Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Song: Identity platforms must verify identity, not determine access or qualification

Rick Song · From reluctant founder to $2B valuation: The story of Persona | Rick Song (Co-founder and CEO) · May 8, 2025 · at 27:12

Persona co-founder and CEO Rick Song discusses how Persona defined its product boundaries by refusing to expand into background checks or credit underwriting.

0:00 / 0:26exact quote · 27.0s
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“We always knew like, if there's an identity platform, what we should always focus on is this core question of, are you who you say you are? And like, you know, with all that, like all these other additional things, but we knew that like the question that we didn't want to answer is, you know, things about you, right? Like, are, you know, credit worthy? Are you a background check? Like, because of my work a lot on Square Capital, I knew pretty in depth that there's a hard separation between Are you who you say you are? Versus, you know, like, hey, should you have access to something and all of that?”

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