Chris Hutchins (@hutchins) is the Head of Autonomous Financial Planning at Wealthfront. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of Grove (acquired by Wealthfront), co-founder of Milk (acquired by Google), and a Partner at GV, where he focused on seed and early-stage investments.
SHOW NOTES
- Chris brings us up to speed on what's been happening at Wealthfront in his 18 months there. His focus: automated savings. Future goals: self-driving money. [01:52]
- If anyone knows how to get the most out of his credit card points, it's Chris. Between credit cards, bank accounts, and brokerage accounts, how many accounts does this Pointsmaster have -- and why? [02:38]
- Thoughts on new cards that offer Bitcoin instead of cash-back rewards, and why Chris has changed his mind about them over time. [03:39]
- What Chris considers to be the best way to pack your finances. [05:18]
- How do Square's Cash App "boosts" work? [06:43]
- How Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey continues to pleasantly surprise us with his forward-thinking entrepreneurial prowess. [08:38]
- Remember how hard it used to be to accept credit cards as a business? We do. [10:13]
- Why does Chris have such good credit? [10:57]
- How does someone get on the waitlists for BlockFi and Gemini cards? [11:54]
- What goes into building a diverse crypto portfolio. [12:32]
- Gemini offers interest on crypto. [16:41]
- Chris shares his tragic CryptoPunks story. [19:35]
- My mission with this podcast. [21:11]
- How you can keep your finger on the pulse of DeFi. [21:43]
- Why I consider Yearn to be an insanely well-run project. [23:19]
- How Chris is earning interest on his crypto right now, and why the current low-regulation climate makes it lucrative -- but not without its risks. [24:37]
- My own interest-earning strategies tend to be lower risk. A little primer on stable coins, how staking works, and why I trust Coinbase. [26:24]
- Why Chris wound up converting a lot of his random altcoins to USDC. [30:37]
- You can learn the basics of trading crypto without betting the farm. Sometimes it even pays back with interest (just don't depend on it). [31:17]
- What Chris considers to be the best way to optimize your dollars now. [33:38]
- Are DeFi "gas fees" the new payday loan? [33:56]
- Hot deals Chris is seeing right now (including how he snagged an Oculus Quest 2 for $150). [36:35]
- Cashback Monitor: better than Rakuten? [42:33]
- Dude, I got a Dell! (Well, Alienware.) [43:19]
- What is ShopRunner? [43:41]
- Where does Chris find his coupons? [44:38]
- Four stocks we each like. [48:04]
- Even though he didn't use the top-notch name I suggested, I'm excited that Chris is starting his own podcast: All the Hacks! What's it going to cover? [59:10]
- Parting thoughts. [1:03:54]
- The first episode of this podcast was auctioned as an NFT! [1:05:00]
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All show notes are available here. If you have 20 seconds to spare, could you please consider leaving us a five-star review there so this podcast gets heard by more ears? [1:05:31]
