my house,
49:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:30
SPEAKER_02: and it does it to,
49:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm in cursor and I want to deploy my application and I need to,
49:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:39
SPEAKER_02: get cloud space and I need to a bunch of downstream vendors.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it just happens automatically in the back end.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: This is wild.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so weird because it feels like crypto's been around.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: This is not like this is an original thought.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, crypto's been around for so long.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: You're always like, what does it actually do?
49:58
And then now it feels like there's all kinds of interesting
50:02
things happening with
50:03
SPEAKER_00: electronic money all of a sudden.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
50:06
SPEAKER_02: I think that there's an enormous number of things that are happening with
50:12
SPEAKER_02: stablecoins that are interesting.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: I think there's also,
50:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
50:15
we're going to tokenize stocks and a bunch of other financial
50:19
assets which will
50:20
SPEAKER_02: then be made available globally,
50:22
SPEAKER_02: which is an interesting trend that's happening.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: I think there's also a role to play for blockchains
50:28
identity verification and authenticity of different digital
50:33
artifacts that are created.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: Coming back to your book example,
50:39
there's a meaningful way in which block change can help assert
50:43
the authenticity of
50:44
a post or a video or whatever else the same way that they can
50:48
create and assert the
50:50
SPEAKER_02: authenticity of the first manuscript of your book.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: And so there's a,
50:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
50:56
SPEAKER_02: like,
50:57
SPEAKER_02: kind of like what we're talking about,
50:58
there's the core idea of a lot of these things that kind of
51:02
manifested in 2020 or
51:04
SPEAKER_02: 2022 is like,
51:05
SPEAKER_02: still valid,
51:06
SPEAKER_02: but waiting for,
51:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
51:08
a scaled use case that isn't pure speculation to come around
51:12
and drive adoption.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: Sort of like the natural course of things with tech.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: I feel like crypto took this weird path, though.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: I wonder, is it like that different from the Internet?
51:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, like the early Internet was crazy, too.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I wasn't really very actively involved.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
51:30
I think it is just because Bitcoin was such a weird thing in
51:35
and of itself,
51:35
SPEAKER_00: how it evolved.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I think when Bitcoin first came out,
51:40
SPEAKER_00: it looked like,
51:40
SPEAKER_00: in my head,
51:42
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
51:43
SPEAKER_00: oh,
51:43
SPEAKER_00: this is the early version of the internet.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: This will certainly...
51:47
evolve into the this new form of money that is universal and we
51:51
use for everything
51:52
and then it kind of turned into this just place to try to make
51:56
money and store
51:57
money and then other people tried different things and and then
52:00
i don't know it was
52:01
SPEAKER_00: also weird because
52:03
even in the early versions of the internet the early days of
52:06
the consumer internet
52:07
there were useful there were useful things you could do with
52:11
some of the first
52:12
services like priceline and ebay and things that took off
52:15
whereas like i felt like
52:16
with crypto most of the time i was like how is this actually
52:19
better than i said i
52:22
don't have that much trouble paying for anything you know i
52:25
don't really i don't
52:26
SPEAKER_00: know if i need this to be tokenized and and yeah yeah
52:31
I think that it is one of the things that's been really hard to
52:38
build in this space
52:39
SPEAKER_02: is that there was this,
52:41
it feels like in tech there was this lull for a period of time
52:45
and like people
52:45
SPEAKER_02: wanted crypto to come in and fill that void.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: And,
52:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:51
there was a building of excitement and then like a
52:53
disappointment when certain
52:55
SPEAKER_02: things,
52:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:57
SPEAKER_02: when like FTX blows up or what have you.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: Um,
53:01
SPEAKER_02: but the,
53:02
SPEAKER_02: like,
53:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
53:03
SPEAKER_02: a lot of the core,
53:05
SPEAKER_02: a core ideas and core infrastructure,
53:07
SPEAKER_02: it feels like we'll come around and you know,
53:12
SPEAKER_02: the,
53:12
SPEAKER_02: the timelines may be different,
53:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
53:14
SPEAKER_02: that,
53:15
SPEAKER_02: that we all thought they would be,
53:16
SPEAKER_02: but a lot of the value is going to,
53:17
I think there's going to be a lot of interesting things that
53:20
are built on top of
53:20
SPEAKER_02: blockchains in the next like five years.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me more of like when we,
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Decoded the human genome for the first time,
53:28
SPEAKER_00: and then it was supposed to be every disease was cured two years later,
53:33
SPEAKER_00: and biology was software and all this stuff.
53:37
And then,
53:38
you know,
53:38
that really has taken like 20,
53:40
25 years,
53:40
and it is kind of happening now.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: But there was this trough of disillusionment happening.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I certainly believe that would be true.
53:52
SPEAKER_02: And another one of these that I think of is AR-VR and a similar dynamic.
53:59
And I think people compare our acquisition to that Instagram or
54:03
YouTube or something like that.
54:05
SPEAKER_02: I think of it much more similar to Oculus.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: than to those in that,
54:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:12
SPEAKER_02: because like Oculus represented a whole new platform,
54:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:16
SPEAKER_02: and there was a lot of things that were working,
54:18
SPEAKER_02: but there's a lot of stuff that,
54:20
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:20
SPEAKER_02: where the market is like,
54:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:22
SPEAKER_02: the company is building into and creating the market.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, in a lot of ways, we're doing the same thing.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: Does this, do these trends end up making the US dollar
54:34
stronger or because you could be backed by another currency and
54:40
it's much more fluid?
54:42
SPEAKER_00: This kind of like spells the end of the US dollar dominance.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: I think that it makes it a lot stronger.
54:49
Well,
54:51
it basically,
54:52
maybe to put it a different way,
54:53
it gives consumers a lot more choice.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: And so consumers all around the world now have economic choice.
55:01
A contractor in Argentina can choose to get paid in Argentinian
55:06
pesos or can choose
55:07
SPEAKER_02: to get paid in US dollars or could choose to get paid in digital euros.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: And right now that economic choice is massively benefiting the US dollar.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
55:18
SPEAKER_02: we support every stablecoin that folks want,
55:22
SPEAKER_02: and 99% of the volume through our platform is US dollar denominated.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: And consumers,
55:28
when they're choosing to get paid out from payroll platforms or
55:32
get aid or whatever
55:34
SPEAKER_02: else,
55:34
SPEAKER_02: they're choosing to get dollars.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: And so, so long as consumers continue to choose dollars, it will...
55:40
drive more and more dollar interest and it will create another
55:47
very stable,
55:48
SPEAKER_02: very big acquirer of US treasuries.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: And has China embraced this technology or not so much?
55:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, not so much.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
55:58
SPEAKER_02: not in like the open sense,
56:00
SPEAKER_02: in maybe the way China has adopted most other technologies,
56:09
SPEAKER_02: like social media and so on.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: There is like digital forms of its dollar, but it's not open.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: In a lot of cases,
56:19
it creates like an immense amount of control because you could
56:21
literally reach into
56:22
SPEAKER_02: someone's wallet and turn the dollar off,
56:24
SPEAKER_02: which is a scary version of stable coins.
56:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: are Patrick and Sean Collins, I guess they're your boss, technically?
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
56:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I've known them forever.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting you in a,
56:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
56:41
unfair position or one where you have to answer this question a
56:45
certain way,
56:45
SPEAKER_00: maybe.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've just been fascinated by them for a long time.
56:48
I met them,
56:49
I think Stripe was probably like eight people,
56:52
if my memory serves.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: And these people told me,
56:57
SPEAKER_00: There's these two Irish brothers.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: You should go meet them.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of different.
57:01
And I remember walking in,
57:04
I was just like,
57:04
oh,
57:04
you guys are going to do fine.
57:07
SPEAKER_00: You seem very smart and kind of grounded.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: And then I've gotten to know them better over the years.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's these very interesting, extremely well-rounded people.
57:19
humans i i saw that you seem to be like a pretty avid reader
57:23
and and they i think
57:24
they've read like every book apparently um i think so yeah i
57:28
think so although i
57:29
although i i recently was with patrick and i recommended a book
57:31
that he had not
57:32
SPEAKER_02: read which i feel like is like a badge of honor
57:35
SPEAKER_00: What was it?
57:36
SPEAKER_00: What was it?
57:37
SPEAKER_02: It was called Greatness Can't Be Planned.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
57:39
SPEAKER_02: And it's like this,
57:40
it's a very interesting book around these like AI researchers
57:46
who basically were
57:47
SPEAKER_02: training these,
57:52
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:52
SPEAKER_02: these,
57:52
SPEAKER_02: no,
57:53
SPEAKER_02: they were robots,
57:53
SPEAKER_02: training these robots to navigate these like complex mazes.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: And they basically realized that every time they tried to
58:02
engineer the robot to perfectly navigate the maze,
58:05
it failed and was really hard.
58:07
But when they optimized the algorithm to do something different
58:10
than it had done
58:11
SPEAKER_02: last time,
58:12
SPEAKER_02: not to try to find the exit,
58:13
SPEAKER_02: but just do something different,
58:15
SPEAKER_02: like they found the exit the fastest,
58:19
SPEAKER_02: And then in doing this research,
58:21
it's sort of turned to them in like a philosophy around how
58:25
like the best outcomes
58:28
SPEAKER_02: don't necessarily come for optimizing for that single destination,
58:31
SPEAKER_02: but instead for optimizing for randomness.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: So this is nonfiction.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: This is like AI advice.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: It's AI researchers giving life advice.
58:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: Which is very niche.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: And did you form...
58:55
I guess they were just watching what you guys were doing or you
58:57
already knew each
58:58
SPEAKER_00: other.
58:58
I mean,
58:59
did you guys have sort of a...
59:00
I felt like you guys strike me as...
59:05
SPEAKER_00: similar disposition in some ways.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: You must have, I guess you guys just got along from the outset.
59:11
SPEAKER_02: I think that's it.
59:12
I really,
59:13
I didn't have any relationship with Patrick before starting
59:18
Bridge.
59:19
And we actually met for the first time maybe three months or
59:23
four months before the deal closed.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: All right.
59:25
SPEAKER_00: It was different than I expected.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: Like what struck you or has struck you about them since?
59:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that...
59:35
SPEAKER_02: I would say related to the deal itself,
59:39
SPEAKER_02: one of the things that I was the most surprised by,
59:42
SPEAKER_02: I had come in with a certain set of expectations because Stripe has not
59:48
SPEAKER_02: historically made,
59:49
SPEAKER_02: they have made investments.
59:51
SPEAKER_02: When I joined Coinbase, actually, this was in...
59:54
early 2017 or late 2016 or something,
1:00:00
Coinbase's big thing was paying with Bitcoin.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: It was before Coinbase believed that the exchange had product market fit,
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: and Stripe was the main anchor customer for paying with Bitcoin.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_02: So they've had these experiments in the past, but they hadn't.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: done and made a lot of progress in the crypto space.
1:00:19
So I was skeptical that they were as optimistic as I was about
1:00:26
this new platform.
1:00:28
And one of the things that was amazing to me is that in many
1:00:32
ways they had been
1:00:33
SPEAKER_02: thinking about and had been excited about this long before
1:00:37
I was like years before they had made investments in this space
1:00:40
and they were
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: active participants in this space.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: And so their conviction was really deep in this arena,
1:00:49
which was great and probably one of the reasons why this all
1:00:52
manifested the way it
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: has.
1:00:57
And so that was like,
1:00:59
I don't think things probably would have worked if it wasn't
1:01:02
for that.
1:01:03
Is there anything they have said that's made you rethink part
1:01:08
of your business drastically?
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: I think that probably...
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if there's anything they've said that,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_02: uh,
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: I would,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: I think that,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: that,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: that more,
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: it's sort of what they have done.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh,
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: and,
1:01:28
SPEAKER_02: uh,
1:01:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:01:30
I think that they have much more clearly articulate in many
1:01:35
ways than I could
1:01:36
clearly articulated a lot of the value of stable coins to the
1:01:41
world and in them
1:01:43
SPEAKER_02: articulating that value have sort of,
1:01:45
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: pushed the world forward.
1:01:49
One of the things that people say a lot or what have you was
1:01:55
kind of like skate
1:01:56
SPEAKER_02: where the puck is going,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: and that kind of implies that there's a certain velocity to the puck.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: But the stablecoin space had no velocity.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: It was just like a puck sitting there.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: So you could have skated in any direction.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: It was never going to get to you.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: And so what's happened for us is that we,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: instead of skating where it's going,
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: we kind of were a magnet attracting the puck to us.
1:02:19
And what I think that they have shown is that by so clearly
1:02:26
articulating a lot of
1:02:27
SPEAKER_02: these use cases and,
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:29
building on top of us to launch stuff like financial accounts
1:02:32
and these card
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: products and so on,
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: you create even more velocity to that.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_02: And the world is driven by these anecdotes.
1:02:41
And then you have Stripe doing stuff and then another customer
1:02:45
builds on like
1:02:46
SpaceX launches on top of us and the government comes and then
1:02:49
Scale AI comes and
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: then Dollar App comes and then eventually it becomes this inevitability.
1:02:54
You said when you were growing up,
1:02:56
you were just interested in money,
1:02:58
right?
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that kind of how you put it?
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everyone's kind of interested in money, I guess.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_00: Some more than others.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what does that mean?
1:03:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of the people that you interview are like,
1:03:17
they've always been interested in mechanical engineering or
1:03:19
they've always been
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: interested in science.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_00: Blowing stuff up.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:03:24
For me,
1:03:24
I've been interested in business more so than any of these
1:03:28
other things.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: To give an example,
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: when I graduated from college,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be an operating partner at a private equity firm.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: Like a very bizarro...
1:03:37
Like the person who comes into like a company and helps fix up
1:03:40
the company because
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: I just love business in some capacity.
1:03:44
And then when I did that,
1:03:47
I realized it was a horrible,
1:03:48
like an absolutely atrociously bad job.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_02: And I left and was like,
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to start a company,
1:03:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: and then the only ideas I had were fintech ideas.
1:04:00
And so it's just like my mind is just for some reason attracted
1:04:05
towards people's
1:04:06
SPEAKER_02: relationship with money and the way money moves.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_02: And then now having worked at fintechs,
1:04:11
SPEAKER_02: you see like at Square,
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: we help merchants accept card payments.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_02: And the impact that Square has had is so profound.
1:04:18
And Stripe enabling folks all around the world to accept card
1:04:23
payments and a seller
1:04:25
SPEAKER_02: of candles in the UK to sell to people all over the world.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_02: The impact that you have is so immense.
1:04:32
And we believe the same thing is true by lowering the cost of
1:04:35
moving money and
1:04:36
SPEAKER_02: building financial products across a bunch of different borders.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_02: The impact you can have is really big.
1:04:43
I don't know exactly why,
1:04:44
but these are the problems my mind has been drawn towards.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_00: And you're not,
1:04:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:04:48
I guess you can't say you're burnt out or interested in other
1:04:52
things at the moment.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:04:54
you're still as interested in finance even though you've done
1:04:58
this your whole
1:04:59
career and in these different ways and shapes and forms and
1:05:02
have all these other
1:05:03
SPEAKER_00: interests outside of it.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_00: This is what I always ask Patrick and John.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: they have like personal,
1:05:08
SPEAKER_00: or they did for a while,
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: personal tutors for physics and law.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like,
1:05:12
how could you keep coming back to Stripe when you seem like
1:05:16
you're fascinated by so
1:05:17
SPEAKER_00: many things?
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: I know.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: if I if I I heard the interview with with Brian,
1:05:23
where he was talking about the same thing around like biology
1:05:26
and this sort of
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: thing.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: And,
1:05:29
SPEAKER_02: and,
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:31
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe in some time when like bridge is kind of like made it,
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:36
SPEAKER_02: then then there's then then I'll sort of be very,
1:05:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:40
SPEAKER_02: have the time to do it.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_02: But for now, I'll stick to reading my like, you know, AI philosophy.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_02: And so on.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think you, didn't you started the company in Austin?
1:05:52
SPEAKER_02: I started the company in Austin.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: But it's headquartered.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: I moved back.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: I was, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_02: I was one of those people.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: I fled.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_00: Was it just for a change or you were like fed up with San Francisco?
1:06:06
I was,
1:06:07
I was,
1:06:08
um,
1:06:08
it was basically just for a change,
1:06:11
but I was,
1:06:12
I was so glad to have left.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, San Francisco, there is a, um, a real like, uh,
1:06:25
I don't know how to describe it other than a status game and a
1:06:30
momentum to build
1:06:33
SPEAKER_02: around the things that have excitement.
1:06:37
Right now,
1:06:38
there's this immense gravitational pull for people to go into
1:06:41
AI.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_02: And at the time, I was the head of product at Brex.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think that if I was still in San Francisco,
1:06:51
that gravitational pull would have pulled me in a certain
1:06:55
direction that was not
1:06:56
SPEAKER_02: starting the company.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_02: And having left, I just didn't feel any of that.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: So then I could just do whatever was interesting to me.
1:07:04
And the most interesting thing to me was to start this company
1:07:07
that everybody
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: thought was a terrible idea.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: And what drew you back, just the talent?
1:07:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
1:07:14
SPEAKER_02: it's just like now having,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:07:17
SPEAKER_02: once we found like some inkling of product market fit,
1:07:21
it just made so much sense to come back because there are so
1:07:24
many people here and
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: the company in it and so the talent here is like,
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: way, way, way, way above and beyond.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:07:33
I started the company and I also lived in London for a period
1:07:36
of time and it was
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: very bleak.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_02: Like the founder community there was very bleak.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_02: It was very isolating.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: It was,
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: it was very,
1:07:45
I can't imagine what it was like to start Revolut or something
1:07:48
to build a whole
1:07:49
SPEAKER_02: ecosystem where,
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: where one did not,
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: where one did not exist.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_02: move back and now,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: I love,
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: I love being in,
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: being,
1:07:57
SPEAKER_02: being in San Francisco now.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: You're sounding more pro than I was expecting.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_00: No bullshit rating on the new mayor.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_02: Well,
1:08:09
I guess I will say that I think that if the thing that I don't
1:08:14
like about San
1:08:15
SPEAKER_02: Francisco,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_02: like take YC for instance.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_02: Right now, like YC is the only way to get in is to start an AI company.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: and like,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_02: you have Palmer Lucky on,
1:08:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:27
he left and went somewhere else to start a defense tech company
1:08:31
because like San
1:08:31
SPEAKER_02: Francisco just wouldn't have it.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_02: And,
1:08:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:34
SPEAKER_02: Brian is in LA and,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: it is kind of like while it does have this immense tech talent,
1:08:42
SPEAKER_02: it does,
1:08:42
SPEAKER_02: it is very like consensus.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_02: It's like for a place that is like so,
1:08:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:49
SPEAKER_02: contrarian,
1:08:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: perceived to be contrarian,
1:08:53
SPEAKER_02: Globally,
1:08:54
it is really not that way when it comes to like a lot of
1:08:58
venture investors and a
1:08:59
SPEAKER_02: lot of founders and what they want to start.
1:09:02
And that's why like the fintech world is actually becoming more
1:09:07
and more dominated
1:09:08
SPEAKER_02: by New York because,
1:09:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: San Francisco sort of shifted before into SaaS companies.
1:09:15
You know,
1:09:15
like 80% of YC companies were just,
1:09:17
you know,
1:09:18
sales SaaS tools and whatever else.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_00: I was just in Europe for a couple weeks,
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: and I mean,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: they were asking me,
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: like,
1:09:25
SPEAKER_00: do we have any shot at AI?
1:09:28
SPEAKER_00: And I gave them the very bleak.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they have,
1:09:34
not unless something drastic changes in the amount of money
1:09:37
they're willing to
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: invest in some of this stuff.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: But they kept coming back to...
1:09:40
to finance to fintech and and they were uh they were they were
1:09:44
pushing back at me
1:09:45
the the u.s is is very antiquated mostly like in terms of how
1:09:51
you pay for goods
1:09:52
when you're out and about um yeah and then i've you know the
1:09:55
last time i was in
1:09:56
china i mean i think they're kind of even past us now but i was
1:09:59
there in the qr
1:10:00
SPEAKER_00: code you know and that felt like
1:10:02
way beyond whatever we do here already uh is that just is that
1:10:07
true is that just a
1:10:08
function of um yeah like why do we does the us suck at payments
1:10:13
and is that our
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: destiny
1:10:15
SPEAKER_02: We do,
1:10:17
but it's kind of like some of the things that are great and
1:10:25
that have the negative
1:10:27
SPEAKER_02: externalities about the U.S.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_02: The U.S.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_02: has thousands of banks, and most countries in Europe have one bank.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_02: And,
1:10:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:10:37
SPEAKER_02: we have this system whereby every state can have its own banks and,
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: and in the American way,
1:10:45
all those banks can make their own decisions in terms of what
1:10:48
they want to do and
1:10:49
SPEAKER_02: what services they want to provide to their customers.
1:10:52
So when it comes to rolling out a new payment rail like FedNow
1:10:55
or what have you,
1:10:57
You don't have the government just dictating to everyone
1:11:02
exactly what services need
1:11:06
SPEAKER_02: to be provided.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_02: Instead,
1:11:07
SPEAKER_02: it's driven by a lot of bottoms-up adoption,
1:11:10
SPEAKER_02: which is good in a lot of ways for fintech innovation and technology.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_02: but is not good in terms of providing government-level core,
1:11:24
very fast payment rails because we just don't have a mechanism
1:11:29
to force it out all
1:11:30
SPEAKER_02: the way across the country.
1:11:32
In fact,
1:11:33
we don't even have a regulatory framework to federally license
1:11:40
a payments company.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to be a payments company,
1:11:42
the only way you can get the licenses is to get 50 individual
1:11:46
licenses from every
1:11:47
SPEAKER_02: single state,
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: which is,
1:11:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:11:50
SPEAKER_02: I never really thought about it,
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: but is crazy.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: And actually the first person to point that out to me was Patrick,
1:11:57
who when we were in this like meeting with a regulator and he
1:12:01
was talking about a
1:12:01
SPEAKER_02: federal payments license,
1:12:03
SPEAKER_02: and I was like,
1:12:03
SPEAKER_02: huh,
1:12:04
SPEAKER_02: that's like a super obvious thing that we should have,
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: but we most definitely do not.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_00: Are you okay on time for just a little bit?
1:12:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, so how do we, do we change that or this is our lot in life?
1:12:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if we change it.
1:12:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:12:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of like,
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: what I think will happen is that,
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: not to speak my own book,
1:12:32
but I think that stable coins in a lot of ways will end up
1:12:35
solving this problem.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:12:37
Yeah,
1:12:38
and so in a lot of ways,
1:12:38
stablecoins will like recede in the background.
1:12:40
You won't even think of like,
1:12:42
you know,
1:12:42
a stablecoin as a different from a US dollar.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_02: And like,
1:12:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:12:46
eventually I'll send you money and you'll get that money and
1:12:49
I'll have a hundred
1:12:50
bucks and I'll send you a hundred bucks and you'll get that
1:12:52
money instantly in your
1:12:53
SPEAKER_02: bank app or what have you.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_02: And it will be facilitated via a stablecoin payment rail.
1:12:57
And you won't have to use FedNow or an RTP,
1:13:01
you know,
1:13:01
real-time payment rail or whatever else.
1:13:04
Do you travel around the world a lot to try to see what
1:13:08
different people are doing?
1:13:10
SPEAKER_00: Who's doing the most interesting stuff?
1:13:13
SPEAKER_02: I would say we see the most adoption...
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh,
1:13:25
SPEAKER_02: we,
1:13:25
SPEAKER_02: we see that,
1:13:26
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:13:26
SPEAKER_02: I would say actually like the,
1:13:28
SPEAKER_02: the,
1:13:28
the SpaceX example is probably one of the more interesting
1:13:31
examples because just
1:13:32
SPEAKER_02: before SpaceX,
1:13:33
SPEAKER_02: you didn't have someone who was selling and scaling,
1:13:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: services in all these different countries as quickly as them.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: The global telco.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_02: It is, it, it,
1:13:48
SPEAKER_02: It is like an amazing feat if you think about what they're doing,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: because,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:13:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:13:54
you have to put these satellites into space and that part is
1:13:58
like really hard.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_02: But actually,
1:14:01
SPEAKER_02: the way this came to be was that they were telling someone at Sequoia,
1:14:07
SPEAKER_02: Sean,
1:14:07
SPEAKER_02: who is our investor at Sequoia,
1:14:10
SPEAKER_02: They were telling him that the hardest problem they were facing was like,
1:14:14
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:14:14
SPEAKER_02: they can put these satellites into space pretty regularly now,
1:14:17
but actually turning on payments and moving money back to the
1:14:23
US and all these
1:14:23
countries is often the limiting factor to serving these
1:14:27
different countries.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: And it's real.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: You're selling internet in Malawi.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_02: And Malawi just doesn't have U.S.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_02: dollars.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_02: So you're getting local currency.
1:14:40
But then how do you get it out of the country if there is no
1:14:42
local currency in that country?
1:14:44
Or you're doing the same thing in Kenya or Nigeria or,
1:14:48
you know,
1:14:48
wherever else.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:50
The last time I was in Nigeria,
1:14:51
I mean,
1:14:52
there were,
1:14:52
I swear to God,
1:14:53
like 550 payments companies.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't even tell what they were.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:58
all doing and then everywhere i went any store i went into the
1:15:02
they would just have
1:15:03
their phone number up at the top of like a chicken sandwich
1:15:06
shop and and you were
1:15:08
just supposed to like i guess text from your bank or whatever
1:15:10
to the yeah yeah yeah
1:15:12
yeah yeah is there any other outside of the obvious centers of
1:15:17
finance that's doing
1:15:20
SPEAKER_00: pretty compelling stuff
1:15:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:15:22
SPEAKER_02: I think there is...
1:15:24
I can give you a couple examples of some of the things that I'm
1:15:28
more excited about.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_02: One of the folks who we just launched with is this company, Sling Money.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_02: And they're basically building a global...
1:15:42
SPEAKER_02: a global peer-to-peer payment product.
1:15:44
And they were the first company,
1:15:48
they basically started around the same time we did.
1:15:52
They launched and on the first day they launched in,
1:15:56
I want to say like 70 different countries.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, that was like never really possible before.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_02: And then because of that,
1:16:05
SPEAKER_02: they started seeing like huge growth in Kenya,
1:16:08
SPEAKER_02: then huge growth in Nigeria,
1:16:09
SPEAKER_02: then huge growth in South Africa,
1:16:11
SPEAKER_02: then huge growth in LATAM.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: And the amazing part about it is that it's really hard to like...
1:16:21
pick which markets are going to end up being the most
1:16:24
successful or the most
1:16:26
SPEAKER_02: underserved or what have you.
1:16:29
SPEAKER_02: And they're able to build an exceptional experience,
1:16:32
SPEAKER_02: just blanket the globe with it,
1:16:34
SPEAKER_02: and then see where consumers are the most underserved.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: And the thing that we just totally take for granted is that,
1:16:44
SPEAKER_02: like I said,
1:16:45
SPEAKER_02: there's thousands of banks in the U.S.,
1:16:47
SPEAKER_02: So there's a bunch of them on top of which,
1:16:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:16:49
SPEAKER_02: if I want to build some financial product,
1:16:52
SPEAKER_02: I can do that.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_02: But if you go into Nigeria, there's like two banks.
1:16:56
SPEAKER_02: And those banks don't want you to build a fintech.
1:17:00
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, we have all these building blocks here in the U.S.
1:17:03
But most,
1:17:04
a lot of,
1:17:05
like actually most countries do not have like any building
1:17:09
blocks.
1:17:10
And so stable coins are like providing this first building
1:17:13
block on top of which...
1:17:15
SPEAKER_02: Like,
1:17:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:17:17
these like world class financial experiences can now be
1:17:21
delivered to all of these
1:17:23
SPEAKER_02: local markets.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_02: And so,
1:17:25
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
1:17:25
SPEAKER_02: so we saw that with them,
1:17:26
SPEAKER_02: but we also saw that with like Dollar App doing that across LATAM and,
1:17:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:17:30
SPEAKER_02: they launched in Mexico and Colombia and then.
1:17:33
SPEAKER_02: and then Argentina.
1:17:36
SPEAKER_02: We even have large enterprises who move money.
1:17:44
Let's say you're a large company and you sell goods in a bunch
1:17:48
of different countries.
1:17:49
SPEAKER_02: you generally had to sell those goods and then store money locally.
1:17:54
SPEAKER_02: Because if you move money across borders,
1:17:55
SPEAKER_02: you'd have to pay taxes on it as you repatriate it and yada,
1:17:59
SPEAKER_02: yada,
1:17:59
SPEAKER_02: yada.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_02: But the issue is that if you kept the money in these different countries,
1:18:03
SPEAKER_02: then you had to keep the money in local currency,
1:18:05
SPEAKER_02: so you're exposed to FX risk.
1:18:07
SPEAKER_02: And so now you can actually,
1:18:08
SPEAKER_02: with stablecoins,
1:18:09
SPEAKER_02: you can keep the money in these countries,
1:18:11
SPEAKER_02: but keep it in dollars.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:18:14
SPEAKER_02: and so there's all this like core,
1:18:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:18:17
SPEAKER_02: oftentimes the things I'm like the most excited about is just like the,
1:18:19
SPEAKER_02: the core ways in which like,
1:18:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:18:22
SPEAKER_02: the,
1:18:23
the premises on top of which companies are built and finance
1:18:25
departments are built
1:18:26
SPEAKER_02: that actually turn out to not be true.
1:18:29
If you now have a,
1:18:30
you know,
1:18:31
this financial asset that can be stored and moved anywhere.
1:18:34
Is there,
1:18:34
I mean,
1:18:34
I guess we talked about some of this with the AI stuff,
1:18:37
but,
1:18:38
um,
1:18:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
1:18:40
SPEAKER_00: just kind of like a last note to leave people on,
1:18:42
SPEAKER_00: on,
1:18:42
SPEAKER_00: on what's like the weirdest idea you have about where money is heading.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, the weirdest.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_02: Let me, let me, let me think about that.
1:18:54
SPEAKER_00: The AI stuff is already fairly strange, I think.
1:18:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:18:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I, I,
1:19:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:19:04
SPEAKER_02: I think there are like two futures that,
1:19:08
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:19:08
SPEAKER_02: I say that,
1:19:08
SPEAKER_02: well,
1:19:09
there's like one future where if you play this out to like a
1:19:15
logical conclusion,
1:19:17
then one of the things that is like very strange is that
1:19:22
adoption of stable coins
1:19:23
SPEAKER_02: becomes rate limited by the amount of U.S.
1:19:26
SPEAKER_02: treasuries that exist.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_02: And what does that kind of mean?
1:19:31
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:19:31
if you have basically trillions and trillions of dollars
1:19:36
floating around held by
1:19:38
SPEAKER_02: these like very few stable,
1:19:41
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:19:41
SPEAKER_02: stablecoin issuers who are,
1:19:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:19:45
SPEAKER_02: own,
1:19:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:19:46
SPEAKER_02: call it like 2 trillion or 5 trillion or 10 trillion of US debt.
1:19:53
SPEAKER_02: and how that like, you know, what does that mean for us?
1:20:01
And then I think there's like the other of like the actual
1:20:04
consumer adoption bit.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's, or the AI adoption bit.
1:20:10
SPEAKER_02: I think the other part that I like,
1:20:12
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:20:12
SPEAKER_02: I talked about the,
1:20:14
SPEAKER_02: what does it mean for non-humans to have balances?
1:20:17
SPEAKER_02: And like, what if the richest person in the world is like an AI agent?
1:20:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, like, what is that?
1:20:28
SPEAKER_02: What kind of happens in that world?
1:20:29
Because we've never had a world where non-humans could accrue
1:20:35
massive amounts of
1:20:36
SPEAKER_02: material wealth.
1:20:37
SPEAKER_00: On the plus side,
1:20:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure it could be weirder than E-line,
1:20:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:20:41
SPEAKER_00: like if the AI has that full range.
1:20:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but like how would you interact with it, you know?
1:20:50
SPEAKER_02: Like in what country would it be paying taxes, you know?
1:20:53
SPEAKER_02: Where would it be domicile?
1:20:54
SPEAKER_02: Where would its residency be?
1:20:56
SPEAKER_00: That is wild.
1:20:58
I mean,
1:20:59
this isn't even like out of the realm of possibility in a
1:21:03
nearish future.
1:21:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:21:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:21:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that we have...
1:21:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:21:10
SPEAKER_02: and it could very obviously...
1:21:13
SPEAKER_02: Like,
1:21:14
SPEAKER_02: it could happen right now.
1:21:15
You could set up a bot with a balance and then have that bot
1:21:19
just trade crypto.
1:21:21
And it could be like,
1:21:23
you know,
1:21:24
the renaissance capital of the crypto markets.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_00: Just going on a big run, yeah.
1:21:27
Yeah,
1:21:28
and just accrue billions and billions and billions of dollars
1:21:32
of assets.
1:21:33
SPEAKER_02: And then what?
1:21:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh,
1:21:36
and then what if it started like deploying that money into like
1:21:39
political campaigns
1:21:40
SPEAKER_02: and you know,
1:21:41
SPEAKER_02: what have you?
1:21:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:21:42
Yeah,
1:21:43
I mean,
1:21:43
how does any government possibly keep up with regulating
1:21:49
anything like that?
1:21:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
1:21:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:21:56
And then can an agent,
1:21:59
now that it has this balance,
1:22:00
contribute politically?
1:22:02
Can the agent buy ads to influence whatever causes or things
1:22:08
that it's interested in?
1:22:10
SPEAKER_02: Because once it accrues capital,
1:22:11
then it can do all the things that people would potentially
1:22:15
want to do with
1:22:15
SPEAKER_02: capital.
1:22:17
SPEAKER_00: I would let it buy ads on the core memory.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_00: I always do my own questions.
1:22:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to set you free in a second.
1:22:28
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I do get the AI to suggest some questions.
1:22:32
They mostly wanted to know what life is like after you get
1:22:37
bought for a billion dollars.
1:22:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: If there are life changes that occur?
1:22:46
SPEAKER_02: I would, I mean, maybe ask me in two years.
1:22:51
SPEAKER_02: I would say six months in or whatever it has been.
1:22:53
SPEAKER_02: No, our life is exactly the same.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_02: So when we were...
1:23:01
SPEAKER_02: When we were in these acquisition talks,
1:23:04
SPEAKER_02: I went to my wife,
1:23:06
SPEAKER_02: Taylor,
1:23:07
SPEAKER_02: and I was like,
1:23:07
SPEAKER_02: okay,
1:23:09
SPEAKER_02: I've been working on this company,
1:23:10
SPEAKER_02: and if we sell the company,
1:23:12
SPEAKER_02: is there something you'd want to do with the money?
1:23:16
SPEAKER_02: Is there something you want to buy, anything?
1:23:18
SPEAKER_02: And she thinks about it for a second, and she was like,
1:23:22
SPEAKER_02: I might get my nails done once a week.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I think we can do that now.
1:23:29
SPEAKER_01: So nothing has really changed.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_02: And if anything, the work itself has gotten more intense because...
1:23:41
SPEAKER_02: Post-acquisition,
1:23:42
there's so much more interest in stablecoins and it's becoming
1:23:46
more mainstream.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_02: There's a distinct moment.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_02: Pre-acquisition,
1:23:50
SPEAKER_02: we were fringe and very contrarian,
1:23:52
SPEAKER_02: and now post-acquisition,
1:23:54
SPEAKER_02: we're a little more mainstream.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_02: That's attracted a whole new set of folks who want to build with us.
1:24:03
SPEAKER_02: But other than that, really not that much has changed.
1:24:08
SPEAKER_00: It was a crass question on the AI part, I think.
1:24:14
SPEAKER_02: So an AI generated that question?
1:24:16
Well,
1:24:16
I do all my own questions,
1:24:17
and then I do like a deep research thing.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:24:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, just to sort of get as much information as you can.
1:24:24
SPEAKER_00: And then every now and then I'm like, well, what would you ask, Zach?
1:24:28
and what did I mean it wanted me to ask about replacing Swift
1:24:31
and all that stuff
1:24:32
but we kind of did those this was this was chat GPT deep
1:24:36
research I kind of hopped
1:24:38
between yeah Claude and chat GPT and then sometimes I try Manus
1:24:43
just to just see
1:24:44
what's going on oh yeah yeah and China yeah it is interesting
1:24:48
they are they are
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: like not like
1:24:51
SPEAKER_00: drastically, drastically different.
1:24:53
But again,
1:24:53
this is not a novel thought,
1:24:55
but they do have the different nuance.
1:24:57
SPEAKER_00: Like Claude is, Claude is definitely a better writer.
1:25:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:25:01
SPEAKER_00: Although I think that OpenAI has stuff coming, but.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely a lot, a lot.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_02: It's definitely a better writer.
1:25:11
SPEAKER_02: And I send investor updates out every... Still, I do it.
1:25:16
SPEAKER_02: I send them... It's a very therapeutic thing to write.
1:25:20
And then I recently loaded all of...
1:25:22
Not all of them,
1:25:22
but the last 10 or something in.
1:25:24
SPEAKER_02: And then asked Claude for feedback.
1:25:26
SPEAKER_02: You're the foremost expert in startups and fintech and...
1:25:33
SPEAKER_02: And what would you give as advice to the founder and what have you?
1:25:36
SPEAKER_02: It was like very succinct and like clear feedback that was like,
1:25:41
SPEAKER_02: oh yeah,
1:25:42
SPEAKER_02: I really have been doing a bad job on this.
1:25:46
SPEAKER_02: I need to be better.
1:25:47
And then I shared it with our team and they're like,
1:25:48
yeah,
1:25:48
we've been telling you this forever.
1:25:50
SPEAKER_02: And then the robot tells you and you listen.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:25:54
I thought you were going to tell me that the AI was writing all
1:25:57
the investment letters.
1:25:59
SPEAKER_02: No, we tried that and they were really bad.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:26:01
I mean,
1:26:03
it's always like,
1:26:03
they're like,
1:26:04
oh,
1:26:04
do you just let the AI write for you now?
1:26:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is still really bad.
1:26:08
SPEAKER_02: It's quite, it's really, it's definitely not good.
1:26:11
I had the idea of like loading them all in and then being like,
1:26:14
okay,
1:26:14
write the next one.
1:26:15
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, this is going to be so genius.
1:26:17
SPEAKER_02: It's going to save me so much time.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_02: And then when it spit out was just junk.
1:26:21
SPEAKER_02: It was like tons of hallucination.
1:26:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:26:23
SPEAKER_00: I did put a whole draft of a story in, and this was in a new account.
1:26:32
SPEAKER_00: It didn't know that it was me,
1:26:34
SPEAKER_00: and I asked it to guess who wrote the story,
1:26:37
SPEAKER_00: and it guessed me out of all the people.
1:26:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
1:26:41
SPEAKER_00: I think Ashley Mays wrote the story,
1:26:42
SPEAKER_00: and then it told me why,
1:26:44
SPEAKER_00: and the first three reasons,
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: okay,
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: yeah.
1:26:47
The next three,
1:26:48
I was like,
1:26:48
God,
1:26:48
you kind of know me on a level I hadn't even...
1:26:51
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:26:52
SPEAKER_02: That's like,
1:26:52
SPEAKER_02: that's,
1:26:53
SPEAKER_02: it's,
1:26:53
SPEAKER_02: it's pretty awesome that you have this like public corpus of,
1:26:57
SPEAKER_02: of writing,
1:26:58
SPEAKER_02: you know?
1:26:58
SPEAKER_00: It is.
1:26:59
SPEAKER_00: I guess that just means it's like hoovered up enough of my copyright.
1:27:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:27:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_02: I know because now I can write like you.
1:27:05
SPEAKER_00: That's,
1:27:06
that's the frustrating part because sometimes I try to save
1:27:09
time and I'm like,
1:27:10
write this YouTube description and the style of Ashley Vance
1:27:12
and then it can,
1:27:14
SPEAKER_00: it can discern it,
1:27:15
SPEAKER_02: but I don't think it can reproduce it yet.
1:27:17
SPEAKER_02: And you asked it like, what is my style?
1:27:20
SPEAKER_00: For that, when I, no.
1:27:21
SPEAKER_00: So I dropped the draft in.
1:27:22
SPEAKER_00: I said, can you guess who wrote this story?
1:27:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
1:27:27
SPEAKER_00: It was like, my best guess is Ashley Vance.
1:27:28
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, that's kind of creepy.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:27:31
SPEAKER_02: Or you're like, write like Ashley Vance, but like more entertaining.
1:27:33
SPEAKER_00: I do.
1:27:34
SPEAKER_00: So I do that sometimes.
1:27:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm like...
1:27:36
because again i want to assure people i don't use this for like
1:27:39
my mySubstack posts
1:27:41
or anything but sometimes you just do it a youtube description
1:27:43
it's two paragraphs
1:27:44
you're like this would you just kind of got to get the basics
1:27:47
of the information
1:27:48
and yeah so i'll tell it to do me and then it's like kind of
1:27:52
crappy i think and
1:27:53
then i'm like no do it like smarter funnier more concise and
1:27:59
and still like kind of
1:28:01
SPEAKER_00: not quite right
1:28:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:28:02
I bet we're at this state where like maybe 80% of everything on
1:28:06
Twitter is already
1:28:08
SPEAKER_02: augmented or written by an AI.
1:28:11
SPEAKER_00: LinkedIn is for sure just like AIs talking to each other in the night,
1:28:17
SPEAKER_00: like offering jobs,
1:28:18
SPEAKER_00: writing resumes.
1:28:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you glance at LinkedIn for a little bit, it is a lot.
1:28:25
Yeah,
1:28:26
LinkedIn is like,
1:28:27
literally,
1:28:27
you're like,
1:28:27
how do I get more engagement on this?
1:28:29
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, throw in a rocket emoji and throw in a hands up emoji.
1:28:34
SPEAKER_02: And then you notice that every single post.
1:28:37
SPEAKER_02: But like,
1:28:37
SPEAKER_02: we're,
1:28:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:28:38
SPEAKER_02: next year or something,
1:28:39
SPEAKER_02: everything on Twitter,
1:28:40
SPEAKER_02: everything there is going to be written.
1:28:42
SPEAKER_02: And then it's like,
1:28:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:28:43
SPEAKER_02: maybe like,
1:28:44
SPEAKER_02: as a consumer of it,
1:28:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm still like,
1:28:46
SPEAKER_02: okay,
1:28:46
SPEAKER_02: I like I'm engaged.
1:28:47
SPEAKER_02: And this is like, kind of interesting, but I don't know how I feel.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:28:51
well going back to the very beginning when you're like now that
1:28:55
i'm in this role
1:28:56
this is the first time i've had to hire people and yeah it is
1:29:02
it's depressing when
1:29:03
SPEAKER_00: you put out a job poster you can tell an ai wrote the
1:29:07
SPEAKER_00: you know, the response back.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_00: The return.
1:29:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:29:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:29:10
SPEAKER_02: we've had,
1:29:11
SPEAKER_02: for our interviews,
1:29:13
we've had to change all the way we interview because people
1:29:17
basically just
1:29:18
SPEAKER_02: cheating.
1:29:19
SPEAKER_02: You know,
1:29:19
SPEAKER_02: like even our coding interviews,
1:29:21
SPEAKER_02: you're sitting there trying to pair with people and,
1:29:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:29:25
we ask them to share their screen because all these coding
1:29:27
interviews are remote
1:29:29
SPEAKER_02: and they like find ways of sharing,
1:29:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:29:31
SPEAKER_02: just,
1:29:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:29:32
SPEAKER_02: one screen but not the other screen.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_02: On the other screen, they have like...
1:29:36
I see that on like Instagram because I didn't know if that
1:29:38
actually happened.
1:29:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:29:40
We've had many,
1:29:41
many people in the interview process that have like gotten
1:29:45
kicked out.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_02: And there's probably some who we've hired.
1:29:49
You know,
1:29:50
they end up being really good engineers,
1:29:51
but it's still not ideal.
1:29:55
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't feel pure.
1:29:56
SPEAKER_02: No, not at all.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_00: Zach, thank you so much for your time, man.
1:30:00
SPEAKER_00: I feel like this is like...
1:30:03
the most interested i've actually this is not just because
1:30:06
you're here it's a
1:30:07
fintech thing ever i mean i i feel like people even just on the
1:30:12
remittance part
1:30:13
SPEAKER_00: underestimate what a massive part of the economy that is i find this all
1:30:17
fascinating and um and you know thank you so much for helping
1:30:22
us understand how
1:30:22
some of this works of course thank you so much for having me
1:30:26
it's been really fun
1:30:26
SPEAKER_00: it was awesome thank you yeah
1:30:31
SPEAKER_00: Core Memory is hosted by me, Ashley Vance.
1:30:35
SPEAKER_00: The show is produced by David Nicholson and me sometimes.
1:30:40
SPEAKER_00: Our theme music is by James Mercer and John Sortland.
1:30:44
SPEAKER_00: And the show is edited by the John Sortland.
1:30:48
SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for listening.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: As mentioned, the show is sponsored by Yuan Ventures.
1:30:55
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.