Lex interviews David Snider - founder and CEO of Harness Wealth. David shares his extensive fintech journey, including his pivotal role at Compass, a real estate technology firm. He discusses the challenges of aligning agents with new technology and the evolution of Compass's business model to empower agents with better tools and incentives. Transitioning to Harness Wealth, David explains his vision to enhance tax advisory services through a modern platform, addressing complex financial needs. The episode underscores the importance of innovation and human expertise in fintech and real estate. Notable discussion points: Empowering Advisors in Complex Industries: David Snider has built platforms that enhance human advisors rather than replace them—first in real estate with Compass - a technology-powered real estate brokerage, now in tax with Harness Wealth. In industries with high complexity and large transaction sizes, like wealth management and real estate, human expertise remains essential. His approach emphasizes that technology should enable, not displace, trusted advisors. Compass Pivoted to Power Top Agents: Compass began with a plan to disrupt real estate agents but pivoted to support top performers with better tech and economics. This shift—paired with smart execution—enabled rapid growth and market leadership by focusing on high-value agents and transactions, rather than cutting them out of the process. Harness Wealth Modernizes Complex Tax Advisory: Harness Wealth applies a Compass-like model to tax, serving clients with equity comp, crypto, and private investments by connecting them to top advisors through a modern, tech-enabled experience. The platform improves both advisor workflows and client usability, targeting a large, underserved market that DIY tools can’t effectively serve. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: Fintech, Harness Wealth, Compass, AI, RealEstate, Platform-As-A-Service, Advisory, Data, Tax, WealthTech, TaxTech, CryptoTax, PersonalFinance, FinancialAdvisors ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’06: From Bain to Compass: David Snider on Navigating Finance, Real Estate, and the Rise of Advisor-Enabled Tech 5’42: Evolving Real Estate Through Tech: Market Levers, Rollups, and Building Compass's Super Agent Model 13’20: Digital vs. Human: Why Tech Wins in Some Industries—and Advisors Thrive in Others 17’16: Scaling Compass: How Tech, Economics, and a New Go-to-Market Strategy Fuelled Rapid Agent Growth 22’20: Overcoming Resistance: The Grind Behind Compass’s Data Integration and Agent Tech Adoption 26’13: From Compass to Harness: Building a Tech-Driven Platform to Simplify Complex Tax and Financial Advice 31’05: Serving the Underserved: How Harness Wealth Empowers Advisors and Clients Navigating Complex Tax Needs 34’16: Building Smarter Tax Tech: Harness’s Curated Approach to Streamlined Data, Insights, and Advisor Collaboration 36’02: Scaling with Purpose: Harnessing Data, Advisor Value, and a Massive Market Opportunity in Tax 37’46: The channels used to connect with David & learn more about Harness Wealth Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Scott Woody, CEO and founder of Metronome, a usage-based billing platform. Scott shares his journey from academia to entrepreneurship, detailing his experiences at UC Berkeley, D.E. Shaw, and Stanford, where he studied biophysics. His tenure at Dropbox, where he tackled billing system challenges, inspired the creation of Metronome. The discussion highlights Metronome's real-time billing data capabilities, which aim to improve business efficiency and customer experience. Scott also explores the broader implications of AI in fintech, emphasizing the shift towards usage-based business models and the importance of real-time data. Notable discussion points: Metronome emerged from firsthand frustrations at Dropbox, where Scott Woody experienced how rigid billing systems slowed growth, confused customers, and blocked real-time insights. He built Metronome as a flexible, real-time billing engine that merges usage data with pricing logic—powering the monetization infrastructure for top AI companies today. Real-time billing isn’t just about invoices—it's a strategic revenue lever. For AI and SaaS businesses alike, Metronome enables teams to run dynamic experiments, optimize GPU allocation, and make last-minute decisions to hit quarterly targets—turning billing into a core growth engine. The rise of AI is accelerating a shift to usage-based models. As AI becomes specialized labor across verticals (from loan collection to customer service), companies are rapidly replatforming, and entire industries may flip from seat-based to outcome-based pricing within quarters—Metronome is positioned as the "payment processor" for this AI economy. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: Metronome, Dropbox, Datadog, OpenAI, AI, AGI, machine learning, pricing models, financial services, business optimization, operational frameworks, analytics, financial modeling ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’05: Talent Spotting and Swag Strategy: How Scott Woody Recruited the Brightest Minds at Berkeley 7’27: From Biophysics to Startups: How Stanford and Protein Folding Led Scott into Tech 9’28: Lessons from Dropbox: Why Talent Density Beats Perks in Building Scalable Tech Teams 14’09: Solving the Billing Bottleneck: How Metronome Powers Real-Time Monetization for Modern Tech 19’45: Real-Time Revenue Intelligence: How Metronome Helps Teams Optimize Pricing, Experiments, and GPU Allocation 24’55: Optimizing AI Economics: Metronome’s Real-Time Matching of Model Usage, Customer Spend, and GPU Allocation 29’03: The Rise of Usage-Based AI: Why Real-Time Monetization Is Reshaping Business Models Across Tech 34’25: Specialized AI as Labor: Why Purpose-Built Agents Are Shaping the Future of Work and Software Integration 40’46: The Tipping Point for AI Adoption: Why Clear ROI and Competitive Pressure Are Rewriting Entire Industries 48’39: The channels used to connect with Scott & learn more about Metronome Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Sam Williams - founder of Arweave. This episode delves into the innovative aspects of Arweave, a protocol designed for permanent data storage and computation within the Web3 ecosystem. The discussion covers a range of topics, from the economic models underpinning Arweave to its potential applications in decentralized finance (DeFi) and beyond. Notable discussion points: The Founding of Arweave and its Mission – Sam Williams’ interest in distributed computing and concerns about authoritarianism led him to create Arweave in 2017. Inspired by the Snowden leaks, he saw the need for a blockchain-based permanent storage solution to protect journalism, historical records, and digital assets from censorship. Decentralized vs. Distributed Storage – Williams explained how Arweave differs from alternatives like IPFS and Filecoin. Unlike traditional storage, which requires ongoing payments, Arweave uses a one-time payment model. This storage endowment leverages declining storage costs to ensure long-term data persistence without relying on centralized infrastructure. Arweave’s Expansion into Decentralized Compute – Arweave has evolved beyond storage to develop decentralized computing through "Arweave IO." This enables parallelized smart contract execution, making it possible to run AI models, financial automation, and decentralized apps on-chain—aligning with Web3’s shift toward autonomous, intelligent systems.MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: Arweave, permanent data storage, Web3, decentralized systems, distributed systems, blockchain, economic models, IPFS, Filecoin, decentralized computing, decentralized finance, compute ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’06: From Distributed Computing to Decentralized Truth Preservation: A Journey into Web3 4’31: Decentralization vs. Distribution: Defining the Future of Web3 Infrastructure 9’41: Building a Decentralized Archive: Arweave’s Journey from Vision to Adoption 16’28: Web3 Storage Economics: Arweave vs. IPFS and the NFT Data Dilemma 22’42: Arweave’s Endowment Model: A Blockchain-Native Approach to Permanent Storage 27’13: Arweave’s Next Chapter: From Permanent Storage to Decentralized Supercomputing 31’36: Decentralized AI and Agent Finance: Expanding Arweave’s Computational Power 36’26: Decentralized AI and Blockchain: Overcoming Computation and Consensus Challenges 41’34: The Future of Decentralized Intelligence: Trustless Finance and Digital Immortality 44’59: The channels used to connect with Sam & learn more about Arweave Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Andrew Jamison - CEO and Co-founder of Extend - a financial infrastructure platform that helps banks innovate financial product development with capabilities while working with their existing systems, starting with virtual cards. Andrew shares his journey into fintech, detailing his experiences at American Express and the evolution of virtual cards. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in the virtual card space, the founding of Extend, and its innovative approach to simplifying spend management. The episode highlights Extend's rapid growth, unique market position, and the future of financial management, emphasizing real-time transactions and integrated solutions for businesses. Notable discussion points: Virtual Cards = Smarter Spend ManagementVirtual credit cards revolutionize payments by enabling real-time reconciliation, reducing fraud, and improving financial control—especially for SaaS, digital ads, and legal expenses. Extend’s Edge: Partnering with Banks, Not Disrupting ThemUnlike Brex and Ramp, Extend powers virtual cards on existing bank-issued cards, making adoption seamless for businesses while strengthening bank relationships. B2B Payments Go EmbeddedThe future of finance is embedding payments directly into platforms like SAP Concur - letting CFOs manage expenses within the tools they already use. From Enterprise-Only to Instant AccessVirtual cards once took months to implement. Extend’s API-first approach makes them deployable in minutes, bridging the gap between legacy banking and modern finance. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: Extend, American Express, AMEX, SAP,  fintech, credit cards, spend management, virtual cards, B2B, API, banking infrastructure, embedded payments ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’10: From Green Screens to the Cloud: How Early Tech Shaped Andrew Jamison’s Approach to Business and Automation 5’12: Scaling Amex: Expanding Beyond Travel to B2B Payments and Virtual Cards 10’27: Virtual Cards in Travel: Solving Payments but Struggling with Scale 15’19: Virtual Cards and On-Demand Growth: How APIs Unlocked a New Payments Model 19’17: From Amex to Extend: Reinventing Virtual Cards for Everyday Business 26’00: Scaling Smart Payments: How Extend is Reshaping B2B Credit Cards 29’33: Rethinking Spend Management: How Extend Partners with Banks Instead of Replacing Them 31’47: Built for CFOs: How Extend Streamlines Payments and Expense Management 35’08: The Future of Finance: How Embedded Payments and APIs Are Reshaping the CFO’s Role 40’34: The channels used to connect with Andrew & learn more about Extend Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Jayendra Jog - co-founder of Sei Labs, about his professional journey and the innovative Sei protocol—a high-performance parallel blockchain. Jay shares insights from his time at Robinhood, emphasizing the importance of distribution over technology and the challenges of scaling a fintech company. He discusses the limitations of Ethereum's transaction processing and how Sei Labs aims to address these through parallelization. The conversation also covers the future of blockchain in finance, the need for regulatory clarity, and the potential of high-performance blockchains to support emerging industries like AI and decentralized science. Notable discussion points: Impact Over Paychecks – Jog’s career leap from SAP to Facebook, Pinterest, Robinhood, and Sei Labs was driven by impact, not salary. He thrived in small, high-talent teams where he could truly move the needle. Robinhood’s Growing Pains – Early Robinhood was fast and scrappy, but as it scaled, bureaucracy slowed innovation. The shift from “missionary” to “mercenary” employees hurt culture and velocity. Tech Doesn’t Win—Distribution Does – The best crypto projects don’t just have great tech; they win by getting users. Sei Labs focuses on real-world adoption, not just engineering breakthroughs. Sei’s Parallelized EVM: A Game Changer – Ethereum is slow. Sei Labs fixes this by parallelizing transactions, enabling high-speed trading and complex on-chain applications. It’s Ethereum’s power with Solana’s speed. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: fintech, blockchain, Sei Labs, Sei protocol, Ethereum Virtual Machine, EVM, Robinhood, decentralized applications, DeFi protocols, DePIN ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’29: From Silicon Valley Roots to Startup Hustle: Jayendra Jog’s Journey Through Tech’s Elite Ranks 7’53: Scaling Robinhood: From Scrappy Startup to Corporate Bureaucracy 12’56: Why Robinhood Won: Distribution Over Technology in Fintech and Crypto 17’38: Sei and the Parallelized EVM: Scaling Blockchain for High-Performance Trading 25’18: Parallelization in Blockchain: Unlocking Scalability Without Breaking the System 28’03: Building Sei: Solving the Blockchain Adoption Puzzle for Finance and Developers 33’50: The Blockchain Race: Competing for Killer Apps and Market Dominance 38’02: The Next Wave: Sei’s Vision for AI, DePIN, and High-Performance Blockchain Applications 41’34: The channels used to connect with Jay & learn more about Sei Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Arun Kumar, CTO of Socure, a leader in identity management, shares insights from his impressive tech career with Amazon and Citadel. He discusses Socure's rapid growth, serving 2,700 clients, including top U.S. banks, while processing hundreds of millions of transactions each month. Arun highlights Socure's innovative use of a real-time identity graph to combat sophisticated fraud tactics like deepfakes. He also reveals plans for expanding their services into transaction monitoring and leveraging Generative AI for operational efficiency.

Shachar Bialick, the Founder and CEO of Curve, shares insights from his journey as a serial entrepreneur and his military background in Israel. He discusses the vision behind Curve as a 'wallet to rule them all,' aimed at simplifying digital payments. Shachar explains the challenges of partnering with major payment networks and the importance of cultivating a resilient company culture. He also addresses the evolution of fintech, highlighting the competition faced by neobanks and the significance of open banking in creating seamless financial experiences.

Michael Heinrich, co-founder and CEO of 0G Labs, is on a mission to revolutionize artificial intelligence through decentralization. He shares insights into how decentralized AI promotes transparency and verifiability, contrasting sharply with the closed systems of big tech. The discussion highlights the role of blockchain in enforcing ethical AI practices and ensuring fair compensation for data contributors. Heinrich also elaborates on 0G Labs' innovative AI operating system, aiming for seamless user experiences akin to centralized platforms, while integrating advanced verification mechanisms.

Lex interviews Tom Duff Gordon, the Vice President of International Policy at Coinbase, where he drives the company’s engagement with policymakers in global markets across the UK, Europe, APAC,  LatAm, and the MENA region. Together, Tomm and Lex discuss the importance of policy work in the financial services industry, especially after the 2008 financial crisis, and how policy teams collaborate with regulators to shape the regulatory environment; the reasons why the financial services industry is heavily regulated, including the systemic and interconnected nature of the financial system and the need to protect retail consumers; the regulatory approaches to cryptocurrency and digital assets in different jurisdictions, with Europe (MiCA), the US, and other regions like Asia. The discussion highlights the diverse and evolving nature of crypto regulation globally; the challenges faced by the US in developing a coherent regulatory framework for crypto assets, particularly the jurisdictional tussle between the SEC and CFTC; Coinbase's efforts to advocate for clear and balanced crypto regulation, including through grassroots initiatives like "Stand with Crypto"; and lastly, Coinbase's evolving product strategy, expanding beyond its core exchange business into areas like custody, lending, and infrastructure for the broader crypto ecosystem. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Topics: Coinbase, Credit Suisse, SEC, Circle, MiCA, Stand With Crypto, FIT21, financial regulation, financial policy, crypto, exchange, USDC ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin TIMESTAMPS 1’02: Shaping the Future of Finance: Tom Duff Gordon’s career involving Policy, Crypto, and Global Regulation 7’30: Preventing Financial Panic: How Regulation Mitigates Systemic Collapse 13’12: From Bank Runs to Balance Sheets: Tackling Systemic Risk and Preventing Financial Contagion 16’32: Regulating Crypto: Global Progress and Emerging Frameworks 19’42: Expanding Crypto Regulation Worldwide: Frameworks, Challenges, and the Road Ahead 28’18: Crypto and the SEC: Unpacking America’s Contradictory Approach to Regulation 34’30: Crypto Politics: Why the US is Divided While Europe Stays Unified 41’30: Scaling Crypto: Coinbase's Multi-Vertical Strategy and Ecosystem Vision 45’28: The channels used to connect with Tom & learn more about Coinbase Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

In this chat, Alessandro Chesser, CEO of Dynasty and former sales leader at Carta, discusses his journey from navigating sales challenges to launching a fintech platform. He stresses the importance of syncing business and product teams, revealing lessons learned from Carta's setbacks. Alessandro shares how TikTok is driving organic growth, emphasizing the power of viral content to engage younger audiences. Lastly, he dives into the complexities of automating trust creation, highlighting both legal hurdles and the potential to revolutionize asset management.