The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 11 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Perret: Plaid raised a $12M Series A knowing millions would fund patent defense
“We raised, I think it was a twelve million dollar Series A, and knew that we had to spend at least a few million on, on this lawsuit.”
Perret: Plaid fought a patent lawsuit for 2.5 years as an eight-person startup
“When we were an eight person company, we actually got sued for patent infringement on a handful of patents that under today's patent standards are not patents. So for example, passing financial data via an API. In that case all of Silicon Valley infringes on, …”
Perret: Most consumers view banks as a tax draining money via fees
“Most people treat treat banks as, or think of banks as a tax on their lives. You put your money into a bank, and it's just a matter of time before they charge you enough fees that it's gone.”
Perret: Plaid landed JPMorgan Chase via its wealth management division
“With Chase we sold directly into their, to their wealth management division to help them build, kind of, wealth analysis tools for their advisors. And in, in that case, yeah, we'll sign an actually narrow MSA. And over time iterate that MSA to be many other us…”
Perret: Embracing tech identity provides an advantage when meeting with banks
“There's a certain value to having a dichotomy to truly being a tech company and talking to a bank as a tech company.”
Perret: Plaid initially focused only on big banks, excluding lower-income users
“When we built the company initially, we focused on just the biggest banks, because that was the most volume, that was the most people, and that's the way to build the product the fastest. But we left out the people at the edges. We left out people that had sma…”
Perret: Early banks resented Plaid enabling competitor LendingClub to make loans
“Lending Club was an early customer of ours and Lending Club was directly competitive with the banks and the banks didn't love the fact that we were enabling, enabling Lending Club to make loans, enabling Lending Club to steal their profit.”
Perret: Plaid upsized its Series C round to acquire Quovo
“As we were having this conversation we did, of course, raise a little bit more money in that round in order to enable the acquisition.”
Perret: Plaid integrates with ~10k US/Canada banks and ~3k-4k fintech apps
“So in our back end, we've integrated with about 10,000 financial institutions in the U.S. And Canada which is substantially all our lawyers say that substantially all means almost everyone. And so about 10,000 in the U.S. And Canada and then about three to 400…”