The Longest View with Dez Fleming

Desmond Fleming

Desmond Fleming hosts visionary business leaders who share insights on how they built their companies and how venture capital made it possible.

Last refreshed: August 14th, 2025 at 8:11 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

Cyrus Shirazi on Building a Unified Financial Operating System with Haven

Cyrus Shirazi, founder of Haven, joins Dez Fleming to discuss his journey from watching his father leave private equity to becoming an entrepreneur himself. After experiencing both the highs and pitfalls at companies like Mainstreet and Meow, Cyrus launched Haven - a unified financial operating system for startups and small businesses. He shares tactical insights on guerrilla marketing, community building, and why he chose hand-to-hand combat over paid acquisition to reach $5.5 million in revenu...

Aug 09, 2025•51 min•Ep. 6

Building Dexari, Crypto's Next $100bn Opportunity

Chuck Bradford, founder and CEO of Dexari, shares his journey from engineering student at UPenn to crypto entrepreneur. After experiencing the inner workings of centralized exchanges at Binance US, Bradford identified a massive opportunity to combine the user experience of traditional fintech with the benefits of decentralization. Dexari is building a mobile-first, self-custodial crypto platform that leverages account abstraction and modern blockchain infrastructure to deliver advanced trading f...

Aug 09, 2025•42 min•Ep. 5

Why "Saving is a Scam" and How Basic Capital Unlocks Asset Ownership with Adbul Al-Assad of Basic Capital

This week on The Longest View, Desmond Fleming sits down with Abdul Al-Assad, founder and CEO of Basic Capital, shares his remarkable journey from growing up in Damascus during the Syrian civil war to building a revolutionary fintech company in New York. As a Palestinian entrepreneur who arrived in America with $140 and no connections, Abdul built Basic Capital to solve what he calls the "cold start problem" of wealth building - helping everyday Americans become asset owners through innovative 4...

Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 4

How Understory is Revolutionizing Private Market Data for Investors

Eric Shapiro and David Fine, co-founders of Understory, join Dez Fleming to discuss their journey from Columbia philosophy classmates to building a company that transforms how financial analysts work with private company data. Eric shares his transition from Elliott Management to entrepreneurship, while David brings his experience from Dynamic Yield and McDonald's. They explore the challenges of selling to investment firms and their vision for unlocking proprietary insights from unstructured fin...

Jul 10, 2025•49 min•Ep. 2

How Fintech is Transforming Banking Operations with Jeremy Tsui, CEO and Co-Founder of Finely

Jeremy Tsui, Founder and CEO of Finley Technologies, joins Dez Fleming on The Longest View podcast to discuss his transition from Goldman Sachs private credit investor to fintech venture investors-backed entrepreneur. Tsui shares insights on building enterprise software VC solutions for the evolving capital markets landscape, where traditional banks and private credit funds increasingly collaborate rather than compete. Key Takeaways: AI startup funding has enabled 95% automated credit agreement ...

Jul 10, 2025•51 min•Ep. 3

Revolutionizing Bond Markets with Jonathan Birnbaum, Founder of OpenYield

Desmond Fleming welcomes Jonathan Birnbaum, founder of OpenYield. On the first episode of The Longest View, Jonathan shares his journey from Morgan Stanley trading floors to building a modern bond marketplace. Drawing from his experience in fixed income trading and fintech venture investors backing, he discusses how OpenYield is democratizing access to bond markets through technology. The conversation covers the massive $8.3 trillion fixed income market, the challenges of bond market fragmentati...

Jun 12, 2025•51 min•Ep. 1

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