How Model ML Is Building the AI Operating System For Finance

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 11, 2026

Duration

43m

Channel

YC Root Access

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Model ML (W24) is building the AI operating system for financial services, used by the largest banks, asset managers, and consulting firms in the world. Eighteen months after coming out of stealth, they’ve gone from 10 people to 200 across eight offices, and they’re still adding about 20 a week. At YC x London, co-founder and CEO Chaz Englander sat down with YC’s Gustaf Alströmer to talk about why agent harnesses couldn’t work with Excel until February, how to get investors to tell you the truth about why they passed, and why he thinks every founder in Europe is being insufficiently ambitious. Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs Chapters: 00:00 - Nine to nine, seven days a week 02:09 - Starting Fat Lama 04:43 - "You're still doing full-time entrepreneurship?" 06:55 - The first month at YC 08:38 - Why founders become lifelong friends 09:56 - What he took from Fat Lama 11:29 - The idea they'd been building for themselves 14:05 - What the product actually does 16:25 - How it changes the work 17:45 - Why February changed everything 19:31 - Why banks won't bet on one model 20:29 - What investors are actually betting on 22:38 - "19 out of 20 will say no" 24:44 - Why this couldn't come from inside a bank 27:42 - Why failed founders get hired 29:30 - Advice for London founders 31:03 - What the world looks like in five years 33:50 - Q&A: hiring for culture 37:03 - Q&A: convincing people to join 40:05 - Q&A: when to persevere and when to pivot 41:52 - Q&A: coping with the pressure

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Gustaf Alströmer

  host

  Y Combinator partner and former Airbnb product leader who hosts and interviews startup founders.

• Chaz Englander

  guest

  Co-founder/CEO of Model ML building AI tooling/agent workflows for finance teams.

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of YC Root Access, featuring Gustaf Alströmer and Chaz Englander, How Model ML Is Building the AI Operating System For Finance explores Model ML’s model-agnostic agents aim to automate core finance workflows Chaz Englander says Model ML is building an AI operating system for financial services by providing a model-agnostic agent harness that lets banks and similar firms access the best AI models as they change over time.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

How Solve Intelligence Is Building the Future of AI Patent Law

Domu is AI that Negotiates

Building Physical AI for the Industrial World

Stop Wasting AI Tokens

Building AI for the $650B Home Services Market

The AI Billing Stack for Healthcare