Smart Humans with Slava Rubin

Kendrick Nguyen, CEO of Republic, discusses the evolution of AI in operations, web three financial firms, and retail adoption in cryptocurrency. He explores Republic's growth, share drops, Reddit's potential IPO, and global expansion plans. Kendrick also shares personal investment recommendations for the future and insights on diverse topics like note-taking apps and digitizing assets.

Rebecca Kacaba is the CEO and Co-Founder of DealMaker, winner of Lexpert's Top 40 Under 40, and has been named one of North America's most innovative lawyers by the Financial Times, and one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women 2022. After over a decade of practicing securities law, she took an ambitious leap from her partnership at the world’s largest law firm and founded DealMaker to build a system that would make online capital raising mainstream. She is the force behind building DealMaker into one of Canada's Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies two years in a row as ranked by the Globe & Mail's Report on Business and a 2023 Deloitte Fast 50 Company-to-Watch. With a deep commitment to fostering a work culture that encourages ingenuity and creativity, Rebecca has helped guide DealMaker to land the second spot on Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list.  With her vision and drive, Rebecca as a regular featured speaker has become a trailblazer in the intersection of the capital markets and tech, and is committed to driving change and doing business the right way.

Charles Clinton is the CEO and co-founder of EquityMultiple and is responsible for shaping the strategic vision of the company and overseeing its daily operations. Charles also sits on EquityMultiple’s Investment Committee and Board of Directors. Since its inception in 2015, EquityMultiple has transacted on hundreds of real estate investments, totaling over $5B in capitalization. Today, EquityMultiple serves over fifty thousand self-directed investors across the U.S.Prior to EquityMultiple, Charles was a real estate attorney with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, where he worked on a variety of major transactions for private equity clients, primarily Blackstone and KKR. During his time at SImpson, he worked on over $10 billion in transactions, including Blackstone’s $1.7 billion purchase of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Blackstone’s $1.9 billion purchase of Motel 6 and Hilston’s real estate asset restructuring and refinancing in advance of its $2.5 billion IPO. Charles received his JD and Business Law Certificate from Berkeley Law and Bachelors Degree from Amherst College, where he was the captain of the swimming and water polo teams. He has FINRA Series 7 and 66 registrations. He lives in New York City, where he grew up, with his wife and two daughters.

Matt Rodak is the CEO and founder of Fund That Flip, an end-to-end residential real estate lender, SaaS solution, and investment platform that empowers real estate entrepreneurs to create wealth and more value in their communities. After years in commercial property risk management, Matt decided to actualize his passion: real estate. However, he quickly became frustrated with the challenges of getting access to fast, reliable, and sustainable capital to finance his deals. And in 2014, Fund That Flip launched. Fund That Flip’s award-winning platform and simple process allow borrowers to get loan commitments within 24 hours and the fastest closing of any hard money lender. Investors can then purchase fractional shares of those loans, historically earning more than 10.8% returns. The Platform and team provide first-class support and industry-leading transparency into every deal, while also offering unprecedented access to an asset class previously dependent on “who you know.” Fund That Flip has grown nearly 300% in the past three years, and to date has originated more than $2.2 billion in loans, with 99.7% of principal returned, and more than 93% repeat borrowers.

Mike Collins has been involved in almost every facet of venturing, from angel investing to venture capital, new business and product launches, and innovation consulting. He is currently CEO of Alumni Ventures Group, and launched AV’s first alumni fund, Green D Ventures, where he oversaw the portfolio as Managing Partner and is now Managing Partner Emeritus. Mike is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, including Kid Galaxy, Big Idea Group (partially owned by WPP), and RDM. He began his career at VC firm TA Associates. He holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering Science from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Ben Miller is Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise, America's largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager. Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment. Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world. Prior to Fundrise, Ben has decades of experience in real estate and finance. As Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, Ben was responsible for acquiring, developing, and financing more than $500 million worth of property.

Josh is the co-founder of Fanatics Collectibles and the founder of zerocool, the company’s pop culture, art, and entertainment vertical. He is also a co-founder of StockX, the world’s first ‘Stock Market of Things’, where he led the rise from idea to billion-dollar company in less than three years, cementing StockX as the world's leading marketplace for sneakers, apparel, and collectibles. In 2019, Josh stepped down as CEO to focus on StockX’s ‘startup within a startup activities’, including leading the nascent trading cards vertical. A year later, he left StockX to return to his entrepreneurial roots with the goal of revolutionizing the trading card industry as he’s done for sneakers. Before StockX, Josh founded and ran four other startups and, in between each, had varying corporate jobs ranging from IBM strategy consultant to Alston & Bird bankruptcy attorney. He has an undergraduate BBA and joint JD/MBA from Emory University.

Stewart A. Kohl is Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Riverside Company, a $10 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 700 companies globally. The firm’s investors include leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies and banks. The firm employs more than 300 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Kohl joined Riverside in 1993. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., the private equity arm of Citibank. In addition to his work with Riverside, Mr. Kohl serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. He is also on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. He was inducted into the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence in 2009. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Building for Hope Capital Campaign of the Center for Families and Children. Mr. Kohl earned the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award in 2018. He was inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2014. After spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Mr. Kohl founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $20 million to fund cancer research since 2014. Mr. Kohl holds a BA from Oberlin College.

Logan Allin is the Managing Partner & Founder of Fin Capital where he is responsible for management of the firm, sourcing/making investments, maintaining board responsibilities, and adding operating value across the portfolio. Logan was most recently Vice President of SoFi Ventures, where he was tasked with investing in and working hands-on with FinTech companies, as well as running SoFi’s accelerator and corporate development efforts. Prior to SoFi, Logan was focused on entrepreneurial advisory and operating roles at Light Street Capital, Formation 8/Group, Zanbato, Addepar, Point Finance, Price, BridgeAthletic and ONEHOPE. Prior to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Logan was a corporate executive, as Head of Strategy, overseeing the enterprise FinTech strategy and execution, while serving as a member of the Operating Committee at Atlantic Trust, the Private Wealth Management arm of Invesco (and now CIBC). Previously, Logan was a Senior Vice President in City National Bank’s wealth management division (now part of RBC) where he led the technology strategy, open product architecture platform, and other strategic initiatives. Logan spent his earlier career in management consulting, in leadership positions at PwC, EMC, and Capgemini, focused exclusively on the intersection of Financial Services and technology. Logan earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in public policy and political science from Duke University and a M.S. in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he was a Sloan Fellow.

Jake Brukhman is Founder & CEO at CoinFund. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia to computer scientists, Jake learned how to code at the age of fourteen. Starting from this early age, Jake closely followed the adoption of computing, the Internet, and mobile. Achieving degrees in mathematics and computer science, Jake spent the following 12 years of his career in pure and financial technology, quantitative research, and blockchain.