How AI Will Transform Fintech In 2026

Zach Perret 0:00 2018, 2019 in FinTech was late spring. You get into 2020 and COVID, and that was utter insanity of a, of a story.

David Haber 0:09 Like twenty-five percent of all venture dollars in that period went into FinTech, which-

Speaker 0:12 Wow, twenty-five percent.

Zach Perret 0:13 The stat after that is not a good stat, which is, um, starting in like the second half of 2022, like basically zero percent of venture dollars went into FinTech.

David Haber 0:20 That was the drought, maybe. [laughs]

Zach Perret 0:21 Yeah, yeah. FinTech winter was the second half of 2022. Most of '23 and '24, things started to thaw a little bit, and like now we're very much back in the spring. It turns out the biggest use case for AI is fraudsters committing fraud against financial services companies. Financial fraud is growing at like, like eighteen to twenty percent a year, uh, which is insane, and it's already a huge market. I mean, the cattle win long term, but the mouse is winning right now.

Speaker 0:47 [on-hold music] Zach, David, uh, we did this podcast, I believe, seven years ago, and it's great to have the, the gang back together. Thanks for joining.

Zach Perret 0:59 Thank you for having us.

David Haber 0:59 Great to be here.

Speaker 1:00 Of, of course, a lot has happened since the last conversation in our personal lives, and a lot has happened in, in FinTech more broadly. I was listening to the, the episode that we did, um, the last time

Speaker 1:10 we spoke, and we were talking about what has changed in FinTech, you know, from early 2010s to, to just before 2020. And I'm curious if we could just sort of, um, check in or, or reflect back as to, you know, since the last time we s-spoke to, to, to now, what have been some of the major themes in, in, in FinTech? Ca-catch us, uh, catch us up. If someone was in a coma after listening to the last episode and just woke up and said, "Hey, what's changed in, in FinTech?" What, what would we say?

Zach Perret 1:38 Let's see. So the last, last time we talked was call it 2018, 2019. Is that right?

Speaker 1:42 Yes.

David Haber 1:42 Yeah.

Zach Perret 1:42 So let's see. Um, a, a lot. There's, there's been like a bunch of different eras, or like may-maybe we can think of it as like almost seasons in some sense. Um, 2018, 2019 in FinTech was, I guess, like kinda late, late spring. Um, lot of, lot of really good growth. Like the industry had a name. The name probably came about... I actually think that, David, you created the name.

David Haber 2:05 [laughs]

Zach Perret 2:05 But, uh, no one will give you credit, but I will give you credit. I think you created the name in like 2015.

David Haber 2:09 I'll take it. That all good. [laughs]

Zach Perret 2:09 Um, but we, we, we now had a name for this industry. We had gone past like, "Oh, some people are maybe building financial services products," to, um, "All right, we're... Like it is an industry, and there are a lot of things being built." Um, you know, we started to see the, the million flowers bloom, to, to really overextend this analogy.

Speaker 2:24 [laughs]

Zach Perret 2:25 Uh, the million flowers bloo-bloom from, call it, like 2014, 2015 up until 2019, 2020. Like z-zillions of, uh, first time, "Hey, can I take this thing outside of a physical bank branch and deliver it to a consumer digitally?" Um, so you saw applications like Robinhood come up and grow incredibly well. You see all sorts of neobank, neobank for X or Y or Z submarket. Uh, those were everywhere. Um, uh, you saw crypto, like the first crypto apps really start to emerge and, and, and grow a lot. Um, and then kind of from 2019, you get into like 2020 and COVID, and that was, uh, kind of just utter insanity of a, of a story. Um, you know, first, the first few months of 2020 were totally normal. Uh, then you get into early COVID, where everything froze. Um, basically every business, um, uh, kind of locked up, including all the FinTech companies. Um, but within, you know, two, two and a half months, you then had this total inversion of FinTech. So you went from late spring to like big EDM pumping, uh, summer, uh, really fast. Like the EDM music turned on very loudly, very quickly. Um, and, uh,

Zach Perret 3:32 so you just had this insane growth period for FinTech, uh, from kind of mid-2020 through, um, kind of like the end of 2021 and even into early 2022. And yes, a lot of new companies formed, but, um, uh, every investor, whether venture or public markets or whatever it was, wanted to push money into FinTech. Um, and so you had just this, this huge boom in funding. Tons of new stuff grew. It was, it was like really fun and very chaotic time. Honestly, like a hard time to manage because, uh, you know, the feature chase, the things we had to build were, were going so rapidly.

David Haber 4:02 I think like twenty-five percent of all venture dollars in that period went into FinTech, which is-

Speaker 4:05 Wow.

David Haber 4:06 An insane-

Speaker 4:06 Twenty-five percent.

Zach Perret 4:08 It's a, it's a crazy stat. Actually, I think it's a great stat. The stat after that is not a good stat, which is, um, starting in like the second half of 2022, like basically zero percent of venture dollars went into FinTech.

David Haber 4:16 That was the drought, maybe. [laughs]

Zach Perret 4:17 Yeah, yeah. So, um, summer, uh, went into a very, very short fall, so that was kind of like mid-2022, and then immediately into winter. Um, and FinTech winter was the second half of 2022. Most of '23 and '24, things started to thaw a little bit, and like now we're very much back in the spring.

David Haber 4:36 Yep.

Zach Perret 4:37 Um, uh, different format, but, uh, it's been, it's been a fun cycle of the seasons.

Zach Perret 4:43 Totally.

David Haber 4:45 I, you know, and, and I think even to describe maybe what drove some of the seasons, like-

Speaker 4:49 Yeah.

David Haber 4:49 You know, the, the rate cycle was a big part of that as like a, from like a macro perspective. You know, having very low rates, you know, kinda drove zero... O-obviously not unique to FinTech, but a lot of, you know, technology broadly. But certainly a lot of lending volume in the space grew massively in those periods. Um, you know, the one benefit that I think has shown up more recently in FinTech, you know, in the, in the thaw period is that rates went up, and it, it, it sort of shifted the mix of revenues for, for many of these FinTech companies from lending-driven kind of origination, you know, oriented stuff to, you know, deposits. Um, you know, so many of these FinTech companies decided, I forget the exact timing, but to go kinda full stack. You know, so you saw, you know, uh, FinTech companies like SoFi, you know, buy banks. You know, LendingClub, uh, I think Square got an ILC charter.

Zach Perret 5:34 Mm-hmm.

David Haber 5:34 Um, you know, Robinhood, Mercury, many of these companies are generating very significant percentages of their revenue and profits today from deposit flows as rates have gone up. And so that, I think, has helped thaw the market, you know, to some degree more recently.

Zach Perret 5:48 Usually, yeah. I, in, in, in 20, um, in 2018, 2019, um, FinTech was a startup industry.Um, having gone through this entire cycle, um, yeah, some ups, some downs, um, but a lot of maturation, um, a lot of expansion. We've ended now with FinTech is, in my opinion, synonymous with financial services.

Speaker 6:08 Agree.

Zach Perret 6:08 Um, and, uh, it goes beyond just financial services as well. So you- you've seen a few themes emerge. Um, one thing that, that, uh, we said for a long time that Andreessen Horowitz also likes to say is that every company is a FinTech company, and that was kind of, uh, quite common from twenty eighteen, um, kind of o-onward. Um, now you see the emergence of embedded finance. So, you know, some of Plaid customers are like Ford and John Deere and these companies that like, you know... Yes, they do have captive financial services, uh, embedded within them, but you do not think of them as financial services companies. Um, or, you know, large billers, or it's, it's expanded quite a lot. Um, and then you see the banks themselves saying, um, historically they said, "Oh, we need to be FinTech companies too." Now they're saying, "We are the biggest FinTech companies, like we invest heavily in technology." And so you've seen this startup industry now become mainstream and the firmament of financial services, but also powering experiences well beyond financial services.

Speaker 7:07 Let's go deeper into where we are today and, and, and, and where we're going, um, gi-given that we're kind of in a, you know, exciting period. Um, you know, is it still like macro in terms... Like is it still early in terms of lot of things to be built, um, and some spaces you're, you're excited about? W-w-why don't maybe, Zach, you take the first bat.

Zach Perret 7:25 Plaid ourselves have, have gone through a few phases, and we're lucky that we have this really broad view of what's, what's happening in Fin-FinTech. I'm gonna keep calling it FinTech-

Speaker 7:35 Sure

Zach Perret 7:35 ... but at this point realize that I mean financial services-

Speaker 7:37 Yeah

Zach Perret 7:37 ... plus plus. Um, so we have this really b-broad view of what's going on in FinTech. Um, and like the, the things that we're seeing today are, you know, very different and much more varied than, um, they were before. So, um, V one of Plaid was how do we create access for everyone? And I would say largely, um, the FinTech industry was focused on the same thing. So, um, instead of making you walk into a bank branch to open a bank account, how can you open a bank account on your mobile app? Um, instead of, um, you know, making you carry money, um, uh, and go to an exchange when you're trying to cross a border, how can we create a digital way to do remittances so you can actually move money across the border, um, a little bit more easily? Um, and, and, and apply that across kind of every, every subset, basically every product, uh, that, that banks were building at the time. Um, we've

Zach Perret 8:25 solved the access problem. Not completely, not in every little niche, but, but for the most part, we as a collective industry have solved the access problem. So, um, you know, I grew up in a small, small town, uh, you know, only one bank in our town. Um, and if you didn't happen to be a member of that bank, you, you couldn't get a loan easily. Um, now if you live in that same town, you just go online, you apply for a mortgage, and you get, you know, thirty mortgage offers in an hour. Um, or you can do it with Rocket and, you know, be done in five minutes. And-

Speaker 8:51 Totally.

Zach Perret 8:51 Um, these are awesome experiences. Um, that said, what we've done is we've taken traditional financial services and we've made it digital. We haven't necessarily made it excellent. Um, that's, that's like the next horizon for us. And so a lot of the things that we've been investing in now are things like credit scoring. How do we make credit scoring more logical and something that a consumer can understand? Um, if you get a new job and your income goes up, but your expenses don't go up, you are at better loan risk. However, that doesn't show up in your credit file for like many, many years because your credit file is a long history of your, your, your repayments. Um, it's not necessarily indicative of your, your free cash flow. Um, and so like that, that is the next horizon that a lot of the FinTech companies that I'm seeing are starting to solve. Um, so that's, that's kind of like one big area. It's, it's, um, kind of solving those endemic problems that are long-lasting, things like, like fraud, things like, uh, credit scoring, so on and so forth. Um, the second is, um, you know, making financial services really easily available in places that you might not have otherwise thought it to be. Um, so, you know, putting BNPL on kinda everything.

Speaker 9:52 Everything, yeah. [chuckles]

Zach Perret 9:53 Yeah. Um, [chuckles] uh, or, or, you know, issuing a card kinda everywhere, or issuing a wallet kinda everywhere. Um, and so now, now we're, we're entering this like, uh, FinTech is everywhere. Uh, not every company is a FinTech company, but like every, every consumer is surrounded by FinTech in, in, in all the places they might wanna go. Um, and like, you know, the, the future horizons are always like, you know, looking at the, the, the next few things that are happening. Like we look at AI and agentic financial services, and right now that's mostly hype and people talking about it, and there are a few interesting use cases. But, you know, fast-forward two years and the way that you get a mortgage is gonna be talking to, you know, an AI application, um, because that is just the most efficient, fastest way to do it. Um, so that's, that's been a fascinating one to watch. And then like seeing what's going on with stables is, of course, fascinating as well. So, um, lots more to come.

Speaker 10:40 Just

Speaker 10:41 on, on that note, i-is crypto basically just FinTech? [chuckles] Or, you know, people said this is the new version of the new internet, may-maybe hopefully it, it still happens, but in terms of where it is right now, is it, you know, mo-mostly just a, a subset of FinTech?

Zach Perret 10:54 Well, David, you're an investor, so you probably know better than me. My, my take is sometimes. Like, uh, ultimately I don't think that consumers, um, change all that much over time. And so the kind of things that a consumer would want to do five years ago are similar to the kinds of things that they might want to do today. Uh, but the form factor in which they can do it, uh, is very different. So, um, you know, fi-five years ago, um, a consumer might want to speculate. Um, and you know, you can speculate on gold, you can speculate on a few of these other things. And, uh, uh, Bitcoin and, and, and other, uh, uh, coins made it very simple for consumers to speculate. Uh, so great, you can pull up an app, you can speculate on things. Speculation continues.

Speaker 11:37 Mm.

Zach Perret 11:38 Um, the form factor has changed. Um, another thing that consumers like to do is make predictions. Um, so, you know, in the past you might, uh, make a bet with some friends. Um, uh, now you might go on Kalshia Polymarket and, uh, you know, enter prediction markets, or you might do that via Robinhood or, or, or whatever it is. Um, other things that consumers like to do are like, you know, spend money, save, invest, so on and so forth.And in as much as consumer behavior doesn't change, it's a question of, like, how and where does crypto and fintech fit into the existing set of consumer behaviors?

David Haber 12:06 Mm.

Zach Perret 12:06 So I think if you look at, again, what a bank does, like they're roughly tailored to what consumers want. Consumers want to save money, invest, get loans, so on and so forth. Um, and I think the wisest product development strategy is to kind of like, take, um, take the things that consumers already do and just like, make them newer, easier, more accessible, so on and so forth. Um, and so I suspect that there will be a convergence of, uh, one side of crypto, um, and core financial services, um, be that exchanging, um, you know, like, uh, ch-checking accounts with dollars in them for checking accounts with USDC in them, wallets with USDC in them, um, uh, or, or, or similar. Like I think there's a, a convergence that'll likely happen there. But then also crypto does some crazy out there stuff and really pushes the bounds on innovation and like-

David Haber 12:49 Totally

Zach Perret 12:49 ... I'm not sure that that's necessarily gonna end up merging with banks, but who knows?

David Haber 12:52 Totally. Yeah, I, I mean, I totally agree with, with what, what Zach was saying. I think part of it is, um, you know, culture, right? And how people, to, to Zach's point, you know, um, you know, wanna interact with financial services. I think part of this has been driven from a regulatory perspective, and I think maybe the more meta theme a-as I've sort of watched fintech evolve, and I think this is permeating into crypto, is just how the large incumbent financial institutions are, are embracing this innovation a-and technology, you know, writ large. I think a lot of the... You know, I'd defer to my, you know, crypto colleagues who are much deeper in this space than I am. A lot of the enthusiasm I, I would say here is about, uh, you know, the existing kind of financial system adopting, you know, things like stable coins or, and maybe even tokenizing kind of real world a- world assets. And, um, I think that's, that's different in, i... you know, from a lot of the more frontier stuff that, that I think the team had, had talked about in-internally, which was kinda more purely decentralized and, and kinda owning the internet. But, but I think, you know, for crypto to go very mainstream and kinda plug into the broader financial system, that probably-

Zach Perret 13:49 Yeah

David Haber 13:49 ... is and will continue to happen.

David Haber 13:51 What, what Zach and the team at Plaid have done, you know, over, you know, the last fourteen years, thirteen years, uh, is, is remarkable. I mean, you know, you, you know, from my vantage point, like you won the hearts and minds of the developer community. You built this sort of foundational infrastructure that really catalyzed like, you know... I, I can't take credit for creating the fintech, uh, term. You like created the fin-- enabling infrastructure to like create the industry in many ways. Um, you know, now have, I don't know, hundreds of millions of accounts, you know, connected and, and you're, to your point, now bringing kinda this whole ecosystem of kinda value-added services and analytics, you know, to make financial products better. Um, and I think while we saw different seasons kind of over that period, you know, uh, you know, hay fever and, and long winters and, [chuckles] uh, uh, you know, euphoria in, in some moments, um, you know, many of these companies are now bigger than ever. I mean, Robinhood is now, I don't know, a hundred billion dollar public company. You know, I looked up SoFi's stock price. You know, they're a thirty-five billion dollar public company. Affirm is a twenty billion dollar company. Like these are, these are outcomes that you couldn't even imagine.

Zach Perret 14:54 Revolut.

David Haber 14:54 Yeah. I mean, Revolut, seventy-five billion dollars, you know, work for new investors and, and that phenomenon is not just US-centric to that point. It's, it's become a global one. I mean, NewBank, you know, a hundred billion dollar, you know, you know, company, uh, you know, in Brazil. You know, my good friend Pierpaolo, who runs Ualá in Argentina, you know, Colombia, and Mexico. Um, you know, so these, these companies have worked, and they've kind of proliferated and brought access of financial products, you know, everywhere. Um, uh, and I think that, that trend will continue. You know, I think while they started off in-- with point solutions and they kind of perfected whatever their wedge product was, you know, many of them have now rebundled.

Zach Perret 15:32 Mm-hmm.

David Haber 15:32 Right? They wanna become kinda the full, you know, financial picture for their, for their customers, whether that's through cards or accounts or lending. Um, again, many of them have gone full stack and actually bought banks and actually hold deposits and are generating significant revenue, you know, from, from that float. I think the other meta theme, which has been, um, been interesting and, and I, I think is accelerating now with AI is just again, the, um, the posture of a lot of the incumbent financial institutions, you know, to fintech and technology broadly. Um, you know, I saw this kinda firsthand, uh, certainly, you know, as an investor back at Spark, as a founder, and then inside of Goldman, just even their own sort of evolution, uh, and, and posture to technology. You know, for a long time, many of these institutions, like i-if the technology wasn't built there, they weren't interested. I mean, Goldman had literally created their own email client. Like they, they, they didn't operate on Outlook or on Gmail. They had this thing called Orbit. I don't know why Goldman Sachs needs to create their own email client, but, you know, that, that was, that was like a, a window into the psychology from a technology perspective.

Zach Perret 16:35 Don't they still use like SecDB internally? Like they, they, they have their own database that they built.

David Haber 16:39 That, that makes more sense to me because it was like a centralized risk system for managing all their trades.

Zach Perret 16:43 Yeah. [chuckles]

David Haber 16:43 But Outlook equivalents like makes no sense. Um, you know, then I think there was this period where, you know, many of the large institutions were like, "We wanna be the fintech companies ourselves," and, you know, Goldman went very aggressively in, you know, into Marcus and, and others followed suit. I think there's a bit of a humbling that has happened. You know, may-maybe I'm using them a-as one, one lens, but, but more broadly, I think the, the positive impact of that experience, um, made them more open to adopting the best technology that exists in the market and, and no longer building everything in-house. And so a lot of where I've been spending time the past several years has been in,

David Haber 17:26 you know, fintech companies that lead with software that, you know, ideally have the potential for a network effect and are selling into these financial ser-- you know, larger financial institutions and solving, you know, real, real workflow challenges for them. Um, and I think we're at this interesting moment where because the software itself can actually do the work, you know, with AI, there's sort of this bottoms-up momentum and top-down pressure that's happening that I think is accelerating this cultural change. You know, many of these institutions are beginning to adopt products like Cursor or, you know, even GitHub Copilot or a broader ecosystem of kind of AI products in their, in their employee base, and people are seeing the productivity gains.And then unlike, I think, prior periods of, of kind of product cycle or platform shifts, if you were the CEO of a big bank and you said, you know, "Do I need to be in the cloud?" Like, that was sort of an esoteric question. Now it's like any CEO, any board member can plug a prompt into one of these models and sort of intuitively understand the impact that it could have on their business. And so I think that's broadened the aperture, at least from my vantage point, of what fintech is.

Zach Perret 18:28 Mm-hmm.

David Haber 18:28 And it's really, I think to your point, just financial services and I think software in large part sold into financial services as well.

Zach Perret 18:34 Yeah. And, and, and David, say more about sort of that, that change around when, you know, it, it went from twenty-five percent to, you know, significantly less than that. What, what was changing in these businesses that, that, that caused that? You, you mentioned sort of the macro environment, but is there anything else we, we could learn from it? And, and more around now, where are you particularly e-e-excited to, to, to, to invest? Or what are, what are the sort of different, um, you know, sort of subspaces that you're, you know, looking at or excited to?

David Haber 19:03 I think 2021 period was sort of wild for lots of reasons.

Zach Perret 19:07 [laughs]

David Haber 19:07 I think, um, you know, financial services is and remains obviously one of the biggest parts of our global economy, and so I think people, you know, often get overexcited maybe by TAM, you know, and, and, and so every venture firm created a fintech team, had... you know, was deploying a lot of capital, you know, to that market. Um, uh, you know, and, and again, many of these companies have, have continued to succeed, but I think it, there was probably, uh, um, too much euphoria going into that space relative to the amount of dollars. Um-

Zach Perret 19:35 No, no, I think it was the exact right amount of euphoria.

David Haber 19:36 [laughs]

Zach Perret 19:37 Just the pullback afterwards, that was the issue.

David Haber 19:38 [laughs] Uh, exact-exactly. You know, again, part of that was that companies, you know, when rates are zero, you can lend money and, and grow very quickly, and there's a lot of, you know, margin to capture there. I think when rates go up, your cost of capital goes up and that margin, you know, shrinks and there's a natural ceiling on, on borrowing that people, you know, both from a regulatory perspective and a, and a kind of consumer appetite perspective. So the business model of a lot of, o-on the lending side, I think, you know, kind of compressed.

Zach Perret 20:04 But you also have to look at, like, the underlying growth rates of these apps were insane.

David Haber 20:08 Totally.

Zach Perret 20:08 Like, if you, you, you look at the number of consumers that were, you know, signing up to invest or signing up to take a loan or signing up to buy Bitcoin or whatever it was.

David Haber 20:17 Totally.

Zach Perret 20:17 Like, we just looked at the, the, the charts and like, y-you know, if, if the app was growing at what, twenty-five percent a month, it was actually a great venture investment.

David Haber 20:25 Totally.

Zach Perret 20:25 And yes, you might know that the music at some point is gonna slow down or stop, but, um, twenty-five percent a month growth is insane.

David Haber 20:31 Totally. Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, um, and this was like stimulus and there was, there was a lot of-

Zach Perret 20:36 Helicopter money everywhere. Yeah, there were a lot of reasons they were growing that fast.

David Haber 20:40 Hun-

Zach Perret 20:40 Um.

David Haber 20:41 Hundred percent. And look, I think like from a, I don't know, industry health perspective, like I think things have normalized, but the con- the companies continue to grow and succeed. I mean, again, now they're, you know, bigger than they've ever been.

Zach Perret 20:51 The, the great ones. There was a wash out and, and-

David Haber 20:54 Totally

Zach Perret 20:54 ... um, there were a lot of, uh, fintech companies that, um, died or shut down in the second half of '22 and the first half of '23. Um, there were a lot that, you know, kind of went sideways for, uh, for quite a while. Um, and the, a lot of lenders especially who just like basically closed up shop or merged-

David Haber 21:11 Yeah

Zach Perret 21:11 ... or things like that. Um, but the ones that succeeded coming out of it, um, across all of fintech, they were much, much stronger for it.

David Haber 21:17 Totally.

Zach Perret 21:18 Um, so as you said, like if you started off with a neobank and all they did was, uh, have a, a checking account and a savings account and maybe a card, um, well, in this period, if they wanted to survive, they needed to, to, to build the lending side of, of, of their offering. And so, um, you know, they, they, they expanded there or build the investment side of their offering, so they expanded there. And so now you come out with these like much more full-fledged, like long-lasting, uh, companies. So the winners became even more so the winners. Um, and yeah, there was an unfortunate number of companies that also didn't make it.

David Haber 21:46 Totally.

Zach Perret 21:46 Yeah. And, and

Zach Perret 21:48 David, I'm curious h-how, how you or how we look at the sort of investable universe or, or sort of divide. Is it, you know, that there's certain type of form factors and it's, you know, each region is gonna have their, their, their new banks, so to speak? Or is it, um, you know, by, by sort of, sort of form factor or value prop to, to the... How do we think about the, the, the universe and how do we map it?

David Haber 22:10 You know, it-it's been interesting. I mean, I would say from our, from our vantage point, we haven't made as many consumer fintech investments in recent years as, as we have historically. I think, um, part of that's just it's, it's more expensive to acquire customers and, and hit the kind of scale you need to really be, you know, kind of venture, venture scale outcomes. And I think that's a function of, you know, um, just, you know, consumer acquisition channels getting more expensive and some of these companies starting early and it was easier to acquire, um, and then build massive LTV with their existing customer bases. That, that does change around the world. I think, um, you know, in some markets, people were entering the formal financial economy for the first time, and so offering a fee-free mobile first, you know, bank account and a, and a debit card, you know, literally gave them access to, you know, e-commerce and, and things like Netflix and Spotify and, and Amazon for the ver-- you know, for the very first time. Credit doesn't exist, you know, equally in, in every market around the world, nor do credit bureaus and credit data. Um, so there's I think still, you know, tons of interesting kind of macro opportunity from a financial product perspective, I think especially i-in emerging economies. Um, I think AI could be an interesting, you know, kind of catalyst for a new resurgence of consumer fintech. I mean, there, there's always been this promise of, you know, kind of self-driving money or, um, you know, PFMs that actually do the work for you and help you make, you know, not, not just give you advice, but actually, you know, help you earn, you know, s-save and, and spend better. And I think, like we've yet to see as many of those companies today, but I think there's the technology might be ripe. I'm curious if you're seeing this, you know, uh, on your side, like to actually deliver on that promise.

Zach Perret 23:45 Yeah. You know, it's funny when, when, when we think about pr-prospective apps that like, you know, the app that I wish that existed, um, you know, I, I wish that there was a self-driving money app that I could just say, "Hey, you know, my paycheck goes in here. Like, you know, sweep enough money into my checking account so that it can pay my daily expenses, but put all the rest into this like high yield savings account and invest this percent of it in the market." And, you know, I wish that this thing existed.I don't actually know that that's necessarily a very good app to build.

David Haber 24:13 Hmm.

Zach Perret 24:13 Uh, because I'm a weird power user. I have insane trust in fintech-

David Haber 24:17 Totally

Zach Perret 24:17 ... companies, uh, to do all this stuff for me. Like, I understand all the actions that the agent would take, and I have, uh, you know, en- enough background in the space that, like, the actions seem logical to me. But if I gave that to my mom, she'd be like, "Oh, where's my money? What's going on?" Like, "I don't trust this thing." Like, "Wait, why did it move money over there? I have all these questions." And so, um, uh, you know, I, I'm not sure that I'm necessarily the best at this. Like, so I, I have all these visions of, like, the, the, the, the prospective apps that should exist out there, but then, you know, for us as Plaid and, and, and in a lot of senses for, for you as an investor, um, like, certainly for us as Plaid, like, our job is, like, we need to build the platform and then figure out what emergent behavior starts to exist on it, and then go optimize for that emergent behavior as, uh, as, as, as new interesting companies start to emerge. Um, and so that's how we think of our job. So, like, our job as it relates to AI is, like, let's build tools that allow consumers safely to link their data with agents. Um, then let's build tools that allow those agents to take the proper actions, be that just analyzing data or be that actually moving money or something else. Let's, let-let's build tools that allow those agents to, to, to, to take those actions, um, and then let's see what happens. [chuckles] And, like, have a team that's just, like, constantly looking at, like, the emergent behavior and figuring out, "Oh, is that a good thing? Do we wanna optimize for that? Oh, like, has that enabled some new vector of risk that we need to, we need to avoid?" And that's kind of the, the, the thought process that we take across all the things that we do. So, um, a lot of it is, like, if you build it, they will come. You just don't know who will come and what they'll look like and, like-

David Haber 25:46 Totally

Zach Perret 25:46 ... what exactly is gonna be the next big thing. Um, but we have to be very prepared to react when we see it.

David Haber 25:50 Yeah, and I, I think a-as a result, like, w-we've, we've been focused on maybe more known problems. Like, there's so many w- there's so much work that happens inside of all these large financial institutions that is just done manually by expensive people, you know, frankly, across risk, compliance, legal, you know, vendor onboarding, treasury management. I mean, I, you know, I can go on and on and on. Um, and, and now you have, again, AI to actually, you know, solve many of those problems, and so that's, I think, you know, largely where we, we've been spending time. You know, you know, companies like, you know, Moment that have built, you know, fixed income trading infrastructure. If you're a wealth management client of, of JP Morgan today, you know, building a bond ladder is still a manual process. You're picking, you know, individual securities one by one. It, that's insane. Like, that hasn't existed for, you know, at least a decade in, in equities. And so, you know, there's a ton of opportunity to solve, you know, kind of basic problems like that and, and I would argue build, you know, very large, uh, you know, kind of software and, and kind of platform-style businesses on the back of that. And so whether it's, you know, things like, you know, um, you know, a, a company like Salient, which is doing, you know, bringing voice agents to, uh, loan servicing and collections, right? The idea that, you know, a voice agent can speak in 50 languages, you know, fully compliantly, track UDAP, you know, do welcome calls and payment reminders, um, you know, and, and actually deliver on a better customer experience because it can speak their native language, uh, and, and get better results. It's infinitely patient, right? Um, you know, that is a really interesting opportunity for the moment, you know, in large part because it's unlocking markets that were never particularly interesting to soft-software into because IT budgets were small, and now, you know, the TAM is largely labor. And so that's been, I think, kind of one of the reorientations that we've seen the last few years from kinda financial product-led companies largely to, uh, you know, software-led businesses and, and kind of financial services writ large.

Zach Perret 27:43 Zach, on, on, you, you wrote about your predictions for 2026. M-m-maybe share one we, we haven't, uh, g-gotten to yet around w-w-where things are going or, or where you're particularly excited. I was at a dinner a couple weeks ago, and so this might not be a prediction, this might just be a recognition of, of, of current, uh-

David Haber 27:59 Yeah

Zach Perret 27:59 ... truth. Um, but I was at a dinner recently, and someone asked the table a question. Um, and the question was, "What's the biggest use case, um, of AI in financial services?" And some people had answers, and then it got to me, and, uh, and I, I kind of flippantly, uh, said, "Doing fraud." Uh, it turns out the biggest use case for AI is fraudsters committing fraud against financial services companies. Um, and I said it jokingly and then realized half, like, as I was saying it, "Oh no, this is actually the correct answer." Um-

David Haber 28:26 [chuckles]

Zach Perret 28:27 ... the, the entire table was like, "Yeah, okay, that's, that's the correct answer," or something. Um, and so, you know, we're at this, this point in the ecosystem where AI has so much potential to change things, and who's using it the most? It's the fraudsters. Um, and I, like, right now, we're at a point where financial fraud is growing at, like, like 18 to 20% a year, uh, which is insane, and it's already a huge market. Um, and so I guess i-in that, in that vein, um, one of my predictions for, um, 2026 is, unfortunately, um, financial fraud is going to continue to accelerate in a way that we don't quite understand and probably can't quite feel out and predict yet, um, because, you know, it's a, it's a cat and mouse game, but the mouse is winning right now. I mean, the cat, the cat'll win l-long term, but the mouse is winning right now. And so, um, it's kind of a depressing prediction-

David Haber 29:15 Hmm

Zach Perret 29:15 ... but, uh, I think likely.

David Haber 29:19 What, what are you guys doing about it?

Zach Perret 29:21 Well, so we, we, we build an anti-fraud product suite. Um, this, I promise this was not me-

David Haber 29:25 No, no. [chuckles]

Zach Perret 29:25 ... teeing up bragging about Plaid.

David Haber 29:26 No.

Zach Perret 29:26 But I will, I will gladly brag about Plaid when, uh, when we get the opportunity.

David Haber 29:28 No, I, I'm curious 'cause it's a hard, it's a hard problem to solve, but if anybody can kind of try to figure it out.

Zach Perret 29:32 Well, we, we can't solve it all. Um, we can solve pieces of it. So we build an anti-fraud pr-product suite. It's called, uh, Protect. Um, within that, we have this analysis of every user and every user action that, uh, we can assign a score to to say what's the trustworthiness of this user, this, th-this account, this user action that they're taking. Um, and we, we pull this data and build it based on looking at every user action that's taken across every fintech company that we work with-

David Haber 29:53 Hmm

Zach Perret 29:53 ... um, plus, uh, the data that's coming from the bank account, plus device data, plus a zillion other data sets that we, that, that we match it all with.Um, and so it's the first kind of network linked, like cross FinTech, cross bank-

Speaker 30:04 Mm-hmm

Zach Perret 30:05 ... uh, type of, uh, anti-fraud tool. And it's awesome and, and, and it adds some amazing signal to, to, to the companies that we work with. Um, but this is like one of very many solutions that need to exist. Um, we're starting to get good at fighting deepfakes as well.

Speaker 30:18 Mm-hmm.

Zach Perret 30:18 I mean, like as an industry and, and, and Plaid specifically, but like still very early there. Um, but you know, the, the stuff that, that freaks me out is, um, you know, uh, have you heard of pig butchering? Um-

Speaker 30:29 Mm-hmm.

Zach Perret 30:29 For those listening on a podcast, I'll explain it briefly 'cause it's kind of a gruesome, uh, term. Uh, but it is basically, um, when you get a text message that says, "Hey, how you doing?" Um, and that, that, and you respond to it, don't ever respond to this, but if you do get one of those and, and, and you were to respond to it, um, they would then strike up a conversation with you, and eventually they would like find some complex way to like ask you to give them money.

Speaker 30:50 Mm-hmm.

Zach Perret 30:50 Um, and when you go up and, uh, execute that transaction, um, you have just sent money to a total stranger on the internet, and yes, they've stolen the money. Like that's, that, that is like in one hundred percent of cases what happens. Um, that used to be done based on these like, like, uh, human factories-

Speaker 31:05 Mm-hmm

Zach Perret 31:05 ... uh, in like Malaysia where they would like have these people like locked in rooms sending text messages to, to unassuming people, uh, in the US mostly, but, but around the world. Um, now that's all AI. You don't need these human factors anymore. The AI can do all that. Um, and the AI is just getting better and better and better.

Speaker 31:18 Mm-hmm.

Zach Perret 31:18 Um, and like how do we fight that?

Speaker 31:21 Mm.

Zach Perret 31:21 Like, because it's, it's a human taking an action that they think is sending money to a friend and they've been tricked, but, you know, it is fraud, but, uh, uh, it's very hard to, to fight that kind of fraud.

Speaker 31:29 Totally.

Zach Perret 31:29 So, um, I mean, w- w- th-there are so many more tools that we need to build as an industry collectively, and of course as, as, as Plaid specifically.

Speaker 31:38 Totally. We were talking about the different eras of, of FinTech. I'm, I'm curious what have been sort of the, the different eras of, of, of Plaid. Of, of course there was the, you know, um, sort of acquisition that d-didn't go through with, with Visa and sort of the ups and downs that, that you guys have had a-a, you know, alongside the ma- the macro and obviously you're in an incredible position right now. Is the... I- I-- Talk more about h- the different eras of Plaid or how the Plaid vision has, has evolved or, or, or, or, or, you know, or stayed true to the original.

Zach Perret 32:03 So started Plaid, uh, started working on the, a thing that wasn't Plaid, but pivoted into Plaid in the very end of 2012. We, we launched, um, we, we pivoted into what we were doing in kind of mid, late 2013 and launched to the world in 2014. So, um, you know, it's, it's been a good eleven to thirteen years, depending on how you, you count that, uh, series of bad products that we built first. Um, David actually was a friend and knew us then. Um, but I'm gonna actually, brief aside, um, uh, David, I don't know if you know this, um, uh, David, uh, found Plaid. He was the-

Speaker 32:34 Yeah

Zach Perret 32:34 ... first investor, led the seed round, uh, at Spark. Um, actually like sourced the deal as like you were an associate, I think at Spark at the time. Um, uh, then he went to Goldman, uh, uh, around the time that Goldman invested. You weren't involved in the investment specifically, but you were at Goldman at that time, and like probably helpful in the background. Um, then came to Andreessen, and then Andreessen invested-

Speaker 32:53 [laughs]

Zach Perret 32:53 ... um, and has been like a huge friend and supporter-

Speaker 32:56 Yeah

Zach Perret 32:56 ... of, of Plaid over the years. So if we, we owe a lot to David-

Speaker 32:58 Amazing

Zach Perret 32:58 ... and, and, and a huge amount of thank you. And he, he also creates all the important industry terms.

Speaker 33:02 [laughs]

Zach Perret 33:02 Um, so, you know, the FinTech industry owes a lot to David.

Speaker 33:05 I don't know.

Zach Perret 33:05 Um, anyway, so, uh, Plaid started, started, call it, let's say 2014 we launched, and then 2014 to like 2019, that was all about linking bank accounts. Like how do we enable you to link a bank account so that you can, um, gain more access to financial products broadly? So link a bank account so you can pay a friend on Venmo. Link a bank account so you can get a loan on LendingClub. Um, uh, that was kind of phase one. Uh, kind of 2019, 2020, um, you know, w-we called this what like, like late, um, uh, like late spring, like blooming spring, um, continuing to grow in that vein. Um, in 2020, um, uh, January 2020, we signed paperwork to sell the company to Visa, um, and, you know, still late spring, uh, we didn't know that COVID was coming. We didn't know that the EDM music would turn on. Um, uh-

Speaker 33:53 I, I remember chatting with you, I think it was like February or, or March, you know, like r- it was probably March, right when COVID was just beginning. I was like, wow, you really timed that well. You know, and then, and then the business starts ripping and, you know, it was like, oh, that's a very expensive free call option-

Zach Perret 34:08 Yeah

Speaker 34:08 ... you know, on the business. And so-

Zach Perret 34:09 So, so, so-

Speaker 34:09 ... walking away from that is pretty-

Zach Perret 34:11 In an acquisition, like a-at least in our acquisition, you sign paperwork that says, "We're in exclusivity," and as soon as everything is, uh, cleared, like all, all the check boxes are, are, are checked, then the deal will close. Um, and so we had a year of exclusivity and, and it started in January of, uh, 2020. Um, uh, and yeah, like in, in, call it like late March of 2020 or maybe early April, uh, we were talking and it was like, yeah, we have this deal to sell the company for just over five billion dollars and it's fixed price. Um, uh, Visa stock price goes, is going down, so like all of the, the stock compensation that we're gonna get out of this deal, man, that's worth a whole lot more as a percentage of Visa. Like we own a large chunk of Visa, that, that, that, that seems interesting. Um, uh, and then we looked it through the docs and like they have these things called like material adverse event.

Speaker 34:59 Hmm.

Zach Perret 34:59 Um, uh, so you can get out of a deal if something crazy happens. And there was a provision in there that says you cannot get out of the deal even in the case of a global pandemic. And like some lawyer somewhere in some room had like come up with like, oh, let's, let's just like add this in.

Speaker 35:11 [laughs]

Zach Perret 35:11 Um, and I don't know, we were like, "Oh man, this is great. We got, we got everything set. They can't get out of it in the case of a pandemic. Like we're gonna get a huge chunk of Visa, um, we're gonna be off to the races." Um, and then like the deal took forever to close because the DOJ was investigating Visa for being a monopolist and like all this overhead. Um, and like kind of for the next, the next phase, the EDM music just like started getting louder and louder and louder and like summer started happening and like FinTech started growing and people were stuck at home. They needed to use digital finance to, to live their financial lives. Um, and so at the end, a year later, we, we looked at it and we said, um, for a, a large variety of reasons, it makes sense for us to part, uh, as friends with Visa. Um, and, uh, we'll go our own way. We'll, we'll keep running Plaid as an independent entity. Um, and then we raised a, a big up round and, um, uh, you know, off to the races. But, um, you know, through that you tell the company, "Hey, we're selling." Okay, great. That's a, that's a really hard thing to convince everybody to still be excited even though you're selling the company.A year later, "Hey, we're not selling." Um, an-another very, very hard thing, uh, because you're telling everybody, um, you know, you're not gonna get all that cash that you thought you were gonna get. Like, you can't buy the house. I'm sorry, but we'll try to do a secondary soon, so maybe you can buy a car. Um, uh, and you have to, like, really change the culture. It's, like, almost a refounding moment at that point. Um, then you go through, uh, the, the kind of the rest of the summer, and that was great. Lots of growth. Uh, but then into, like, Fintech winter, and that's another like, [sighs] we like we gotta, we gotta all come together. Like you, you... Like, our customers are growing more slowly. Yes, we're producing great products. Yes, like Plaid is, is growing, um, but like, you know, it's not the growth that we're used to because we're in, in, in, in Fintech winter. Um, and then it's nice to finally be back in spring, but, like, there's definitely a lot of ups and downs on that journey. Like, um, I think it was, like, multiple, like, refounding or, like, multiple crucible moments along the way.

David Haber 36:56 Was, was there a period in that where you found your... Maybe you always had it, uh, but, like, your second wind? 'Cause at least from the outside, it's felt like your product velocity really increased at some point in the last, like, you know, two and a half years.

Zach Perret 37:09 Yeah. Yeah, it has. I mean, I, I shifted my role quite significantly. So, like, I'm, I'm our chief product officer. Like, I am in all of the product stuff. Um, and a lot of it was like, for us really, it was like building the data set to the size that we can actually run analytics on it.

David Haber 37:25 Mm.

Zach Perret 37:25 So, uh, we build fraud scores that look at, um, your actions relative to every other user that we see on our platform and identify if you're anomalous. If we didn't have enough data-

David Haber 37:34 Mm

Zach Perret 37:34 ... to identify if you were anomalous, then it wouldn't be a relevant score for us to build. So we got to, one, enough data, and then two, we finally figured out how to, like, build and launch products quickly. Um, and so that's been, like, one of the most fun things for me.

David Haber 37:45 Mm.

Zach Perret 37:46 Actually, weirdly, like, I think I was like, like n-not as happy in the period of, like, EDM pumping, like, fast growth, everybody's, like, throwing money at Fintech. Like, that industry, I think I was, like, a little less happy-

David Haber 37:59 Mm

Zach Perret 37:59 ... because it was like, I don't think I'm adding differential value. I think I'm just, like, you know, running as fast as I possibly can and, um, you know, maybe I make some good decisions, but, like, you know, it all doesn't matter 'cause everything's up and to the right.

David Haber 38:08 Mm.

Zach Perret 38:09 Um, like, I think I was, like, happier in that, like, winter period.

David Haber 38:12 Mm.

Zach Perret 38:13 So I'm like, oh man, like, this is, this is where we become an amazing company long term. Like, this is where, like, you know, we prove ourselves, and, and we really step up and help our customers. We launch the next, next wave of products that really matter. Um-

David Haber 38:24 But I think I felt similarly to, to be honest. Like, you know, having done Fintech since, I don't know, 2011, like, people, you know, that felt early, you know-

Zach Perret 38:34 Yeah

David Haber 38:34 ... to, to, to be investing then. And then it's like, okay, everybody, like, you know, found out that this thing existed. Every-everybody became a Fintech investor from, you know, 2019 to, you know, 2021, and then everybody's, you know, some of the best Fintech investors in the world, like, came out on podcasts and were like, "Fintech is dead."

Zach Perret 38:48 Yeah.

David Haber 38:49 And I'm like, I-

Zach Perret 38:49 Fintech is dead. Everyone should go home except for people that are building Fintech-

David Haber 38:52 Right. Ex-exactly. Like you guys can-

Zach Perret 38:54 ... making amazing things and like all the people that use it

David Haber 38:54 ... you guys can leave and just stop investing in Fintech. We, we will continue.

Zach Perret 38:57 Yeah.

David Haber 38:57 The Fintech team is still here, you know-

Zach Perret 38:59 Yeah, yeah

David Haber 38:59 ... despite the, uh, the naming conventions.

Zach Perret 39:00 The rebrand. The rebrand.

David Haber 39:02 Um-

Zach Perret 39:02 The brand extension.

David Haber 39:03 And, uh, I think that's, that's actually benefited us, you know, and, and I mean, selfishly, but, but I think it's, it's tested the people, like the true believers and, um, yeah, in some ways it's brought the community together, I would argue.

Zach Perret 39:14 Yeah, and, and, you know, the, the, the, the tourists go home. Like the-

David Haber 39:18 Yeah

Zach Perret 39:18 ... like it's... And we saw it on our team even. Like, there were people that joined Plaid in 2020 when the, the, the music was loud, and it seemed like the industry to be in. And, you know, then they, then they've, they've, they've gone and chased the next trend and the next trend and, um, while, while we'll miss them, and they're nice people, um, the people now that are focused on it are, like, these are the people, like, who really wanna be here in the long term. Like, they deeply believe in the mission. Um, and, you know, they're, they're, they're in it in the way that we all wanna be in it.

David Haber 39:43 Totally.

Zach Perret 39:44 Feels great.

Speaker 39:44 Where are we now in the, in, in, in the cycle? H-H-H-How should we think about this moment?

Zach Perret 39:50 Er, er, early to mid-spring. I would say we see, like, green shoots, like, lots of emergence. It's been a pretty good year for, for many parts of Fintech, and it's been a shaky year for others. I mean, I think if you look at the lending markets, you know, it's, it's n-not as bad as last year, but it's not as good as it was. And, um, uh, there are elements of the economy that are pretty scary and parts of, like, a, a large part of, uh, of consumer spending is being propped up by a small number of people. And so, like, there are all these things that are scary, but for the most part, um, you know, you continue to see companies that are building very solid products. Um, you do see, like, great, uh, startups emerging, um,

Zach Perret 40:26 but they, they, they look a little different than they used to. Like, they're thinking more responsibly about markets in the long term. Like, they're more thinking about, uh, you know, profitability and growth and, um, you're also seeing, like, the insanity of, of, of AI funding, uh, go on kind of like in AI land, and some of it's starting to bleed into Fintech 'cause you're seeing these, like, Fintech AI, uh, uh, products start to come. So, um, I would say spring. Like lots of green shoots, lots of exciting stuff. Um, still some, you know, still some s-s-snow in the background that's... Sno-snow melt is still happening. Um, uh, but, uh, looking pretty optimistic right now.

Speaker 40:58 Also, okay. So let, let, let's, let's wrap on just what does 2026 and the near term fut-future look like, uh, David, h-how we're approaching at a16z?

David Haber 41:06 It still feels like we're in early innings, you know, uh, even spring in, in AI land as well. Um, uh, you know, so just incredibly excited and enthusiastic by the momentum we're seeing, you know, for l- again, largely software companies selling into financial institutions. That's kinda been our orientation in, in the Fintech ecosystem. Um, you know, again, I sat on the, on the board of a, a company called Moment, which we, you know, described earlier, that is, uh, now bringing some largest wealth management platforms online. You'll see them. You know, they announced LPL. We have another, a, a, a number of other large institutions that we'll be announcing, uh, early next year. Um, you know, companies like Modern Fy, which have built, uh, you know, bank-to-bank deposit marketplaces that are really starting to, to grow and see significant volume in that, in that network. Um, and again, just more, more broadly, um, you know, really excited by the opportunity for AI to actually do the work, you know, within, within these institutions and, and the momentum and excitement, you know, you know, there to adopt, you know, new products.

Speaker 42:06 And, and are we excited, David, they're, they're because they're, they're such great customers or because they're so, they're so underserved because they're or they're, they're finally transitioning or, or why have we narrowed in on, on th-that focus as one that we're particularly excited about?

David Haber 42:17 I mean, look, the, the industry is still massive, right? Like, if you-- if I look back at, at even just Goldman Sachs, and I know I use them as a, as an example often, but, like, the, the entire firm was, uh, you know, they called the, the kinda middle and back office the, the federation. You know, again, these were, were folks living in Excel largely, not using Excel as a modeling tool, but using Excel to track work. And so there's just such opportunity to build amazing software products to solve everything from, you know, compliance to payments to treasury management to a-again, all of the kind of, uh, you know, manual work that goes into making the financial services industry tick. Um, and I think AI is again creating kind of a new window and wedge opportunity for entrepreneurs to kind of, you know, build software companies that, that couldn't have existed years ago. And, and again, I think the, the appetite, you know, for adopting new products and new software to solve some of those problems is, is more real than ever, um, because again, the most senior people at these institutions, uh, you know, can intuitively understand the impact that AI is having on their business. And so I think there's just a lot more conversation and momentum happening at the board level, um, you know, and, and it's making the enterprise sort of sales cycles, you know, for, for many of... Even our early-stage companies happen a lot faster than, than I've seen in, in, you know, my experience, you know, investing in this space.

Speaker 43:33 Zach, h-h-how about you

Speaker 43:34 and h-h-how you think about things at, things at Plaid and, and more broadly?

Zach Perret 43:37 We l-l-this past year launched, as I said, the, the anti-fraud suite on Protect, uh, c-called Protect, and, um, tons and tons of acceleration behind that. Uh, we launched, uh, a credit score, uh, a modern consumer credit score that's based on your income, your expenses, the things that you do in your daily life. So your score goes up if you have a higher income. Uh, your score goes down if you start having way higher personal expenses, like the logical credit score. So we launched that, and it's called LendScore. We launched that last year. Like, these two things are gonna be major drivers for us in the coming year. So, um, distributing this, this, the, this new version of a credit score, um, into all the lenders and then, uh, of course, on the Protect side, like helping fight this, this AI-driven financial fraud that we're seeing. Um, and then for us, like, you know, we're, we're, we're back to, back to, like, hiring and recruiting and, and, and growing. And, um, so, you know, uh, despite the fact that fintech has been through these waves, like, I still think that Plaid is, like, one of the most amazing places to work. Please tell, tell, tell all your friends. Um, uh, if you wanna work with big data, if you wanna have, have, have a hu-huge impact on consumers' lives, um, uh, again, financial freedom is the, the, the core focus of, uh, of what we do. Um, uh, and then, uh, you wanna, you wanna have an opportunity. We, we try to think of ourselves as, like, the most cons-consumer... Sorry, the most customer-centric employer, where, you know, we put engineers in the customer so that they're actually talking to them. Like, um, we think it's an incredibly fun way to work. Um, uh, so, like, not forward-deployed engineering, but forward-deployed company. Um, so, you know, tell all your friends we're hiring lots of people, and, uh, I think it's gonna be a great 2026.

Speaker 45:04 Zach, David, you guys are pioneers in, in, in, in the, in the space, in the category, and I can't wait to have you both back in 2030, and we can talk about how the, how the space has evolved. Uh, thanks so much.

Zach Perret 45:14 Let's do it sooner.

Speaker 45:15 Yeah, we can- [laughs]

Zach Perret 45:15 That's, like, so, that's so far away.

David Haber 45:16 Exactly. We don't want you to wait, you know, you know, five years.

Speaker 45:18 That's true. We don't have to wait every five years. Uh, Zach, David, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Great.

Zach Perret 45:23 Thank you.

David Haber 45:23 Good to see you both. [outro music]