The Fintech OG Series: Salman Syed and Hans Morris

In the final episode of The Fintech OGs, hosts Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Lauren Crossett talk with Salman Syed, CEO of Astrada and Hans Morris, Managing Partner at Nyca Partners for a conversation about the highs and lows of life in Fintech.

They reflect on fintech’s last decade, from the post-2008 reset in trust and brand to the cloud-driven drop in barriers to entry, and then look  at what’s changing again. AI is moving from “feature” to “actor,” and agentic finance raises uncomfortable questions: What controls still work? How does fraud evolve when software can initiate transactions? What new infrastructure layers have to exist so autonomy doesn’t become a new attack surface?

Along the way, Salman and Hans share career highs and lows, talk through fintech winners that almost failed, and debate what’s genuinely exciting versus what’s getting oversold.

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.

This episode is also sponsored by Lithic.

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

Salman Syed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmanhsyed/

Hans Morris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hansmorris/

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.

Transcript

Introduction

Ad Read 1 1:21 Ad Read 2 2:33 Julie Verhage-Greenberg 3:35

Welcome back to our season finale of the fintech OGs and actually my very last podcast with Twiff as well. I am moving on to other things. So I'm excited to wrap it up with two of my favorite fintech folks. Um, Hans, I've known you the longest. Um I remember meeting you when I was covering fintech at Bloomberg because you invested in a bunch of companies that um I was covering at the time. Um so I think Matt Harris might have been the one that introduces. And uh Matt is another familiar face for Salman. Um uh I believe both of you guys are on Salman's board at this point. But Salman, you go way back too. You I I believe you're was Marquetti your first foray into fintech, or kind of wrap me back into uh how you got started in this space. And then Hans, I'd love for you to give your background story too, because it's uh it's unique.

Salman Syed 4:30

Yeah, and uh so it's actually Merritt Hummer from uh from Bain who who's on on Estrada's board. Um, but um, you know, uh it's always great to catch up with Matt um and and share share stories about how things are going. Uh yeah, my my foray into fintech, uh look, so my my my career in payments starts at MasterCard, but yeah, my first foray was really uh Marqeta uh back in 2016, uh when we kind of you know stumbled into, I wouldn't say stumbled into, but kind of figured out, oh, to for people to really uh pay for food, uh, you know, with the likes of DoorDash and others, it would be good for them to for all these uh Dashers to actually have a card. So that was really the impetus. And obviously, you know, Marquetta had a fantastic journey from that point onwards. Um and but yeah, that that was the first uh place that I kind of went purely into fintech as as we talk about it today.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 5:24

Very cool, very cool. Hans, what about you? I remember it's been a while since I've I've looked back at your origin story and you've told me, but I remember it being like a somewhat unique entrance into the fintech space.

Hans Morris 5:36

Yeah, well I I would say that I I uh well I started before it was called fintech. That that

From MasterCard To Visa To Startups

Hans Morris 5:41

meets me. So the but I was a banker uh at Smith Barney and uh and I focused, I I was uh I ran the financial institutions group. Um but really almost from the beginning, I had this uh hypothesis that the declining information costs would disrupt all the profit pools in financial services because most of the profit pools, if you're insuring someone's life or trading bonds or uh you know lending money to buy a car or anything, you need to have a competitive advantage of information. And that was changing quite dramatically. It's not it's not a stable relationship, it's very dynamic. And um so I worked a lot on payments and credit cards in in the even the late 80s and 90s, and we did uh worked on IPO of Capital One at first data and uh represented MasterCard on several uh MA transactions, uh worked on the sale of 18C's credit card business, we worked on the IPO of PayPal, um and and I worked on the like the privatization of NASDAQs, a lot of like market structure uh parts of that whole same thesis. Uh and um and then when we merged, when Smith Barney bought, you know, we bought Shearson and uh and Salmon Brothers, and then we merged with City. So Sandy Wow was just the Jamie Diamond was the 29-year-old CFO when I met him. Uh and we uh I became the chief operating officer of the investment bank and I was CFO for the institutional business, and then tech and ops reported to me for about four years. So I had a lot of experience in the the spaghetti of the system. What is the current system? How's it work? What the regulators are really like, and then I left in 2007. I think that'll be my epitaph, uh, that I left right before the financial crisis and moved to Visa. And so I was the president of Visa during the restructuring and IPO. So that was obviously a big um technian moment. And and then uh I didn't get the CEO job, and I went to GA for four years and was doing growth stage investing there in financial services. Uh and uh I felt that after after the financial crisis, first of all, technology changed quite a bit and um you know dramatically lowered the barriers to entry, just the costs of uh being able to buy uh you know server capacity by the drink uh to cloud versus you know having to buy all that hardware, which is really expensive. But the other really dramatic thing that happened was that the the nature of brand and trust changed quite a bit from the financial crisis because suddenly people, millions of people, would give their login credentials to the bank account to an app. And that would have been unheard of in 2003.

Lauren Crossett 8:35

I feel like it's it's always good to ask how you two met. What's your origin story?

Hans Morris 8:42

You know Salman, did we meet when you were at Marqeta? I don't think we did. I think I met when you when when you we recruited you to uh Yeah.

Salman Syed 8:53

No, I I think it starts with the Fidel chapter. Yeah.

Hans Morris 8:58

So I remember meeting you after uh, you know, Dev Recruited, Want to Hire you, built you up, and I I I I had not met. I knew I I knew uh you know uh of your background, and we had a lot in common uh both through Marqeta, and um that's another one we passed on many times, just in terms of again, you can't win a mall.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 9:23

You can't win them all.

Hans Morris 9:24

I put it up against anybody. Uh but anyway, uh and and I knew a lot of the people, I had known MasterCard for uh a long time, so we knew many of the people you worked with there. And yes, I remember I remember meeting you, I think here in my office, right? And and then uh and then shortly after you arrived, we discovered we had uh the the the nature of our business, uh the the business was very different from what we expected. And uh and so you became first president, you know, uh CEO, and then uh

How They Met And Why Bikes

Hans Morris 9:56

and then uh well I guess you were acting for a while, and then we made you permanent. But anyway, that was that was like quite a dramatic period to go to the cover.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 10:04

You guys are another one that it was just a matter of time before you met with all the similar backgrounds and like paths kind of crossing here and there and stuff.

Salman Syed 10:13

Yeah, I mean, uh it was a matter of time. Uh uh uh, you know, I think uh it was probably about a year after Marquetta's IPO. And um uh, you know, I think FinTech was in a very interesting place. Uh Hans is probably a good way to describe it, circa after as as we were coming out of the pandemic. Uh and the distinct thing I remember about Hans that I guess everybody should know is that you love to cycle everywhere, right? And uh you you showed up at the meeting on your bike, and I just wasn't expecting that. And when we were done, he got back on his bike and then you know went to his next place, which is phenomenal. So whether you're in San Francisco or New York, there's there's always a bike involved, is is is is the common.

Hans Morris 10:54

But it's the most efficient form of transportation. It was not raining or snowing, it's the most efficient form and delightful form of transportation. And I think you want to just reduce hassles in your life. And so bike.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 11:06

Uh Hans, have you ever been to Copenhagen?

Hans Morris 11:08

I have, yes.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 11:10

Okay, we went there um for our first family vacation like a week ago, and the biking, everyone bikes everywhere in Copenhagen, so it reminded me of that. You'd fit in very well.

Hans Morris 11:17

I it's yeah, and uh uh yeah, it's it's great. Actually, a lot of European cities have just re really completely refigured themselves to biking, you know, if not the primary, like like a very important part of transportation. So it's it's delightful being there. I agree. Amsterdam, same. Amsterdam might even have a leg up on Copenhagen, I'd say, a little bit.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 11:46

But they're both possibly, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh both very bike heavy, though. Both cities where there's more bikes than cars, I believe.

Salman Syed 11:54

Uh my my hack, my hack here has been lime scooters. That's gotten me out of a pinch a couple of times. Um, you know, uh, I try to be one of the responsible ones who actually finds a place to park it, strap it back to something so it's not just thrown in the middle of the street because I've seen plenty of those. But for those of us who don't have a bike in every city that we go to, uh I'm I'm telling you, although I don't see any lime scooters around in in New York.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 12:17

I think you guys are just where we plug city bike.

Salman Syed 12:20

Yes, this is where you fair enough.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 12:23

Yeah, totally. Yeah, New York's infrastructure isn't quite built as well for scooters as it is um in some other cities, but definitely very big in San Francisco where you are based. Um, question for you guys what what are you most excited about in fintech right now? You all have obviously been in here for a decade plus. You've seen a lot of highs and lows. What are some things that you're super excited about? And maybe some things that you think are a little bit overhyped right now.

Salman Syed 12:51

Some why don't you go ahead? Sure. Um okay, so what am I really excited about? Um, I mean, look, candidly, I think what we are in the middle of um here at Estrada, and and I and I say this genuinely and frankly, I think uh, Lauren, what you're doing over at Spade is also a version of this. But I still think um, you know, as we're entering this the the the overarching narrative is obviously everything is becoming more autonomous in finance, uh, more agentic. Uh and I think the infrastructure to actually enable all that hasn't necessarily been completely built out yet. So I think there's a couple of things that are gonna be really interesting over the next few years. I think there's more infrastructure to be built. I think there's need there needs to be an evolution on you know what was, I would argue, you know, FinTech 1.0 that kind of happened after uh after the uh financial crisis. Um and I also think what we're gonna start seeing is a set of services um through all you know all the all the AI capabilities that are that are coming about that I think are gonna be really

AI Agents Need New Fintech Infrastructure

Salman Syed 13:56

powerful from the perspective of creating a lot more efficiency in the finance function, uh both for people and for companies, um, as well as new types of products that are most likely going to get built. And so I think we're kind of at the precipice of a lot of new creativity that's about to come. Um, and I think that's a really exciting thing. Uh at the same time, you know, to answer the other side of it, what is, you know, what are the pieces that feel maybe a little a little overblown? You know, look, I think uh it's very easy to put ideas out there right now, uh, and that's great, but it's also very easy to switch switch ideas very quickly, right? So you may be using application X on one day, you'll be using application Y the next day. So things haven't really stabilized. So I think um we've just gotta we've just gotta take a beat and just kind of let things kind of play out uh uh uh for a minute. And I think a lot, a lot a lot of things are gonna get a lot clearer. So I think we just have to be, we just have to be cautious not to jump on, okay, this is the way how everything's gonna work now, because I think there's a lot of that in the market in this moment.

Lauren Crossett 15:02

Isn't that the most fun part about being like the infrastructure provider, though? Is you're like, yeah, build it. Like try it. Right.

Salman Syed 15:09

Let's see. Yeah. I mean, I remember there's a quote that I heard from uh somebody in the 1.0 era, um, and I think it was the founders of Stripe, and they would always say things like, I some of my customers haven't even been born yet, right? And I think that is always a really cool part about the infrastructure story.

Lauren Crossett 15:25

Definitely. I remember the same thing as uh one of the early awesome Stripe plays, uh Kate Johnson, she's like now. Um she's amazing. She came in to to Quovo and was like, I'm I'm in charge of things that we think maybe are gonna be a thing. And I I've just always anchored to that. So I want to do that. Uh be able to kind of like uh maybe pretend I'm Hans for a moment and be like, is that cool? Maybe let's let's make sure they're a customer.

Hans Morris 15:56

I think there are some uh some things in in fintech that are that I think are very well known as important changes. And and so you all know them, your listeners probably all know them, but I'd say an example would be AI is now pretty much in everything in financial services and companies and the nature of the companies being created are quite are quite different, and some are very impressive. You know, a meaningful company, you know, five or eight million of revenue with 11 people or something is uh a noteworthy difference. And uh and I think uh we'll see, and digital assets are also becoming mainstream. These are everyone knows all this. I think there is on the digital asset side, it's one of these things where it's in the long term, it's clear in the short term, I feel there's a lot of over uh overselling, and and I think that's always been one of the problems I've had with uh with the crypto community, is everything is just you know totally oversold. And it has a it doesn't have a measured, thoughtful discussion. It's always you're either a believer or you're not. And so I get cynical about that, uh, which probably you know costs, you know, we passed on a lot of things we shouldn't have. We should have just, you know, said I believe.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 17:15

But um you're in zero hash, which is a good crypto name.

Hans Morris 17:19

I'm not we have some terrific companies, but I'm just saying we passed on a lot.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 17:22

You've passed on other great companies too. Again, you can't win them all. You can't win them all.

Hans Morris 17:27

Uh but I think that um I also feel that a it I want to you know reinforce what what uh Solomon said. The infrastructure isn't built for a lot of this. So that infrastructure has been something we invest in. I think I think we do more enterprise fintech than any other firm, actually.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 17:47

And probably 75 or 80 companies we've invested in and that are it makes sense why you and Matt Harris are good friends, then because he he also does a lot of enterprise fintech.

Hans Morris 17:56

So I like it. And people say it's it's it's it's difficult, you know, because there are hard sales cycles, and and so it's it's I think and it's where really the knowledge and trust you have with the financial system, which is something we talked about, that was a conceit from the beginning, uh, which is that I think we don't we don't you know tell uh important financial institutions that you should do something that's stupid. We we I think have bring the context and appreciation of what the process is, and and that is the process, and that's because of a lot of very good reasons. Things are regulated actually, everything in financial services is regulated for a very good reason. And uh and you have to, if you're coming uh, you know, if you're approaching something that's completely novel, you have to think about it in the context and provide analogies so that the regulators of the rest of the financial system believe you're a good actor. I think that's important.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 18:49

What are some of the what are some of the biggest mistakes you see companies making there?

Hans Morris 18:53

Not understanding risk. And the risk is, you know, the way you measure risk and enterprise risk, there's there's you know five different categories of risk, and some are obvious, like you know, market risk, you take a lot of market risk, and yet uh counterparty risk is another example. I think you know companies like Robinhood didn't really didn't appreciate how much counterparty risk they were creating for the ecosystem as well as for themselves. And uh there's also uh credit risk, uh, and the big difference is if you have risk retention in your business model. So if I'm gonna lend you money or ensure Lauren's life, then and I'm gonna retain that risk, then I need capital. And how much capital do I need? How do I measure that? Uh is critical. And it's also it creates a different valuation of the business because if you say, well, it's a revenue multiple, and I could I could walk out on Madison Avenue and generate 20 million in revenue by just saying, here's life insurance for right here, get as much life insurance as you want, I could generate a lot of revenue, but I would create a lot of risk. And um and that, you know what how you value that company, and I think one thing we always I've always said is if you are using technology to improve the financial model, well then

Risk Math ROE And Fraud Mutations

Hans Morris 20:10

that needs to show up in your ROE. You know, your ROE, if you're gonna be if you're saying you're so much better, okay, then you have it you must have like an 80% ROE. Um, and many companies that say they're so much better still have like a 2% ROE or a negative. So that um understanding that and understanding the dynamics of that is something that many investors ignore, and some even go public without really understanding that. And I think that was a real uh result of the 2021 cycle. That that's a big, big difference between models. And as investors started understanding it more, the distinction in terms of how they're valued uh is now more much more clear. But that mistake gets made all the time. I also think that in all the the the things we were talking about with with AI and digital assets, it's it's creating all new different types of risk and and the I'd say the ferocity of that risk and the um and the the dynamic you know, because risk uh like fraud, for example, it's always been a fact that you put in a control, and then in effect there's a mutation. So it's sort of like infectious diseases. You have infectious diseases, and then you create you the agents then put procedures in place to halt the spread of it. So you have vaccines, or you put in, you wash your hands, or you segregate people, or people die, and then there is so then uh you control it, but then it mutates. And so, okay, that disease under control, but then we'll it goes someplace else, finds different carriers. And fraud's exactly the same. You put controls in, and it's no longer profitable, so they go someplace else. So you have constant evolution. If that starts happening, which I'd say it is already plenty of evidence of this, that this is it mutates at a very fast rate, and what is your infrastructure for managing that? And how do we distinguish a lot of your controls? For example, for an agent, if you say, okay, what are your what are your card not present controls? And say, well, we have location, device ID, we have uh you know behavioral examination, we have biometrics. Okay, none of those will work. No, none. So what are you doing to manage that risk and how's that gonna work? Uh, that is that's new opportunities, but that's also something people haven't necessarily all thought through yet.

Salman Syed 22:27

Well, Hans, I I tracked with you completely. And uh what I would say is two things. One is we used to have a saying at MasterCard, which is um like fraud is like water on permeable rocks, right? Like it's gonna find you pour water on a bunch of rocks, like it's in the you got some crevice of something, it's gonna find its way in. Um, but then I think to your to your point, uh this is gonna be a continuous cat and mouse game, right? Um and so payments will start. And I think ultimately to kind of circle it back to infrastructure, like where are the controls? Yeah, you got to put controls in at different levels, but ultimately, like a new control, like a new infrastructure layer really needs to exist for this complete, you know, kind of change that that that's about to happen in the market. Uh, I don't know if you guys saw, I think Robinhood started advertising their credit card yesterday as like one that can put controls around agentic spend because you know. That's now really becoming a spin. Yeah, it's now really starting to become a thing, right? So control how much your agent can spend on your behalf. Um, make sure, you know, all the tokens don't get burned and things of that sort.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 23:32

So well, especially from like a B2B perspective, too. Like if Robinhood's doing it, I would certainly expect, you know, ramp, rex, all those types of guys to be doing it as well on the B2B side.

Hans Morris 23:43

There's an old Rodney.

Lauren Crossett 23:44

I think a lot more are than are publicizing it, but it's a great point that like consumers are starting to really care and ask those questions.

Hans Morris 23:52

There's an old uh Rodney Dangerfield joke that he said uh my wife's uh credit card stolen. My wife's credit card was stolen, but I haven't reported yet because the thief is spending less than my wife did. Same thing. I haven't reported yet because the thief's spending less than my agent did might be a new version of that. So I might roll that out.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 24:12

That's so funny. You know, do it. But that is like the next uh Nica event you need swag for, get that. Yes, exactly. Have like a t-shirt or a water bottle or something that has that on there. Do it, do it.

Salman Syed 24:28

You know, so look, I think uh controlling agents on spend, that that's obviously gonna be uh a topic that we will all be in the middle of. And I think it, you know, uh challenges and opportunities. I was just gonna say, uh, I don't know if you all are just kind of living the same experience that I am. It's clearly made it into robocalls. So, you know, just like the the spike in robocalls all of a sudden, which is probably just like another version of just like agents just dialing out uh at this point. I I think it's a precursor of probably what we could probably see happening in in in financial services or payments or you know, um uh uh that type of activity. So to me, it's just a little bit of a window of what's to come and the types of problems we're gonna get to solve.

Lauren Crossett 25:11

We always like to ask about career highs. I know that sometimes it's easier to talk about just like the dynamics, but um, if you think back on the big wins that have felt really special, it'd be great to hear about those career highs from each of you.

Hans Morris 25:25

I've had a lot of things in my career which have been which have been terrific and also total disasters. I have a lot of experience with both disasters and great outcomes uh in many manifestations. And uh and I actually am gonna say something a little weird. I think that that you know being uh very aware, having an experience of both is actually a big part of you know what I I find valuable. I find valuable about myself, I guess. But I think that having uh I I often people say this to me, they say you don't get all you don't freak out at stuff. I say, well, I've actually seen that before. I've been through that before. So uh it's um I'm both good and bad. So I've you know I've worked on actually I worked on the largest IPO in history, which was Visa. But it it's funny, is now it's just hanging on the top 10, number nine. So it's gonna drop out of the top 10, which I think is just incredible to me.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 26:26

Uh you remind me, it's Sam Maul, the interview we did right um before this one, the episode that I'll air right

Career Highs Lows And Founder Mindset

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 26:32

before we asked about career highs and lows, and I was like, talking about the lows. He's like, Oh, that's just another Tuesday. Like, it's just another day. And then for Salmon, since you are now a founder, it's like, you know, uh that's just every day has lows in it at this point, because that's just the life of a founder. Um, and then you, you know, you learn from them, and then you have amazing highs and sorts, like everything is exaggerated as a founder, from what I've heard. Your highs are higher, but your lows are way lower. So talk us through some of your career highs and lows.

Salman Syed 27:02

Yeah, well, you're absolutely right. Um uh yeah, I I I think I think the game is actually don't let the highs be too high and don't let the lows be too low. And uh, you know, whatever you can do to kind of help you stay in the middle is probably the most important thing. Uh look, thinking about highs, um, you know, uh I'm very fortunate to have been a part of uh FinTech uh in a pretty exciting in a pretty exciting moment. Uh I was in New York, actually. Um, Hans, I'm sure you were too, 2008, you know, when we were all seeing uh was it like Lehman Brothers went out of business like in a day or in like two days or something like that. You know, if you guys just remember that scene, for those of us who might have been in New York at the time, it was just uh just kind of tells you how much how how much dynamicism there's been in this industry in the last like 10, 15 years. But okay, if we were talking about highs, there's two that kind of jump out to me that are pretty that have been pretty exciting. Uh the thing that actually just took me into payments, in all honesty, was um I started as I told you all at uh MasterCard and I joined around 2012. And the reason why I joined is because uh prior to that I was in management consulting and this notion of mobile payments actually was starting to become more and more of a topic, not only in telecommunications, but also in financial services companies. And it just kind of felt like more and more people all of a sudden had a smartphone, et cetera. And it all kind of came together because I was at MasterCard when we did the launch of Apple Pay or tokenization as you know, yeah. So that that was just a uh a really great experience to be a part of on so many different levels. How do you solve it at a technology level? How do you make this uh something that works for the entire ecosystem in uh in a safe and trustworthy manner? That was extremely important in all of it. Um, and honestly, it also gave me a little bit of a window in terms of where innovation is potentially going to come from. And that was kind of my emphasis for saying, you know, a lot of innovation is yet to come in financial services, and it won't just not necessarily be the people who've always who've been kind of driving the industry forward so far. I'd say that's one. And then probably the second one is obviously, you know, when you do take the the startup journey, uh getting to a place where you're recognized by public markets when Marqeta IPO'd, you know, that was that was also a special moment uh in in that entire experience. And mostly for just um just kind of seeing, you know, it's clearly most people now talk to me, uh uh most people say this, and now I truly understand it. It's kind of a mile marker on the journey, right? So you can't see it as the destination, it's just a very uh meaningful mile marker, but it's a great one to go through. And you know, I think um I'm very fortunate to have had that experience.

Lauren Crossett 29:47

I was uh in my final year at Ford in New York City for in 2008, and like uh it makes it reminds me of like my economics professors. I was studying economics and math, being like, throw out your books. We don't know. This is crazy. We don't know. Like this is and you know, they're like older guys that had been in banking, and and they're just like, I really have no idea what to tell you. So good luck. Uh you're graduating and there's no rules anymore. And I feel like that's such a good um framework for fintech. It's just like there's what are rules? Um, and obviously everything's regulated, and I've I've worked in very regulated uh not our companies that haven't necessarily been regulated, but our our um customers have been. So you have to appreciate where they are, but I think also challenge some of it. Like, well, what do is that gonna change? Or do we have a new lens on that? Or like how how is the framework evolving over time? And um, yeah, those mile markers that you reference, I have not experienced. I've never been direct to consumer, but I wonder how that changes now that you don't have that interaction with consumers, too. Like just is that like a low in itself? Like there's no feedback loop, or at least not the same. I don't know.

Hans Morris 31:03

I mean, I think there's still lots of areas that uh you know, fintech 1.0 or even I don't know, you know, not just 15 years ago, but I'd say even you know, five, six years ago, there were some real some j promising ideas like we're going to go fix this. And it really hasn't been fixed. And I'd say consumer advice apps, for example, I don't think are very, you know, there's nothing that's I mean, you have Credit Carmo, Credit Carmo just solved a very specific problem. It was an incredible tool coming out of the financial crisis where you had uh, I remember this was a a piece of data that I sought out when I was at Visa, which is you know, how many consumers are now subprime when the rules were changed to say that banks could not do some prime lending without much bigger capital requirements after 2008. What will be the impact on that? And the estimate we had was about 30 million households. So, you know, about a quarter of all households used to have access to revolving credit and now longer access to revolving credit, or certainly not the same amount. And that's a big holy shit fact, that amount,

Trust Data Portability And Advice Apps

Hans Morris 32:24

uh that you know, 30 million households. And um it, you know, that created buy now pay later or created lots of other things.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 32:31

But what is a firm is one of your you talk about you know missing some of the winners, a firm is one of your companies. You did not miss that winner.

Hans Morris 32:39

That is true. And uh, but with with credit karma, that's the one we did miss, by the way. But and my good friend Nigel Morris led it. And I um but we we hadn't started Nike yet, but I still I thought that's uh it was great, and Ken is great. But the the thing was is if you have 30 million households don't have access any longer, and you had about you know, it was I think up to 10, uh even more, double-digit percentage of mortgage uh mortgage uh borrowers were more than 60 days delinquent. Uh, and I think it's I think the peak was 90 almost nine almost 10% were 90 days delinquent on their mortgage. That's unheard of. And so if you have that type of delinquency and worry, so that's a huge negative on credit score, and then bankruptcies had exploded. So these people, like, how do you differentiate between someone that got really uh hurt in a period like that, but wants to do better? And uh and and FICO, you know, as I say FICO is excellent at predicting the past, it does not predict the future at all unless the past, unless the future is gonna be similar to the past, it's not good. So if someone really wants to improve uh their financial well-being is gonna be diligent about that, that signal, there was no other really good signal to do to use that at scale. So credit car was a a brilliant solution, but I don't think it's a brilliant solution that also almost failed like 10 times too. But it was pretty great. Uh I don't know. Well, I mean, lots of things almost okay. There's much better almost failed stories than that, I'd say.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 34:21

Yes. I mean, a firm is another almost failed story.

Hans Morris 34:24

Up there of almost almost went bankrupt a couple of times. And um, but uh, but anyway, so that going back to what the problem is, like if you say, Hey, I want to, I want to get, I'm a consumer, it's complicated. I need to figure out how I'm gonna handle all this student loan stuff that's all changing. I got all these other, you know, what what should I be doing? How much should I be saving? What uh what are some of my goals? And then go execute for me. There's no good tools to do that right now, I don't think.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 34:59

I think AI might change that. And it's it's weird to think of like if no one had started credit karma when it did, like how different it would look if you were starting credit karma today, too.

Hans Morris 35:09

Yeah, you might not well, it might not as relevant. I mean, your credit signals are very, you know, there's a lot happening.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 35:15

But I think there would be like a lot of other things that they would be focusing on too, like more like PFM style versus just the credit score. And uh yeah, I think I think it would look very different. And a lot of companies that were started back then would look very different today than they did then.

Salman Syed 35:29

Yeah, well, and and I think you all saw um so OpenAI just took a big step, right? That you can you can get it, you can port your uh financial data in. But guys, I think this is just the start, right? Um people are getting Hans, you uh what's interesting right now is how much people have evolved on the trust factor. You know, I I I don't know where the the and I think part of it's generational, right? Like the uh the uh the younger you go, the more comfortable you are giving Chat GPT, any other sources a lot of information about yourself. Well, uh I think you're gonna see a lot of that happen now that you're gonna be able to get financial, put uh port your financial data into these types of agents. Yeah, look, what kinds of tools are about to come out? How much more intelligent are people gonna be in terms of being able to find the right loan for themselves, all that? So, I mean, I think this is just kind of the start of the next wave.

Lauren Crossett 36:22

Yeah, but you're I mean, I love what you guys are doing so much because you're recognizing that there's like so much additional value in different places to receive financial data. So like getting it from the networks has like a totally different level of detail and potentially efficacy, certainly on matching than from a core or or from an FDX approach. And like I think there's also a concern in that everyone wants to go to a really simplified cloud, but like, are you gonna throw out a bunch of context because you're worried about cost and like query costs even over large, large quantities of data? So I do feel like there's maybe to your earlier point, a lot of infrastructure still to be built so that you know you don't see some modern cores just like throwing so much out and then and then folks like us trying to be the infrastructure layer being like, we need that data. There's a lot of value there. Um so I feel like that might be an interesting like uh roller coaster to ride for the next few years.

Hans Morris 37:25

Also, just like what happens when you're when your app or your application is no longer and now you've got all this information you're relying on. It's it's a big, a big issue that many institutions evaluate. I mean, because the risk profile has been proven to be uh very problematic if uh it the the if the risk profile is is uh uh is significant. And I think that it's something that uh you know the crypto industry, for example, like a lot of us, very little is really built for institutional enterprise grade applications. And so therefore making them work in regulated institutions is uh they're often not ready for that. And I'd say consumers you suddenly um you know, data. I mean, my my wine app went bust, so all this information I've just been sort of saving all this information is it's gone. And so it's a bummer, it's not the end of the world as an example of something that is a real life phenomenon. I don't know.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 38:35

So then you can create your own app. I was gonna say you can use AI to build your own app, I bet. You might have to start over, which sucks. But yeah, yeah, but then you know it won't go bust because it's your app.

Hans Morris 38:47

True.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 38:48

It only goes bust if you decide to have it go bust.

Hans Morris 38:52

Just have everyone on chat GPT train on my wine.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 38:55

There you go. There you go. Your preferences. Yeah. Well, I'm sure neither of you were like, you know, in middle school and wanted to be a payments executive. But is there anything from your childhood that you think shaped where you've come, like where you've decided to take your career and why you're doing what you're doing?

Hans Morris 39:15

Yeah, I went to a I grew up on one of six kids. I also went to a uh a very, very diverse, big high school of like a thousand kids in my class and very, very different types of people. And I think that uh that made a big difference in me of just like, okay, learning how to deal with lots of difference. Which is uh and and even in the 70s, yeah, it's like violence was never far away. I mean, it was like it was it was just uh I remember when my daughter graduated from college, I took a bunch of her friends out to dinner and I said, and many of them grew up in New York City, and I said, Have you ever seen any physical violence? Like someone get punched in the face or someone you know, get your bed mugged, or and and no one, none of them had. And I would say, wow, I kind of I quite definitely had seen a lot of physical violence, and that's kind of gone away. So that, yeah, being afraid of worrying about physical violence probably makes me more, you know.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 40:17

Oh, I love that answer. I and it made, you know,

Childhood Roots Behind Big Careers

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 40:20

it makes you safer on the bike, you know, to look both ways like five times.

Hans Morris 40:23

The subway was a place where there'd be a lot of physical opportunities for physical violence. That's true.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 40:27

It made you like, I'm just gonna bike. I don't want to deal with this.

Hans Morris 40:30

Explain that you would go down the subway and you would say, This is a very bad situation right here. I should probably get out of here. You never think that.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 40:40

I never I'd rather get hit by a car than be on the subway down here with all these crazy people. Solomon, what about you?

Salman Syed 40:48

Yeah, well, first of all, isn't there there's an old saying that I feel like high school never ends, right? Like I feel like that was like a like a song at some point. But um, no, okay. So, what from my childhood? You know, I was just thinking about this the other the other the other day, actually. So I guess I am I guess not I guess, I I am actually in my family, the third generation that's done uh entrepreneurship. Uh and uh it goes back to my grandfather, who um so you know my my heritage is Pakistani, and uh my grandfather got into the carpet business and exporting carpets and all that kind of stuff. So that was kind of his you know kind of foray into into all of that. And it wasn't his first career either, which is I think the thing I would say. Like he he was actually a lawyer by training, and then all of a sudden somehow ended up in the carpet industry, and that's how that goes. My mom started a school. Um, and so I think that was you know something I got to see at some point in my life. And then here I am now, kind of doing it. And I think there's just something about that journey when you when you are at the start of something and and building it. Um, you know, and I I think what I'm really fortunate to have is uh uh, you know, when you have those nights by yourself and you're trying to figure things out and uh you know you just kind of know it all sits with you. Um, you know, knowing that there's other people kind of in my life uh that that have kind of had felt the same thing, uh I think just uh gave me a it gives me a reference point, which I think has been really valuable on this journey.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 42:23

Well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. Um I'm I like don't even want to necessarily wrap up this episode because it's the last time I like give an outro and everything. Um ask you a question. Like oh yeah, ask me a question. What do you see as the next guy you guys? A music track that you haven't heard of. Hmm. Have you heard of Alex Warren before? Okay, there we go. All of it, he's just released new music too, but he he has a crazy story. I listened to a podcast that he did with Jay Shetty, and he has been shot before. He was homeless for a while, his dad fought cancer like four times, and on the fourth time he ended up dying, and his mom was an alcoholic and ended up like overdosing and then dying and everything. Like a whole thing, and like everyone telling him he couldn't be an artist. Um, but eventually he released a few songs that just like hit it, and now he's done a lot of other things too. So look him up. Alex Warren, really cool background story.

Lauren Crossett 43:31

Yeah. And maybe just like you know, as your final Twiff episode, what do you think the future of FinTech holds?

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 43:38

Uh a lot of things AI related. I'm less bullish on like the stablecoin stuff just because I don't really look as much at international. I totally get how it has some international perspective and everything, but like SoFi releasing a stablecoin and stuff, I'm like, I don't care. I use SoFi for banking, but I would never use SoFi stablecoin. Why?

Hans Morris 43:58

You shouldn't. I don't need it. Use it for personal payments. It's that's the really Yeah.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 44:04

If I had family in Venezuela and SoFi was active in Venezuela, then maybe I would want to do it, but I have no point in using it here. So if I I would say like I'm more heavy on like AI and its applications versus stablecoin in its applications.

Salman Syed 44:19

All right, Julie. Same question you asked us. What's what's what's been your high on the podcast? One of your highs.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 44:26

Uh high on the podcast. There's been a few episodes that like you don't know that the pairing's gonna be great when you start the episode, but then you get like five or ten minutes into it, and you're like, oh, like these people were meant to talk together. So the episode um that we did with Sam Mall and Will White, I didn't know how they knew each other, and I just knew they had worked together at some point. They were a great pairing. Max Levchin and Jackie Reese was a good pairing, and then um Steve McLaughlin and Matt Harris, the very first episode I did, um,

Future Bets Stablecoins And AI

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 44:59

they were a very funny pairing, too. I remember we got like four minutes into it, and Steve was like, are we recording yet? Is this the podcast? I was like, Yeah, like we're just going. Like we're just chatting. Those are some highs. And I always appreciate learning about people's lows because like I did like Max told his story about how they had misevaluated risk and he thought he was gonna have to call his board and say that like a firm was just done, like we were out of money, etc. Um, and now a firm is like you know, gone public, several billion dollars, tens of billion dollars worth, maybe even over a hundred. I forget. It was at one point, I don't know where it is now. But like all like realizing that it's you see up and to the right, but you don't see all the things happening behind the scenes because obviously when I was covering a firm for Bloomberg at that age, they weren't gonna like go publicly say that they had miscalculated risk and had almost died. Like, there's no way there's just like you know, the moratorium on that has passed at this point. So he can say that. So learning about those things after the fact has has been a high. Learning about lows has been a high.

Salman Syed 46:02

I look listen, I think that's uh I that is probably you know, when when you ask the question of like name your lows, I I've just thought a lot about it, I just thought a lot about it, kind of kind of going back to don't let your highs be too high, don't let your lows be too low. And like anytime there has been a low, like when you look back at it, you learn something from it, you grew from it, one door closed, another one open. As long as you don't lose that perspective, I think that's that that's kind of it.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 46:26

But well, let me ask, I think I know one of your lows. You started this job at Fidel, and you I think you were renovating your house at the same time. What did you learn from that low?

Hans Morris 46:35

There are a lot of lessons in that, I'd say.

Salman Syed 46:38

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, no, listen, uh if it uh don't renovate your house when taking a really important new job. Well, yeah, exactly. Well, so okay, two things. One, Hans had a great quote that's kind of stuck with me, if I'm if I'm honest, as we've gone through all these chapters together. Uh it's uh experience is one of those things you wish you had when when you need it. I think that's it's it's a version of that one. Um and I thought that was great because uh that's exactly what's kind of proven out. Um, but yeah, look, in general, renovating a house and going through a whole bunch of stuff uh and building a company, but it's not for the faint of heart, I think, is what I was saying. Look, this is probably a great place to plug everybody in my family, my wife, uh my kids, everybody who's been really supportive, I think, through through all of this.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 47:25

But uh is the renovation done now, too?

Salman Syed 47:27

The renovation is done. Yes, the renovation is done. We're happy to be back home, uh back in the home and and all that good stuff. And I hope to never do it again. I think that's the uh that's the other big learning.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 47:37

If you don't, hopefully it's just painting if you do it again.

Salman Syed 47:40

Yes.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 47:40

Something easy. Keep it simple. If that.

Salman Syed 47:42

If that, exactly.

Julie Verhage-Greenberg 47:44

Uh awesome. Well, thank you so much, you guys. I appreciate it. Lauren, thank you so much for co hosting this season with me. It has been a pleasure, and I hope we find a way to be on a podcast again in the future.

Lauren Crossett 47:55

Yes, totally my pleasure. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, guys.