He Hacked Finance And Is Now Building An AI CEO - EP 63 Pedro Franceschi

Today's guest is a coding and entrepreneurial prodigy. He is Pedro Franceschi, the CEO and co-founder of Breck. The headlines on his life story are quite remarkable. He grew up in Brazil, taught himself to code as a eight or nine year old. by the time he was a teenager he was he was hacking the iPhone, he was getting legal notices from Apple asking him to stop hacking the iPhone. He was starting A number of businesses where he made hundreds of thousands of dollars while all the rest of his

uh compatriots were on the beach in Rio de Janeiro or playing soccer. Pedro was coding away, creating these these companies. He has some some very deep sadness in his childhood. His father got cancer and passed away when Pedro was just eight. That left his mother to raise Pedro and his sibling uh as a single mother. She had some unconventional approaches to to raising Pedro, which we get into in the show. Obviously we get into Brex, which has been this

Just superstar of of modern financial tech. Um they were just acquired by Capital One for five point one five billion dollars. speak about this on the episode. We talk about Pedro's really open about the ups and downs running this business. his own personal ups and downs struggles with mental health. He writes about these things. He talks about them in the show. Um, just he's twenty nine years old, so this dude has lived quite a uh

quite a juggernaut of of a life so far. And these days he's using AI agents in some what I find imaginative and and uh comical and and inspirational ways. He's got a team of AI agents running his life. We we and we speak about all that. And so um I should note Brex is the flagship sponsor of this podcast at our video series. As such, we are deeply journalistically conflicted in this episode, nonetheless. This is Ashley Vance. You're listening to the Core Memory Podcasts, and off we go.

Pedro, thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for having me. You are your royalty in these parts. Um you guys have been such amazing supporters of everything. Oh thank you. So, yeah. Very glad to help. We're big fans. I feel extra pressure uh uh doing this one. You Uh At the end of last year, you got married, you just were acquired for five point one billion dollars and now you're on the Core Memory Podcast. This it's all happening. It's all happening. It's really all happening.

Um, I wanted to I wanted to for people to get to know you a little bit. I mean, look, I cover I covered All kinds of inventors, startup founders, you know, and so some stories I see repeating a little bit and there's there's echoes of that in some of your biography. I'm just gonna read off a little list here for people um super quick.

And then dive into a couple of these things. But, you know, if you throw your name into Claude or Chat GPT and ask for like a quick quick background or you know, it's like Ages eight to nine, teaches himself to code entirely via Google, no formal formal training. Age eleven, begins jailbreaking, iPhones and iPods. Um, age twelve, you know, starts creating apps. You're selling apps to to friends at school.

Age fifteen to sixteen. Um, well then th this is kind of when you start the your journey heading towards Brex one day. Yeah. Um Meeting your friend, um, Enrique. But but you know, so some of this is familiar. I mean, uh it reminded me a lot of George Hotz, who I've written about. Oh no way. Yeah. Hacker, he was he was busting. We used to be IRC buddies back in the day. Okay. You know, he was he was getting to the Playstations. But I mean like

even among these people I've covered, like quite exceptional, especially running you know, money making businesses as a kid. Um, so y and there's some of this in the things that I read, but I mean tell me where you just always you you you hit up on a computer and it just it just makes sense. So you Yeah. So uh I think the biggest luck of my life was I found out what I loved doing when I was eight or nine.

And most people don't have that luck, but I I did. And um my uh my gr I grew up in Brazil. I'm from Rio originally and uh Growing up, um I lost my dad when I was eight. Um and uh he was a big nerd and used to spend a lot of time in the computer. Uh we had a computer at home which was uh relatively rare uh uh back in Brazil. And uh that somehow was something that was around my life since the beginning.

And I would say when I was eight or nine I just had this very deep curiosity to understand how the computer works. Uh and then I opened it up one day and I saw there wasn't anything interesting inside the computer. So I thought I I thought, well, there's something else going on here that makes this actually be so a ma so magical and so amazing and I realized it was software.

And then as a kid, uh in in Brazil, um I wasn't really exposed to software engineering in any capacity, but the internet existed and the internet's this amazing thing uh uh that, you know, allowed people like me to learn something that I would never be able to learn otherwise.

So I started Googling how to code and started learning uh C and C back when I was nine. And uh learning that and English at the same time made it a little bit more challenging. Uh C isn't a particularly friendly language, but it's all the resources that I found back then in I guess two thousand four or five. So uh so that was uh that was sort of the the backdrop of how I started coding.

And and what I really found uh remarkable about computers was you just had this ability of taking it whatever you wanted with very little uh sort of permission or need to go do something. And then uh around the time I was twelve, I I became a little bit of a better uh engineer. Um, and uh was around the time that Apple launched the iPhone. And and if you remember back in two thousand eight or nine, iPhone the iPhone only worked with ACNC here in the US.

So there was this whole thing of when you wanted to use the iPhone abroad, you had to jailbreak it to get it working in other countries. It would jailbreak it and then do the carrier unlock. But jailbreaking was a uh the the hardest part. So I was using a lot of the tools that existed online to make that happen.

And then a new iPhone came out, the iPhone three G. I ended up finding uh a a way to jail break it that was one of the first ones back then in two thousand and nine. And I got sort of known in this like iPhone uh jailbreaking community. And then uh weirdly enough, that's actually how I got uh I started working. So uh uh I used to you know, a reporter in Brazil realized that there was this kid doing you know, doing, you know, jail breaking things online. You're like a celebrity.

Uh I I I guess uh I I wasn't really known back then, but because but I used to just publish things online with my handle which was Ph. Um my name is Pedro Henrique, that's why I Ph like the chemistry pH. Uh and and some somehow this this reporter realized I was Brazilian. Um I think it was because of my IP address in in this IRC forum. And uh he reached out and said, Hey, there's a Brazilian involved and it's like iPhone Joe Breaking community

And then he asked, Oh, how old are you? I wanna know more about you and in my head I thought, Well, if I tell people I'm twelve, they're not gonna take me seriously. So I tell people I was fourteen. And in my head it made a huge difference. Yeah. So uh so uh and then uh and then uh right around that time that was sort of in the Brazilian press and uh and a company in Brazil that was building mobile apps uh reached out to me.

And um and I ended up going to work there right around the time I was twelve, uh eleven or twelve. And uh I first I I told my mom, Hey, this company wants to hire me. And she said, No way, what are you talking about? You're twelve, uh, no freaking way. But then I convinced her to come interview with me, so she went there, uh, and I started working there part time. And it was great because it was the first time that uh I actually met professional software engineer.

Like what does it look like to to really be sort of world class? Uh and my first boss, uh, Ben Jackson was uh fantastic in in you know, he he worked at New York Times after building their mobile app and you know, he he he went to Penn. So it was a just like a, you know, US grade soft engineering uh experience, which I I don't think

I think was very formative. And then um right around the time I was fourteen, uh I did two things that sort of got me got me in trouble. One is I I ended up reverse engineering Siri to make it work in Portuguese. Uh and uh terrible Nuance and Apple were not very happy with me. Um and then the second was um I built this app for the iPad uh called Quasar, which you could run, you know, apps on Windows the same way you can now on iPad, but that was in two thousand twelve, so uh thirteen years ago.

And uh that was really fun. Uh and I put this online and I used to charge ten bucks per per download in in CDS store back then, which was a sort of parallel app store. Um and I made like three hundred K when I was Fourteen. Uh so I had to explain to my mom what that money was about. She thought I was doing something illegal online. Uh but uh anyway, so so I did all that and then

Can I pause you? Yeah, go for it. Because I I read about some of this and I just had I had a couple couple of questions along these lines. I mean Your mom goes to your first job interview with you. You said I think you were twelve for that one. So like what does that look like? You you both walk into the office together? Yeah. Yeah. So so it's funny because I think your parents make a few decisions that

They may not be aware at the moment, but they drastically change the course of your life. And I remember around that time there were all these articles that came out that Bill Gates' daughter could only spend 45 minutes staying at the computer.

And then my mum looked at that and I and he he here was her son spending fourteen hours a day in the computer and well Bugates know a thing or two about computers, so who am I to allow that? And I think she was uh very fortunate to to see what I was doing with uh a little bit of a bigger aperture.

And see that I wasn't like playing games. I was actually building something productive that people got value from. And uh and and that sense of being a builder, which is really the the biggest luck of my life, uh realizing that I love to build things. was something that I think she re she saw the impact it had on me and on the people that used the things I built.

And I think that unlocked her to to to allow me to to not only spend a lot of time at the computer, which I needed, but also at the same time, uh uh just just really open to these experiences of going in and working, even though it was very counterintuitive and

you know, my family and, you know, sort of extended family friends were all asking her, you know, this kid is twelve, why is he working? And she's like, You don't understand. He wants to uh and and thankfully she did it because If she hadn't, I think the course of my my life uh would have been very different. What's but what's hap like you go in for this job interview together and so what? The two of you are just sitting on one side of the table?

So it wasn't so we went to we went to have lunch uh with uh with the two founders of that company and then it was Brazilian or Brazilian? Uh one of them is American, the other is Brazilian. Okay. Uh the American one went to Brazil a ban uh he went to Brazil for carnival uh one year and never left. Uh I stayed there four years. Now now he's in the US, he's in New York now.

But um but it was uh it was really funny just to see uh um you know like like a like a professional soft engineer in Brazil in Rio. And then um we went for this for this lunch. And I was just talking to them technically about the things I was building and my mom was like, I have no idea what's happening but sounds like they are excited, so that's a I guess it's a good sign. Um and then at the end she they were like, Look, we think we think he's good. We'd like to work with him And she said,

Um, I have only one thing to say. Uh he's twelve years old, so if something happens to him, I'm gonna kill you. And then and then they were like, Okay, understood. Um so so she was she was very protective, but but in a in a way, you know, obviously it was a very different environment. It was this company where, you know, I guess the the the second youngest person was probably like twenty six. And then I was twelve, so um I I I don't know if I would have the

the courage to let my my son do that. But she did it, thankfully, and uh and things worked out.

Uh yeah, okay. That's that's kinda like how I pictured it in in my head a little bit. I mean, look, lots of lots of young kids code, um, you know, and this is uh this is a difficult question'cause I'm asking you to to tell me how awesome you are in some ways, but I uh I'm more curious how your brain works because I aga yeah, I've met so many people. They this is a common story they start.

Coking at a young age. But I mean, what you're doing, it is it is it's again, it reminds me of Hots just'cause it's it's on the exceptional side. How does the what like what do you What are you particularly good at when it comes to coding? Why were you standing out at that I think I think it was just this uh uh you know, Paul Graham has his essay about uh, you know, the the bus ticket theory of genius about these uninteresting obsessions.

that when you multiply over the course of one's life you you end up in a in a in a in a pretty interesting place. And to me I just had this deep curiosity to get computers to do things that they were not designed or supposed to do.

and uh and almost sort of proving that it could it could it could happen from a technical standpoint. Um so that that was probably the backdrop. And and I would say benefit that I had having started that early is because I feel that when you are twelve or fourteen or you're very young.

the creative energy that flows through you when you're building something is is almost like the purest kind because there is no other reason besides love for the game. Right. There's no other reason. Like I didn't need to make money. Thankfully my

My you know, my m I grew up in a middle class family in Brazil, so I you know, I I was lucky to not have to you know, I wasn't wealthy growing up, but I but n n it wasn't it wasn't for the money that I was making. It was because I was just very deeply interested in the craft itself.

So so that to me is always been the thing and and having this sort of uh respect for the the the creative energy that comes when you have an idea and saying, Um, how do I manifest this thing into happening? And I remember when um I built this app, Quasar, uh, and I was fourteen. And it was actually a very tech very complex uh t problem from a technical standpoint. You had to

you know, make the iPad become you know basically instead of being single processor rendering the UI, you had to make multiple processes standard UI. So you needed to build a scheduler to coordinate different things rendering at the same time on the screen, which was technically complex. And that to me was uh I I just had a sense that it was possible and uh and and when you have this sort of deep connection to this thing you wanna see in the world, I think the way

you show up and and and and the hours and the time and the energy, these things all go away and you sort of uh uh surrender yourself to that process in i in a weird way. And and I think so much of My my journey as a builder was how do you connect to that energy? Uh, and it's funny because I was telling my team that, you know.

n now of AI and a lot of the things that we're building, uh and being much more hands on as an engineer, uh uh in in a world of, you know, a company of like thirteen hundred people and a much bigger scale.

weirdly enough, connects me back to that very same energy that I started with and and uh it i coming from a very pure uh uh standpoint. So I I think that's been the biggest driver for me. And and of course you know, uh a lot of curiosity and and and energy and time, but i it came from a very sort of creative place versus from um like a like a like a work

uh in the sort of traditional sense of I I need to do this and make money and there's parts that are good, parts that are not good. No, it was all great. It was all really fun. And so you're you're in Rio, I mean, all your peers are running around playing soccer, having a good time going to I'm going to be. And you're like locked in your house, like in a yeah, in y like in your room or or Exactly. What did it look like?

I mean I I I I had a I I the time I made enough money I I bought myself an iMac. Um so it was me and my Mac and just like hours and hours and hours of like coding uh on, you know, Vim or Textmate. Back then was a text editor we used to use. Um and a lot of lots of IRC channels. Uh that's how I met uh uh Geohot originally. Uh and and you know, a lot of the folks involved in Cydia and

the original Geobreak community m mobile substrate. There were a lot of different sort of uh work groups back then, but It was uh it was that was my universe. It was sort of living this parallel reality. Um and uh You were you were kinda you were a nerd. Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. If I if I can ask, you know, when I was a teenager both my parents got cancer and um you know Sorry to hear. Thank you. And and likewise to you. I mean I mean you're eight, were you were you an only child?

I have a younger brother2 years younger Okay. And so and your dad gets cancer when did I mean if if you're okay talking about like was this um a multi year protracted thing or So he had uh he passed away when I was eight. He had cancer for about six years, so most of my childhood. Okay. Um he had a lymphoma, which is obviously a relatively rare kind of cancer.

Um and, you know, cycles of ups and downs over the years. So moments that he was very well, moments that he wasn't so well. Uh, but uh it was a a big part of my my childhood. Like how do you I remember, you know, in the moment for me as a teenager, I mean, you I don't think it was obvious to me, sort of how it was changing me. But you know, a year or two go by and and you can kind of feel it. Um, was it obvious to you? You're so young or what is

It's funny because I I I I think I fully processed that. Uh maybe five years ago. Yeah. When you when you sort of with the benefit of hindsight and perspective and living your own life and understanding that, you know, life is finite and all of that. And and then you sort of appreciate the Uh you sort of resignify an experience you've had as a kid. And and that was probably when I really realized, but for sure in the moment there were things that were

that affected me, right? I think for a lot of this this thing of building and and coding, I think was how do you insert yourself in a place where you control all the variables and the entire thing is in your control because The outside world isn't So I think there was a There's definitely a relationship there. Um, a and look, I think my mom did an amazing job raising me and my brother after my dad passing away. But it you see you get exposed to, you know, yes, life is, you know, not infinite.

you know, shit happens. That tha that kind of thing early on and that certainly shapes your your brain chemistry in one way or another. And so and then your mom's a single mom from that point on. Yeah. And she was right. I mean, it sounded like your family was kind of doctors and scientists and

Uh no my mom she was my mom was uh she was a psychologist. Okay. Uh but she she worked in, you know, psychology and then sort of marketing and, you know, more sort of a corporate life. Uh and uh and and you know, worked in a few different companies in Brazil uh uh as I was growing up. Um so um yeah, that was the backdrop.

And were you like pining for Silicon Valley or you thought? Oh no. Um so so my original plan was to just like live in Rio. Like most people that are born in Rio, and by the way, I understand them because the city is amazing. Um they never live this they never leave the city.

So my brother, for example, uh, he's twenty seven now and he's the sort of archetypical karioca, like the person born in Rio, and he would never I think he's never gonna leave. Yeah. And so that that was my sort of destiny. And then Um when I s we started our first company in Brazil in twenty uh thirteen. Uh How old are you now?

Alright now I'm 29. Um, so when we started that back in twenty uh thirteen, um that was the first time that I actually left Rio and moved to Sao Paulo um and then decided to apply for schools in the US because, you know, we all I always wanted to build something at a sort of US level scale, there were not that many big tech companies in Brazil back back at that time.

And uh we came in twenty sixteen for after building uh Pagarmy, our first company, there was effectively a version of uh Stripe in Brazil. And then we we moved to the US in twenty sixteen to uh to Stripe Brack. And had you seen what the Collison brothers had done with Stripe? It's so funny. We so we we we we thought we were the original inventors of this idea of like gosh, like payments are really bad for developers and and engineers. Let's build a better version.

And then uh one day we we met someone and they said, Oh, is it just like Stripe? And we're like, What is Stripe? Uh so uh we we we met Patrick and John back then actually. We we we know them for for a while and uh They went down to Argentina or something. Yeah, they they actually I think they worked there in the very early days of strike. yeah but you didn't meet them on

I didn't. I didn't. I think that was in 2011. Uh I was still maybe doing too much showbreaking, but uh but you know, it was uh but we we actually met them in Probably twenty fourteen or fifteen. Uh that's when I met I think I met Patrick for the first time. And we've stayed in touch over the years and uh, you know, we we have huge respect for them.

So you're doing this jailbreaking and then Pagarme is is a payments system. I mean, did you feel this pull towards finance or it was just this is a problem that So weirdly enough, um the the ha the way I got into it is when I was fourteen, uh Master changed jobs to a company in Brazil that was building sort of a version of Square, like mobile mobile payments in um in you know. In your phone. And uh and I went to work there initially to fix uh an iOS security issue.

So I I and and there I was inside a payments company, initially through the sort of iOS security angle, but very soon realizing how bad payments were and how uh old and archaic those systems were. And then I met my co founder Enrique um at the end of twenty twelve and he was in the sort of okay, I am I want to accept payments online. That is a really challenging thing to do. Um, there isn't a better solution.

And then I was like, Well, I was inside a payments company seeing how bad it was. So it was a little bit, you know, one plus one equals three from the the perspective of the the idea. And then as we started it, uh um payments became this thing that we went very deep and and started to understand better. And um and and one of the things that I think was very big for us since that very inception was um building from the bottom of the stack up. So we realize that at the end of the day

You know, payments companies were limited by these uh vendors that they needed to use to actually interact with the the foundational payment rails. So Visa, MasterCard, like the equivalents of ACH and and Fedwire. And um and and as an engineer to me I had this like very um

almost religious view, that you can never build a fundamentally better customer experience unless you control the entire stack all the way to the metal. A little bit the version of, you know, uh um you know, Steve uh jobs used to say that, you know, if you care about your hardware y about your software, you should be with your own hardware and just control the whole thing vertically.

Um and we did that first in our previous company in Brazil and we built the entire processing stack and you know, the acquiring rails and Visa MasterCard connections and all that. And then we did the same again at Bragg.

And I think that was a big reason of a lot of the success and the, you know, where we really started to innovate and being able to go after, you know, a lot of very large enterprise companies, AI companies, because of the the the vertical integration we build into the whole product. Um so so weirdly enough, I think the engineering mindset Shape. the way we ended up building both companies actually.

Okay. I'm gonna be gratuitous here and just lean in. Um since Prax Prex is our sponsor. You told me before we started, you haven't seen our videos. Um that we make. And and so I just want to show you I'm gonna try to do this artfully so we can have the camera see it. So you have not seen this before. You've not seen it. No, but this is cool. So we're doing a episode in Detroit and GM gave us a loner Wow. Car. I want that. How do I get that?

So GM gave us this card for the week. Their lawyers did not properly um The the I I found some some wiggle room in the contract to to do with the car as as I saw fit. So we gave it to these guys to wrap it. Neat sexy brexy. The intelligent finance vehicle. Fan fucking tastic. Well this subtle product placement is awesome. The truck is not really the point of this. That is so cool. We are here to check in on the floor. Uh yeah.

I love it. I love it. You know, so usually around this time we have an ad read. Um And I thought since you're here, I don't know if it's putting you on the spot. Would you would you like to They only give me thirty seconds. Well I'll give you thirty seconds. Um no look I think I I think the reality is um

we we believe that managing spend is a fundamental necessity of building a great company because you become what you spend on. Right. The company, you're, you're, you literally are a byproduct of your spending and resource allocation decisions. And the fundamental problem is as a company gets bigger, you look at the financing and they are responsible for one hundred percent of the spend, but they only make five percent of the decision.

95% of the decisions of spending in a company are made by employees and leaders everywhere, um, in in different offices, in different countries. And that is an incredibly complex problem to coordinate. And a lot of what we believe at BREX is that quite typically as a company grows, because of this amount of complexity, is you have to choose either to um put in a lot of controls in place.

um and slow down the company because you need to have control to make sure the money's going to the right place. Or you take off controls and then you increase speed. So speed and controls are just trade-offs.

And and the reason we built BRACs is to break that trade off and give companies the agility of a startup all the way uh into becoming, you know, some of the largest companies in the world um that run on BRECS today. Um so, you know, today we serve um You know, um More than thirty five thousand. 35,000 stars. ご視聴ありがとうございました To the world's largest corporation. Yeah. Uh yes. I've done this before.

Robin Hood, you know, it we you can go to our website and see the customer list, uh so which is really exciting. But one of the things we're really proud of is uh, you know, when we look into AI. Um, we spend a lot of time making sure that we think about the role and how the finance function will fundamentally change. And all the big AI labs today. And uh, you know, like Cursor, um, Vercel, of course, OpenAI and Anthropic.

Um, you know, and and you go down a list and Mercore, uh, you know, all these companies run on BRECS because of uh looking at our AI vision and believing that this is the way finance is going to work. And of course it looked at all competitors and all the alternatives in the space and still ended up going with us, which is a a very cool uh uh proof point, I guess, of the way we're building the product towards

That was longer than 30 seconds, but we'll allow it. We'll allow it. What did you think of sexy Brexit? I loved it. Uh it's really cool, right? Very cool. I wanna get a car.

We can make that happen. We can make that happen. Um, okay. So, you know, you're you're you meet Enrique, you guys Apparently get in a fight, a Twitter spat at first, but then become best of friends and and business partners. You both head off to Stanford together. Um it's kind of amazing that you both got into Stanford. Yes. Yeah. He convinced me to apply, actually. I I decided I I I I heard what an SAT was for the first time.

I think was in s mid September twenty twenty three. And deadlines were in December. So that was a busy two and a half months. Okay. Yeah. I bet and then and then so you you get in Stanford, you guys you don't stay around too long, about eight months, I think. Yeah. She did like a semester and a bit. Uh three quarters. Yeah. Three quarters. And so you're you're already on to um you're you're thinking about your next idea. I mean the one part that I picked up on was that you you guys

get into YC, you start with a VR company and then it kinda pivots into BRECS. I mean, that's a pretty dramatic shift. I was I was curious about a couple of things. I mean, as you're going through this um very um unusual childhood and and working on th these different projects. Did you what did you picture in your head? What was your dream? Like was finance the and So uh it's funny because we moved to the US and we spend

four or five years building fintech in Brazil, you know, one or two before Pagarmi, then three and a half at Pagarmi. And th the funny thing is when we came to the US, we had this idea of, you know, fintech is a solved problem in the US. Brazil is this you know, shitty country where, you know, fintech is still unsolved. That's why it was an opportunity. But here we wanna be at the forefront of technology.

So we went to this um Microsoft store at Stanford Shopping Mall back in twenty sixteen and we tried uh um um the first Oculus prototype. Uh like like an early, early version of Oculus. I think Oculus Rift or or something. And were amazed. So we thought w let's just go build that. And uh uh in a very like uh uh naive way we we thought we could do it. And then, you know, we spent, I don't know, two or three weeks playing with the hardware and the software and technology.

And we realized that, you know, it re we d we knew we knew nothing about hardware, nothing about optics. And then we we decided to pivot to something that we knew a little more, which was software. So um it took us maybe three or four weeks to pivot again. And then and then in Y C we saw that

All companies needed a corporate card and they couldn't get one. So they went to the banks and they got rejected. The bank said, you know, you have no revenue history. And they said, Yes, that's the point. That's why I'm st that's why I'm a startup. And uh So even though you might have like Seven million bucks. Yeah, you couldn't you couldn't get a corker card. Exactly. Um and and we thought, well, but they have cash in the bank, so what's the risk?

And the banks didn't get that. So that was the original idea that uh allowed Brexit to scale was underwriting the companies based on cash and effectively build a better a better American Express. That was the original original thesis. And Well instead of Amex. Brazilian Express, yeah, that that's uh that's uh uh so so so the myth goes. Okay. But uh but uh but yes, uh it was a four letter domain pronounceable in English uh with uh a backdrop name. Okay. Uh backdrop story for sure.

Um so so that that that's how we got we got it off the ground and And turns out it was uh one of the things that was interesting between Brazil and the US is there's actually this weird um um you know negative correlation between how developed an economy is and how I think bad their payment rails are. So, you know, when I was born in Brazil in ninety six We had real time settlements. Like the day I was born, i i it was not cheap, but you could settle a wire in real time.

We're in the US now, uh, in twenty twenty six, right, twenty nine years later, and you still don't have, you know, you have like partly, but you cannot like not all payments are in real time. Yes. And and the reason is because when you look at Brazil in the nineties, we had hyperinflation. So the inflation was thirty percent a month. Yeah.

So so if you didn't clear in two days, you lost like, I don't know, like five, seven percent of the value of the money. So there was a very deep investment in the payment rails because the economy needed it. And then the US, because this is such a stable economy and such a stable currency for, you know, hundreds of years, I I don't think was as developed.

So so weirdly enough, we we saw a lot of room to uh to actually revamp a lot of the financial stack in the US in a way that was bigger even than Brazil just because of the scale of the US economy. People explain this to me sometimes. I mean, it was you know, if you go to Europe, they're doing all kinds of amazing, like very interesting stuff with financial systems. When I go to China, it's insane. Yeah. Um, even like

I went to Nigeria to shoot an episode of our show. You know, there's parts of it that are like really backward, but then there's other parts where you you're Yeah. Your cell phone at like whatever, the chicken shop. And and uh and then you know, South America's in Mexico are quite famous for innovating um on financial tech. And so the US always seems to be behind. It reminds me of like when I was starting out as a reporter, we were just

woeful at telecommunications and Europe was so far ahead and then and then like the iPhone like sort of rescued the US and made it interesting again. But Um, I mean people have told m you went over some of the points of this like stability, but uh other people said to me it's it's because we have our banking system is

We have thousands of banks in the US. So um, for example, like Brazil in the the central bank uh created this payment rails called BICs, which is effectively a real time uh settlement between any two accounts. you can use your phone number or your tax ID as uh as a key. And then it found it finds your bank account and it can I can transfer money to you right now, like almost any amount.

which by the way has other uh uh security implications in Brazil which the system ended up handling later, but that's a a separate story. And then in the US, but in Brazil you have really probably thirty major banks.

In the US you have thousands, like two or three thousand banks today. So when you want to roll out anything new at a systemic level, you have to go in bank by bank and make sure they comply. So even if you look at uh RTP like real time payments, Today, uh, the ubiquity is of course the big banks support it, but if you're transferring to uh a community bank or a regional bank, a lot of times they don't support.

Because, you know, technology i is really behind in terms of adoption. So being more concentrated also allowed for uh a faster innovation cycle. So but I would say it was uh the fact that the economy really needed it, right? In Brazil, we because a lot of the payments were in cash and and offline um and and and and even on cards.

Um the government saw this need for first sort of bringing and modernizing payments. And the central bank in Brazil, I think, did an amazing job with that. And and then second was moving more of the economy outside of cards. into something that the government had more agency over. Um and and these movements were easier just because of like one the pain point that existed and second the concentration of banks.

I I'm going like w I was gonna go chronologically, but now I just wanna talk about this for a second. I mean so the US is is like destined to be woefully behind the rest of the world on on many interesting financial innovations. Like we're we're stuck unless we we kinda change the And the US has this like has a lot of uh uh a sort of particular things that, you know, when you look at the the the amount of the economy and and and like credit cards, for example, of course, you have uh You know,

you have uh rewards, which is a very big part of the decision making factor. Um you have uh uh you know no real time payments and some things uh and especially most money movements actually not real time today in the US you still have a lot of ACH

that takes two or three days to clear. Um you have uh you have you know, there's no for example, something you have in in in Brazil which I think is fascinating, is you have a clearing house for receivables. So because because the interest rate's so high and the country

uh is so dependent on uh on on on on factoring of any receivable you have when you have a contract or something. You actually have a centralized clearing house that you can register a contract and get a prepayment on that contract. It doesn't exist in the US. So there's a lot of things that are that are very different. Um, but uh at the same time, it creates a lot of opportunities for companies like us to to go in and do new things.

And I okay, and then, you know, this next question comes with some baggage because you've just you're you're part of you're gonna be in whenever the deal closes part of Capital One. It's tr you know, traditional um Financial player. We I I just always found it was shocking, you know, like'cause I followed Stripe. I knew Patrick and John when they were like, I don't know, there's like eight people in the room or something like that. And and and then just the story um you were describing about

Startups had money in the bank, people wouldn't lend to them. I mean like it's sort of I mean in some ways it makes sense because this is the story of business is that incumbents move slow and don't see opportunities. In other ways I find it really shocking yeah that like stripe could become such this foundational layer, this massive multi, multi, multi billion dollar business that that the traditional

financial companies were just apparently, you know, willing to to see to these two Irish kids, uh, you know, Brex just took off like a rocket ship from this this insight that you guys had and and you being able to code. all this infrastructure to to make it happen. Um yeah, like like are there still Are there s i is that typical this is the same as I would see if I went into the energy industry or defense, or is is finance uniquely um kind of conservative and bad? I I think I I think it's

you know, if the if the history of technology serves us any any any uh backdrop, I would say I I don't think finance is too dissimilar. What what I would say is I think the interesting aspect is First the just the scale that finance has in terms of how businesses operate and how uh how ubiquitous it is as a part of what makes

just the US economy work. So for example, you look at, you know, BREX and we created this new category of, you know, modern, modern uh uh software and financial services together. Um, you know, when you look into the US economy today, We we made a lot of progress, but 97% of the US economy still runs on traditional corporate cards. 97%. And and and there's a lot of room to grow in terms of just expanding what we've done and serving the rest of the market.

And uh when we when we when we, you know, got approached by Capital One, the the interesting thing for us was we started just to think, okay, where can the company be let's say in five, seven, ten years in a standalone path? And then what if we we join forces with uh uh yes, an incumbent, but actually I think the most stacked forward bank in the world.

um that, you know, really realized that you could bring in data and machine learning and technology to revolutionize credit cards and the way underwriting was done. And and by the way, there's sort of fascinating stories of how Capital One started that. Um and what could we do having that platform at a scale? And as we started to click into that, it was impossible to unsee it.

And and and really the the the way to think about it is how do you bring the scale, brand, credit of, you know, major US financial institution with the technology and product we have? And and in a in a very interesting way, the thesis behind this is exactly what you were describing, is how do you accelerate the adoption curve of this technology that we believe should be core to how every business runs. But do it at a scale that is uh country affecting, right? That you actually inflect.

uh um the the outcomes of so many businesses that depend on these things to to to run and operate and are still working, you know, in uh in with technology of like thirty, forty years ago. Hello geniuses. Let me tell you about E1 Ventures. They are a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, a longtime supporter of this podcast, and a longtime supporter of big

Fantastic, world-changing ideas. If you have such an idea, hit up E1 Ventures or send me a note and I'll put you in touch with E1 Ventures. It's uh it's quite a quite a deal for listening to this podcast. Um, thank you again, as always, to U1 Ventures for their support. So like and these things I mean, they do work sometimes, these types of arrangements it's also

not uncommon for the big incumbent company to to reject, you know, the the the the innovation arm that they have purposely set out to acquire. Um, you know, for that very yeah reason. Yeah. So it's funny because one of the things that well, uh two things I was very impressed by Capital One. One was uh just the speed So from inception of this idea all the way to signed definitive agreement was a little over forty days. So they they actually moved with a lot of conviction and speed.

And second was the fact that being a founder-led company really changes the calculus for how you do things. And uh and speaking to to Rich and the Capital One team, um, one of the major things that that they they they realized was look, you know, the most important thing for us to think about m as we make this work is don't crush the butterfly. So how do you how do you leverage the scale and the distribution and all the benefits of Capital One, but also keep the things that are uniquely bracket?

and made Brex into what it is today, alive and and growing. And uh the way R Rich the founder describes it is uh, you know, how do we just add water to the BREX plants? Uh and and of course, you know, be very mindful about the the the the risk management aspects and the aspects that are inherent to being a bank. Um, but but also leverage the scale and the distribution. So I would say there's been so much thoughts on how to make this as lightweight of an integration as possible.

to preserve the momentum that Brax had as a standalone company and actually accelerate it. So um you know, what when you look into the the outcome here, um, we really think in three to five years the company will be just dramatically bigger. than than what it would be on a stand-along basis because of the the water and the scale that the capital brings.

Let me ask one annoying reporter question. I mean, you at one point you guys are valued at twelve point three billion dollars in twenty twenty two. Um is a different world for a variety of reasons. You sell the company for five point one five billion. I mean, look, I think anyone would be happ happy with that outcome, but it is the nature of the beast then that some people compare your previous valuation to this number and

We're in this this like total frenzy of of you guys, um some uh uh some companies that shouldn't be named, um, you know, all um competing against each other very, very vocally, very aggressively. I you I saw some

some ramp cheerleaders, you know, celebrating this five point one five billion dollar number. Um yeah, I mean it's gotta be a weird feeling to like have you're having this great moment. Um You're there's a lot of money, you've accomplished something, mm it marks a moment in time and then you know, I guess it's competition, but then for for it to be portrayed by some people once.

So so I think there's two sides of this. So the first one is um one of the things that we realized in in twenty twenty three is the company was in a very different position than today. And and we decided to sort of aggressively turn things around. And uh that was end of twenty three, early twenty four. And and one of the things that we did is that was very um impopular and and externally back then is we actually did a a big reset on the internal valuation.

So so, you know, yes, of course we we raise it twelve billion dollars. That's you know, that's a fact. But at the same time, how do you create enough upside for employees so that a five billion dollar outcome is a win? And that's what we did. So what we went to the board, we we actually repriced all the employee equity at a much different price. And that effectively uh really changed the picture for employees and the team.

And, you know, investors that invested at twelve billion, of course, you know, got their preference back. So so i it ended up being actually a very good outcome for everyone. But the the key thing was, um, in the moment where things were were the hardest, like three years ago. actually looking ourselves in the mirror and saying, look, um, you know, uh I I I always say, you know, hard decisions, easy life, easy decisions, hard life.

And the hard decision was we let go of, you know, almost thirty percent of the company, we repriced the equity, we changed the way you operate a lot, we promoted a lot from within. Uh we took out two layers of management in the entire company and we we started this thing that that I called Brex three point oh. Um so so so that backdrop was how we got to where we are today and by the way, where we're still accelerating even faster than when we close the deal.

uh uh when we signed the deal back in back in uh January. So I would say the best way to think about it is we made a lot of deliberate decisions. two and a half, three years ago, that made this a win for employees because we decided to face reality and and actually look at it with the lens of everything eventually converges to public markets. Whether you like it or not, that's the only price signal that really matters.

So how would you think of the company today if it was a public company? And how do you ground ourselves in that reality? Uh as hard as and painful as it might be, because, you know, the fairy tales of twenty twenty one were just that fairy tale.

So then and then I think the second piece is, you know, of course there's competition in the space. It's a massive part of the US economy, massive part of fintech. And it would be ludicrous to think that there wouldn't be. But I think the the best way to think about it is, you know

us and all modern competitors in the space, we're still three percent of the US market. So so the question becomes, how do you go after ninety seven percent? And and what we decided to do at Brexit is we said, look, the reality is the chances of h hitting two orders of magnitude bigger scale.

Together partnering with a massive incumbent are fundamentally different. And uh and as we started to actually just see the scale of like, for example, like Capital One spends six billion dollars a year in marketing. Um, we spend, you know, Around one percent of that. Um, six billion dollars in R and D. We spend, you know, two or three percent of that. So so when you just apply the scale into the problem and and it'll just accelerate what's working.

Um the the question for us was how do you solve for the ninety seven percent? and and how to be the clear winner there and subordinate all decisions to that, including structure, the capital, you know, all of that. Because for me it was always about At the end of the day, I wanted Brex to become a major part of the US economy, Brex to outlive and outlast me. And the same way I look back, I left my previous company in Brazil ten years ago and br and and Pagarmi is still second or third largest.

player in Brazil in online payments. Um I want the same to be true at Brex and I want to be here for the next many years. Uh f and and but but still I think the the scale, solving for scale and just the reach of this technology in the way the average business runs was uh fundamentally a different thing to solve and it's still a very early day. Well please introduce Capital One's marketing budget to sexy Brexit and

them down what's possible. Yeah. Um and okay. And and as far as like you've been on this um

I mean it just feels like a whirlwind, man. I mean, you're starting, you know, a business around twelve and then here you are, you're twenty nine. I mean it's been w nonstop, one thing after another. You've you've been actually like to your credit, um

Subaru, but you write these essays from time to time about about big moments in your life, mental health things, um things about uh you had this night really nice note about your mom. Um and I know you talked about some of the decisions she had made, but you know, she seemed um

Like a kinda like unconventional thinker around y uh around a variety of th things y with this this kid who was who was living an unconventional life. And so anyway, I found you're like really you're quite thoughtful and and open about these things. Um Do you is there like part of you though, yeah, that just feels like you've been on this you've just been carried, you know, not like you were um not an active participant, but I I mean more that you've been

bounding from one thing to the next on this ride. Like is is there I always ask the collisons this. Okay,'cause they're like two of the smartest people I know. They are um polymass. They're interested in so much different stuff. Mm-hmm.

I know financial tech is very important. It's not the particular thing that like I think about all the time. And so, you know, I'm always like, What do you guys what do you guys like want out of life? You know, because because is this Is this just a thing that you made when you were young and it turned into this huge

hit and you're you're trying to they always talk about increasing the GDP of the internet in the world. And I I see that, right? It opens I went with uh Patrick to uh Israel and Palestine and I saw people who were

setting up businesses on Atlas that like otherwise just could not incorporate their company and now they're selling to the entire world. So like I I get it. I'm not trying to undermine something. But um like is there part of you that just feels like you've Are you making all these conscious decisions or you've just been pulled on this journey? It it's a great question. I think I think I think it's a little bit of both because I I would say on one hand, y you know, I I really like to believe that

Especially now you you can with AI, learning new things is a fundamentally lower barrier than it's ever been. So if I said, look, I'm gonna learn how to make X, I think it's possible to learn and master that. At the same time, I think the sets of opportunities that exist that are interesting, they tend to be related to domains that you explored in the past.

And and I think your ability to recognize what's a good opportunity is also higher in things that you have more exposure to. So I don't think we would have been able to build BRACs if we hadn't built our first company in Brazil because we just knew too much about payments. I we we we were just very deep in the weeds. We knew the issues with

credit card issuing, we knew like what the acquiring side looked like on the merchant side. Um we knew a little bit of credit under underwriting. Our first company was also regulated by the central bank uh and we're the officers of that. So so there were a lot of conditions. that made Brex possible. So so in a weird way, I think it creates the set of experiences that make the next thing possible. And and I think there's something that that Jensen says that I think is really true, which is

you know, at the end of the day, it's easier to learn to fall in love with what you do than to do something that you love. Because I think when you think about Love and and sort of uh

deep connection to a craft, ultimately something that I think is very deeply encouraging is when you feel the sense of mastery with something. And n not from an ego perspective, but from the perspective of I just understand every layer of this problem and I can think about second order effects, I can think about implications, and I can see the world through a a much bigger aperture. because I have this unusually high exposure to this problem.

And and I think there's something about that in FinTech where, you know, the more you think about, you know, and we see it as of AI, like we, you know, we spend a lot of time

looking into like what actually changes when you when you start to deploy AI agents in companies. And of course the early things are, yes, there's a bunch of cost savings. Like second there's, you know, compliance increases and data quality increases and automation increases. But But then you look into like a layer deeper and you see like, okay, how much time does the does the does the US economy spend like managing expenses?

And turns out it's fifty million hours. And then we're like, okay, like well, how many things can we do possibly that contribute fifty million hours to the US economy? And, you know, we'll build these agents that automate all the T and E process and uh and and and you know, and you see the impact inside a customer and it's pretty remarkable the reactions, the finance teams where they say, Well

I actually didn't even think this was possible even with technology today. And this is like, by the way, on like anthropic and open AI, like that are sort of the bleeding edge of AI and deploying AI internally. So so but then it's like, okay, how would we even recognize that that opportunity existed.

Um and and it goes all the way down from, well, you know, yes, we were building corporate cards originally and corporate cards are a big part of how spend gets initiated in the company. And turns out that, you know, initiating and making spend decisions requires you know, a lot of sort of delegated decision making. So you need to create tools that empower the financing to be in every decision. What can help with that AI? And then, well, how to make AI really, you know

really effective at scale and give the financing control over how AI is operating. And then you build a lot of agents. So so you you sort of you sort of cascade this down and there's seven or eight hops from the original idea all the way to the outcome that we delivered today. And these things were recognizable because of a brief pattern. So so I think that's the part that's like hard to understate. So I wouldn't say

uh to overstate. I wouldn't say that it's I I'm sort of a uh like I I am I it would be irresponsible to not that's something that's not fintech. Like like but there's something to be noted about the fact that you get to certain places because of where you've been in the past and uh I I I'm grateful for the the the experiences that sort of exposed me to the the the issues and the problems and the solutions that I was able to build by having been on this track. And do you think this is going to

Maybe it's really h I mean, you're still so young, twenty nine. Um y yeah, I read about you being obsessed with space documentaries when you were a kid. Um, I I hit you up on a on an AMA asking what you were interested in outside of of fintech and you mentioned space and energy. Do you think there's like another chapter in your Life where you dig in on something like that, or is that something maybe you're investing in and it's on the side?

I mean I I am in the in the sort of a spirit of both topics, you know, I'm I'm actually very curious about robotics now and trying to understand Wh what's at Frontier? And of course you see Tesla and Optimus and all that, but also what are sort of more, you know, bootstrapped versions of that and and new companies building things that are are pretty uh interesting. So so that's been a uh a the a big area. Um Mean meaning like you You just keep an eye on it or you're I I I I'm getting

Mostly keep an eye on it and and try to, you know, aim to invest in a few things. But but I would say that's sort of an uh newer curiosity over the past maybe like three to six months. Okay. Um when you look into like things I'm spending a lot of time

um is is um you know, I I am really interested in this idea of virtual employees. So how do you actually deploy virtual employees inside a company that look and feel and act like an employee? So they are real people with real names on Slack, on email, engaging with people, joining meetings.

Um I got obsessed with open claw over the past like three months, uh and uh you know, automated my entire life. I I can tell you more about that, but uh but these are the things that I'm spending a lot of hours now. Please do do you have a do you have a human admin? I do. D and then uh is this human admin competing against your virtual

Um they they they I would say they don't overlap as much, I would say. Uh deliberately. My my my human advent is amazing. But uh I I would say no, so look, I think I think the how we got here, right, and I think Opus 4.5 was AGI or very close AJI. And Opus 4.6 was the the sort of missing m the sort of rough edges that you know got a little better. So the way I think about it is

You know, electricity was invented in December. We're now in March. Uh what are the things that you can build of electricity now? And that is the the big question. And and to me, the the fundamental capability jump. was uh that of course coding models were the the very interesting thing that that and you see clawed code and all these all these uh Asian harnesses uh evolving. But I actually think the most interesting property

That was unlocked was um the capability of a model to self-bootstrap. So basically One of the things that we're experimenting in Ibrex is actually using OpenClaw to create virtual employees. So um we created this like virtual recruiter, for example. Uh we call him Jim. Uh and Jim is literally a Slack entity, a Slack person, has a his own email.

And engages and talks to recruiters internally. And the thing, the whole, the whole challenge was how do you build gym without writing a single line of code? Um and the idea is and and of course there was still semi technical people involved because it was one of our first uh early iterations of this. But but the really interesting thing is you see a recruiter engaging with gym and then saying

You know, for example, I I just saw this before coming in here. Uh a recruiter was saying, look, can I take a look at this person's application? I have a sense that this resume was fabricated. So how do you how do you look at that? And then the agent looked at that and actually built a capability of screening a resume and understanding if it was fabricated or not. And that was never coded by anyone.

And I think that's the fundamental leap that we were missing. And a lot of what we're spending time thinking is how to deploy this safely. Of course, inside Brex and there's a lot of things on the security side that we're also spending a lot of time. Because I feel the challenge that the industry is in now is people say, Well

You can't predict what models do. They're not safe. Therefore, I'm not gonna use something like open claw in a very, you know, s in a very important environment because who knows what's gonna happen. And the stance that we decided to take is saying, well

How why don't we just solve for that security aspect and then actually deploy these things internally and leverage the technology and and see where the frontier really is? Um so you know, we we we're actually gonna open source this, but we actually build this. entire like technology layer. Um, we actually call it crab trap, uh, funnily enough, where the idea is when you have something like OpenClaw running.

Um we the best way to monitor what an agent is doing isn't to have a human looking at it. It's to actually have another LLM looking at it. So we build this thing that effectively intercepts all the traffic coming out of like an open claw instance. And routes it through a notter LLM that's through uh an HTTP proxy that screens all the traffic and says, is this something that a recruiter agent should be doing? So for example, should a recruiting agent

send like a harmful message to a candidate, no. Um and it can go in and block that request at the network layer while the agent itself is even not even aware that that's happening. And the really cool thing of that is you can actually run this at scale. And the only technology that we think will be able to monitor agents is actually agents themselves.

But you build this almost adversarial effect where you have one agent monitoring another agent. Um, and we've seen surprisingly good outcomes of this thing so far. So um does that mean that we're deploying, you know, OpenCly and virtual employees in the most critical workflows in the company? Not yet. Um we're deploying a few. But the really interesting thing is instead of saying, well, let's hold back and not deploy these things because

the at the frontier, we haven't resolved security yet. We said, no no, why don't we just solve security, which is a a systems problem? Uh it's a distributed systems problem more than anything else. It's an engineering challenge. And then the technology and the LLMs and the state of the art of the models is already like wildly capable. except for this one problem that we'd rather solve a g around. Um so that's been like fascinating.

And then we and you were saying and you're using OpenClaw like in your life? I mean, is this the stuff you're talking about? Or you No, this is we're using OpenClaw in a bunch of different contexts. Yeah. Virtual employees is one. The other one is uh Um I I use it personally to do everything. Like what? Uh at this point. Um like I literally run Brex through open claw right now. So so the the way it works is

I I I think most there there's a lot of productivity tools of AI, right? And I think the thing they fail is that they They don't assume that the world is a very noisy place. So when I go into Brax, Brax has like thousands of Slack channels, like thousands of people, thousands of I I receive like hundreds of emails a day. And the question is like what matters? Like what what to pay attention to? So so I build this um

autopilot system that starts with this uh signal ingestion pipeline. And basically the way it works is it screens my email, my Slack, uh Google Docs, uh WhatsApp, a few different data sources. And then but the really interesting thing is I decided to build my automation in my life around two concepts, um, people and programs. So programs is almost like a project.

that I want to be updated on. So for example, financial performance of the company, um, capital one integration, um, you know, AI strategy internally. And and the thing about a program is it's very declarative about what I care about and what I don't care about. And then what it does is it screens those signals in the context of these programs.

And then organizes, you know, interactions that happen that I should be aware of or action items. And it does the same for people. There are also people that I care about. So I declare who are the people that I care about. And there's probably twenty five people in the company, uh, and in my my my life more broadly. I declare those people and what are the things that I actually care about?

And then the signal ingestion filters with the lens of these people. It denormalizes signals and then it processes them. And then it produces this very clean uh summary of everything that's happening in the company that I should care about and all the action items. And then there then there's a really cool part, which is all the action items that I should do are things like, well, I finished the customer conversation.

I need to go in and update this the deal team on that account. Or I had a meeting, someone asked me for an intro. Or all these things that are follow-ups from meetings. And the cool thing is because I have the signal ingestion. I can go in and I have this other thing called an auto resolver that it can go into the list of to-dos that I have and say, how do I automatically action this task based on the context from the meeting?

So for example, like let's say I go in and I say, you know, um we we should talk about I want to figure out how to get that car. Uh let me have a follow-up on that. So then I can have granola listening to the conversation. Granola is running on every meeting that I have. ingesting that into the signal ingestion pipeline, creating an action item. And then when the auto-resolver runs, it says, okay, what's the context for this to do this taste I have? It will go back to the node.

And then it can say, Well, I can send you a text or send you a Slack message or you an email, depending on, you know, whatever is best. And then it can draft that message automatically. And then all I have to do is click a button. So all these are building blocks and skills that you can build together. Uh you can you can do it either on OpenClaw or Claude. I actually have it running on OpenClaw now, to effectively decompose the CEO job.

of like ingesting signals, what matters, building a summary, determining tasks. Making those tasks happen, monitoring my team for those tasks, so it also can do follow-ups automatically. Um and I can also go then and build skills. So for example, I can go in and say, well, a way to auto-resolve is a slack message. Or is there's a skill that I created called review a doc as Pedro. So there are things when I'm reviewing a document or a product review or s presentation that I always ask.

So I like for example, like, you know, what what is the most important thing that this thing should be driving? And like how did we choose that thing? Um, what's the bottleneck making this thing happen to go faster? Um, you know, why aren't we moving faster? There's like three or five questions that I always sorry, you you you basically make that into a skill.

And then you build that into the pipeline. So it's basically Lego blocks that it can put together to accomplish like really complicated things uh through these systems. And of course, like I I I I as an engineer I had to go and build these things. But um and I think I'm gonna open source this, but it it's basically this entire like CEO or I guess like almost like you know, leader in a in a information based company. uh uh workflow. Um and it it's been really fun to build it. So

And it sounds like I mean you just got really sucked into this and and and you just mentioned it. I mean you're yeah, you're doing this yourself. Like yeah, yeah, like it's the AJ psychosis I would say. We have a rule at home which is uh no AI Saturdays. My wife is like'cause like I I I'm basically like talking to my open club all the time. Like I'm sending voice notes. Yeah. And it's the best developer experience because it can be like on the way here, I was like

I I I I had this like synchronization issue on my data pipeline. So I was like literally sending voice notes saying, Hey, like change this, change that, do this, do that. Uh and it's amazing. Like I can be on the car, I was in a way mode, like coming in here. And uh getting getting a bunch of things done. Uh so uh but the problem is it's so easy, they start doing it all the time.

So then I can be having dinner and sending voice notes. And my wife's like, Stop, let's have dinner. Uh and then Saturdays no AIs, uh no AI at home, which is uh which is kind of a fun thing. And when you were when you were um

living such a frenetic life and and and getting pulled in all these different directions and you you kinda you know, you talk I've had a panic attack, you talked about having a panic attack, you talked about getting into meditation. Oh yeah. And reading and sort of changing your nighttime ritual. Like what kind of things do you read at night?

Gosh, uh right now I I'm reading a uh totally different thing. I'm reading um Bantering Franklin's biography, uh uh by Walter Isaacson, which is actually quite good. Um I've read that one. Yeah, yeah. Very interesting. I mean I I I I generally like uh the Da Vinci one's also very good because I I think there's this thing where, um, in a weird way, um

a hundred, a couple of hundred years ago, or even longer, I think uh the sort of Renaissance man, this like multifaceted person that knew a a a little bit or actually even a lot about different domains was a big thing. And um intersection of arts and science is something that I I like a lot.

And uh you know, Brandon Flankling was a not only of course had a massive effect on uh as a founding father and and and the definition of what the US is But but also as an inventor and you know, uh he he was so deep in in electricity and things like that. And uh that's that's very that's very remarkable. Journalist. Um journalist, of course. Uh so uh and uh you know uh um uh ambassador for the US, right, in in in France for the first time in the right after the

The independence. So so it's uh it's remarkable to read it. Do you like nonfiction? I I I almost always read nonfiction. Uh I read your book, uh the Elam Book, which is very good. Uh and uh you can you y and I think I think so much of what I enjoy is trying to understand uh someone's frame of mind. And one of my favorite questions, um It's a weird question, but it's uh what is the experience of being you?

And it's a it's a profound question because there there's there's a few like mental models in your head when you look at the world that sort of shape your experience of acting and being a person. And and I think that's very profound. So um when you read these like biographies that go very deep. I think ultimately what you're getting to is like what is the experience of being this person? And and great biographers, as I'm sure you know, like

Ultimately, that's what you're trying to crack, right? You're trying to you're trying to there's all these stories, and it's almost like, you know, there's this elephant that you're touching different parts and they're trying to triangulate like what what what is the entirety of this?

person. And uh and I think biographies are great at that. Um I mean I I read I read, you know, I read I read a few technical books on um, you know, the art of doing science and engineering from from stripe press. I I read a lot of things that are relatively technical.

Um, but I think biographies and things that go very deep, uh the NVIDIA way uh from uh about Bob Jensen I think I think gives you that same mental model and and ultimately I think, you know, it's the the the Charlie Munger thing, you know, at the end of the day, uh uh being successful is a collection of like thirty to forty to fifty good mental models and just applying them everywhere and and uh

And and I think seeing how remarkable people have different sets of these like thirty, forty, fifty different mental models I think is uh is pretty fascinating. Yeah, no. Um by RV yes, uh we could talk for a long time about that. Still fine. What was it like? What was the what were the I I set myself up for that, didn't I? Oh I w You know, uh I mean I really couldn't talk for hours. It was it was um it was funny in some ways'cause I I at that moment in time I wanted to do a book.

I'd gone to see uh SpaceX uh I was working on a magazine story about Elon. I I had not like set out to do like a biography on Elon Musk, but I you know, I when I went to SpaceX it was it was just so um So different and and further along than I pictured in my head and it was just right in Los Angeles and it was it was like it was thriving and just had this energy. And anyway, that's what kinda sucked me in. And then I got interested in Elon, you know, i interacting with him and reporting.

The story and then so anyway, y you know, I sign up for this thing but I I had no idea what I was getting into in the sense that you spend three years thinking about this one person and that's like your job. It it's like it's very all consuming. You know, you start to have dreams about that person. Um all all the things you mentioned you're trying to do hopefully you're trying to do a good job and so you're not you're trying to

You're trying to talk to a bunch of people to get at what you're talking about. It's like it's like Elon's always going to represent sort of like how he wants to be represented. And then you're trying to talk to all these other people to triangulate

I don't know if you ever get to truth, but some some version of that that you're conveying, at least you can you can give people well this is how these other expi people experience him and and you know and and try to create as full of a picture as you can. But then you get into this Um it becomes very strange, right? You you uh I w uh you know, it's like I'm thinking about'em all day. Mm-hmm. You're like having dreams. Like I didn't sign up for this. I want some peace.

And and so I mean there was just part of it that I didn't expect a lot of what you're talking about though, you're you're like trying to put yourself in this person's shoes and then then there's this strange thing where you're like you're

I don't know I I don't know if I was ever really trying to pass judgment, but you are passing judgment on certain things for the people that are gonna read this book. And then it's it's just like a lot of I don't know if it's like pressure but but if I think if you're wired the right way. You kind of you want to do a good job at it. And and so yeah, it's very strange. And then um after that, you know, that book.

became such a hit that there's just all these things I didn't sign up for, you know, then now you're like the Elon guy and it's it's like it's like, yeah, I found it fascinating, but I'm interested in lots of shit, you know? Yeah. I don't I don't need to be the Elon guy for ten minutes. 100%. Uh it's uh But you know, I think the gift of uh you know, gr grey biographers is uh well, just books in general, right?

I I don't think people realize how remarkable it is that you spend three years of your life dedicated to this and I can sit down in four days and consume that. Yeah. I think that's such a profound, such a profound realization. Um a crazy amount of work. Yeah. Uh when the heavens went on sale, the one I just did, that was six years and it's just it's like it is it's kinda crazy. I mean, I love it. That's actually the most fun part is the journey, you know, and like the process and It's amazing.

time you finish the book, you've worked on it for so long, you've read it so many times, you're just like, I never need to look at this again. It's just like now I want to do the next next thing but that that Exactly what you said is also what I love about magazine writing. It's why I liked working at Business Week for so long was that I got to go in a in a

smaller form than the book, to go like live your life for some version of your life for three, four months and and like inhabit these worlds, right? And like see what people's mental models are like and see what they're Um, you know, it's not always perfect'cause again, people are are putting on personas and things like that. But if you If you spend a decent amount of time at it. And I'm sure the more you do it, the better you get at cracking it.

A l a little bit, right? I think. And and but that's the best part of the job. It's like you just get to see it's like, oh, this is how like Brian Johnson lives, this is how Jensen lives. This is how, you know, uh Jennifer Downall lives. It's it's like yeah, it's it's just cool to to uh Sort of shed your own ego for a bit and just just watch. Yeah. Yeah. Inspiring. Um well I wanna be mindful of your time. I just I just have like a couple last I mean, they're more just like um

Just out there questions. I guess. I mean, I I'm just so curious what you think like the future of money is in twenty years. Yeah, I think I mean I think I think you're you're you're gonna have a lot of the the the the sort of payment, you know, evolution, right? Y you see Easy Visa visa MasterCard already positioning themselves on stables. You see of course Stripe doing a lot of moves there.

So I think that's gonna continue, but I actually think that's less interesting. What I think is more interesting is the the decision to spend money itself. And and I fundamentally believe that, you know, you become what you spend on as a company, as an individual. Like you become your resource allocation.

in terms of the people you hire, in terms of the the the decisions you make, the technology you use, right? You know, one of the the quotes that I I that I really like is, you know, we shape our tools and our tools shape us. So so I think the way I I think there's gonna be a a a fundamentally higher level of thinking behind how companies make financial decisions.

And and you can imagine that a lot of it is this problem of context and and just aggregating information and understanding what are the implications of this decision, uh, to to of course the revenue, the costs, but but even to things like the culture of the company to the the vision and the mission and what are you trying to do. And these things cascade down all the way into a single individual Wednesday, right? So uh, you know, uh uh you know, there's this thing that um

Um, I forgot who said it, but uh life is a picture, but it'll live on a pixel. So at the end of the day, you know, we can talk about these visions, but it has to materialize on a mundane Wednesday. Like how how does that change your mundane Wednesday? And I think when you have this this uh uh autopilot to the way companies make decisions

And you fundamentally change the calculus of where capital is going to be more aligned to where what matters to you as a company and as an individual. I think that's a very big unlock. Um and and I think it's it's gonna be more profound than people realize. And uh of course AI is going to enable that. And you're gonna need all of course a lot of the payments technology, agentic payments, like agentic commerce, all these things will will play a role. But ultimately, like

what's the icing on the cake and what's the cake itself? And the cake itself to me is this idea that, you know, the the the quality and the ability and the the level of discernment that you're gonna have in financial decisions because you can have so much of this context is like what if you had the best CFO in the world making every decision, you know, the best

you know, founder in the world helping you make hiring decisions. Wha what if you had the best person in the world deciding where to where where to expand next, where to grow, how to grow, how to look at your unit economics. And I think that will become true in the next few years and uh hopefully we play a big role in it. But it it's like it's gonna happen regardless. So then covetes just like if everybody has some sort of perfect

information and they have the ideal CFO and the ideal all these positions. I mean, so you just still end up competing on on your product and your your So that's the that that's the fascinating thing, which we we have we had a lot. So for example, we were building this recruiting agent.

And a and I think the models are b because of the amount of like post training that goes into them, they they have this relatively uniform view of what is a good candidate. But then the question becomes, what is a good candidate for us? And and and I think it's um that like like focus and constraints uh are what give meaning to your choices. So so when you have to go to a recruiter and you say, what are you willing, like where does this person need to spike on and how do you hire for that?

instead of sort of lack of weaknesses, which is where the models generalize and go typically, right? Mod it's very hard to make a model say no. And and I think that's a very profound learning because that is the hard question. It's like what what what where where does like spikiness matters, right? Where does it matter to be, you know, astronomically different?

And and and I think that's where the judgment comes in of that what kind of company you want to build. And I think that's an inherently human decision. And you're giving it that flavor? Yeah. That's the challenge. It's like how do you give that taste of brexiness? Yeah, because there's there's like a world where the AI recruiter doesn't want you or George Hotz because you look

Pretty weird. Exactly. Yeah. And one of the things that we do is like one of the factors that we really like is, I mean, of course I'm biased by this, but it W who were people that did something um at a moment in their life where they had n absolutely no other reason besides

Love for the game. Yeah. Love for the craft. And well, people that are coding in high school don't have any reason to code. Maybe getting into college, but you can just tell based on the kinds of things they build and the relationship they have with the craft.

Um, people that were doing completely different jobs, like someone that was in finance, but ended up going super deep in AI and quad code and build this massive thing to automate their jobs. They didn't have to do that, but they did it anyway. That was driven by something pure. So so that is something that we care about a lot and we want to teach our recruiters to do it. But that's us. That may not be true for every company. And I think the this ability to understand the ethos.

of what you care about when it comes to this function and separating that from the technical excellence, I think is a really important thing. Because the technical excellence, I think, will be true no matter what.

And and the and the the the point about the ethos, the reason a model can discern that is because like that is a choice. And and and you can't really argue with You know, is is it better to hire someone that's uh, you know, started coding before they had to in their lives or to hire someone that went to an academic route and uh has a PhD in machine learning and and in NAI and and uh is gonna go do research at OpenAI or Anthropic.

Like it depends. Depends on what kind of company you want to build. Yeah. Uh and I think that's the that's the part that's really interesting is like if you just take out all the things that are not about the ethos away, and you give that job to the models, what will what matter what what remains? And these are the harder questions, the ones that dis that require a lot of discernment and um and I think it's where people should spend a lot more time.

What's what's the UI on your Clawed your claw bot? Uh the UI. Uh I have a I have a I have an autopilot UI that has like all my all my tasks and like all my my entire system. It's like a just a a little web UI. But it's almost like a cloud project? Uh it's uh no, it it it's like a website, it's like a server that it runs. And then I I talk to it on Telegram and uh I use Discord for uh multi-channel and like sub agent coordination and things like that.

So like if you're if you're trying to set up a tennis match on Sunday at three PM, are you like are you I would just send the voice note. And then and like and like it would uh what if it needed to book the court and Um it has well it actually has uh uh something that we're shipping at BREX very soon. Uh it has access to a way of creating virtual cards on BREX through an MCP. So we go do that. Uh go in the website, put a credit card on the file, come back and say, Hey, it's done.

agent would go to that. Is there like any way I'm spending three days uh assembling and answering questions about my personal taxes in ten years? No way. To do my tax return. Absolutely no way. No wait, that's not Well, and it's gonna happen on both sides, right? The the IRS will also be doing your taxes for you and then uh it's gonna be Yes, exactly. So it's uh I I I think that's probably true already to some degree, but but you know, I I I tell people

Everybody's gonna be audited because the cost's gonna be zero. Yeah. So uh that'll be an interesting feature. Like this drives me insane. It's like all I do I it's a lot of hours just to gather up all these stupid documents every day It's unbelievable. My computer could just be doing this all year. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and and and the thing that's interesting is uh you know it's a fundamentally different problem. Uh like it it it's almost like

There's the the tax software and there's the bookkeeping job. And the bookkeeping job part of it is interacting with the tax software. But another part is gathering out the documentation and going in and asking you about specific expenses and transactions and what they were and what they weren't and uh Yeah, that th the the bookkeeping job is the is the really interesting part, which will become part of the software eventually.

So what like what what I mean accountants become like um lawyers? I mean they're they're just handling the highest the most difficult question. I think so. I think so. And and I think the my my my thesis is like for example on accounting I think you still have a bookkeeper because you need a CPA to file your taxes. That's like a legal requirement. Like if you're filing someone's taxes on their behalf, you have to be a CPA.

And and the the beautiful thing of the system and the way it works actually is a CPA has some degree of personal liability in case there's something wrong with your tax. And that creates this very, very good back pressure in the system where, well, because someone is personally liable, they better make sure that the data is correct.

So the bet they better make sure the tools they're using have a high enough bar for accuracy and control. So so I think that's actually a really powerful thing where I like even if you had like Harvey and and let's say the l the law the law uh you know, agentic AI. uh sorry identic identific law firms like doing doing really great work. Having a human in the end. uh matters because, you know

Yeah, we we we talk a lot about this idea, like what if Jim makes a makes a very big mistake on hiring? Like do you hold Jim accountable or do you hold an employee accountable? And actually you need the same oversight mechanisms that you have of employees. So Jim has a manager. There's someone on the recruiting team that's actually Jim's manager. So signs off on all the action. Has to have a hard talk.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And give feedback, right? And uh give access to tools and set a budget.

And uh, you know, ha have ways of giving feedback and make sure the feedback's incorporated. Um and and and fire Jim and change Jim in in case things go wrong. So, I mean, firing is m more more uh more figure speech, but ultimately the idea I I I think this idea of oversight over agents and how do you get humans comfortable with the fact that agents are doing things on their behalf I think is a very fascinating problem. Have you had a AI agent pay for something on your behalf?

Yeah. Like like um through Gracks or through the syllabus or Uh through well, open claw through a card, a BREX initiated card, a Brex created card. Okay. Like you th you're doing this all the time or this is No, so so I I mean I I I don't do it like I probably do it like once a week, I would say. Um even though I make an online purchase probably like every

two or three days. So so I would say it's like a third. But but I I am I'm also trying to deliberately push the boundaries. So a fun one was uh we had a couple friends that were going to the movies and then they they sent us hey here are our seats And then I I literally just forwarded the message to uh to to my my open claw and I said, buy the ticket.

And then it went online, went to the Cinemark website, found the movie room, found the the the time, uh, found where they were seated and said, Well these two seats are taken, you should you should take the ones next. Um and then I was like, sure. And then it went online, put the card details, made the payment, and it was done. And then I got an email confirmation. And I didn't touch anything. Do you have a name for your open class system?

Uh I I do. It's uh it's a funny it's I I I call it lemon pie, which is a it's a weird thing because when I was twelve my first AI agents uh I call lemon pies my favorite dessert. And every sort of a bot that I do in my life is called lemon pie. So I was like, Okay, this thing has to be called lemon pie. Uh but uh anyway it was a was a sort of funny historical accident. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well I want that system. I I look forward to you making all these things available. Right for Yeah.

I hate to admit expenses so much. Um, I've always hated that. It's pretty funny'cause I worked at the New York Times and Bloomberg for a long very m many years and their systems were so archaic and when I did this start up and and started encountering things like wax. I was like, Oh my God, thank That's great. Heavens that I no longer have to toil at all these things that destroy my soul. No one likes doing an expense report. No.

No, and and I'm just yeah yeah, and I'm just it's like self defeating because I I just don't do it then. Um well thank you so much for coming in. Thank Thanks for having me. All the support and um when we finish this, if you have a few minutes I wanna show you a cool video. Yeah, thanks for having me. Ashley Vance and or. Yeah. Thank you so much to do. Thank you.