New @ThePeelPod with @MBTannenbaum Employee #1# at Brex. Founder of the modern billboard ad. We talk joining Brex when they were in a kitchen, almost walking away right before the launch, scaling to $300M+ revenue, the time Masa offered him a billion dollars, why you should take the hardest job available, and how he’s learned to think like a founder at Sofi, Brex, and taking Figure public as CEO. Timestamps: 0:00 From Brex employee #1# to public-company CEO 1:28 Operating vs managing a career 3:23 Why he took the worst business at SoFi 7:34 The Big Rock framework 11:01 How to get real customer feedback 14:56 The best nose for value in fintech 17:46 Why banking the affluent beats down-market 21:11 What Figure is, and $1,000 vs $12,000 25:41 How blockchain kills double-sold-loan fraud 26:59 Do you actually need to use blockchain? 28:06 Why memecoins took over crypto 30:46 Masa's billion-dollar offer 36:29 Leaving SoFi for two kids in a kitchen 38:25 Look for a hair-on-fire problem 41:20 Six months from quitting to a unicorn 44:10 The finance guy who ran Brex's marketing 46:20 Inside Brex during the SVB collapse 51:16 The two SoFi insights behind Figure 54:46 From direct-to-consumer to marketplace 56:41 AI can’t get you better credit ratings 58:56 Figure is a modern Fannie Mae 1:00:26 Not everyone wants tokenization 1:01:31 Buyers who commit before the loan exists 1:04:06 Following customers into first-lien mortgages 1:06:41 Buying Kiavi, the fix-and-flip leader 1:12:26 Why more fintechs don't become marketplaces 1:14:46 The AI risk in outsourcing customer acquisition 1:18:26 What going public actually takes 1:20:16 Life as a public-company CEO 1:22:51 Getting shorted 1:24:11 The gas station test 1:25:46 The reverse pyramid of big corporates