The Exchanges

Q So how many years until how many months until a hundred million run rate?

A We were one of the fastest ever. Um, I mean, so if you go back to it, we, uh, I think announced it. I want to say in March of. 20. 22, I think is when, uh, Paki McCormick, um, uh, discovered the company deeply, become a very good friend. I think wrote the article talking about it as well as the 8.1 billion dollar valuation. I believe that was in March of, of 22. Um, we launched in Feb of 2020. I think we hit our first, you know, million run rates sometime in the spring, maybe by early summer. And so if you look at the traditional charts, There's, it's now become a bit of a meme of like time from a million to, uh, a hundred million in revenue. Our chart's actually wrong. That's from like time from incorporation. I want to say like 15 to 17 months from a million to a hundred million. It was explosive.

AI assessment note: “I want to say like 15 to 17 months from a million to a hundred million.”

Q Yeah. And so, okay. So that's the interesting space. What else was on the list?

A So that was on the list. Um, we, uh, I, there was various like random crypto things. We were, you know, we had been interested in this stuff, probably going back to like, 20 12 and routine. So we spent a little bit of time around that space. Um, uh, you know, we spent some time, um, you know, helping out different friends, starting businesses. Uh, we were close with Z at Rogue. We started the, the direct to consumer kind of Um, healthcare business folks at candidates. So we spent some time on that kind of world. And then I think where it got interesting again, as we came back to the things that we actually knew in a bit of our roots. And so there was almost two variants of what eventually became ramp. Uh, variant number one is what turned into ramp. And we can come back to that at some point. The other was this view of, you know, in the, in the card space, um, which is, it feels almost voodoo from the outside. It's unclear. It's not clear how you start these things, how the business model work, but we knew this because we had spent a bunch of years inside of Capital One, studied the models really deeply, um, knew the history well and had some credibility in the space. Um, we're also very interested in the partnership business, um, and the co-brand business. So let's say that you were, um, you go to Best Buy and at the very end someone says, would you like to open a Best Buy cre…

AI assessment note: “there was various like random crypto things... direct to consumer kind of healthcare”

Q And how I believe what they did. Well, first of all, like one of them started as like a dining club card, but then another one, what they did was, I think they just handed out credit cards to farmers in central California, something crazy like that. Right?

A So the history, so it started by a guy named AP Giannini. Um, I think it was bank, uh, bank di America, di Italia. It was basically bank of Italy started by a very poor, uh, Italian immigrant, uh, is functionally how it got started. And his first big opportunity, um, really was in like the, I think it was like the earthquake of 19 oh six in San Francisco were effectively, you know, he was working and kind of supporting and lending to like grocers, immigrants, farmers, folks who would come into SF and trade after the earthquake, there were fires everywhere. A huge portion of San Francisco burned down. And he was one of the only people that supposedly the story goes, he set up a table Um, out in the middle on Market Street and he started making loans then and there on the spot. And he went from this like tiny bank to effectively like started going everywhere. And, and his history is pretty interesting. He, he, uh, so it was, it was kind of this, um, bank to, to merchants and then eventually to consumers in, I think in the early 1900, uh, Woodrow Wilson was trying to supposedly encourage lots of different banks to go and lend to Small businesses and the emerging middle class, right? This is the things you hear about. It's like the Americans are buying their first car, their first washing machine, all that kind of stuff. And, um, you were very big on it. And so he's, he was, he, I …

AI assessment note: “So the history, so it started by a guy named AP Giannini.”

Q So what do you do if someone didn't pay?

A I think that was why they had the local bankers, you know, they would go and work. I think they would try to collect for a lot of years, but that was like, is this like early 1900 banking? Um, the, the part where you're getting to was By the time I think Bank of America was the biggest, certainly the biggest bank in the U S it might've been the biggest bank in the world. Um, it was just enormous, enormous scale. And I think the town, I want to say it was Fremont. Um, and so this was in the fifties. And I think that it was something like 60% or 70% of everybody who lived in this town were customers of Bank of America. And, you know, if you were going to a department store, they had this, this branch that you could go. And go to, but you know, if you were going to like, um, you know, any random, you know, hard goods store, uh, you couldn't get a loan for it. And so they took this bet and they said, let's just get the rest of the town. Let's get everybody. And we're going to send you cards. I think they mailed everybody from the town. I was like a four or five digit card and, uh, you could go use this and you could say, put it on my card. Um, and you would go and pay the bank back later. Um, and it just exploded. Um, suddenly, you know, they, almost everyone in the town became customers, and people were using it all the time. People, once they got access to credit, started being a…

AI assessment note: “the part where you're getting to was By the time I think Bank of America”