The Fintech OG's from TWIF

The Fintech OG Series: Will White and Sam Maule

• This Week In Fintech • Season 4 • Episode 7

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In this episode of The FinTech OGs, hosts Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Lauren Crossett sit down with Sam Maule, Head of Business Development at Moov, and Will White, Partner at Bedeloes,  for a candid conversation about navigating a career in fintech.

From spinning up payment cards in minutes to moving money across borders in real time, fintech has made incredible progress—but understanding what's actually happening behind a transaction can still be surprisingly complex. Sam shares his journey from the Navy to global banking, consulting, 11:FS, Google Cloud, and now payments at Moov. Will reflects on his path from auditing banks during the financial crisis to helping build some of fintech's most influential companies, including Monzo and WalletConnect.

Together, they explore what makes great operators indispensable, why neither chose the founder path, and how being the "safe hands" in the room can help a fintech company scale through uncertainty. They also discuss practical ways to break into fintech, the value of mentorship, lessons learned from career setbacks, and why the convergence of stablecoins and traditional finance feels different this time around.

Subscribe for more conversations with operators building the future of financial services.

This episode is sponsored by Granola. Try it free for 3 months at granola.ai/thisweekinfintech using code THISWEEKINFINTECH.

Connect with the Hosts & Guest

Julie VerHage-Greenberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-verhage-greenberg-1748801b

Lauren Crossett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-crossett-b3752126

Will White: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-w-11004b15/

Sam Maule: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammaule/


About The Fintech OGs

Former Bloomberg Fintech reporter Julie VerHage-Greenberg leads panels of the people who’ve taken Fintech from a hashtag to an industry through discussions on where we see the industry moving, what it takes to stay on top of the enormous changes that are still gripping the financial services industry,  and what they have learned as the best leaders in the field.  

Listen for the best up-to-date know-how from leaders in banking, payments, venture capital, fintech entrepreneurs, and all of those that have recreated financial services, and are still at it.

Intro

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Everyone, even in 2026, when fintechs can spin up cards and minutes and move money across borders in real time, it's still hard to decipher transactions. That's why financial institutions turn to Spade. Spade is the data and AI platform that turns messy transaction strings into structured, verified records in real time. To learn more, head to spade.com. That's spa-de-com. Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of FinTech OG. Today we are joined by two people that have been in fintech for a while. I have not met one of them yet, but I've heard so many amazing things. And the other one I know and love dearly. So we have Sam Maul, who is currently at Move, and I will let him explain more of his career and path uh right after this. And then we also have Will White, who I'm just gonna refer to as FinTech Extraordinaire, because he's done a whole host of different things. So he can dive more into that uh as well. But you guys, thank you so much for joining me and Lauren today.

Sam Maule

Thanks so much. Very happy to be here. I love Will too. Who doesn't love Will?

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Who doesn't? Who doesn't? Well, Sam, tell me a little bit more, since I have not had the pleasure of meeting you IRL yet. Um, tell me a little bit more about your background and what you're doing today.

Sam Maule

Yeah, I love that this is the OG thing because I'm definitely the O minimal G. Um, I have been around banking and payments in fintech since '94. So that's a pretty good run. I'm not going to do the max.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

I was three years old at the time. Don't do that.

Sam Maule

Oh, that hurt. Oh, that hurt. Everyone does it when I say that. Yeah, I I uh I'd spent about 10 years in the Navy, and um, when I got out, I um conned my way into a job with a global bank called Northern Trust, a big white bird bank out of Chicago. I lied like crazy about my abilities and became an auditor in the U.S. We call it a SAS 70 auditor. I know, go figure. Well, um and then um while doing it, I spent almost 10 years there. And while doing that, I found out that um I was a bit of a hacker. So early 90s, internet, everything that was happening. Um, and to date myself, I became a Lotus Notes programmer. Um thank you everybody for laughing at that. Yes, I was.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Um I do know what that is. Don't worry. I I do know what it is, don't worry.

Sam Maule

Yeah, so uh became a developer, led a dev team, and then from there

Sam Maul’es Path Through Payments

Sam Maule

left uh to go to Thesis, so got into cards. Um again, knew nothing about credit cards, zero zilch, nothing. Conned my way into that job. Um, spent the majority of that time actually living in the UK, um, working out of York and London. I absolutely loved it, doing consumer and commercial cards, um, eventually prepaid all throughout the UK and Europe. Great timing, because that was 2006 to 2010, and we all know how London just after the crash just exploded when it came to fintech. It was the fintech capital of the world. So I was lucky enough to be all around that and to watch it happen. Um, became friends with like Jason Bates um at Monzo and Ann Starling, um, Megan Kwood and that team. Oh, uh just so much fun. Um moved back to the US, joined a consulting firm that eventually was sold to NTT and ran FinTech and Digital for them. Then went to 11FS because I knew that whole team over there. Um, that's where Will and I met. Yeah, yeah. I uh David Bray introduced me to Will White. He said, talk to this guy. Um took about five minutes, and I went, so this is what ADHD looks like. This is awesome. This is really cool. Um, we became really good friends, left 11FS, went to Google, um, worked in Google Cloud and Financial Services, and now I'm at Move, uh payments company here in the US. So all of it, yes, I've done all the things.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

I love it. I love it. And you you mentioned conning your way into those jobs. Uh Nitika, who we had in the the episode that just got released, um, didn't know what ACH was when she went and worked at Stripe. So and she's doing phenomenal now. So I feel like that's it's a little bit of a theme. Sometimes you just have to con your way there and then just learn, hit the ground running, you know.

Sam Maule

I I had a friend who ran uh open banking at City, and she will tell you she had to go Google what open banking was when she was given that job. And she's fantastic.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Well, Will, tell I I don't even know exactly what you are doing right now because I feel like I see you all over the place, which I've people probably say the same thing about me as well. So we're we're kindred spirits in that way. But tell me a little bit more about how you got into fintech um and what you are focusing on right now.

Will White

Yeah, well, um just like um Sam, I'll age myself as well. Um so if I go all the way back, I uh I actually wanted to be a journalist when I was in college. I did politics. I lived out in India and Nepal and out of that discovered that I was kind of interested in um what was going on in India. Simple as that. Wrote to my dad, I said, what should I do if I want to get into investment? And he said, become a lawyer and accountant. I was better at math, um, is the honest answer. And also like account, charted accounting is a little different in the UK. It's uh like it's a slightly different role. Um so I joined PWC in the banking capital markets team. I work with um, God, every GCB you can think of, um, JP Morgan, Goldman, a lot of Barclays. Um and then the big turning point actually was that we qualified. So the way it works in the UK, three years, you qualify, you leave. I was, by the way, an external auditor, same as Sam. And when I wasn't doing external audit for banks, I was doing um like assurance for CMBS's, all that stuff that blew up the world. Um but uh come 2008, I actually qualified on the Friday. Um, and historically,

Will White’s Route From Audit To Crypto

Will White

you would have left, you'd gone to a big bank, and on the Monday morning, Lehman's went bust. And by the Tuesday morning, I was actually in behind the cameras in the Lehman Brothers building in London. Um and then during the crisis, uh I saw Barclays almost go bust. I was on the exact floor that day. That was a surreal day. Um I unpacked some stuff in credit suite, and then I went on to the Lehman's job, which was super interesting because we just like we just um we were um trading out the book. Interestingly, that team that did that were the same guys who did FTX when Sam Binkbrumfried took that down. Same team. Um all buddies of mine. Um anyway, roll forward, middle of the crisis, as Sam said. I was not a technologist at all. I'm just gonna be completely honest. Um, doing like distressed MA. And I got on a job in the Eurozone crisis in 2012 that got us close to the European Central Bank. I won't go into the details of what happened, but it got resolved, and then we didn't have much to do. So we started playing around with a single Bitcoin because we were fascinated that it didn't have a central bank. Bought it, timed the market. That's why I still have a job, because if I'd held on to it, I would not much as I enjoy your company. But it was enough for me to think, hey, wait, maybe there's something in technology here. Because I watched my best friend join Google when it was 10 people in London and seen his career explode, but I'd never really known a way to do it. And so same as Sam, yeah, this is 2013, I think it was. Um, I started like asking around, and it was a really, really interesting time in London. It was very nascent. Um, a lot of it centered on a thing called startup boot camp in London. I mean, pretty much anyone you can think of that's now in London FinTech touched that in some way, but it seemed very rinky-dick, if we're being honest. Um, and I joined one of the companies there. Um I actually, yeah, I joined one of the companies there. We didn't quite make it, it was in the peer-to-peer lending space, um, you know, uh, which was uh a moment of flash of the pan. The the best guys from that, when we closed it, went to a thing called Make It Dow, which was the first stablecoin. Uh or the first like respected stablecoin, which was um uh it's now the Sky protocol, I think. Anyway, I went and joined a little team called Mondo when they were a prepaid card and trying to get a bank uh license or charter, and that obviously became Monzo. And by the time I left, it was a bank. I went to a competitor because uh it was an interesting role to be the COO there. We were doing um international students. Um we didn't quite make it, sadly. Um, but when we closed the business, we uh the CEO asked me to get everyone jobs within 24 hours, which we did, um, which I'm very proud of. Um but we spat everyone out into the fintech industry in London, and a lot of them became founders down the line. So it became like one of those weird alumni people don't know about. Then Sam and I worked on 11FS for a short, but very um uh relevant part of my uh of my career because I got to start working a lot with American businesses. Um post-COVID, uh one the smartest software engineer at the um Neo Bank was a guy called Pedro Gomez. And I'd been like advising him in the background, and he'd built a piece of technology called Wallet Connect, which not a lot of people understand, and I could bore you sensors, but it is like a fundamental piece of infrastructure in the crypto space. Um it connects self-custody wallets to applications, and pretty much everyone who is uh touching that is either actively working with Wallet Connect or the team or using the protocol within their own business. So you name a company. Um he had split off and gone to run that with um he'd flown out to San Francisco and he was working with like Hayden Adams and at Uniswap and the guys that uh what became Rainbow. Anyway, he was an amazing guy, and I became his COR. And we raised a bunch of money um from Union Square Ventures, and we took it, and it's now connected to like 800 soft custody wallets and I don't know, 70, 80,000 applications. And it is fundamental to everything that everyone uses. Um in 2024, stepped away from that. Um, I decided by that point that I'd that I wanted to live here full time, and getting a green card when you're working in the crypto space is was at that time, it now seems sort of ironic, but was maybe not something that you wanted to put those two and two together on the application. Um I mean, I kind of half joke, but then since then I've been working on a few things. Um I Angel Invest and advise a bunch of early stage businesses right up to growth. Um, some of that sort of became a more formal advisory practice, um, very focused on how do you move internationally. So that's Bedlow's, you know, how do you get into the US and out of the US, which I think has got some like really unique uh opportunities and challenges both ways. Um and also like now a lot of the traditional finance businesses very seriously getting into crypto, right? Like they're no longer just dipping their toe, it's not innovation, this is like senior people. So that's moved to first. And I spend the majority of my time working with some guys at McKed Advisors, um, who 50% of FinTech know and 50% of fintech don't know, which I always kind of love. They're uh boutique advisory firm focused on compliance. And you meet them in kind of a few places with you with you with your building, you like Greenfield, you build with them. Um they do fractional CCO and audit. But they also you sometimes meet them when they make a mistake. And the reason that you 50% of people know them and 50% uh don't, it's quite deliberate because they don't believe that compliance should get sold. Right, right. So they so you meet them through recommendations, wonderful guys, ex-regulators from the FDIC and CF um CFPB, uh Freddie Mac, um Mark used to work with uh Frank Rotman at one of his startups, like super interesting bunch of guys. Like, like if you meet them, and it's very, very weird because like genuinely but lovely guys to work with, super professional, work with probably 50% of fintech in America. Super interesting.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Uh as you guys can see, like, this is why I can't keep track of what Will is doing, because he's just like working with a bunch of different things. You mentioned the Bitcoin thing too. Side note, and Sam will appreciate this too, because it gets Jordan involved, my husband. Um, but my husband went to a bachelor party a few months ago, and one of the guys there lives in Miami now, bought Bitcoin in like 2013. Now I think does like Bitcoin mining and stuff too, but like the tables that they were going to in Las Vegas, he wanted to go to like the max tables, and he was throwing down $5,000 every single time that he placed a bet. And they let my husband and the other people sit there still and place like $20 bets just because the other guy was placing such massive bets, and he was spending like $100,000 every single night at the club on bottles and everything. When we went to the wedding, he was gonna drive his yacht up and everything from Miami to Pond. It was nuts, absolutely nuts. Um, so that would be the lifestyle that Will would be living if he had just held on to Bitcoin.

Will White

I always find it quite funny. Like some of the people who actually held on to it who I knew at the time um bluntly were party boys or party girls. There were people who used to buy bad stuff. I bought it for I bought it for very nerdy reasons, and then I used to go to these very nerdy events and I realized I wasn't a trader or a cryptographer, and that's why I went into fintech, right? But I always thought it was just part of the same thing. It was all just financial technology. But some people used to use it to do illicit things in 2013-14, and some of them found their wallet again a few years later, and it's a significant part of their wealth now. So um I know a few people like that, which is kind of crazy.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

It's wild. Such a different lifestyle, such a different lifestyle. Uh Lauren, take us somewhere else, please.

Lauren Crossett

Well, I was gonna say when we started the conversation, maybe before we hit record, um, you know, Sam, you said that you could talk about Will, and and Will, you could talk about Sam. So I know you just gave us the overview of your careers, but like how would you characterize the other?

Sam Maule

Um I would Will's an operator. That's real easy. Um and when we were when 11 FS was first uh talking about cracking into the to the US, we had a uh thank you, COVID, for absolutely blowing everything up, but we had a a pretty big opportunity in New York, and so we had to to launch a team there. And it was funny enough because basically I just said Will, who do we hire? Right. And so um uh funny world, right? Because it was Koki, right? Well, right out the gate. Who's who's now at uh Socure, if remember right? Um so it was fun just kind of being able to just go, okay, go, just go do, right? And that's what what Will did. So that's the easiest way to describe Will, is you just kind of point and then get out of the way and let him go. And it doesn't really matter what the topic was. When you're talking about setting up a team, when you're setting up operations, when you're looking for an operator, that's who Will is.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Will definitely qualifies as the episode I had with David Haber, he referred to like when he was hiring folks, he'd always want to find safe hands, someone that he knew he could give something to, and it was just taken

Operator Mindset And Why Not Found

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

care of. That's Will. Will safe hands.

Will White

I appreciate that. I think the thing about Sam and I that's probably quite unique is um I don't think either of us has ever had a great desire to be a founder. None. Never.

Sam Maule

I will never be a founder. Yeah, we we have that in common. Yeah, yeah. I really enjoyed it.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

What is what is it about being a founder that you're like, nope, absolutely not.

Will White

Oh, I've been privileged to be in the co-founder, uh, the like the co-pilot seat through three times in my life. Um it's an amazing experience. Um I do think it's got I think there's more of a safety net now for founders, you know, when they try and fail than there was maybe a decade and a bit ago. But I still think it's like this extraordinary like there's such a premium in the fact that like an operator can leave. Not like in a sort of bad way, but you know, you can go in, you can throw yourself there, you can be the co-pilot, you can work really, really hard next to them. You can see everything about raising and running a company. But at the end of the day, you could you you haven't you're like your whole life isn't tied to that, you know. And look, it can be sometimes a bit brutal if we're being completely honest, because you are also more than sometimes.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

It can be very brutal, yeah.

Will White

Yeah, it can be very brutal for founder, and I think you've been the operator. Um I just think it's an amazing thing to like raise that money and say, this is what I want to go do for a decade and a half of my life. Um and yeah, I don't I've I love the co-pilot seat. It's absolutely an incredible place to be. You know, you get to you get to work on everything, see how you raise, run, see all of those challenges. But like actually being the founder, I think is a really, really hard task.

Sam Maule

I think it's it's a full commit. Yeah, it is. It that's the same for me. It's a full commit. Um, it's I'm like Will, I work 24-7, you don't turn off. Um, with the founder, it's I don't know what's more than 24-7. It's just it that is it. And and the responsibilities that you take with it. And um, to be honest, I like people too much. And and Will knows that. And part of being a founder is you've you've got to be brutal. You really do. Um you have to be brutal. And that's that's very tough, especially now with what we're seeing, right? Just the sheer volume of friends that I have that are out there looking for jobs in a market. And you know, um, that that is very tough. And that's just not a burden I want to take on me. And it's doesn't fit my skill set.

Will White

If you want the answer to what Sam is, Sam is extremely one of the very rare people in FinTech that has like 10 years on everyone else. And has but but I don't I don't mean that I don't mean that whole like no, but like it's kind of amazing. There is a there is a group of people who have been around like they've got 10 years on everyone else, and he's got the generosity to share those um insights with everybody else. The insights of the network. I think now being a little being around it for over a decade, um, you know, you see fresh people arriving and making the same mistakes. And I think that there are to like be around it long enough and actually share the insights, share how to do it. Also, Sam can sell anything, you know. Like Sam's very, very good at BD. And that's why he he is always uh picked up by some of the best people. And he knows the market backwards, you know, he knows exactly um the like the American fintech market is uh an amazing beast.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

And Sam It's because he conned his way through everything, so he had to learn everything. You know, that's the trick.

Lauren Crossett

The threat is that like it's all learnable. You know, I feel like you have everyone on these podcasts and it's and it's more learnable now than ever.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

You know, you can use AI to learn a bunch of it at this point. Sam, you're also a big reader though, too, right? You're also a big reader too.

Sam Maule

Yeah, I love, yeah, I I love to read. Um I yeah, three, four books um going at a time. And um, I just all in my hand though. It can't be digital. Sorry, all you people. That just it has to be the physical book. But yeah, I love absolutely love to consume and read and then share, you know, what I've read. And I love people that are like that too.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

For someone that's listening to the podcast, we we go across the gambit where you have some people on here that are like founders of other companies, and then other people on here that maybe are just tuning in to learn more about fintech. What were some of the things that both of you used to, you know, really learn about the space as you were entering it? Since again, you would take jobs that you didn't know as much as you probably should have at the time getting the job. What were your keys to learning quickly?

Will White

Um, firstly, I was very lucky because I'd I'd worked in the kind of restructuring space, and we used to literally just get thrown into things with 24 hours notice, right? You know, the most extreme being leams, right? So we we had this like I don't want to say it was like cocky, but like there was this kind of amazing uh training that we got that's like you're gonna be in a mine next week or you're gonna be on a bank. You know, it's kind of an amazing thing. Um I've subsequently used that within FinTech. Uh just I can remember the first thing I actually watched was uh the Lendit conference in 2013, 14.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

I think you're dating yourself there then too.

Will White

I am, yeah. But like, you know, some people are still around, like Mike Cagney. Um, you know, and I remember that it was put out on YouTube and that seemed kind of amazing, right? Like you you could just get all of the material online. And I think that sort of, you know, that um Nick starting this week in FinTech, Julie, all credit to you.

Learning Fintech Through Reading And Community

Will White

Uh Edward Woodfoot's sister, uh Isabel, before she um went to politics, she was like incredible at the fintech space in the UK. And so I think it is just like relentless reading on that. And then you've got to marry that with like honestly, you just gotta do the hard yards. You know, you've got to go read the regulations, you've got to um you've got to constantly be mapping who's doing what at any given time in your head. And I don't know if there's a there's a way to do it other than just raw hours. I wish there was, but I just don't.

Sam Maule

We had we had Kelsey Hightower, very uh very famous um ex-googler, who's retired now, uh, one of those principal engineers, which is funny enough. God, I'm gonna date myself. I worked with Kelsey in 2010 at Thesis for like a year when he was just that kid, right? He was a kid who then now has got you know a million followers and it's something else. But he he spoke at Moose uh FinTech DevCon conference and he he was asked that. He goes, How do you excel? And he said, uh, you do the work. You do the work. And I was like, man, that's a good quote. And I would add to that, how do you learn? Um, I you have to show up. And that that was the distinct advantage I had. I was in London when this all exploded. Um and then I was around New York constantly and San Francisco, and you you go to the meetups, you Go to the events. You you and you just don't grab a beer and sit in a corner, right? It's like I told my son that when he was a kid at 16. I'm like, don't stand up against the wall. Every other kid's going to go ask the girl to dance. You will, you, it'll make it'll be amazing what'll happen if you just do that. And that's what I would tell everybody. Get engaged, get involved. It's weird now, it's harder because we're all so virtual and working from home. So, you know, if you're in London, if you're in New York, if you're in Berlin, if you're in San Francisco, Austin, get out there, become part of the community and do it. If you're not, start one.

Lauren Crossett

We'll have an episode about that coming out soon. I mean, for this one.

Will White

Yeah. Yeah, I think um like like Sam is a very good example of like you get out there and you go see people, but also like just like sometimes I think um I'll give you a recent example, right? Like end of 24, I I I somehow got out of the crypto space. And so approached uh Nick and Dennis over at This Week in FinTech, and we were like, hey, why don't we get people together once a month in New York to talk about stable coins? I don't know if there's any we literally have people be like, is anyone interested? And I was like, Well, I went to this event in like middle 25, and there was like 50 odd people in downtown Brooklyn. We should do that every month. We start the salons, Nick and Dennis are like, we're gonna run a conference. I'm like, sure, that sounds ambitious, but let's like start here. The second one, we were like, we're gonna have content, we've got to get microphones. Uh Max from Privy and Chuck just shouted in the corner and everyone got drunk. It was kind of fun. You know, you rolled 40 year, and you know, that the salons are now in you know, Kigali and Nairobi and Singapore and Hong Kong and San Francisco, and there are two events, all credit to the stablecon team and incredible work they've done there. But I think getting up, getting going, meeting people, and then also just like following up relentlessly with kind of pay it forward, you know, like the good karma thing. The guys on McKe always say this like just get on a phone, have a conversation with someone. It may not turn into work, but if it turns into a bunch of introductions and that turns into something else, um, eventually it does always pan out well.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

So totally, totally going through your guys' careers. I always like to talk through highs and lows because oftentimes we, you know, see you guys, we talk a lot about the highs online and like, you know, great announcements happening on LinkedIn where your new product announcement, you've made your way, like you're now executives at these companies, you're working with all these exciting companies, but there's so many bumps along the way that I, you know, we you're not publishing those openly online all the time. So we don't necessarily get to see them and we just see the success. So I'd I'd love to learn more about maybe a time in your career where, you know, shit hit the fan, or you were debating leaving fin leaving fintech for some reason because you just didn't think like you were gonna make it in the space anymore. Any anything like that that comes to mind when I ask that question? Because I feel like it's really important for people to know that it's not all just up and up, and you can make it through those hard moments and in fact thrive off of those hard moments.

Sam Maule

I call that Tuesday.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Um I have a if you're a founder, you call it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Saturday, and Saturday.

Will White

I would say honestly, crazy thing is the first six months. So the first six months I actually had left PwC, right? And the reason for that is I was actually the office we were working out of was um across the Thames River

Career Lows And The Reality Behind Wins

Will White

from my old PWC office. And I was smoking at the time, since given up. And it was freezing cold, midwinter, and I'd go out for a smoke, and I would look across at the office and I'd be like, what am I doing? Like I'm in this like crazy little office with crappy furniture, we're talking nonsense. It doesn't seem like any of this is relevant. Literally across the thing, they're all wearing suits and going to see G Civ Banks and all this kind of. You get all of the, you know, there's a cafe downstairs. Now, the crazy thing about that building is it was startup boot camp, and through startup boot camp came like the founder of Monzo, the subsequent founder of Revolu, um, you know, guys who have it's almost kind of like the the OGYC in a way. It was set up by a really great guy called Nectarius with that in intention. And there were two locations in London at town. There was like level 39, which was government-backed, and there was startup boot camp. And like you can't find someone who and like there were people going through that door who were billionaires, and I'm like outside having a cigarette, like grumpy that I'm not wearing a suit over the street, um, you know, or over the river. And and that was, and like literally for six months I had to talk myself, like, this is gonna pan out, this is gonna pan out. And what that actually wound up with is you know, roll forward 12 years, and you've got like a network of people you can text, right? And people are like, you know, you you know, you meet I actually had a moment the other day where somebody from PwC, great people, really still love the firm, very proud of having worked there, actually, um, who was like, Oh, I'm trying to get to, and I won't say who it was. And I'm like, I can just text them. Like, I could literally just text her because you know, I ran a dumb thing that didn't quite pan out with them, you know. And I think that so yeah, so honestly, just talking myself into that for like first six months of like, what am I doing? What's this startup that didn't go somewhere but then led to a network? So yeah, I would that would literally be talking yourself and like the founders get that like on turbo drive, you know, multiple times a week. Like, what are they doing with their life?

Sam Maule

So oh, this is perfect because I can book in Wills. So his was the first six months, mine was actually toward the end. I um I had a friend who um uh got a a incredibly senior um position over at Google Cloud and asked me to come over. And so I I I went to Google, which you would think that would be the pinnacle of my career. I had conned my way into a job at Google. Um within about the first six hours, I figured out, man, what am I doing? Not a good fit. And it's not Google's fault at all. Google's a they're a great company. Trust me, I'm happy. I've got Google stock, I'm a very happy man. But for me and the type of person I am and the way I work, not a fit at all. Um, and so it was funny because um my wife definitely realized it way before I did, and it was almost like every day. She goes, Are you happy? Are you happy? Are you happy?

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

What was it about the role that just wasn't a good fit?

Sam Maule

I am um so so here's how to explain me. When I was at NTT, which by the way has something, it's 70,000 U.S. employees when I was there. This isn't a small company, so again, it's this is NTT data, it hundreds of thousands of employees globally. They'd they'd acquired the uh um uh smaller consultancy firm I worked for, but I was heading up digital and fintech for them. But what was so funny about it is we had an an um director's meeting and above. So we're in Plano, Texas, rooms packed out, and our board got up there, and you could ask them any question. And one of the um managing directors said, How do I get Sam Mall's job? And our COO died laughing. He goes, You don't. He's a one-off. One-offs don't fit well at at a Google at Google Cloud. Um, parts of Google it would, but Google's 3,000 companies under one name. Um Google Cloud need needed to be run like Oracle. That's what TK did. Thomas Curry, when he came in, he structured it, and by the way, huge success. Um Sam Mall will never work at an Oracle. No offense to Oracle. I don't fit uh round hole square peg, square peg. I'm a one-off. I'm a one-off, and I accept that. I know what I am, and that's the best part about move. It's because I'm I was good friends with Wade Arnold, the founder. When I came over there, I'm like, why do you want me to join? He goes, We'll figure it out. Don't worry about it. We'll we'll make it work. And that probably should be the number one question for me in an interview. Is you you good with one-offs? Because that's what you're gonna get. And so that's why. And I that's what I would tell people. You by the way, you need that experience, you need that large corporate experience. I think it's good for folks to see whether or not it's a a fit for you because you can excel in those spaces. Yeah, not this guy, not even remotely.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

I I I relate to you a lot there, because a lot of the jobs I've had have been where I just like knew the person and they created the job for me. Like it wasn't something they just had on their board. It was like, no, like this is we need Julie and this is what she can do.

Will White

Now, here's a question for you, Julie. Like, how did that work 100% of the time? Or is it a binary of like it works really, really well and it works really and and yeah, sometimes And it also just depends on the environment too.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Like if you're in a boom or bus, because if you're in a boom, sometimes people create the job for you and they need you, but then they go into a bus and they're like, well, shit, like we don't need this one-off role anymore. Um so yeah, like like it depends if you're also gonna be working for that person that created the one-off for you closely. If you're like beneath them by two or three steps, sometimes other people aren't as understanding of like what you technically were hired to do and things like that. So it it needs the right circumstances for sure. It's like any other job, right? Where it can work, it cannot work. Um, and it sounds like Sam has the same experience there.

Will White

Yeah, I I asked that question because I like honestly, that's how I got uh hired at Monzo. So I was like at a loose end, Tom Bloomfield's a wonderful guy over at White Company now. He was the founder. He's like, hey, we'll make a role for you. Now it's kind of an interesting example because it was like at that point, they had, I don't know, a thousand customers, something, maybe two thousand. I was like, cool, I'll come join or do it. The day we arrived is the day we got hit by financial criminals, right? Which is, you know, like Tom's talked about this now, right? So I thought I was coming in to do this like one role, and then they're like, hey, the thing that's on fire is this. Um and it was super interesting experience. But you know, before you know it, you're like, hey, this wasn't what I thought I got hired for. I mean, love Monzo, love the team there, but it's like a kind of classic. So you kind of take the rough with the smooth. On the flip side, loot, which was where I went afterwards, this guy did the same thing, and it turned out wonderful few years. Same with Wallet Connect, right? So you kind of wind up I don't know, you take the wins and the losses, right?

Lauren Crossett

I do feel like in fintech there's a lot of room for one-offs, but like I'm very curious. I I've definitely done the one-off thing, but now I'm trying to do the manager thing. I would be so curious to hear what you guys think managers can do to enable a one-off.

Sam Maule

Um, recognize talent, boom, that's an easy one for me. Recognize talent. I mean you have to look and invest in in people. Um, and I think that's what Will and I really have in common is uh Will said it earlier, right? Give back. I think as a manager, that's your damn job. That's a huge part of your job is to recognize talent and to and and it might be that they need to leave your company, or it might be that they can excel on that and helping guide them down that path and help them to to um understand that. I think that's a huge part of your job.

Will White

Yeah, I I agree with that because like if it doesn't quite work out, being incredibly generous and professional about how you handle that, which is by the way, the end of the the Monzo story for me, means that you leave with uh with nothing but like positive feeling about it. And it it was an opportunity that made sense on the way in the day we arrived. Um, you know, we were fixing up the office while we had criminals like attacking the bank. You leave, and you know, I've wound up friends with everyone, you know. Like, um, and I think that that's

Making One Off Roles Work

Will White

that that's the the definition of a good manager is if you s if someone can leave your company and still remain friends with you, you know, or you know, remain in your alumni.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

And I've seen that, you know, I would yeah that's that's it's similar to my role at Orim. Like that was one where I they hired me in a boom and then things kind of went bust and they didn't need someone in my role anymore. And they're just hey, like I was I was good friends with Stephanie, she created the role for me. I still talk to Stephanie all the time and have her just like you know, give me advice on things and whatnot. And she's like, hey, like, you know, we just we don't need this role anymore. We're not gonna be doing events and as much content and stuff. So like here's a severance package, so you like you'll be more than okay and have a job before it runs out, etc. And yeah, there's no hard feelings. I think they handled it the best they could. And I think that it that it's a very good point.

Will White

And I think it can lead to like these incredible alumni. So there's the like the known alumni of the big brands, which are real and serious, but I think there's also like sometimes these alumni are like things that didn't quite work out. And if someone treated you really well and you had a good experience through that, I mean you'll pick up the phone. I mean, to this day, my text is still full of companies I've worked for, any company I've worked for, if someone just rings me up, I'll be like, Yeah, let's see if we can get you funding, a job, whatever. Because like I have evidence over 10 years that, or 12 years, that that'll wind up with you also getting work yourself.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Stephanie's also a big reader, like Sam is too. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, very cool. The one question I want to dive into, especially Sam, you have such an interesting background coming from the Navy and going into fintech. Is there anything from your childhood, the Navy, anything like that that sort of like shaped you being a one-off in fintech and like kind of like, you know what? Yeah, it makes sense that this is what I'm doing today.

Sam Maule

Yeah, actually, it did. I um I grew up in Detroit and grew up pretty poor.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Ooh, Michigan, Grand Rapids.

Sam Maule

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Um, so so grew up, you know, and didn't have money.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

And so it was either a life of crime or mine was either a life of farming or something else.

Sam Maule

So at 17, um, and this this was a lesson. At 17, I actually went to the army first. Um so um down in Fort Benny, Georgia, um uh and got through infantry school and a bunch of other things. And again, similar to my Google experience, about six minutes in, I went, oh, biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. What am I doing? I have a very smart mouth. I like to ask why, um a bunch of things. Not a good fit at all. So I've literally spent um the first six months figuring out how the hell do I get out, right? Um, 1984, how do I get out of this? Um, and then a friend of mine uh told me about a program that the Navy was was really hurting for uh submariners who

Childhood Lessons That Shape Careers

Sam Maule

could do were really good at math and everything else, and so I tested out and was released to go there. And um 10 years on submarines, very good fit for me. I think that's very important to be honest with yourself, which is hilarious because then 30 years later, I wasn't. You know, I I I took a I took a job where I I knew better and I knew it wasn't a fit. And I think the biggest thing, my biggest advice to everybody is um was two things. Give yourself grace, you're gonna make a bunch of mistakes. That's that's life. You're going to mess up. But the other is be incredibly honest with yourself. What do you excel at? What are you really good at? Will and I are. We're not founders. We we know that. We're operators. Um, it's gonna take you a while to figure out what you're good at. That's okay. That's that's that's part of this. It doesn't happen day one. It's very rare that people are like that. Um, but when you do find that, man, run with it. It's amazing where it'll take you. I I I can't believe this has been a 30 years. I really can't. It has flown by and it's been so much fun.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Will, what about you?

Will White

Well, I mean, I wasn't a submariner. That's too too tall. You're too tall. Way too tall. Also, the thought of being under the sea for that long is crazy.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

I always forget how tall Will is.

Will White

Yeah, someone said that to me the other day. They were, I was like, do I give off small energy? I don't know.

Lauren Crossett

People always say to me that they thought I would be taller when they meet me and work behind the camera.

Will White

So um what's like I would the from the first job. I think like the the one thing I always liked to PWC is that they were they were very professional. Like they did.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Well, I just mean like was there anything like from your childhood, college, etc., that you're like, all right, yeah, I can see why I'm doing what I do today.

Will White

Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I when I uh I was a rugby player at high school and I used to play prop, which is front of the scrimmage, but like 15, sorry, 16 guys wait on you. Um I don't know, like that's kind of fun. You gotta just figure out like how you can handle it. Like, how can you handle this and throw your like get your weight to the right place? I there's no question. It's uh it's a wonderful team sport. I like playing team sport and I like getting my weight to the right place in the um, you know, and I'm you know I'm six foot and a big guy, so like uh and I think that that that that is always like the any atmosphere that's like a really kind of clear team atmosphere makes a ton of sense to me, you know. So um uh yeah, like that's where startups made a butt a bunch of sense because you would go in and somebody like, hey, everything's on fire, you know?

Lauren Crossett

And you're like, get on my back.

Sam Maule

Here we go. Yeah, here we go.

Will White

I always remember way like the most extreme one was we were trying to sell the one of the companies to Royal Bank Scotland, which was a G Suit at the time, and we had the COO coming into the office and the bathroom um had a flood. So I was literally like, there's no one hell left. I'll just go mop up, tidy up, and go and talk to him. Yeah, like and I kind of love that sort of like high and low. You're trying to sell a bit of business on one end to someone who's like very senior and only surrounded by people who are flunkies, and then you've also got to go deal with what the team needs, which on that day was sorting out the plumbing.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

So Oh, that's too funny. Well, let's end on um high note. What what's been one of the career highs that comes to mind? A moment where you know, you just you knew you were in the right place at the right time, you knew you were doing what you were supposed to be doing.

Will White

Can I be very like cheesy and be like right now is yeah, yeah. No, no, I know like well, this podcast, but like I mean, this moment in fintech is like if I got into fintech for because Bitcoin and I didn't never saw fintech and crypto as separate, like I went to Consensus about three weeks ago, and there was the head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley, Jed Finn, I think is his name. 40, what is it, like 40, 50% of all of the business of Morgan Stanley. And he just gets up and he's like, I'm serious about this technology. And it's not like a head of innovation, it's not like uh head of digital assets. Is this guy now? If you can find that talk, he's quite rough on the industry. He's like, the UX is terrible, you guys are being stupid, but I'm gonna take you seriously. Um, but to take me seriously, come in the front door and do this properly. And I think like that kind of is uh exciting that it we've gone from this industry that in London and New York and San Francisco and other places was like kind of quite small and hobbyist, and to see

Career Highs Plus What’s Next

Will White

people coming through this phase where like uh the banks really are taking it seriously. The the big payment companies and the companies that were started, you know, go meet these two Irish brothers. They're running a thing called Stripe in 2013. You know, like it's kind of wild, right? Like it's um to see like I'm sorry to sell my own book, but like Monzo's like 2.2 billion in revenue um, you know, it went under the radar. No one even like spotted it, but like that's an incredible achievement. You know, 15 million customers to see the guys we used to compete with down the street with 60 million customers at Revolute, to see Plaid, you know, you name it, like and and to see the the the coming together, and we're not like in these little silos, like I do crypto, I do fintech, I do P2P everything. And it's like coming together, and there's you know, it you're like, wow, there's like 15, 20 more years worth of amazing work coming away. Um that's that's a cool that's a cool feeling to get this.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

You also answered a question for me that I didn't get to ask, which is like, what's most exciting today? So thank you. You got you killed two birds in one stone.

Sam Maule

I'm killing it.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Sam, what about you?

Sam Maule

All of it. Um Yeah, this is this is actually something when you asked me about the manager question too, that I would lean into for the folks listening to this. Find good mentors. Really find good mentors. Um, when I was at NTT um and I got offered the chance to leave and go to 11FS, um, the very first person I told was the CEO of City FinTech, Yolanda Piazza, who was a friend of mine. And I remember I was in I was in New York, hot as hell. Um, I was running around in a t-shirt and shorts, and uh, you know, I had a meeting set up with her to tell her. And so I went to City's headquarters over in Hudson Yards, and I remember going to check in. I'm hot and sweaty in a t-shirt. And, you know, the people at the front thing are like, uh, DoorDad, what is this, right? You know, who's this guy? I was getting no attention. And I said, Yeah, I have a meeting with, and I gave him my ID, and then they figured out I was a meeting with Yolanda, and they were like, Oh, I suddenly got this concierge service, right? Came out and butler, and you know, they take me up. And we went to the I was at the penthouse where they have a private butler and you're overlooking the Statue of Liberty, and it's it's city, they got a lot of money. And I was dying laughing, like, what are we doing? And and she goes, I know you're gonna tell me you're leaving to go do something. I'm like, God damn. I'm like, Yes, I'm going to 11 FS. And and I'll just never forget her telling me it's about time. I've been waiting for three years for you to tell me you're doing this. And uh funny enough, she's also one I follow to Google. She's now uh uh incredibly senior executive at PayPal, running all payments for the North and South America. Yeah, good friend of mine, godmother to my kids, she lives right over there. Um, so it's it's fun find those mentors throughout your career um and and use them. They're there for a reason. So I I can't I can't express that enough. And what am I excited about? Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. Finally seeing some really good things come out the door. Um I've been been waiting. Companies like Asusu, if you knew that, um, love those guys. Oh, there you go, everybody. Asusu, go look them up. Um, and and the stuff that they're doing in the market. Um I'm excited for companies like that.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Amazing. I love that. Uh well, thank you so much, you guys, for joining us. This was one of my favorite pairings, I think we've had. There's always like a few episodes where I'm like, I put the right people together for that one. Like Steve McLaughlin and Matt Harris were phenomenal together.

Sam Maule

That would be did he show you a Suzuki.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

Very first episode ever. It was great. That's OG. Max Levchin. Yeah, I was like, that's like a crew that you're in with right there. Like the true OG OG. Or like Max Levchin and Jackie Reese's and uh Jason Gardner and Kenlin. Those are like three where I'm like, they were perfect together. Um and just fun conversations where I know the people listening to this are gonna enjoy it for, you know, like we said before we got started, I was like, please don't be professional. And you were the perfect balance of non-media trained, professional but not professional type thing. And I so there's so much more fun to listen to then. So I really appreciate it.

Will White

I'm glad I'm happy to be non-professional.

Sam Maule

Every day of every day. Amen.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg

That's just another Tuesday. That's just another Tuesday. Amazing. All right. Well, thank you so much, you guys. I appreciate it. This is great.