Unpacking the Cash App Controversy and FTX's Collapse: Lessons in Fintech Fraud and Founder Dynamics
June 18, 2024 • 26 mins
Could the collapse of a major fintech entity be more complex than a simple case of fraud? Join us on this intriguing episode of "Artificially Intelligent," where Maia Bittner and Sam Maule, with their signature mix of humor and insight, navigate the murky waters of fintech controversies. We jump right into the latest buzz surrounding Cash App, currently under the microscope of New York regulators. Maia then passionately dissects the downfall of FTX and its enigmatic founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, challenging the black-and-white narrative that has dominated headlines. Learn why she believes there's a potential for investors to reclaim their losses, and imagine the massive ripple effects if similar shutdowns happened to other major financial players.
Ever wondered how far you can push the boundaries of "fake it till you make it" in the startup world? Discover the delicate balance between ethical and unethical practices through personal anecdotes and high-profile fintech examples like Binance and WeWork. We also delve into the vital role of a founder's charisma in securing investor trust and achieving market fit. From the importance of regulatory compliance to the nuances of product-market alignment, this episode is packed with thought-provoking discussions and practical lessons for aspiring fintech entrepreneurs. Don't miss out on the lively banter and deep insights that Maia and Sam bring to the table!
Hosts: Sam Maule & Maia Bittner
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maia Bittner (00:07):
Hello, hello.
Welcome to another episode ofArtificially Intelligent brought
to you by Money 2020.
I am Maia Bittner.
I'm your FinTech intern.
Sam Maule (00:19):
And I'm Sam Maule.
I'm that other intern.
There's a movie called T theIntern, with Robert De Niro and
Anne Hathaway, which that wouldmake me Robert De Niro and
that'd make you Anne Hathaway.
Maia Bittner (00:30):
No, you'd have to be the other intern.
Works for me.
I mean, I feel like I'm aRobert De Niro kind of energy,
though I gotta say.
Sam Maule (00:39):
You 100% are a Robert De Niro energy.
I agree that's an excellentcall out.
It's been a rather crazy day inthe fintech world.
Maia, I don't know if you'veseen the news today, if you know
what I'm about to lead into.
Maia Bittner (00:57):
I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening.
Crypto markets are crashing.
Cash app is under scrutiny, Ithink from the state of New York
.
Sam Maule (01:05):
That's the one.
That's the one.
That's the one.
Maia Bittner (01:09):
See, you just can't bank people in North Korea
or Cuba.
There's a lot of stuff you cando, but that's one you just
really don't want to do.
Sam Maule (01:18):
That's the story.
I was wondering if you saw thatand there you go.
Second one yeah, veryinteresting, that regulatory
compliance AML thing.
It's there for a reason, soit'd be fascinating to see what
happens.
There's a story out with thefederal prosecutors basically
looking at block right now.
(01:38):
So that would be what?
Cash App and Square and youknow, have they processed
transactions involving countriesthat have been subject to
economic sanctions and such?
So watch this space.
I don't know how else to put it, but it's interesting because
this kind of leans into a littlesidebar conversation you and I
have had and everybody.
(02:00):
This is one of those M mayarant.
So just gear up, get yourpopcorn, get a nice bourbon, sit
down.
Ooh, bourbon and popcorn,that's horrible.
Get a nice Diet Pepsi.
Maia Bittner (02:11):
There we go, it's your big movie soda.
Sam Maule (02:14):
There you go.
That's what this is going to be.
So, Mai maya, what is the rantthat you would like to do here,
in a safe space, unlike, say Xor Twitter, where, if we did
this, oh my God, this would blowup.
Maia Bittner (02:32):
They're not safe spaces, not for me, ever.
Okay, S sam.
Today I want to talk about FTX.
We're coming up on the one yearanniversary and Sam
Bankman-Fried is that how hisname is pronounced- we're going
to SBF.
Sam Maule (02:42):
SBF yes, we're going to go with that.
Maia Bittner (02:43):
No one knows how his name is pronounced.
We've all agreed Just go by SBF.
So when FTX was collapsing, Isaw everyone on Twitter was like
this guy sucks Sequoia sucksfor investing in him.
They didn't do enough duediligence.
They don't have enoughgovernance controls.
This guy's an asshole and Iwant to say, yes, what he did
(03:08):
was illegal and I'm notendorsing it.
And he misappropriated investorfunds, lost people like $8
billion, et cetera.
However, I think it's so muchmore nuanced than what people
are giving it credit for, and Iwant us to talk about that
balance that every founder needsto strike and then further.
(03:29):
So the thing that I just heardis that it looks like it's part
of the FTX bankruptcy investorsare getting like 100% of what
they're owed.
And there's some caveats to that.
The 100% is of what theircrypto holdings were converted
to in fiat at kind of the bottomof the crypto market and they
(03:53):
don't have any money yet and itmight be a really long time
until they have it.
And they thought they werebuying Bitcoin or like true
underlying assets.
So there's a lot of caveats tothat, but when I look at it it's
like dude.
If you think about an investoror a hedge fund, what if one day
they had to stop operations?
(04:13):
What are the odds that they'rereturning capital on that random
one day?
And it's actually prettyimpressive if they made
investments such that boom.
You pull the plug one day andpeople are getting their money
back.
Sam Maule (04:28):
Yeah, you do a margin call on pick anyone right, just
in that day how many actualcompanies would survive.
And you know I mean well, shoot.
We have an example SiliconValley Bank and the run that
happened there.
Maia Bittner (04:43):
Yes, I mean there's yeah yeah.
Sam Maule (04:45):
It's SPF and the whole trial and FTX, it's easy
to point and make fun of it.
I've done it from stage becauseI have said look, you've got a
company that was valued at, Iwant to say, 35 billion at one
point in January of 2022, Ibelieve there were 32 to 35
billion valuation.
And then by November, you know,the world came crashing down
(05:10):
and they were using, I believe,quickbooks as their accounting
software.
So, as somebody old like me,it's easy to make fun of them,
but, like you said, at the sametime, I think it's a lot more
complicated and nuanced when youstart digging into this.
Maia Bittner (05:24):
And here's what I think.
So, fundamentally, the job of afounder is kind of to find
product market fit right, and wethrow that term around a lot,
so I think everybody knows whatit means.
But I think it's helpful toreally dig into the details,
right.
So, product market fit it's areenough people going to pay the
price you're charging for yourproduct and can you deliver it
(05:46):
for less than that, such thatyou've got a business right.
You spend less money than youmake and you're making money.
You've got a business right.
That's what it is.
Are enough people going to buyit?
Can you deliver what they wantat a price they're willing to
pay and still make money?
Can it cost you less?
And I know I'm saying the samething over and over again, but
here's why I think it'simportant.
(06:07):
So, Sam, do you know the jobsto be done?
Framework?
Sam Maule (06:11):
Oh my God, do I love me a jobs to be done framework.
I talk about this on stage.
I do the milkshake story atMcDonald's.
So here's a great example ofjobs to be done.
Everybody, when you look atjobs to be done.
Clay Christensen is basicallythe godfather of all of this and
he was hired by McDonald's tocome in because they wanted to
(06:31):
increase sales when it came totheir products.
So they had hired people tocome in to look at their shake
sales and a ton of consultantcompanies came in, made a ton of
suggestions.
Nothing happened.
The way he did jobs to be doneis he actually observed
customers' behaviors.
This is shocking to everybody,but he hired people to basically
(06:52):
take a notebook and a penciland stand and just watch people
in their orders, and what theyobserved was this Do you know
what the peak time is for peopleto buy a milkshake?
Here's my trivia question forMaia.
Do you know what the peak timeis for people to buy a milkshake
?
Here's my trivia question forMaia.
Maia Bittner (07:07):
Do you know what they found?
Sam Maule (07:08):
the peak time was, I would guess, 1 pm 8 in the
morning 8 in the morning and sothey came back and said the most
milkshakes are sold in themorning and he went well, that's
interesting.
How about we go and talk to thepeople that are buying the
milkshakes to find out why?
What is the job they're tryingto get done?
Why would they buy a milkshakein the morning?
And so they would follow peopleout to their cars and say
(07:30):
excuse me, and ask them why.
And what they found was peopleduring their commutes in their
cars.
Maia Bittner (07:36):
Having a meal is bulky and hard to do while
you're driving and not safe.
Sam Maule (07:44):
But sipping on a milkshake, it lasts your whole
drive.
It gives you something to dowhile you're driving and not
safe, but sipping on a milkshakeit lasts your whole drive, it
gives you something to do, itfills you up and that's why the
sales happen there.
Maia Bittner (07:56):
And his simple feedback off this jobs to be
done.
Sam Maule (07:57):
Methodology was make the shakes thicker and he
increased sales exponentiallyfrom that.
It is a great, great use case,everybody, and he's got a
million of them, but I love thatstory.
So, everyone, that's your jobsto be done.
Framework, in a nutshell, isfiguring out what is the user
trying to accomplish, what isthe job that they're trying to
get.
I love that.
Maia Bittner (08:17):
And as a founder I mean this is advice I give to
founders all the time, which isyou can't get too tied to your
specific solution.
You got to be looking at yourcustomer's job to be done and be
really open to ways of meetingthat right, because that's the
only way you're going to get toproduct market fit.
It's the only way you're goingto get people to pay is if
(08:39):
you're fulfilling their job tobe done.
Now, sam, I'm not really a bigcrypto person.
I think for like okay, maybenot everyone, but for like 99%
of people, the job to be done ofcrypto is they're trying to get
rich.
Sam Maule (08:54):
Yes, agree.
Maia Bittner (08:55):
There's all this stuff about like
decentralization and like theda-da-da and like anonymity,
which is actually weird becauseyou're really not anonymous on
the blockchain but there's a lotof talk about that.
Some people, sure, but mostpeople, I think they're fucking
trying to get rich off of botand quickly.
Sam Maule (09:16):
They're trying to get rich and very, very fast.
So they can get the Lambo andbe down in Miami and then do
TikTok videos about how richthey are and how much smarter
they are than me.
So for SPF.
Maia Bittner (09:27):
To take, what was it?
$8 billion of investor fundsand instead of buying the
underlying crypto assets theythought they were getting, or
whatever, he was investing it inhis pet projects on Alameda
Research, investing in otherstartups, doing all kinds of
wacky stuff.
So, like I said, that's illegal.
I don't endorse that.
I don't think you should trickpeople like that.
(09:49):
However, when you look at thejob to be done of his customers
and they're trying to get richand they made some damn good
investments at FTX and AlamedaResearch.
They had that huge stake inAnthropic, they had all that
Solana They've got right Likethey made some really good
(10:09):
investments for their customersand were trying to get their
customers rich.
So I'm like dude, I don't know.
I feel like he was kind ofgetting the job to be done if
his customer is done.
Now, like I said, I don't enjoythis, but there's a lot of
nuance here.
It's like you can't lie topeople.
If they think they're gettingbitcoin, they gotta have bitcoin
(10:30):
.
Sam Maule (10:31):
Um but, but I here's.
Here's another thing.
I'll let this sink in assomebody who, I mean, you've
done startups, you've foundedcompanies, you've been in the
game.
I've done this too.
Here's the thing with FTX itwas founded in 2019.
It all came crashing down inNovember of 2022.
If my math is right, that'sthree years.
(10:53):
Three years.
Three years to build a product,find market fit, get people
willing to pay.
How many companies do you knowthat have actually accomplished
that at that scale?
Maia Bittner (11:04):
At that scale hire a ton of people.
Sam Maule (11:07):
Yeah, get.
Maia Bittner (11:08):
Bill Clinton Raise a ton of money.
Sam Maule (11:09):
Get President Bill Clinton.
And what's her name?
Tom?
Brady's ex-wife on stage withyou.
Maia Bittner (11:17):
Yeah, I mean Giselle Bündchen or something,
yeah.
Sam Maule (11:20):
I mean.
Maia Bittner (11:21):
And that Seinfeld guy.
Sam Maule (11:23):
Yeah, I do laugh, larry David.
Yeah, I do laugh.
You're doing Super Bowlcommercials.
It does make me laugh.
It's always easier in hindsightthan to be that Monday morning
quarterback Like I'm watchingthe F1 Drive to Survive series
on Netflix and I'll watch andI'll see these races from like
2021, where it's.
All these crypto companies arethe ones that did the um
(11:45):
advertising because they hadmore money than god at the time.
I mean, we came out of covid.
Everybody during covid,everybody and their brother and
sister was investing in crypto,as we know, which helped launch
these.
But you know, it's justfascinating to see the growth
that they had um, how they didit again.
I am with you, um person.
Maia Bittner (12:06):
They're obviously really delivering, or were
really delivering on a customerneed if they were able to go
that quickly with their customerbase.
Sam Maule (12:13):
And it always comes back to and I've said this a
million times you might have thegreatest idea or product in the
world If you're in this space.
Your second or third hirebetter be a compliance officer
who knows what they're doing.
Yeah, let me just say that overand over.
I mean, we're seeing this withbanking as a service, right?
I mean, how many consent ordersare we seeing coming out this
(12:34):
year?
Maia Bittner (12:36):
And what does it always come back to In some
cases?
Sam Maule (12:38):
Yeah, I mean it constantly is dialing back to
this.
It makes me laugh because I wasdoing a little bit of research
when you said you wanted to talkabout this, so I was thinking,
okay, well, what are the bigfraud cases during my career
that always come up?
So Enron is obviously a big one, right?
Maia Bittner (12:53):
Well, it's the same bankruptcy CEO right.
Sam Maule (12:56):
Leading.
Maia Bittner (12:57):
FTX out of bankruptcy as Enron.
Sam Maule (12:59):
Exactly so.
You had the Enron crash.
Maia Bittner (13:01):
You've got this guy must be old.
Sam Maule (13:05):
It must be really good too.
You got Bernie Madoff.
Do you actually remember whenthat happened?
It was in.
It was in December of 2008,when the world was melting down.
I forgot that.
I forgot that during thefinancial crash, when literally
we were watching banks disappear, is when Madoff was exposed.
(13:27):
That story would have been evenbigger if that had come out,
say, a year before or two yearslater.
It was in the midst of massivechaos and I think, with Bernie
Madoff, I felt like the worldwas ending in December of 2008.
Yeah, yeah, I was absolutelyshocked at what was taking place
(13:48):
there.
So, and then you've gotTheranos with Elizabeth Holmes,
right?
Essentially, if you're on thecover of Forbes and you're young
, don't go on the cover ofForbes ever.
Maia Bittner (14:00):
People say so let's talk about that.
Was SPF Forbes 30 under 30?
I bet he was.
Sam Maule (14:04):
Oh yeah.
Maia Bittner (14:05):
People talk about how fraudulent Forbes 30 under
30.
Yeah, okay, spf was on Forbes30 under 30.
I was also on Forbes 30 under 30.
And people are like now.
They're like, oh my God, likeit's almost a sign that you're
going to be a fraudster and thisthing that we thought was good,
it's actually bad.
I, this thing that we thoughtwas good, it's actually bad.
(14:28):
I don't think it should besurprising at all that people on
the Forbes 30 under 30 list aremuch more likely to be
fraudsters, and that's because Ithink, like I said, with the
theme of this episode, peoplethink it's so simplistic You're
a bad person, you're a goodperson.
This is fraud.
It's not fraud, right?
And I just think that gets youinto trouble and it's rude and
(14:50):
it's not the full grasp of thesituation.
Here's an example what SPF did?
That was bad.
It was bad for consumers, badfor investors.
They lost a lot of money.
It was bad.
Here's something that I think isgood, that I've advised people
to do.
I've done myself, but I thinkis on the same scale.
So here's what it is.
Let's say, you've got anexpense tracking app where your
(15:16):
customers they just have to takea picture of their receipt, and
you've got AI technology OCRthat recognizes the characters
and automatically puts it intothe system.
Okay, so you sell them thissoftware.
They only have to take picturesof their receipts,
automatically, puts all theinformation in and submits their
expense reports.
Let's say you have no technologyand you just send the picture
(15:38):
to somebody in the Philippinesand you ask them to type it into
a database.
Do you know what I mean?
Let's say that that's how itworks.
I think that's super legit.
I actually tell people to dothat.
I tell people to meet thecustomer need first, find out if
there's any demand there, andonly once you know that people
want that then you go build thetechnology to fulfill the demand
(15:58):
.
Don't build the technologyfirst just because it's so
expensive and such a biginvestment.
I tell people to do that.
I think when you take thiscrypto's job to be done is get
people rich fast.
Sam Maule (16:08):
Minimum viable product right MVP duct duct tape
in a box, but you have to provethis out.
That's a basic concept and likeyou kind of.
Maia Bittner (16:19):
You kind of lie to people about how it's happening
, but they don't care as long asyou fulfill that job to be done
for them can I tell you a truestory?
Sam Maule (16:28):
um, so, the, so everybody, the.
Um, what is?
Criminality can't happen.
It's been so long ago.
This was in the 90s.
Everybody, this was before cellphones.
Everybody, calm down.
But I worked for a large globalbank.
We were doing, by the way, wewere doing 401k and pension plan
record keeping, and one of ourclients was Enron.
How funny is that?
(16:48):
Wow.
So Sam Mall lost a lot of stockThank you, enron.
In the 90s.
But we wanted to set up a callcenter for Pacific Telesis.
This was before the big whenthe AT&T broke up.
And so, in order to do that,they came on site to our
facility in Atlanta and we did abig presentation.
And I remember they went togive them a tour and a few of my
(17:12):
bosses were running panickingthrough the hall with headsets
and threw them at a couple of usin cubicles and said put these
on type on your computer and actlike you're on the phone.
We won that deal.
I was a Lotus Notes programmerback in the day, folks.
I wrote the call centerapplication we used in Lotus
Notes to date myself.
But you know how we won thatdeal.
I put on a headset and talkedto my wife, called her and we
(17:36):
were just typing away and we wonthat big deal and if you don't
think, that happens a lot morethan you think.
So this gets back to duediligence, you would think, and
knowing who you're partneringwith.
So I was thinking of yourForbes 30 under 30.
Remember this story about Frankand JPMC?
I think that was like $175million.
Maia Bittner (17:57):
Sorry, when you first said Frank, I thought it
was a person, but now, I realizethat is the name of the startup
that was acquired by JPMC.
Sam Maule (18:03):
There you go.
Yeah, charlie Javis, who wasanother 30 under 30 founder,
when they said she incrediblyinflated the number of users she
had.
I believe she conschemed with acollege professor to come up
with some names.
You know that fake it till youmake it mentality.
Maia Bittner (18:19):
And like you should fake it till.
You make it sometimes.
Sam Maule (18:23):
There's a line Without stepping over that line
here we go.
Maia Bittner (18:25):
SBF crossed the line.
It was illegal.
He's going to jail for 25 yearsbecause of it.
That's good.
Sam Maule (18:34):
By the way, the Binance.
Did you see that?
Yeah, he's going to jail for 25years?
The Binance CEO is going tojail for wait for it everybody
four months, Four months, Wow,Four months, Four months.
I'm going to say that one moretime for the people in the back
Four months.
Maia Bittner (18:52):
I'm just all these self-righteous people on
Twitter who are like so bad?
This guy's obviously terrible.
I can't believe anybodyinvested in him.
It's like that inkling to fakeit till you make it.
Sam Maule (19:07):
Yeah.
Maia Bittner (19:08):
That is what makes a good founder.
You need that energy and Ithink Sequoia saw that.
That's why they invested isthey saw that he had that.
You need that.
Sam Maule (19:19):
That's good how do you think WeWork got all its
money?
How do you think Adam Neumannat WeWork got all his money?
Maia Bittner (19:27):
I mean, he's got the fake it till you, make it
energy.
Sam Maule (19:29):
Oh he, Steve Flippin' Chops.
Who to you make it energy?
oh he, steve flipping chops whowe idolize like crazy, that
right, the force field aura thatthey have.
And trust me with your foundersyou want.
You know, you know what founderI love and you're gonna laugh
at me, my, I don't know if youknow him or not mainly because
he looks and acts like my uncle,david Ohad Sama at True Accord
(19:54):
One, because Ohad was in theIsraeli military and does Krod
and Agar or whatever that stupidkarate thing is and could break
my neck if he wanted to.
But he's also just thecrabbiest, funniest, crustiest
founder in the world.
But he still has that auraaround him when he speaks and on
(20:15):
stage everybody listens,everybody listens.
Maia Bittner (20:19):
Yes.
Sam Maule (20:20):
When.
Maia Bittner (20:20):
Ohad talks.
Everybody listens when hetweets, everybody responds right
.
Sam Maule (20:26):
That aura means something and there's quite a
few people in the industry Iwork for Move everybody, the
payments company led by wadearnold.
If you are a programmerdeveloper, geek, wade arnold has
an aura about him and I'mthrilled that he has right, but
it's also not a con right.
(20:46):
So it gets back to the aura isimportant.
Finding market fit iseverything and having the right
people to keep you in check.
This gets back to having a verygood board.
Maia Bittner (20:57):
And that's.
It's like the feedback andthat's why, right, people talk
about the governance.
Should have been moregovernance at FTX.
You need that and that's whythat's what helps keep these
things in check.
But people say they're like oh,tech has learned its lesson,
it's going to go in a differentdirection.
We're going to back to no, noTech has learned its lesson it's
going to go in a differentdirection.
We're going to back it.
No, no, this is the directionthat we should go in.
This is like they went too far.
Keep it in, but it's the rightdirection.
(21:20):
Yes, it's.
Sam Maule (21:21):
Yeah.
I mean, if you want to,innovating does mean breaking
things.
I'm sorry everybody, but itdoes to some degree.
The problem is this isfinancial services.
This is actually real people'smoney right, and how it impacts
them.
We've talked about so manyexamples of this.
(21:42):
Actually, a lot of them cameout during COVID.
Remember, with Robinhood, thesheer number of people that were
investing and then the youngman that was investing actually
committed suicide.
Remember that story?
Because he didn't understandfully what he was doing.
We talk about democratizingpayments.
We talk about what FinTech cando for the market.
When you're bringing all ofthis into the hands of so many
(22:03):
people, a lot of people have noclue what they're doing.
Hello, part of crypto.
I'm saying part of crypto.
Maia Bittner (22:12):
The due diligence part, talk, know, talk about,
like, how much people know, likethere's this argument that the
investors in FTX didn't knowenough, they didn't check into
the details I recently had.
So personally, I recently had astartup, I invested in it's
shutting down and the underlyingtechnology was not viable and
(22:35):
my LPs asked me.
They said, you know, is this asign that we should have done
more due diligence to understand, like, whether the technology
was viable or not?
And I said, you know, it'sreally tempting to be like, oh
yeah, I'm going to change thingsand do things differently and
things like that.
But I said, you know what?
No, our whole investment thesisis backing like a specific
(22:58):
category of person.
I was never going to do any duediligence on the underlying
technology.
That wasn't part of the planthat I pitched you and promised
you.
I didn't do it, I'm not goingto do it in the future and we're
vulnerable to things like thishappening to us because that's
our investment thesis and we'rebetting on the founders in a
specific profile, because that'swhat we're betting on and
(23:21):
that's the investment and Ithink it's going to work.
I hope it works.
It might not overall on aportfolio basis, but that's what
we're doing right, and I thinkSequoia was probably like and I
(23:49):
think Sequoia was probably likedude.
It's not that much about thetechnology of FTX.
We can see the energy in thisSBF guy and we know that he's
going to make this happen.
We know we're making the betand we're betting on him, and he
took it too far.
It didn't work out.
Everybody lost all their money,um, but I don't know that
people are like learning alesson other than right.
The controls is what's needed,the governance is what needed,
but I don't think it's likethese are actually the type of
people should be backing.
We should be backing forbes 30under 30.
We should be backing people whohave the push to maybe be
fraudsters if they take it toofar that's hilarious.
Sam Maule (24:10):
Are you almost a fraudster?
Please come and see us.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
Maia Bittner (24:17):
People who are nearly fraudsters, but not quite
I mean honestly, but like likeI said, my example with the
receipt tracking like that'sfraud.
But who are not illegallydefrauding?
People are not doing it in waysthat lose them money or that
they care about.
But maybe some light deceptionis okay.
Sam Maule (24:36):
It's a little light.
Maia Bittner (24:37):
Deception never hurt anybody right.
Sam Maule (24:39):
As long as you're not doing it to the OCC or FDIC.
It is funny.
It's especially, like I said,looking back from Enron to again
the news today with Block, withCash App and Square.
Your point of have we learnedour lesson?
No not whatsoever.
(25:01):
Is it the same with assumingthat consumers are going to
learn what they're doing?
I'm old enough to have startedworking when there were pensions
and I had pensions.
I was around when 401ks wereintroduced and I'm also around
now where, at my age, many of mypeers want to retire and can't
(25:21):
because they didn't investanything in their 401ks or they
took money out of them.
And we're in a situation thatwe are now, with a significant
number of Americans ofretirement age who are looking
to go into.
The system didn't work for me.
So have we learned our lessons?
No, the stuff's cyclical.
I don't mean to be a downer.
I still love this space, Maia.
(25:44):
You still love it, right?
I mean you're looking to invest.
Yes, yeah.
Maia Bittner (25:49):
Backing almost fraudsters.
Sam Maule (25:51):
The movies that come out of this are fantastic on
Netflix.
We can't recommend them enough.
I my favorite episodeseverybody are Maia rants.
I'm just going to be honest.
We should probably rename thepodcast to Maia rants.
I like it.
I can imagine what the uh, thelogo will look like.
All right, everybody, Um,amazing I.
We came full circle on this.
(26:11):
We got to wrap up.
We love hearing from you One.
Please do go out, Give us areview, Tell your friends about
it.
Word of mouth is the greatestway to grow a podcast.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Reach out to me on Twitter ifyou get ideas for an episode.
Maia, same thing, right.
Maia Bittner (26:28):
Twitter.
You're still out there likecrazy Twitter.
Send me your almost fraudulentfounders.
Sam Maule (26:36):
I would watch a N netflix movie about FTX.
No, I'm in, I'm I'm so in forthat.
Yeah, I'll be there, we'll lookfor it everybody.
Thanks for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
Hello, hello.
Welcome to another episode ofArtificially Intelligent brought
to you by Money 2020.
I am Maia Bittner.
I'm your FinTech intern.
Sam Maule (00:19):
And I'm Sam Maule.
I'm that other intern.
There's a movie called T theIntern, with Robert De Niro and
Anne Hathaway, which that wouldmake me Robert De Niro and
that'd make you Anne Hathaway.
Maia Bittner (00:30):
No, you'd have to be the other intern.
Works for me.
I mean, I feel like I'm aRobert De Niro kind of energy,
though I gotta say.
Sam Maule (00:39):
You 100% are a Robert De Niro energy.
I agree that's an excellentcall out.
It's been a rather crazy day inthe fintech world.
Maia, I don't know if you'veseen the news today, if you know
what I'm about to lead into.
Maia Bittner (00:57):
I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening.
Crypto markets are crashing.
Cash app is under scrutiny, Ithink from the state of New York
.
Sam Maule (01:05):
That's the one.
That's the one.
That's the one.
Maia Bittner (01:09):
See, you just can't bank people in North Korea
or Cuba.
There's a lot of stuff you cando, but that's one you just
really don't want to do.
Sam Maule (01:18):
That's the story.
I was wondering if you saw thatand there you go.
Second one yeah, veryinteresting, that regulatory
compliance AML thing.
It's there for a reason, soit'd be fascinating to see what
happens.
There's a story out with thefederal prosecutors basically
looking at block right now.
(01:38):
So that would be what?
Cash App and Square and youknow, have they processed
transactions involving countriesthat have been subject to
economic sanctions and such?
So watch this space.
I don't know how else to put it, but it's interesting because
this kind of leans into a littlesidebar conversation you and I
have had and everybody.
(02:00):
This is one of those M mayarant.
So just gear up, get yourpopcorn, get a nice bourbon, sit
down.
Ooh, bourbon and popcorn,that's horrible.
Get a nice Diet Pepsi.
Maia Bittner (02:11):
There we go, it's your big movie soda.
Sam Maule (02:14):
There you go.
That's what this is going to be.
So, Mai maya, what is the rantthat you would like to do here,
in a safe space, unlike, say Xor Twitter, where, if we did
this, oh my God, this would blowup.
Maia Bittner (02:32):
They're not safe spaces, not for me, ever.
Okay, S sam.
Today I want to talk about FTX.
We're coming up on the one yearanniversary and Sam
Bankman-Fried is that how hisname is pronounced- we're going
to SBF.
Sam Maule (02:42):
SBF yes, we're going to go with that.
Maia Bittner (02:43):
No one knows how his name is pronounced.
We've all agreed Just go by SBF.
So when FTX was collapsing, Isaw everyone on Twitter was like
this guy sucks Sequoia sucksfor investing in him.
They didn't do enough duediligence.
They don't have enoughgovernance controls.
This guy's an asshole and Iwant to say, yes, what he did
(03:08):
was illegal and I'm notendorsing it.
And he misappropriated investorfunds, lost people like $8
billion, et cetera.
However, I think it's so muchmore nuanced than what people
are giving it credit for, and Iwant us to talk about that
balance that every founder needsto strike and then further.
(03:29):
So the thing that I just heardis that it looks like it's part
of the FTX bankruptcy investorsare getting like 100% of what
they're owed.
And there's some caveats to that.
The 100% is of what theircrypto holdings were converted
to in fiat at kind of the bottomof the crypto market and they
(03:53):
don't have any money yet and itmight be a really long time
until they have it.
And they thought they werebuying Bitcoin or like true
underlying assets.
So there's a lot of caveats tothat, but when I look at it it's
like dude.
If you think about an investoror a hedge fund, what if one day
they had to stop operations?
(04:13):
What are the odds that they'rereturning capital on that random
one day?
And it's actually prettyimpressive if they made
investments such that boom.
You pull the plug one day andpeople are getting their money
back.
Sam Maule (04:28):
Yeah, you do a margin call on pick anyone right, just
in that day how many actualcompanies would survive.
And you know I mean well, shoot.
We have an example SiliconValley Bank and the run that
happened there.
Maia Bittner (04:43):
Yes, I mean there's yeah yeah.
Sam Maule (04:45):
It's SPF and the whole trial and FTX, it's easy
to point and make fun of it.
I've done it from stage becauseI have said look, you've got a
company that was valued at, Iwant to say, 35 billion at one
point in January of 2022, Ibelieve there were 32 to 35
billion valuation.
And then by November, you know,the world came crashing down
(05:10):
and they were using, I believe,quickbooks as their accounting
software.
So, as somebody old like me,it's easy to make fun of them,
but, like you said, at the sametime, I think it's a lot more
complicated and nuanced when youstart digging into this.
Maia Bittner (05:24):
And here's what I think.
So, fundamentally, the job of afounder is kind of to find
product market fit right, and wethrow that term around a lot,
so I think everybody knows whatit means.
But I think it's helpful toreally dig into the details,
right.
So, product market fit it's areenough people going to pay the
price you're charging for yourproduct and can you deliver it
(05:46):
for less than that, such thatyou've got a business right.
You spend less money than youmake and you're making money.
You've got a business right.
That's what it is.
Are enough people going to buyit?
Can you deliver what they wantat a price they're willing to
pay and still make money?
Can it cost you less?
And I know I'm saying the samething over and over again, but
here's why I think it'simportant.
(06:07):
So, Sam, do you know the jobsto be done?
Framework?
Sam Maule (06:11):
Oh my God, do I love me a jobs to be done framework.
I talk about this on stage.
I do the milkshake story atMcDonald's.
So here's a great example ofjobs to be done.
Everybody, when you look atjobs to be done.
Clay Christensen is basicallythe godfather of all of this and
he was hired by McDonald's tocome in because they wanted to
(06:31):
increase sales when it came totheir products.
So they had hired people tocome in to look at their shake
sales and a ton of consultantcompanies came in, made a ton of
suggestions.
Nothing happened.
The way he did jobs to be doneis he actually observed
customers' behaviors.
This is shocking to everybody,but he hired people to basically
(06:52):
take a notebook and a penciland stand and just watch people
in their orders, and what theyobserved was this Do you know
what the peak time is for peopleto buy a milkshake?
Here's my trivia question forMaia.
Do you know what the peak timeis for people to buy a milkshake
?
Here's my trivia question forMaia.
Maia Bittner (07:07):
Do you know what they found?
Sam Maule (07:08):
the peak time was, I would guess, 1 pm 8 in the
morning 8 in the morning and sothey came back and said the most
milkshakes are sold in themorning and he went well, that's
interesting.
How about we go and talk to thepeople that are buying the
milkshakes to find out why?
What is the job they're tryingto get done?
Why would they buy a milkshakein the morning?
And so they would follow peopleout to their cars and say
(07:30):
excuse me, and ask them why.
And what they found was peopleduring their commutes in their
cars.
Maia Bittner (07:36):
Having a meal is bulky and hard to do while
you're driving and not safe.
Sam Maule (07:44):
But sipping on a milkshake, it lasts your whole
drive.
It gives you something to dowhile you're driving and not
safe, but sipping on a milkshakeit lasts your whole drive, it
gives you something to do, itfills you up and that's why the
sales happen there.
Maia Bittner (07:56):
And his simple feedback off this jobs to be
done.
Sam Maule (07:57):
Methodology was make the shakes thicker and he
increased sales exponentiallyfrom that.
It is a great, great use case,everybody, and he's got a
million of them, but I love thatstory.
So, everyone, that's your jobsto be done.
Framework, in a nutshell, isfiguring out what is the user
trying to accomplish, what isthe job that they're trying to
get.
I love that.
Maia Bittner (08:17):
And as a founder I mean this is advice I give to
founders all the time, which isyou can't get too tied to your
specific solution.
You got to be looking at yourcustomer's job to be done and be
really open to ways of meetingthat right, because that's the
only way you're going to get toproduct market fit.
It's the only way you're goingto get people to pay is if
(08:39):
you're fulfilling their job tobe done.
Now, sam, I'm not really a bigcrypto person.
I think for like okay, maybenot everyone, but for like 99%
of people, the job to be done ofcrypto is they're trying to get
rich.
Sam Maule (08:54):
Yes, agree.
Maia Bittner (08:55):
There's all this stuff about like
decentralization and like theda-da-da and like anonymity,
which is actually weird becauseyou're really not anonymous on
the blockchain but there's a lotof talk about that.
Some people, sure, but mostpeople, I think they're fucking
trying to get rich off of botand quickly.
Sam Maule (09:16):
They're trying to get rich and very, very fast.
So they can get the Lambo andbe down in Miami and then do
TikTok videos about how richthey are and how much smarter
they are than me.
So for SPF.
Maia Bittner (09:27):
To take, what was it?
$8 billion of investor fundsand instead of buying the
underlying crypto assets theythought they were getting, or
whatever, he was investing it inhis pet projects on Alameda
Research, investing in otherstartups, doing all kinds of
wacky stuff.
So, like I said, that's illegal.
I don't endorse that.
I don't think you should trickpeople like that.
(09:49):
However, when you look at thejob to be done of his customers
and they're trying to get richand they made some damn good
investments at FTX and AlamedaResearch.
They had that huge stake inAnthropic, they had all that
Solana They've got right Likethey made some really good
(10:09):
investments for their customersand were trying to get their
customers rich.
So I'm like dude, I don't know.
I feel like he was kind ofgetting the job to be done if
his customer is done.
Now, like I said, I don't enjoythis, but there's a lot of
nuance here.
It's like you can't lie topeople.
If they think they're gettingbitcoin, they gotta have bitcoin
(10:30):
.
Sam Maule (10:31):
Um but, but I here's.
Here's another thing.
I'll let this sink in assomebody who, I mean, you've
done startups, you've foundedcompanies, you've been in the
game.
I've done this too.
Here's the thing with FTX itwas founded in 2019.
It all came crashing down inNovember of 2022.
If my math is right, that'sthree years.
(10:53):
Three years.
Three years to build a product,find market fit, get people
willing to pay.
How many companies do you knowthat have actually accomplished
that at that scale?
Maia Bittner (11:04):
At that scale hire a ton of people.
Sam Maule (11:07):
Yeah, get.
Maia Bittner (11:08):
Bill Clinton Raise a ton of money.
Sam Maule (11:09):
Get President Bill Clinton.
And what's her name?
Tom?
Brady's ex-wife on stage withyou.
Maia Bittner (11:17):
Yeah, I mean Giselle Bündchen or something,
yeah.
Sam Maule (11:20):
I mean.
Maia Bittner (11:21):
And that Seinfeld guy.
Sam Maule (11:23):
Yeah, I do laugh, larry David.
Yeah, I do laugh.
You're doing Super Bowlcommercials.
It does make me laugh.
It's always easier in hindsightthan to be that Monday morning
quarterback Like I'm watchingthe F1 Drive to Survive series
on Netflix and I'll watch andI'll see these races from like
2021, where it's.
All these crypto companies arethe ones that did the um
(11:45):
advertising because they hadmore money than god at the time.
I mean, we came out of covid.
Everybody during covid,everybody and their brother and
sister was investing in crypto,as we know, which helped launch
these.
But you know, it's justfascinating to see the growth
that they had um, how they didit again.
I am with you, um person.
Maia Bittner (12:06):
They're obviously really delivering, or were
really delivering on a customerneed if they were able to go
that quickly with their customerbase.
Sam Maule (12:13):
And it always comes back to and I've said this a
million times you might have thegreatest idea or product in the
world If you're in this space.
Your second or third hirebetter be a compliance officer
who knows what they're doing.
Yeah, let me just say that overand over.
I mean, we're seeing this withbanking as a service, right?
I mean, how many consent ordersare we seeing coming out this
(12:34):
year?
Maia Bittner (12:36):
And what does it always come back to In some
cases?
Sam Maule (12:38):
Yeah, I mean it constantly is dialing back to
this.
It makes me laugh because I wasdoing a little bit of research
when you said you wanted to talkabout this, so I was thinking,
okay, well, what are the bigfraud cases during my career
that always come up?
So Enron is obviously a big one, right?
Maia Bittner (12:53):
Well, it's the same bankruptcy CEO right.
Sam Maule (12:56):
Leading.
Maia Bittner (12:57):
FTX out of bankruptcy as Enron.
Sam Maule (12:59):
Exactly so.
You had the Enron crash.
Maia Bittner (13:01):
You've got this guy must be old.
Sam Maule (13:05):
It must be really good too.
You got Bernie Madoff.
Do you actually remember whenthat happened?
It was in.
It was in December of 2008,when the world was melting down.
I forgot that.
I forgot that during thefinancial crash, when literally
we were watching banks disappear, is when Madoff was exposed.
(13:27):
That story would have been evenbigger if that had come out,
say, a year before or two yearslater.
It was in the midst of massivechaos and I think, with Bernie
Madoff, I felt like the worldwas ending in December of 2008.
Yeah, yeah, I was absolutelyshocked at what was taking place
(13:48):
there.
So, and then you've gotTheranos with Elizabeth Holmes,
right?
Essentially, if you're on thecover of Forbes and you're young
, don't go on the cover ofForbes ever.
Maia Bittner (14:00):
People say so let's talk about that.
Was SPF Forbes 30 under 30?
I bet he was.
Sam Maule (14:04):
Oh yeah.
Maia Bittner (14:05):
People talk about how fraudulent Forbes 30 under
30.
Yeah, okay, spf was on Forbes30 under 30.
I was also on Forbes 30 under 30.
And people are like now.
They're like, oh my God, likeit's almost a sign that you're
going to be a fraudster and thisthing that we thought was good,
it's actually bad.
I, this thing that we thoughtwas good, it's actually bad.
(14:28):
I don't think it should besurprising at all that people on
the Forbes 30 under 30 list aremuch more likely to be
fraudsters, and that's because Ithink, like I said, with the
theme of this episode, peoplethink it's so simplistic You're
a bad person, you're a goodperson.
This is fraud.
It's not fraud, right?
And I just think that gets youinto trouble and it's rude and
(14:50):
it's not the full grasp of thesituation.
Here's an example what SPF did?
That was bad.
It was bad for consumers, badfor investors.
They lost a lot of money.
It was bad.
Here's something that I think isgood, that I've advised people
to do.
I've done myself, but I thinkis on the same scale.
So here's what it is.
Let's say, you've got anexpense tracking app where your
(15:16):
customers they just have to takea picture of their receipt, and
you've got AI technology OCRthat recognizes the characters
and automatically puts it intothe system.
Okay, so you sell them thissoftware.
They only have to take picturesof their receipts,
automatically, puts all theinformation in and submits their
expense reports.
Let's say you have no technologyand you just send the picture
(15:38):
to somebody in the Philippinesand you ask them to type it into
a database.
Do you know what I mean?
Let's say that that's how itworks.
I think that's super legit.
I actually tell people to dothat.
I tell people to meet thecustomer need first, find out if
there's any demand there, andonly once you know that people
want that then you go build thetechnology to fulfill the demand
(15:58):
.
Don't build the technologyfirst just because it's so
expensive and such a biginvestment.
I tell people to do that.
I think when you take thiscrypto's job to be done is get
people rich fast.
Sam Maule (16:08):
Minimum viable product right MVP duct duct tape
in a box, but you have to provethis out.
That's a basic concept and likeyou kind of.
Maia Bittner (16:19):
You kind of lie to people about how it's happening
, but they don't care as long asyou fulfill that job to be done
for them can I tell you a truestory?
Sam Maule (16:28):
um, so, the, so everybody, the.
Um, what is?
Criminality can't happen.
It's been so long ago.
This was in the 90s.
Everybody, this was before cellphones.
Everybody, calm down.
But I worked for a large globalbank.
We were doing, by the way, wewere doing 401k and pension plan
record keeping, and one of ourclients was Enron.
How funny is that?
(16:48):
Wow.
So Sam Mall lost a lot of stockThank you, enron.
In the 90s.
But we wanted to set up a callcenter for Pacific Telesis.
This was before the big whenthe AT&T broke up.
And so, in order to do that,they came on site to our
facility in Atlanta and we did abig presentation.
And I remember they went togive them a tour and a few of my
(17:12):
bosses were running panickingthrough the hall with headsets
and threw them at a couple of usin cubicles and said put these
on type on your computer and actlike you're on the phone.
We won that deal.
I was a Lotus Notes programmerback in the day, folks.
I wrote the call centerapplication we used in Lotus
Notes to date myself.
But you know how we won thatdeal.
I put on a headset and talkedto my wife, called her and we
(17:36):
were just typing away and we wonthat big deal and if you don't
think, that happens a lot morethan you think.
So this gets back to duediligence, you would think, and
knowing who you're partneringwith.
So I was thinking of yourForbes 30 under 30.
Remember this story about Frankand JPMC?
I think that was like $175million.
Maia Bittner (17:57):
Sorry, when you first said Frank, I thought it
was a person, but now, I realizethat is the name of the startup
that was acquired by JPMC.
Sam Maule (18:03):
There you go.
Yeah, charlie Javis, who wasanother 30 under 30 founder,
when they said she incrediblyinflated the number of users she
had.
I believe she conschemed with acollege professor to come up
with some names.
You know that fake it till youmake it mentality.
Maia Bittner (18:19):
And like you should fake it till.
You make it sometimes.
Sam Maule (18:23):
There's a line Without stepping over that line
here we go.
Maia Bittner (18:25):
SBF crossed the line.
It was illegal.
He's going to jail for 25 yearsbecause of it.
That's good.
Sam Maule (18:34):
By the way, the Binance.
Did you see that?
Yeah, he's going to jail for 25years?
The Binance CEO is going tojail for wait for it everybody
four months, Four months, Wow,Four months, Four months.
I'm going to say that one moretime for the people in the back
Four months.
Maia Bittner (18:52):
I'm just all these self-righteous people on
Twitter who are like so bad?
This guy's obviously terrible.
I can't believe anybodyinvested in him.
It's like that inkling to fakeit till you make it.
Sam Maule (19:07):
Yeah.
Maia Bittner (19:08):
That is what makes a good founder.
You need that energy and Ithink Sequoia saw that.
That's why they invested isthey saw that he had that.
You need that.
Sam Maule (19:19):
That's good how do you think WeWork got all its
money?
How do you think Adam Neumannat WeWork got all his money?
Maia Bittner (19:27):
I mean, he's got the fake it till you, make it
energy.
Sam Maule (19:29):
Oh he, Steve Flippin' Chops.
Who to you make it energy?
oh he, steve flipping chops whowe idolize like crazy, that
right, the force field aura thatthey have.
And trust me with your foundersyou want.
You know, you know what founderI love and you're gonna laugh
at me, my, I don't know if youknow him or not mainly because
he looks and acts like my uncle,david Ohad Sama at True Accord
(19:54):
One, because Ohad was in theIsraeli military and does Krod
and Agar or whatever that stupidkarate thing is and could break
my neck if he wanted to.
But he's also just thecrabbiest, funniest, crustiest
founder in the world.
But he still has that auraaround him when he speaks and on
(20:15):
stage everybody listens,everybody listens.
Maia Bittner (20:19):
Yes.
Sam Maule (20:20):
When.
Maia Bittner (20:20):
Ohad talks.
Everybody listens when hetweets, everybody responds right
.
Sam Maule (20:26):
That aura means something and there's quite a
few people in the industry Iwork for Move everybody, the
payments company led by wadearnold.
If you are a programmerdeveloper, geek, wade arnold has
an aura about him and I'mthrilled that he has right, but
it's also not a con right.
(20:46):
So it gets back to the aura isimportant.
Finding market fit iseverything and having the right
people to keep you in check.
This gets back to having a verygood board.
Maia Bittner (20:57):
And that's.
It's like the feedback andthat's why, right, people talk
about the governance.
Should have been moregovernance at FTX.
You need that and that's whythat's what helps keep these
things in check.
But people say they're like oh,tech has learned its lesson,
it's going to go in a differentdirection.
We're going to back to no, noTech has learned its lesson it's
going to go in a differentdirection.
We're going to back it.
No, no, this is the directionthat we should go in.
This is like they went too far.
Keep it in, but it's the rightdirection.
(21:20):
Yes, it's.
Sam Maule (21:21):
Yeah.
I mean, if you want to,innovating does mean breaking
things.
I'm sorry everybody, but itdoes to some degree.
The problem is this isfinancial services.
This is actually real people'smoney right, and how it impacts
them.
We've talked about so manyexamples of this.
(21:42):
Actually, a lot of them cameout during COVID.
Remember, with Robinhood, thesheer number of people that were
investing and then the youngman that was investing actually
committed suicide.
Remember that story?
Because he didn't understandfully what he was doing.
We talk about democratizingpayments.
We talk about what FinTech cando for the market.
When you're bringing all ofthis into the hands of so many
(22:03):
people, a lot of people have noclue what they're doing.
Hello, part of crypto.
I'm saying part of crypto.
Maia Bittner (22:12):
The due diligence part, talk, know, talk about,
like, how much people know, likethere's this argument that the
investors in FTX didn't knowenough, they didn't check into
the details I recently had.
So personally, I recently had astartup, I invested in it's
shutting down and the underlyingtechnology was not viable and
(22:35):
my LPs asked me.
They said, you know, is this asign that we should have done
more due diligence to understand, like, whether the technology
was viable or not?
And I said, you know, it'sreally tempting to be like, oh
yeah, I'm going to change thingsand do things differently and
things like that.
But I said, you know what?
No, our whole investment thesisis backing like a specific
(22:58):
category of person.
I was never going to do any duediligence on the underlying
technology.
That wasn't part of the planthat I pitched you and promised
you.
I didn't do it, I'm not goingto do it in the future and we're
vulnerable to things like thishappening to us because that's
our investment thesis and we'rebetting on the founders in a
specific profile, because that'swhat we're betting on and
(23:21):
that's the investment and Ithink it's going to work.
I hope it works.
It might not overall on aportfolio basis, but that's what
we're doing right, and I thinkSequoia was probably like and I
(23:49):
think Sequoia was probably likedude.
It's not that much about thetechnology of FTX.
We can see the energy in thisSBF guy and we know that he's
going to make this happen.
We know we're making the betand we're betting on him, and he
took it too far.
It didn't work out.
Everybody lost all their money,um, but I don't know that
people are like learning alesson other than right.
The controls is what's needed,the governance is what needed,
but I don't think it's likethese are actually the type of
people should be backing.
We should be backing forbes 30under 30.
We should be backing people whohave the push to maybe be
fraudsters if they take it toofar that's hilarious.
Sam Maule (24:10):
Are you almost a fraudster?
Please come and see us.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
Maia Bittner (24:17):
People who are nearly fraudsters, but not quite
I mean honestly, but like likeI said, my example with the
receipt tracking like that'sfraud.
But who are not illegallydefrauding?
People are not doing it in waysthat lose them money or that
they care about.
But maybe some light deceptionis okay.
Sam Maule (24:36):
It's a little light.
Maia Bittner (24:37):
Deception never hurt anybody right.
Sam Maule (24:39):
As long as you're not doing it to the OCC or FDIC.
It is funny.
It's especially, like I said,looking back from Enron to again
the news today with Block, withCash App and Square.
Your point of have we learnedour lesson?
No not whatsoever.
(25:01):
Is it the same with assumingthat consumers are going to
learn what they're doing?
I'm old enough to have startedworking when there were pensions
and I had pensions.
I was around when 401ks wereintroduced and I'm also around
now where, at my age, many of mypeers want to retire and can't
(25:21):
because they didn't investanything in their 401ks or they
took money out of them.
And we're in a situation thatwe are now, with a significant
number of Americans ofretirement age who are looking
to go into.
The system didn't work for me.
So have we learned our lessons?
No, the stuff's cyclical.
I don't mean to be a downer.
I still love this space, Maia.
(25:44):
You still love it, right?
I mean you're looking to invest.
Yes, yeah.
Maia Bittner (25:49):
Backing almost fraudsters.
Sam Maule (25:51):
The movies that come out of this are fantastic on
Netflix.
We can't recommend them enough.
I my favorite episodeseverybody are Maia rants.
I'm just going to be honest.
We should probably rename thepodcast to Maia rants.
I like it.
I can imagine what the uh, thelogo will look like.
All right, everybody, Um,amazing I.
We came full circle on this.
(26:11):
We got to wrap up.
We love hearing from you One.
Please do go out, Give us areview, Tell your friends about
it.
Word of mouth is the greatestway to grow a podcast.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Reach out to me on Twitter ifyou get ideas for an episode.
Maia, same thing, right.
Maia Bittner (26:28):
Twitter.
You're still out there likecrazy Twitter.
Send me your almost fraudulentfounders.
Sam Maule (26:36):
I would watch a N netflix movie about FTX.
No, I'm in, I'm I'm so in forthat.
Yeah, I'll be there, we'll lookfor it everybody.
Thanks for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
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