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We came to this world to shape our future.
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[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Friendly IPM inbound.
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>> I see a large IPO on the horizon.
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Market clearing order inbound. [Music] >> Gone. >> Five, four. You guys are on ready. >> You're watching TVN.
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>> Today is Wednesday, September 10th, 2025.
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We are live from the New York Stock Exchange, the East Coast Fortress of Finance.
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And we have a special guest with us opening the show.
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Introduce yourself for the stream.
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>> My name is Peter Tuckman.
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I'm known as the Einstein of Wall Street.
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>> Einstein of Wall Street.
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And uh >> I'm not that smart.
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I just look who was the first person.
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Did you give yourself >> Aaron Bernett gave me that?
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And I've been I've had a show on her show now on CNN for the last four months.
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Ever since the beginning of the sort of mini crash that uh was sort of self-induced by our our the new leader, the new the new lead the new sheriff in town. Correct. And she called me in.
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So she used to work on the floor with CNBC. Sure.
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And she nicknamed it probably 20 years ago and called me Einstein and that sort of picked up.
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>> But your latest your latest collaborator uh is not on TV but on streaming. Correct. >> Correct.
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So I had the fortunality of actually meeting I show speed. Oh yes. Right.
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Young 20-year-old kid who I got invited.
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So there's a team that's doing his stream thing.
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There's a young guy named Adam Faze. >> We knew Adam.
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He came to our He came to our event.
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Uh we were here about a month and a half ago. He came to it. Really?
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So, Adam, Adam's something special.
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He found me about four years ago and asked me if I would uh let him shoot me uh every day walking out of the stock exchange for 30 days and just do what I do.
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And we did this whole Tik Tok thing called Einstein Elementary.
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It went viral like me and like marching bands from Brooklyn and walking around with a 50 lb Hershey's kiss and doing all this crazy stuff.
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So, he called me last week, asked if I could bring speed to the floor and it didn't seem appropriate at the time.
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And he said, "Well, how can I get you to meet him?"
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And I said, "Come up with an idea." and he's an idea guy.
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So he called me on Thursday morning, said, "We're going to be at the Bull." >> Yeah. >> Love idea, guys.
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>> He's going to be at the bull.
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Would you come and welcome him to Wall Street? I said, "Absolutely."
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So I they gave me a police escort.
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I went down there and met this young guy and talked about some of thetick I do, you know, investing in stocks and not stuff and about, you know, the fact that um, >> you know, that everything that his life is based on is actually a publicly traded company and that instead of, you know, buying the next iPhone, he could probably buy a couple shares of Apple and that maybe, you know, he could invest in his future.
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Besides the amazing future Scott set up, >> he received it totally.
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He talked about it a couple days down the road.
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So, I got the message across and uh and I've blown up. I've got literally 200.
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So, I have now I came in at 260,000 followers on Thursday and now I have 419 and it's counting and I've got 40 million views on some of my posts. 7,000 DMs. >> 7,000 DMs.
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>> I actually just did a video to answer that.
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Anyway, >> uh what was the first stock you ever bought? >> Oh, you know what? I very rare.
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I did not ever buy a share of stock until recently.
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>> I went through most of my career because I'm a registered trader, a broker on the floor.
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And I'm not allowed to be in a stock for a customer and for myself in a 30-day period.
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And so I built a trading strategy 20 years ago trading the S&P 500 based on information that I have as a broker on the floor.
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And I trade all 347 names in the S&P every day.
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So basically, I made a decision years ago, you know, and also money does a funny thing.
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if I'm in a stock for myself and I get an order for a customer, it's going to impact the way I trade.
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And I didn't want that to ever be the case.
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So, I I do well enough here as a commission broker that I said, "You know what? I'll invest in my kids.
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I'll put them through college and they they both graduated without any debt and that's where my money went." >> Fantastic.
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What about some of the first stocks that you were brokering?
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>> First stocks that I broker. So, we're here.
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We're talking about IPOs, right?
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And so, you know, I probably have traded more IPOs than anybody on Earth.
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I've been in the crowd on all of them.
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I mean, I the first IPO I think I traded was LinkedIn, right? It it was priced at 30.
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It opened at 60, ran up to 180 same day.
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And that was where I got the sense of how how amazing the enthusiasm around an IPO because it's based on confidence, right? Nobody knows it.
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And then and so one of I've had so many fun experiences in IPOs.
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Jack Ma Alibaba IPO, which was one of the biggest that we've ever had here. He and I bonded.
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We spent so IPOs here take probably four or five hours.
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We just opened CLA, right?
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And the process behind that which we do better than anyone in the world is the price discovery process that what goes on.
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It's kind of like building a building.
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>> The way you open a stock, the way we open a stock takes time because it's a matter of the information going back and forth. It's a public offering.
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So the public has to understand what's going on.
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And so we go back and forth with our customer.
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It's kind of like if you put the bricks and the mortar in the right place and you the way a stock opens if it's built correctly is going to purport the way it trades forever.
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Now, it doesn't guarantee it's going up, but it will have structure and foundation.
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And you know, you go to NASDAQ, nothing against NASDAQ, but if you go to NASDAQ, it's fully electronic.
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So, it it opens when the buyers and sellers meet in an electronic marketplace. Here, it's different.
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So, then you're going to see what you see in NASCA.
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It'll go up, it goes down.
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There's no there no guard rails, right?
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So here things are a lot different.
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So Jack Ma and I spent four hours together in the IPO. He and I are very short.
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So we bonded on the fact that we were the shortest people in the crowd.
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We were on the same level, not not financially uh cuz he became a very wealthy guy again on that day.
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>> Someone on our team actually was here uh at IPOP as well. >> Amazing time.
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And then we've had look then you know the the the whole landscape has changed when we worked completely blew up the whole IPO market and that affected >> Yeah.
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tell us that story because I remember the S1 going out but then did they get out? What? Yeah. What happened?
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>> Well, well, what what ended up happening?
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Look, as I said, it's built on confidence and when you know everybody there was huge money put into Weiwork.
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Weiwork. He was lorded by now he came down to the floor many times and it wasn't until the night before everyone needs to know this that on the end of the road show is when all the financials are given out to the public and it turned out that it was all smok and mirrors and he had spent all the money
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on on prostitutes and blow and that the company had nothing no basis behind it and so it was aborted the deal was aborted and what that did was it changed amazingly enough that one stock could change the landscape of IPOs for years it literally everyone say windows closed. That's what closes. That's what closes.
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>> That's what closed the window.
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>> I remember Jim Kramer on Mad Money was saying we don't want this. We don't want this. Remember that quote.
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>> And so to think that you know something about what's going on and we didn't know anything on literally until the night before made such a huge impact on the market.
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It literally has taken a couple of years to grow out of that.
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The night before that we had had some really wonderful robust years.
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Remax and a bunch of stocks.
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They would open a huge premiums. We were trading.
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>> Give us a quick history.
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>> Give us a quick history on CLA, right?
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Because Cla's tried to get out a couple times. >> Okay.
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So, I don't know the history about CLA.
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All I know is that I watched how it opened here.
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So, it did take a little while.
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It did open at 52, I think. Right. And so, it's not traded. You know what? It's hard to know.
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So, what's important about it is where the bids are, where the offers are, and how the foundation looks.
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So, where the bodies are buried within the stock when it opens, right?
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There was enough stock at 52 bid on balance. It's what it's called.
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So stocks pair off that are priced accordingly.
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So 4 point something million shares open.
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That means that they were market orders.
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They had no limits to them.
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And that's they that was they paired themselves off.
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It was a 52 bid for 300,000 on balance meant that there was a stabilizing bid whether it was by the Goldman Sachs, the company or or the banker or not.
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But that's what made it open at 52.
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If there had been more to buy at the market, it would have opened higher or more to sell, it would have opened lower. It opened at 52.
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It did trade up to 5720 on a small bit.
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70,000 shares traded up and then it came in.
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It's trading at a couple dollars lower which is reasonable.
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It does not have the power and the impact that Figma and um and Bullish did. Figma and Bullish did.
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Bullish did. So, so, so, but but all three of these are relatively like is there a specific strategy that that these IPOs have had in terms of like pricing at a at a a at a at at what feels like uh >> uh very reasonable like
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>> so you know what they're they they they're pricing it based on the reaction to to what the what the investment community is to give it is so some the other ones got priced at 30 there was over supply over demand at 30 they upped it to 3235 That's how it will go. So the
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So the night the last night when they go out to the road show to give out allocations they will get a sense of where that valuation should be and then that's where they will give it up.
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They left some talk on money on the table as did those other IPOs.
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The other ones opened at 90 and went to 117.
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That was B that was uh bullish and Figma also traded at a huge premium.
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My gut is that the sectors that they were in, there's a lot of pressure on this sector right now and and so those those sectors were more iCloud and and and and AI based, right?
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And so I think that's why there was a little more pop to it.
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>> Well, we know you have to get out of here.
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Thank you so much for stopping by the show.
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We'd love to have you back sometime. >> Anytime.
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I'm always talk for another two hours. Let's go.
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>> So, thank you so much to the moon. Love it. >> Let's go. >> Love it.
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>> Uh anyway, in other news, uh you wanted to talk about Oracle.
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Oracle has become the current thing.
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Uh and give us the highlights.
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It was a miss on topline, miss on bottom line.
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Massive, but a massive spike in the share price due to a large cloud backlog. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay.
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So, take us through some of the post.
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uh you know, just sort of joking around here, but this this reminded me of a company that that would like to get a bridge round done >> and comes out and says, "Yeah, you know, we missed our we missed we missed our forecast.
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We missed but but like just just look out here like look look at these big numbers coming down uh the horizon."
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So um they basically reported on their backlog for the next 5 years which is >> which we've been seeing from the other hyperscalers.
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Remember when we went through Microsoft earnings, uh, GCP earnings, we saw really strong backlogs there in the hundreds of billions of dollars that they can just chip away at for years.
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Unclear how exactly how binding those those contracts are.
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But yes, >> uh, from the transcript, we expect Oracle Cloud infrastructure revenue to grow 77% to 18 billion this fiscal year, then increase to 32, then 73, then 114, and then 144 billion over the subsequent four years.
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Um and they say most of the revenue in this 5year forecast is already booked in our reported RPO.
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>> Uh so uh anyways people uh the stocks obviously up tremendously.
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Larry Ellison is uh currently uh the richest man in the world. >> Oh he is.
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He beat Elon today because of the stock.
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>> Um and uh yeah Oracle had just been doing buybacks and buybacks and buybacks and so uh Larry's Larry's ownership percentage has just gone up over time.
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He uh he's definitely known to to hold.
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Um and um but yeah, a lot of >> King's betting on betting on himself. Um uh absolutely wild.
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Um and yeah, I mean o overall uh there's been some negativity in the timeline.
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Uh people were bringing up that uh during the '9s.
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com era there were a number of class action lawsuits against uh Oracle uh just due to the way in which they were reporting around uh reporting revenue effectively like basically uh reporting like forecasted revenue.
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like forecasted revenue. This is so funny because didn't we all just go through this with C ARR in the startup world like contracted ARR like we like two demo days ago I think we were talking to Gary Tan about hey uh >> no last yeah maybe last demo day I think
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we talked with Gary Tan we were like hey it feels like startups are getting a little loose with the ARR definitions what should we do about that and Gary said look we've given very clear advice to all the YC companies uh if it's if it's a contract and it's non-binding make that clear. If it's a contract and
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If it's a contract and it's binding, make that clear.
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If it's actually cash in the bank, make that clear.
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But don't just come with some crazy ARR number that isn't actually anything like what people expect.
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And so, uh, it's funny that we went through this, we saw that kind of the correction to understanding metrics in the in the, uh, in the startup world and now we're having a reconciliation. Yeah.
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So, there's uh somebody named Steve Burns said uh this morning, Oracle stock is up 36% on pace for the best day since 1999.
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Uh and then somebody here is posting a meme of a of a duck the goose chasing saying, "What happened after 1999?
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>> What happened after 1999?"
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And of course, that is it is crazy to see a 30% move in a stock as big as Oracle.
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It's now over a trillion dollars. Correct. >> Yeah.
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Zero Hedge was posting a trillion dollar company trading like a penny stock.
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Uh, we do need to have the conversation of of expanding the Mag 7, right?
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The the Elite 8 or >> I think we're going to 12.
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>> We're going to 12, >> maybe 50, who knows? >> Fascinating. >> Yeah.
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So, so anyways, um um >> Marco Kanovic uh was saying uh yesterday Oracle was looking like a great short.
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Uh hopefully hopefully didn't get blown out.
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>> Hopefully he didn't get blown out.
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Are people throwing the real thing? Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean the real thing is is if you were um I mean brutal for anybody that was was short uh Oracle going into earnings because uh yeah you were right on but miss the overall narrative. >> Yeah.
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What what I thought was interesting was um uh met >> I mean people are like people are the the the the self-proclaimed smart money is like really pissed off about this because just come in miss earnings and then say oh don't worry about it we have a half trillion dollar backlog.
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trillion dollar backlog. Um and that's like okay it's a lot of billions right where where is that >> like there's not that many and and it's from a very concentrated group of customers >> there's only so many customers even so >> and a lot of advance partners
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>> yeah Nvidia sells GPUs to Oracle Oracle builds a cloud and then is actually renting and then is like providing providing that cloud basically selling that cloud >> back to Nvidia who's also a buyer right so it's it's a little bit uh it's a little bit cir circular. But
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But >> yeah, I was thinking about that dinner that Mark Zuckerberg had with Donald Trump where he sort of announced his own internal backlog of what was it $600 billion.
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>> And so if you think about if you think about Meta is both the the the capex investor and and buyer of that capacity.
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They basically said that they have a backlog of 600 billion dollars of of >> the RPOS the list of RPOS Amazon 195 billion Microsoft 315 billion Google at 106 billion and Oracle at 455 billion. >> Yeah. >> Lot of revenue.
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>> Where is it going to come from?
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uh the the the real the real AI the real like like if you're incredibly AGI pilled going to come at this and being like that's that's effectively spend that might have gone to labor that's going to be like rerouted to um >> to uh basically inference. >> Yep.
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>> Um there's also a lot of robotics obviously self-driving cars things like that coming online. Yep.
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that coming online. Yep. there's a lot of potential demand and we are seeing um exponential usage in tokens but still uh yeah we're starting to get into >> I mean work through those one at a time it's like Amazon is probably going to be sending that to anthropic which cloud code the revenue numbers are insane and
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and claude is growing very fast and so you have >> Microsoft at 315 billion probably clippy >> I mean but legitimately like upselling co-pilot features into their existing enterprise customers So it gets diffused over a really large revenue base over the next decade and maybe there's uh you know some sort of a hit while they roll out all that capex. Uh but who's not on
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Uh but who's not on that RPO I I feel like is meta because they don't have this idea of of building the the the AI resources they're going to resell right whatever they're building they're consuming internally and but you should think about it in the same in the same logic in the same way they're also building servers.
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Um the question is for Oracle, can you just underwrite that as open AI?
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Like is that is is OpenAI? >> Yeah.
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And and that's that's another reason for uh somebody to be a little bit wary of these projections because it's assuming you know OpenAI just came out and said, "Hey, we're going to burn an extra $80 billion.
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>> Where's that burn going? Maybe to Oracle." >> Yeah.
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>> Maybe to Oracle, Uncle Uncle Larry.
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>> And so if you if you sum up all those losses and you look at them, does that match Oracle's projected growth?
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Well, that would be less than 20% of what Oracle's projected backlog is.
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>> Well, the backlog's over 5 years and the uh and and it was like 80 billion in one year was the loss.
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So, the total loss over the next 5 years for Open AI might be >> small.
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But if if this backlog is like really real and the demand is there, it's going to pan out.
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It's going to be contingent on OpenAI continuing to just raise more and more and more capital, right?
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>> And uh and other players >> haven't had trouble yet. So, >> Yep. will continue.
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will continue. I I do I do wonder if you should be looking at like the there is a consumer appsized there's a trillion dollar consumer app-sized hole in the data center capex world that will be fil filled by someone who's going to serve open AI and so you can think about Google's investing
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obviously this is diffused across all the different businesses but like Google's going to be supporting AI with their with their capex Microsoft obviously the same thing Amazon with anthropic Um but OpenAI needs to build out not just a not just a cloud business but also a uh >> let's bring him in. We have our second
20:01
We have our second guest.
20:03
We have the CEO of Clara. >> Here he is. >> How you doing? >> How are you? >> Welcome to the show.
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>> Thank you so much for taking the time. >> That was so boring.
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>> Yeah, it was late your time, right?
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But we appreciate you staying up and we appreciate you coming on the show today. >> You seem relaxed. Just a regular day.
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You're you're posting you were posting yesterday if you should just document >> vibe coding. I'm glad you >> Exactly. >> Yeah.
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I'm glad you put down the vibe coding the cloud.
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>> I'm still getting stressed when it's not coding and I know it's like sitting and waiting for my input. >> Yeah.
20:34
Well, hopefully I didn't do too much waiting today.
20:37
Uh what's the process been like?
20:38
What time did you wake up? What?
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Take me through the day today. >> Yeah.
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Um I woke up at 6, which isn't that bad cuz I'm a little still jetlagged, so it's fine.
20:46
Uh and then, you know, we went took a shower. >> Nice. >> Get dressed.
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was like, "Should I wear this cap or another cap?" >> Okay.
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>> Which is a blockbuster IPO.
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>> Thank you for recognizing it.
20:57
Everyone's like, "Why are you wearing that cap?"
20:59
I was like, "It's obvious." >> Um, but anyways, no.
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And then like, you know, we took took a cab here and um came in here and then they were like, "Oh, hello. Hello."
21:07
And then some breakfast and you had to have some speech and you have to say some nice words. >> Had to ring the bell. >> Ring the bell. >> Ring the bell.
21:14
>> But I'll tell you actually honestly the to me the biggest thing today was Sir Michael Morates. Mhm.
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>> My chairman, uh, who's a legend, uh, you know, Google and YouTube and everything that he's been doing, >> he has never >> been at an IPO of any of his companies. >> What? >> Ever?
21:32
>> What was he doing >> ever?
21:34
No, he just like, you know, joins the West Coast. >> West Coast guy. Okay.
21:39
>> So, this was actually his first. >> Wow.
21:41
>> His first, my second, and his first.
21:41
Did he thank you for for >> Of course we we you know we No, but I was very very happy that he did it because I had to like be a little bit persistent like please Michael join.
21:52
>> What's it like working with him on the board? >> Fantastic.
21:54
I mean >> how would you characterize him relative to other board members? What's his style?
21:59
>> What I tell you is what's amazing about that man is that I I I I say this a little bit laughingly but I say look never into the details always right.
22:09
It's like most people have to really be into all the details like you know to have right.
22:14
>> This guy's intuition and business acumen and just sharp immediate understanding of anything you put in front of him. >> He is so brilliant.
22:21
It is >> it is fantastic.
22:25
>> But yeah, take me through uh him, you the rest of the board uh processing the last few years.
22:30
What were the crucible moments to put it in Sequoia's language? >> Just a few. Just >> just a few.
22:35
It's been of a roller coaster.
22:38
So people will be familiar with what you're referring to, but uh I imagine the roller coaster started on day one. It always does.
22:45
>> What was the first roller coaster moment?
22:46
>> Uh there were tons, you know, like the funny thing is that obviously since we're a factoring company, meaning that like >> we first thing we were like, first time we were ever giving people credit, we were just like, let's wait and see if somebody actually pays, you know, like we were sitting there, I remember first weeks like uhoh, wonder now.
22:59
Now they're supposed to pay.
23:01
Hopefully some money comes in.
23:02
Yeah, they're paying it works.
23:04
>> Um so that was important.
23:04
Then there was like, you know, Christmas sales came and we were just like, "Oh my god, we're supposed to pay out so much money >> and you have and you need to get you need to pay for cash."
23:13
You have crash crunch and not all there was a real cash crunch.
23:18
And I remember sitting this is 20 years ago, but I remember sitting there and was like calling some of our employees and like, "Hey, I think something's wrong with the um with the bank.
23:26
So your salary may come a little bit late."
23:30
May come a little bit late.
23:31
>> Yeah, it's a bank's problem.
23:32
>> Yeah, it's a bank problem.
23:32
you know, like um so those are like early crucible moments, but obviously since then we've had a good roller coaster anyways.
23:39
>> Well, speaking of factoring, you have a partnership with Chipotle.
23:40
We wanted you we wanted to celebrate by getting you to sign a Chipotle burrito.
23:47
>> Would you mind autographing our Chipotle right here?
23:51
We're building the uh Museum of Business. Exactly.
23:54
>> And then we're going to we're going to Sorry, I broke it. >> No, it's perfect. It's perfect.
23:57
It's authentic >> character. Thank you.
23:59
Um what uh yeah give walk us through like the past like few months you know.
24:06
>> Well no it's been interesting actually I must say I you know we um obviously um been planning the so so to be a little bit serious the point was that me and Michael always felt that the Google IPO was like the IPO like that's how you're supposed to do it.
24:20
You have a globally successful company that's profitable >> but at the same time IPOs >> and has so many years of growth ahead of themselves so much success and so forth.
24:30
So we thought like okay that's the time you want to do it >> and for us being from Europe to be global you have to be successful in the US like otherwise you're not global >> so and then you have to be profitable in the US and these things were achieved last year >> when they were achieved then we're like okay now we're starting to get ready and
24:46
we think we have decades of growth ahead of ourselves and then it's more to the bankers and the timing and the market and you know I was very fortunate that your beloved president um and and a lot things happened which meant that I was on vacation with my kids in Easter, which wasn't really the plan back then, but that happened. My kids were very
25:02
My kids were very happy and we >> and then the PO happened now. >> That's great. >> It's amazing.
25:07
>> Um, so, >> so yeah, walk me through the long term.
25:09
How does uh what does the company look like in a decade?
25:12
I'm I'm I'm wondering how how oligopolistic is this category?
25:19
Um, is their plan to expand into a financial super app?
25:21
Like what what does the far future look like?
25:23
Because that Google example, they've been building what, two decades in the public market. >> Yep. Yep. Yeah.
25:28
No, I think that is um so it actually started 10 years ago when we pivoted.
25:33
So we used to be a competitor of Stripe and Aen.
25:37
>> Um but we realized they were beating the out of us to be honest.
25:39
So we were like let's not do that.
25:41
Um but let's learn from that and realize like what what could we have done better and then let's go for the consumer side instead.
25:48
And in 15 we sat down we said the future of financial services is going to be somewhere in the future you're going to have like a digital financial assistant wakes you up in the morning say I analyze your mortgage I realize I could save you 20 bucks on your mortgage and the only thing you need to do is say yes and I'll do all the paperwork for you >> and so we're like yeah that sounds like that's what's going to happen eventually.
26:08
So it's a bit like self-driving cars.
26:09
I don't know when but we know that it will happen.
26:11
And um and then you know suddenly I'm in San Francisco doing a Whimo and I'm like wow it's actually happening right here.
26:20
>> So so the same will happen here when Chachi PT came along we're like okay it's going to happen faster than we thought um but still directionally that's it.
26:27
So you want to be a digital financial assistant save people time save people money make sure that they are in control of their finances.
26:32
are in control of their finances. And then the next question was okay if that seems likely not unlikely it seems very likely that's going to be a very valuable position to be in and it's going to be a big global company but like what why CLA why us why would we be the ones that accomplish this thing and
26:47
then we said well there a few things one you have to be global so we've achieved that US Canada Europe and so forth that's critical you have to be scale >> 111 million users we're now you know 111 million users so yeah exactly thank you >> um that's important uh so those like critical and and you have to find a way
27:07
to kind of grow the brand and thanks to our amazing you know partners with Macy's and Sephora and Walmart and all um you know that's growing the the network >> h and then the next thing is now to offer more financial services so we launched a card here in the US >> 700,000 people sign up in 6 weeks
27:23
>> 5 million people on the waiting list >> uh so we feel like it's going so that's that's kind of how we're going to grow into the full retail banking offer >> sure and I think that's the future to be that >> yeah can you explain to me um how some of those partners you mentioned, they might have their own credit card. It was
27:35
It was always powered by Visa.
27:37
What does the partnership look like with a large retailer over time?
27:41
Do they have a white labeled product?
27:43
Do they do they never do that?
27:45
Do they try and grow their own and compete with you?
27:47
Seem super smart, but >> I mean sometimes it happens that you know some merch has done that.
27:51
Our experience from Europe is that over time it's a little bit like you know there will be co-branding stuff happening like our deal with Walmart is very much a co-branding deal.
28:03
It's not that different than what AMX would do with your local airline.
28:07
Like, you know, that's also a co-brand deal, right?
28:09
So, it's going to be Delta but with AMX and stuff like that.
28:12
And that's very similar what Clana does with some of the bigger brands.
28:14
It's more of a co-brand >> while more for the like maybe more smaller merchants just cla >> uh but yeah, there's going to be some of that going.
28:22
>> That makes a lot of sense.
28:23
>> What's the number one thing that people misunderstand about the core >> buy now pay later products?
28:28
Yeah, I think that the the key thing is obviously, you know, there was a lot of like burritos on installments and stuff like that going on and we don't necessarily mind, but it is a misunderstanding.
28:36
It's just because in Europe, Clone is used for all categories.
28:40
It's like your PayPal wallet.
28:42
You use it for everything.
28:44
>> And here in the US, we were so successful with buy now pay later.
28:46
So, it's a little bit of like a blessing, but also a curse.
28:49
So, then I talked to like the head of payments at OpenAI and I was like, "You should do Clona."
28:53
And he's like, "Why buy now pay later on subscriptions? Why you know?"
28:56
And they're like, "Yeah, but we work with Disney Plus, we work with Spotify, you know, we have tons of solution for subscriptions, for virtual.
29:02
It's just that people don't know it yet here in the US.
29:05
And especially for like Uber and Door Dash, it's not that they want to put things on installments.
29:10
What they want us to help them do is think about ways to aggregate payments to drive down the payments cost.
29:15
Payments cost is a huge issue when you have an average order value of $ 20, $30.
29:19
Visa charges a fixed payment fee for every transaction. Yeah.
29:26
Uber, hey, upload 100, right? >> Still very early.
29:33
Still early, but like there's so there's just so much >> the source of the compounding advantage.
29:38
You're over time you have more and more data on on how to underwrite people and then also more and more a integrations, more customers that can pay with lower rates.
29:47
And this came up with a lot of investors because the point was on the road show because what I was I told him look we're coming from Europe >> where payments is regulated.
29:54
I'm competing with companies that has 20 bips for debit, 40 bips for credit.
30:02
That's the fees that we're seeing here in the US.
30:04
People are paying 200 for credit cards, right?
30:07
And 100 bips for debits because even if it's officially regulated, all the banks have circumvented it.
30:12
So to me, I'm coming from like low cost, lowc cost structure.
30:17
We know how to run this at, you know, at scale. Very, very low. Yeah.
30:18
And we're coming into this rich market called the US where like the margins are just, you know, gigantic. >> Yeah. Yeah.
30:25
It's uh I I want to hit the size going.
30:27
How much did you raise today?
30:29
This is a fundraising event for you, right? >> Yeah. Not that big actually.
30:31
We did only $200 million. >> That's pretty big.
30:37
>> But the full round was like I think 1. 6 or something billion. Yeah. >> Wait. So, yeah.
30:40
What is the structure of that?
30:41
That >> No, because the company think about that.
30:44
>> The the the company didn't need to raise much money.
30:45
I mean we um we're very efficient with our capital and you know we've been close to profitability for a while >> so this was more event but we wanted to make sure there's enough liquidity in the stock so we were very happy some shareholders sold some pair of the stock and that ended up I think in total there was like 1.
31:02
6 billion or something like that sorry if I'm saying the wrong numbers but it's around that numbering uh but the the primer itself was quite limited actually. >> Yeah. Yeah.
31:10
>> And I didn't sell a single stock. >> Oh there we go. >> There we go. Bet on yourself.
31:14
Uh so yeah, what what what do you think you'll be investing in?
31:18
Do you think there's going to be anything that might dip into, hey, we want to go harder?
31:22
We're going to dip we're going to start burning again or we're just going to be investing more.
31:27
Is there because I imagine that there's there's a lot of opportunity to save with AI, but then there's also some you could throw some really diesel inference at things and throw a reasoning model at every single transaction and all of a sudden you're like my cloud bill is really expensive. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
31:41
Well, the truth is if you look at I sometimes joke that at the end there was only going to be a bill from an Amazon and one from you know Claude. >> Sure.
31:48
>> That's the only thing the whole company would be two bills >> and they might be the same company.
31:51
That's >> exactly right on the same servers.
31:55
>> But I think I mean you looked at Oracle today was insane, right?
31:56
But I think that the um No, I think look um we I think we maybe in the last two years slightly overindexed on AI and efficiency.
32:05
We were so like, "Oh, wow.
32:06
Look, we can get rid of all the SAS.
32:06
We can get rid of Salesforce.
32:08
Get >> rid you built your own CX tool just directly with OpenAI, right?" >> Yep. Yep. Yep.
32:13
So, uh, we've took out 1,200 SAS software.
32:19
>> It's pretty, >> but to be honest, like Salesforce, $2 million in license fees, it's nice, but on a P&L of $3 billion, >> it's not like >> doesn't make much of it, right?
32:28
So, it was much more about how do you consolidate all the data?
32:31
How do you standardize it so you don't spread it out on all these systems?
32:34
out on all these systems? to you get this mess because the less of a mess >> the easier it is both for a human and for AI >> to use it to something productive right and so that's been kind of the key thing but I would say we overindex slightly on productivity >> sure now we are indicing more on growth
32:49
>> y >> and unfortunately for human labor which I find unfortunate is like we don't feel we need more people >> sure >> like we are already gone from 7,400 to 3,000 I think one of the most shocking things people saw the investors were like how come you're growing your revenue so much and your opex it's just coming down. It's like the opposite what
33:05
It's like the opposite what you're supposed to be talking about.
33:08
>> Uh but in our case, we haven't laid off people.
33:10
We have just relied on attrition.
33:12
So 20% of the workforce leaves every year naturally because they go on for other adventures >> and we just rely on that and then uh we become fewer and fewer and we get more and more done which is amazing.
33:22
So the only thing we could ever consider where I would say it would make sense potentially to spend more money is marketing.
33:28
But right now we're very happy to do within the budgets we have.
33:31
>> Yeah, we talked to Alex saying the exact same thing. very similar thing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
33:35
Um >> what about uh um I I'm interested to hear so I I understand the the overindexing on productivity then maybe pulling back but it feels like two years ago every company was kind of seeing AI as a hammer.
33:49
I mean all you got is a hammer.
33:51
Everything looks like a nail.
33:52
And so every single business process, every single thing is like can we throw AI? Can we throw AI?
33:56
And a lot of consultants made a lot of money selling slide decks doing that.
33:59
Uh I feel like we are now in the scalpel era and there are incredible use cases for LLMs maybe within software that you're already paying for and you're not even implementing it maybe to you know glue two systems together.
34:13
Are there any standout examples of like AI as a scalpel that you're seeing these days that you that you think like yeah it's a little bit narrower than just like do everything.
34:24
Um, but it's something that you're that that that you're excited about the early glimpse of what's possible there.
34:31
possible there. I think more recently I've gotten all the senior managers at cloud now to start using cursor >> sure >> regularly and I still think that there's like >> there I I am still unfortunately quite negative on SAS because the point is that all these tools internal tools that were built >> today we can go to cursor and like write
34:52
me stuff fix me things it's almost becoming your internal terminal for interacting with your data for interacting with you know stuff like that especially since you're not putting it in production you're not externalizing you don't need to be as nervous about the same aspects that you do when you think put things in production. >> So I am as hyped as ever on AI from that
35:07
>> So I am as hyped as ever on AI from that perspective.
35:10
>> Well and your position of of getting all the benefits of AI but not having uh not being threatened in the same way that other you know you guys make software but you're a payments company right financial services.
35:21
So somebody can't go into cursor and be like build me uh CLA don't make mistakes right like >> we'll get a bunch of data on whether or not we should underwrite this person's risk profile.
35:33
>> How how have you been seeing um uh >> there's historically you know anytime people are borrowing money they get a bunch of loan documentation and it and it ultimately is like a lot of it's a lot of legal legal mumbo jumbo. It's confusing.
35:46
Uh people that have more resources might go to a lawyer and say can you help me understand this?
35:50
Now people can drop those into chat GBT that ends up being good for simple financial products like CLA where people can easily understand I'm I'm getting this product today and then I'm going to pay it in these parts.
36:01
Do you think that lending broadly is in for a reckoning as as everyday consumers >> get start to get access to again chat GPD is not advertising itself as a legal tool but you can get a lot of insight from from from >> loan.
36:15
I it comes back to what I said about you know that vision we had 10 years ago about which we're still on exactly which we're still on which is this like digital financial system.
36:24
So what what I believe is that if you look at a lot of industries they are making excess profits because of the switching costs.
36:34
costs. So we customers are just not that keen of switching especially when it comes to banking but also electricity carriers all these things they're not like it's not like I really love my carrier phone carrier that much it's just that I don't bother to switch right
36:48
and that allows them to charge more allows them to pay you know to have lower quality services at higher cost >> so when you imagine a world where you have a digital financial system is like let me do that for you and you start trusting them like let me go and fix your carrier your bill. Let me go and
37:03
Let me go and fix your electricity.
37:05
Let me renegotiate that thing for you.
37:07
That it must lead to a better functioning economy with less excess profits especially in this.
37:13
It doesn't matter for Prada or sorry shouldn't say this is Prada for whatever it might for for for Prada LVMH doesn't matter right irrelevant for the brands for Nike irrelevant >> for H utilities.
37:30
And so what is banking then? I would say it's a mix.
37:32
It's a little bit of a mix.
37:34
It has both some aspects of trust and customer preference and so forth, but there is also a utilistic aspect to it.
37:39
So, so we I believe that all of the excess profits we've seen in banking are going to come down.
37:45
And I've been very clear with our investors that if you're investing in Clana, you're investing in the fact that we will be one of the forces that drive that change and hopefully as a consequence of that get a bigger piece of what will be a smaller pie. >> Yeah. >> What's next for you?
37:59
Are you going to stay running the company for the first year? >> Yeah, I hope so. I hope so.
38:02
I mean, I >> I've only been doing this for two decades. Come on, guys.
38:07
It's like >> just getting started.
38:08
I mean, this you seem you seem uh incredibly calm and >> it does feel like it's just another day for you.
38:15
>> It is partially another day for me, but I I think special day. Congratulations.
38:20
But also, it's good to Yeah.
38:20
It's good to be in that mode.
38:22
>> Look, as I said, like I I I tell you emotionally going to Bentonville, Arkansas. >> Yeah.
38:27
standing at the grave of Sam Walton. Yeah.
38:30
>> And being at the cusp of working with what to me was like the company that I was most excited about when I was a kid.
38:36
I was reading about it like the entrepreneurial >> greatest retailers of all time.
38:40
>> It is fant like that to me was I'm sorry like I love this but emotionally that was very special just breeding that air >> you know it's it's also very like Scandinavian type of culture in the Midwest.
38:52
There's a lot of similarities, you know.
38:55
>> So, I think this is cool, but that was special.
38:57
>> Was there anyone 20 years ago that believed that you'd take it all the way here? >> Apart from myself. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Exactly. Apart from myself.
39:06
Look, I >> because because by the time Sequoia's investing, then everyone's like, "Okay, they'll be at the they'll be at NY soon enough, right?
39:13
It's going to it seems inevitable." >> It's funny.
39:16
>> It's funny. I I found this old email I wrote like five six months into it where I wrote to my co-founders and the email goes something like I'm sitting here alone in the middle of the night and I started thinking like what if we would like expand this beyond Sweden into more markets and start going after the band become global you know it's like wouldn't that be awesome like it's kind
39:36
of and I found this by coincidence a few months ago when I was just going through some old stuff and I was like wow it's kind of crazy I'm sitting >> screenshot it and >> yeah exactly that like you know I actually predicted But but I think it's a little bit like you know if you ask a soccer player or a football player or something like do you want to play Champions League? Do you want to play in
39:51
Do you want to play in the NFL?
39:52
Do you want to play the finals?
39:54
You know like of course you do of course as a founder I was dreaming of being here in the league. Yeah, of course. Of course.
40:01
Like does that mean that I knew?
40:03
No, of course I didn't know but I hoped and I knew I was going to do everything that I could and you know all the energy and all the hours spent and all the sacrifices, right?
40:12
So >> feels like the biggest misunderstanding of of of of this company broadly is is just like your intentionality around building this, right?
40:21
Of of of like actually trying to build fair, transparent products that that uh that that are going after those excess profits like you described. >> Thank you. I'm happy to hear that.
40:32
But I think I think actually we had one slide on the road show that shows a study from 2015 by McKenzie.
40:39
Actually, I love Mackenzie.
40:42
Sometimes I hate Mackenzie, but let's give it up for >> Mackenzie.
40:46
They don't get they don't get enough love.
40:48
>> And they did a study here in 15 where they they basically and they were trying to sell it to credit card companies.
40:52
Say like, "Guys, there's an untapped market."
40:56
>> And this is not people without money.
40:58
They actually have quite good money.
40:58
But these are people they called self-aware avoiders.
41:02
There were people that saw their parents getting stuck in credit card debt. 07.
41:05
They tried the credit card themselves because they were supposed to get a good scoring and then suddenly they find themselves with $4,000 worth of debt paying 25 interest, you know, percent interest on it or whatever.
41:16
And they're like, what is this?
41:18
This is the product of the devil.
41:19
Like, get me rid of this.
41:19
Like, and they pay down the debt.
41:21
And they're like, I don't want to use that.
41:23
>> And that group, they don't want the air launches.
41:26
They don't want the loyalty points or the cash back. That's not them.
41:30
Those are the prosperous and content, the AMX users, the chess sciard.
41:34
That's a different group.
41:34
This group wants fixed installments, 0% interest, budgeting tools, clarity, honesty, no overdraft fees, no ne negative surprises, just give me like a robust solid product that I can use for my purchases.
41:49
Debit and then occasionally when I need it, credit but with zero fees, right?
41:53
But it turned out in that study, 20% of the American population falls into that self-aware avoider group.
41:59
20% of the households, all the people creating credit card programs to sit here in Manhattan, they do program for themselves.
42:05
They want the loyalty points.
42:07
They want the, you know, the cashback programs, they're doing them for themselves.
42:09
You have to ask your customer, what does my customer want?
42:12
And not everyone wants that, right? Like, and it's fine.
42:14
The other people want it, and that's okay, but for this group, it's something different, right?
42:18
Um, and that's what we're trying to do. >> Okay, last question.
42:20
You're wearing the last blockbuster hat.
42:22
What's your favorite movie? >> That's a good move.
42:26
Like I have to tell you recently uh my son who loves Star Wars Yeah.
42:32
>> said you gotta watch Mandalorian and I was like okay but how good can it be? It was awesome. That's great. >> It was awesome.
42:37
So um so that is probably But did you did you bring the Did you bring the family today? >> No, I did not.
42:43
>> It's just another This is just another business trip.
42:46
>> This was I did a road trip.
42:46
I'm >> going to go to I'm going to go to Wall Street.
42:49
I'll be back in a few days.
42:50
>> We did a road trip with the kids from Boise, Idaho >> to San Francisco.
42:55
We stopped in band, Oregon to go and visit the last blockbuster.
42:58
I really recommend for everyone go and >> so this is from the store, not from the movie about >> This is from the store. This is from the store. You should go there.
43:05
50% of the revenue is still DVD rentals. >> Wow.
43:10
>> So, and it's fantastic experience.
43:12
>> Oh, here we have a new hat for you.
43:13
>> I'm not going to have this one now. So, that's good. >> Put it on. But >> thank you.
43:16
So, >> last last question. Last question.
43:17
Last last final final question.
43:19
Uh, is your profile picture AI or is it real? >> Oh, yeah. Are you that flight? >> Photoshop. It's photo hand. Handmade. Sorry.
43:29
Well, your stock chart looks like that.
43:34
>> Anyway, thank you so much for coming.
43:36
Congrats to the whole team. Fantastic. >> You're the man. >> We'll see you later. Have a good one. >> Uh, >> what a legend.
43:42
Just another another day. Just another day.
43:45
>> I'm just I I just got to go take my company. >> It's a business trip. I'll be right back.
43:50
>> Just raising I'm not even selling shares.
43:52
Yeah, I'm not so >> I mean, yeah, I I I do think people have this um >> massive mis Come on the show. >> Welcome. How are you doing? >> I'm pretty good. Hi, I'm David. Nice. >> Pretty good. It's pretty good.
44:04
I'm >> should be fantastic.
44:07
>> I am absolutely >> got you fired up. How you doing?
44:11
>> We got lots of lots of sound effects here.
44:14
>> Introduce yourself for the stream. >> I am David Sandstrom. I'm the CMO at CLA.
44:17
>> How did you get introduced to Clara?
44:17
How did you meet Sebastian?
44:19
I used to run one of the biggest ad agencies in the Nordics in Europe.
44:24
Um, and we actually started to do the CLA transformation from this blue boring B2B company >> into this consumer franchise.
44:32
I started out agency side and after a couple of months, Sebastian was like, why don't you do that here?
44:38
>> What were you uh what was your bread and butter when you were in the ad world prior to Clara?
44:42
Were you doing big brand marketing projects or were you doing because there's so many different niches.
44:48
You could be video, you could be billboards, you could be, you know, there's a whole bunch of different things you could do.
44:52
>> Now, we I'm I did all of the above.
44:52
No, but I'm I'm the strategy is probably my thing.
44:58
Like, I'm >> super interested in consumer behavior.
45:01
Like, why do people pick a Coke over a Pepsi?
45:04
Why do people walk into a McDonald's versus a Burger King?
45:05
Like, the science >> the science behind something that cannot be science, right?
45:10
The thing that that really intrigues me, like the psychology part of like the labu thing now, right?
45:17
How does that how does that happen? Yeah.
45:19
>> How do people fall in love with ugly plastic dolls?
45:21
And like >> we've been asking >> we were asking the same question on the show two weeks ago.
45:26
We >> That's the thing, right?
45:27
And and those things intrigue me.
45:29
And I do think marketing done well and done correctly.
45:33
Isn't that you know >> y >> is is in that vicinity of being, you know, you make money for >> whose idea was pink?
45:41
>> That that was actually my idea. >> I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.
45:43
Well, the thing so the thing about uh the the thing about ideas, guys, you know, market, you know, marketers is like you can sometimes you just have a great idea and it's incredibly simple >> and and that that one idea ends up paying just massive massive dividends, which I feel like CLA is just consistently so recognizable and really owns owns the color. >> Yep. >> Yeah, we do.
46:06
But but I think looking back at what we've done, everything the strategy, everything has been fairly easy and simple, right?
46:12
There's nothing complex about it.
46:14
Pink is just a it's a result of us understanding that banks and the financial industry is one of the most distrusted and hated industries in the world. >> Everyone is blue. Like everyone is blue. Just put the logos up. Everyone is blue.
46:30
Someone sprinkled some black on top, but everyone is blue.
46:32
And we knew that, you know, only politicians and social media were more disliked than financial institutions.
46:37
So it's at the absolute bottom of of trust.
46:39
So I just said like what's not blue?
46:43
Like what's the what's the opposite of blue basically? >> Very here we have it. >> Yeah. Fantastic. Uh yeah.
46:47
What where was the CLA brand before you came in? Who was it catering to?
46:53
Did was the key oversight that it was >> just fully B2B? >> Fully B2B.
46:59
Is that is that the >> No, it wasn't. But it wasn't a brand.
47:01
It was a fantastic product. Guess the color. >> Blue. >> Blue. Of course. Blue logo.
47:06
Of course, very, >> you know, as a lot of tech companies start out, very like square, very broish, very male biased, >> fairly boring, bureaucratic, nothing you want to engage with, no emotional component to it.
47:23
Nothing you you transact, right? It's a transaction.
47:25
And that is what we tried to change like in everything.
47:29
everything. and what we did with Snoop and Paris and ASAP Rocky and the pink and how we show up and you know >> talk about the talk about the cultural differences between the European market and and then coming to America because I feel like they >> I mean
47:43
>> from my perspective and and from the financial perspective the big big difference is that US is atheavy market >> everyone understand >> we love to spend money >> Republicans love their credit cards >> love credit cards but also understand credit like if you Ask a random European like what is APR? Like nothing. Nothing. Like nothing. Nothing. Very interesting.
48:04
And and and Europe is a debit market, right?
48:06
And understanding those dynamics, how that works, the power of credit cards in the US and and the the stronghold they have versus Europe that is a debit market different what we see now also the digitalization like I haven't seen cash or a car like a physical card in I don't know 5 10 years. I just haven't seen it.
48:25
That's the only thing I always forget when coming to the US, my physical card.
48:29
So I show up at the hotel, they're like, you need a cardile. Yeah.
48:35
You're like, what's going on? >> Yeah.
48:36
So that that's the biggest difference.
48:38
But then I mean I love the US.
48:41
I love the spirit in the US.
48:41
Like they >> American consumer is undefeated. >> Everything is bigger. Nothing is impossible.
48:47
like there's just this um I I think greatness to thing that that is the that's the soundtrack of the US.
48:54
So so I absolutely love it.
48:58
>> And also like one big difference on from my perspective is >> in the US people appreciate marketing and they appreciate people making money. Right.
49:07
So in in Europe when we do a partnership with a celebrity they're like you're a sellout sellout. Exactly.
49:14
You're the celebrity like you're a sellout. Why do you do this?
49:18
You only want to make money.
49:18
In the US, when someone does something where they're like, you're the best.
49:24
Make as much money as you can. This is awesome.
49:26
So, there's a huge difference in that as well. >> Yeah.
49:28
No, I feel like um uh Shaquille O'Neal in particular has built a whole brand around like being just everywhere in every ad possible.
49:35
And some of the folks that you've worked have done the same thing.
49:39
I've seen Snoop all over the place. >> I love that. It is like Yeah.
49:43
Yeah. and it becomes their it becomes like another piece of their content strategy almost and you're like oh have you seen the latest you know uh Paris Hilton promotion because it's like part of her brand world you can't even guess the >> what about in terms of uh actual like the distribution of marketing materials
50:01
is there any difference in America you know there's this power law in TV advertising around the Super Bowl uh there's obviously a ton of stuff going on on social media podcasts live streams we have a bunch of advertisers where where where does where where's there a difference between where the actual ad impressions are coming from? Is there
50:18
Is there any difference or is it pretty much >> I think the interesting thing with the US is that you still have these tentpole moments like the Super Bowl.
50:24
You have that thing everyone gathers and you have these like not millions of viewers but tens and hundreds of millions of viewers >> in Europe everything is so distributed digital is very strong.
50:35
So there there it's hard to build a brand >> when you don't have these temple moments because a brand is very much about like you and I have seen the same thing >> and we think it's cool when every ad is personalized.
50:48
I don't know like have you seen the clown ad?
50:50
I saw it but that was that was only on my Tik Tok algorithm.
50:54
>> Be a bad signal if everyone saw the same ad cuz you know why it's going viral.
50:58
>> That was the power of TV.
50:58
Once upon a time you knew that everyone had seen that or missed it or whatever it is.
51:03
Kardashians like I I saw the last episode like I'm in, you know, >> part of the culture. >> Exactly.
51:08
Part of the culture and you don't have that in Europe. >> Yep.
51:11
>> How involved did you get on the road show side?
51:13
show side? Clinos is interesting um in an interesting place where the the consumer brand I feel like is almost different than the the brand within tech for example right because like in our world a lot of our audience are high high earners founders investors executives at technology companies they
51:31
maybe aren't using CLA nearly as much as the average American let's say how what what's the what's kind of like the disconnect between those those kind of the two brands >> sometimes that's that's a difficult bridge to gap right a lot of our investors don't use the product on a
51:46
daily basis right if you look at a Spotify for example from Stockholm as well like the investors might might use that on a daily basis or even that was a thing with Figma right fantastic company% investors don't know how to design right they haven't used that >> yeah but but even diff the only thing
52:02
different there is an investor knows that every one of their portfolio companies uses Figma every day right so it's >> but but that has been the story to tell right be because like China does a lot of amazing things But you could boil it down to it's just a better alternative to credit cards, right? And everyone
52:16
And everyone understands credit cards, how that works with points, how and and that's the story to tell, right?
52:21
And and I usually talk about like I do think this is a seismic shift where we've gone from gold to cash, from cash to credit cards and now from credit cards to the next generation of things where Clar is the lead.
52:34
>> Some of our competitors as well, of course, but I do think that's the story to tell, right?
52:37
And we're seeing that shift amongst consumer as well like they're sick and tired of being screwed over by their credit card like companies high fees predatory APRs all of that.
52:45
So I think we're seeing that seismic shift and that has been a very important piece for us to tell that story from a consumer perspective working a lot with testimonials our own customers but but you're completely right.
53:00
>> Uh what about going going more multi-roduct you guys have ambitions uh you have multiple products already.
53:04
Uh Sebastian was telling us about the card product and the credible weight list, but how are you thinking about going multi-roduct in the US market specifically?
53:14
>> I mean the the strategy is basically growing with our consumer engagement, right?
53:19
So we have 111 million consumers.
53:21
I think we have north of 30 million consumer boom north of 30 >> north of 30 million consumers in the US. >> They love CLO.
53:32
So they keep telling us, hey, I use CLA online all the time.
53:34
Why can't I use CLA in store?
53:36
Okay, that's the the idea of the credit card.
53:38
Hey, I love CLA, but I want to pay, you know, with debit from time to time.
53:43
Well, okay, that's the start of the balance and that is how we grow, right? I presume.
53:48
I mean, but I want to make 30 years of monthly payments. I mean, >> there you go.
53:52
I mean, Amazon started out as a bookstore and now it's the everything store and we started out with payments and now we're the everything.
54:00
>> We're excited to keep following the journey.
54:01
Thank you so much for coming.
54:02
Thank you so much for having me. >> Congratulations. >> Congratulations.
54:05
>> Uh really quickly before our next guest, let's tell you about some of our sponsors.
54:08
This stream of course is made possible by ramp.
54:10
com, Figma, which Jord just mentioned, Vanta, Linear, and Eight Sleep.
54:16
We will tell you more about our sponsors after our next guest.
54:21
We just wanted to shout out to some of them.
54:23
>> If you're just tuning in for the first time, I just wanted to share we have a game signed burrito by burrito.
54:27
It's actually, it's not just any burrito.
54:32
>> It's a Chipotle burrito.
54:33
>> And Clara does have a partnership >> and this will be going in the uh business hall of fame that we're putting together.
54:39
>> Let's bring in our next Let's bring in our next guest.
54:42
>> Oh, I I It has been It has been too long too long. >> Great to see you.
54:48
>> I'm bringing you some sweet I I feel like when you came Monday, I told you don't be a >> And then I don't hear from you for own. And here you are. >> Owns Pink.
54:59
No one excited to be here and see you guys again. >> This is nice too. >> Yeah. Pink pink.
55:03
Uh >> it's we overtaking the the whole the trading floor. >> Yeah.
55:07
How did you uh how did you become a board member?
55:09
How did you meet Sebastian?
55:11
>> So I joined the board recently.
55:11
I joined earlier earlier this year.
55:13
Uh of course Clara is investing heavily into AI and figuring out how to combine the best experience with a lot of the AI innovation.
55:20
innovation. and uh and that's how Sebastian and I met now over over a year back started speaking about AI how we can innovate >> to build the financial assistant of the future >> was the actual intro through like Sequoia folks or something like >> it was initially we met on the event of
55:35
of Sequoa's event sure I was on one of the panels Sebastian asked the question >> this AISN >> it was the Europe 100 >> okay previous >> which is another of course amazing thing about about kind of the connection where is one of the the few European companies that started in Europe and build a global brand that everybody recognizes. >> Uh even today earlier walking through
55:54
>> Uh even today earlier walking through the trading floor the the best feeling was a lot of the people coming by it's like I'm a Clara user.
56:00
It's like 110 million active active customers which is of course as as as another founder that started a company in Europe and is trying to build global business.
56:08
U Sebastian and I got along well and started speaking about this. >> Yeah.
56:13
Uh how did you explain your business to him at the time?
56:15
Was there was it in the context of a partnership or just kind of life lessons learned and and understanding of your understanding of AI could potentially get him up to speed on what was coming?
56:26
>> It's it's a good combination of both.
56:26
I think there's one piece which you know Sebastian is just such a trailblazer and quick to a lot of adoption.
56:31
He was one of the first to jump into the AI start figuring out how you can deploy agents in customer service.
56:37
in customer service. few hundred people uh uh work could be elevated through the AI work um and eventually u optimized on the on the on the bottom line as well and uh and we started speaking about a lot of other ideas of what could could happen what is possible >> uh working in voice of course there's an an interesting angle of how you can
56:56
combine the part of voice experience across the customer service where people can call in whether it's a claim whether it's to understand a little bit more and that's where we >> um what about on the B2B side clar is unique because they have a brand with consumers, but then they also sell to customers and or to enterprises and businesses. Uh, have you thought or have
57:12
Uh, have you thought or have you seen any glimmers of we've heard some sort of maybe it's a little bit too early to have AI in charge of the outbound sales?
57:22
They're not robots buying steak dinners for folks just yet.
57:26
But there's a lot of companies where they need a phone number where if somebody wants to get more information, they currently put in a form and then maybe there's a phone line where some sales reps can pick up uh internal sales.
57:37
Uh but that could be AI in the mix, voice agents in the mix.
57:40
Have you seen that in other companies?
57:42
Are you optimistic about that?
57:44
>> I'm optimistic for like a scenario where you you have like Clara a lot of inbound, a lot of partners that want to work with you.
57:50
Now a lot of the the the requests, you need to figure out a smarter way to handle those requests.
57:53
So instead of waiting for a longer time to to speak with a human, could you validate the workflow with an voice agent and go through that quicker, we've actually seen and deployed that for for ourselves where if you if you want to accelerate the pipeline, you can speak with the voice agent and tell a little bit more about use case.
58:10
And actually what happened is that a lot of people are more keen to tell you a lot more than they would otherwise.
58:14
Uh but then there's you know so many other areas where that's relevant.
58:18
A good example is training people internally.
58:20
training people internally. So whether you are on the on the talent team um and I think that's how a lot of people in CLA are thinking about on the talent team whether it's u you actually on the sales team how can I get better and then whether it's the the agent on the tech side whether it's voice agent you can actually learn and do that better and then there's of course the last angle
58:39
which uh which is the the easiest one but only easy if everybody adopts it is how you can use AI in the internal process and internal tooling uh we actually just spoke with one of the um execs at the at the across the Cuite at Clara who is now deploying herself some of the AI tooling to improve the switch from to-do into the actual project management flow with the right metadata with who is the specific tasks for. So
59:01
So it autofills a lot of the information that otherwise would be manual and take a long time.
59:07
So that's kind of those all three domains whether it's delivering better customer experience with AI whether it's improving how you actually get customers through the flow and how you train the staff internally or optimize process internally I think all are so relevant with that work.
59:20
Yeah, it feels like it's part of this like narrative that we're seeing where uh for a lot of companies AI was just kind of like, okay, get a big deck from a consulting firm and it's going to do everything.
59:30
It's going to replace everyone.
59:32
But now we're in kind of more the AI as a scalpel era.
59:33
Uh and plugging in a uh you know a frontier voice model into something that might be generated.
59:41
I don't even know what technology was used to generate voices before uh transformer-based models, but it was rough and you hear it all the you were like a stitch up of effectively like to make a voice work.
59:52
Yeah, >> what I think is the other thing that that is is clearly seen across the companies is that the best mixes you have AI to automate the easier manual tasks, but then you supplement with the highest experts you can in the field and that's what Clara did even outside of voice as you think about text.
1:00:07
Uh just people that can handle um the the the really tricky cases um specialists are there.
1:00:15
Clara is actively hiring on that side.
1:00:17
But then the easy 80% of the task whether it's just getting information getting more uh um product delivery for that first steps in the flow are are happening all of AI.
1:00:30
>> Um is there some sort of parallel to draw between the fact that uh I feel like both CLA and 11 Labs are are not the like do everything all at once.
1:00:39
It's like do one thing really really well, grow, own that, and then maybe expand.
1:00:47
Is is is that am I am I jumping to conclusions there?
1:00:50
Does that feel like something that you you and Sebastian can like kind of bond over?
1:00:55
>> And and we uh we we spoke of course briefly about before before the show as well where I think it's very important to go deep and understand the customer, understand domain and work backwards from there.
1:01:04
I think Carn did it incredibly well being so early in the e-commerce, then digital payments.
1:01:08
Now with uh so many of the AI innovations and um and I think understanding the customer working backwards and then expanding is the right move.
1:01:16
At 11 Labs we are of course trying to do the same with going deep in in media space now with with a lot of the telco space and then working on how you can build a platform out of that.
1:01:26
So um so I think there is a parallel and I think the kind of the common theme like you need to really deliver the best experience for a specific specific segment. >> Very cool.
1:01:35
>> What's coming down the pipeline in Europe?
1:01:37
Europe? Are there exciting companies that uh I'm sure you guys when when a company starts showing promise I'm sure you and Sebastian get hit up pretty quickly what should we expect the godfather >> you probably are seeing the Sweden is booming of course Clara now Spotify in the past so many other amazing companies
1:01:53
with Lovable Lora and others so there's definitely an ecosystem there Sebastian has also a little bit of of of Polish uh uh uh roots as well where I'm from Poland is also very excited for Sebastian for for Clara And so I think this is another ecosystem to watch out for and see how that stretches. And these are like two good
1:02:10
And these are like two good hubs.
1:02:12
Of course, London is is also trying to get there.
1:02:14
We've seen a little bit in France.
1:02:16
Um so I think these four regions are are really are really going to to go for it.
1:02:21
Uh lots more to do I think to to bring it to the level uh to the US innovation but but the energy is there like that's that's that's very clear.
1:02:30
clear. the founders are realizing that you know you real path and you should >> even if you start from Europe you can build a global company and I think that realization wasn't there five 10 years back and now it's like you should start
1:02:42
thinking from about the global space from the start and and it's possible >> examples like Sebastian are a great examples being for 20 years and is just now kind of going once again as we think about in re rein reinventing CLA for the next 20 years uh and expanding the Oric. So I think that's a good inspiration for
1:03:00
So I think that's a good inspiration for other founders there too.
1:03:02
>> Yeah, it is it is a different story.
1:03:02
I mean I I feel like new bank has not expanded into the US in any meaningful way and they build a fantastic business acquire company.
1:03:10
Obviously >> fintex are amazing in Europe.
1:03:11
In Poland it's >> but there's something special that yeah you and Clara like starting not in America but actually being able to get a strong foothold where you haven't seen that from like there's that Indian company Flipkart and like fantastically successful business but not coming to the United States in a meaningful way. >> 100%.
1:03:27
>> 100%. I think you need to from the start think think globally and I I especially now like if you are if you are starting a company >> I mean like like tactically advice for like you know small founder with some product market fit in Europe what does that look like like would you recommend okay San Francisco office at 50
1:03:44
employees or 200 employees or or or or quarterly trips or make sure you have someone on your cap table in San Hill like how can you concretize I mean without making too many generalizations >> I think the First piece would be you um even without the physical presence, you should be reaching out to people writing the newsletters. A lot of the AI people
1:04:02
A lot of the AI people that are are are active on social media and you don't try to pitch them on the work.
1:04:08
Show them the samples, show them the product, let them test it.
1:04:09
If they like it, you that's your cracked.
1:04:13
>> Just be a live player in the community online.
1:04:15
>> And you need to you need to be you need to go direct.
1:04:17
You need to show them the work.
1:04:19
You don't want to you don't want to go the fluff way of of of of the promise of the future.
1:04:23
Uh so I think this is like the very concrete thing that that worked really well for us and I think for a lot of other companies we see we see currently and second to your other point you do want people on the ground in US sooner rather than later.
1:04:36
The ecosystem is thriving there.
1:04:36
The ecosystem is thriving there. You want at least few people that that can be in Silicon Valley or they can be in New York and and spend time with other with other companies and make sure that that they are building with that
1:04:47
technology or you understand their needs before before >> you don't you don't want your competitor a competitor going through YC demo day and signing up you know half the batch before uh >> exactly you need to be with the YC companies before before any other player 100%. What's the fundraising environment
1:05:00
100%. What's the fundraising environment out like uh in Europe like >> I think the you know you can get capital now I think in Europe and US if you are B building for that scale you can you can you can really do it their capital is is plenty it's more about the the usual get the smart capital get the
1:05:17
smart investors that will help you scale to us that will help you get the talent yeah >> um uh that uh that are in there for with you for the highs but are also there when you are when you are low that would be like on the practical side one of the key things to back across any of the
1:05:31
investors but I think 100% um there is a lot of a lot of capital of money that that everybody can can get and I think surely you're seeing a lot of European companies are going with with pretty pretty great funding rounds as well especially in the recent in the >> recent yeah I mean we we Delhi and
1:05:48
Aspbury founders fun on the show and he he invested in was it Enduros the satellite the satellite bus company >> and it's just like a crazy crazy company out in in Eastern Europe that's just built like a phenomenal business in hard tech which like total narrative violation. Um and yeah there there's
1:06:05
Um and yeah there there's definitely stuff all over the place. >> Exactly.
1:06:09
And then uh you might have seen N8N which is which is another of the agendic workflow builders which everybody uses across the engineers to go to market teams >> which which is another great example and of course lovable we spoke about.
1:06:22
>> So we I mean we have to ask you came on the show on Monday you announced some fundraising.
1:06:25
Uh it sounded like you weren't in a position where you needed a ton of primary capital.
1:06:29
Are we gonna see you out here soon? >> That's the hope.
1:06:33
We are we are building to you know to create a generational company that uh that that tender offer is exactly for that to get people liquidity so they can focus on that long term. >> So so that's the hub.
1:06:44
Would love to of course be be here and follow Clarence one day.
1:06:48
>> Well hopefully we'll be there >> and thank you.
1:06:49
Uh we we we love to ask that so we can get a sheepish denial and then play the clip when it happens in a couple years.
1:06:56
>> Yeah, a year two year or two from now.
1:06:59
>> Thank you so much for coming to see us again.
1:07:01
>> Yeah, we'll see you after the show. >> Cheers.
1:07:05
>> Legend discuss coming in the studio.
1:07:05
Let me tell you about some more advertisements.
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>> Careful with that burrito.
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That is a piece of business history.
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We mentioned billboards earlier.
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I didn't get an ad quick ad read in, but there's a lot of billboards over here.
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Adio is the AI native CRM that builds, scales, and grows your company to the next level.
1:08:03
And lastly, before we bring in our next guest, um we have Finn.
1:08:06
ai, AI uh the number one AI agent for customer service, number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bake offs, number one ranking on G2.
1:08:16
We heard uh Mati talking about how Colona has been using AI in their customer service organization.
1:08:24
If you want to bring AI to bear in your customer service organization, go to Finn.
1:08:28
ai and we will bring in our next I believe we have the next person. We We have two minutes. Fantastic. >> Two minutes. We get to hang out. >> We get to hang out.
1:08:37
Let's play some soundboard. >> Let's amp it up. >> Easy, easy, easy.
1:08:45
>> First time on the soundboard every Yeah, if you put this thing within uh within striking distance of me, I'm going to have some fun.
1:08:50
Uh anyway, um >> it is uh one of the most beautiful views in the world.
1:08:55
>> It really is the Fortress of Finance, the East Coast edition.
1:08:56
Um also, >> they outrust us, too. We've got a big trust. >> Oh, yeah.
1:09:00
The truss is really, really good.
1:09:02
>> This thing is just a real monument. >> It's fantastic.
1:09:04
Uh and uh >> I see Andrew Reed down there. >> Incredibly active. Look, look. There he is. There he is. >> Hey, there he is. Come on up. Come on up.
1:09:13
>> He's He's working on it. He's working on it. >> He's on the schedule.
1:09:16
And >> yeah, we'll bring him in.
1:09:17
I think we have him on it. >> But yeah, it's great. Can we see Kramer? Is Kramer around? >> I don't know.
1:09:24
I do believe we're going to be able >> I do see I do see CNBC >> over there.
1:09:28
But uh yeah, what what what I was uh I mean the the whole floor is buzzing and uh it's it obviously CLA IPO is a big deal.
1:09:37
Um but just seeing all the different pods uh everything is really cooking for uh the IPO markets fully and I think summer's over.
1:09:45
Yeah, I mean we were we were talking about like there were other companies that were like is that going to go out the same day and like should we try and have that CEO on uh there is a lot going on.
1:09:54
>> Yeah, there's figure in the works. StubHub is in the works.
1:09:57
>> It's not Figure the robotics company.
1:09:58
It's Figure, the blockchain company. Is that correct?
1:10:01
>> Blockchain lending company.
1:10:02
>> Yes, blockchain lending. Okay.
1:10:02
Uh we will have to get sharp on on Figure at some point.
1:10:07
>> We're working on getting the founder on >> in the timeline.
1:10:09
>> Uh I don't have Wi-Fi.
1:10:09
So uh I am guessing, but you can pull up the timeline.
1:10:15
>> Uh Daniel uh Daniel Pranc says skepticism is gone from the market.
1:10:18
that Oracle is saying it will basically build, listen to this, Oracle is saying it will basically build AWS in 5 years and no one seems to be stopping to ask how.
1:10:28
Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta are all struggling to build enough infrastructure.
1:10:32
How does Oracle plan to do so?
1:10:34
So, he is a little skeptical of uh of Larry.
1:10:39
>> Yeah, it's a big it's a big backlog. >> It's a big backlog.
1:10:42
>> It's a big backlog. better be heavy open AI if it's uh it's going to be >> well well this question is just asking what like how do you plan to physically build like assume the demand is there >> how do you how are you physically going to build >> you're going to need a bigger tent >> it's going to be a lot of tents it's
1:10:58
going to be a lot of tents I mean how much is how much are they spending on um I mean Stargate 500 billion supposedly and like Zuck is penciling out10 billion dollar clusters the trillion dollar cluster I And like if you talk to the folks at situational awareness and thropic like these numbers line up with straight lines on log on log graphs. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:11:22
>> So that you know um it it is it is sort of like somewhat unexpected from uh from Oracle specifically. >> Here he is. >> How you doing?
1:11:33
>> Man of the hour stream. >> Boom. Throwing on the hat. >> Fifth time. Second IPO. Great to see you. How you doing? How you feeling? Thank you.
1:11:39
They really you you they really treat you like the mayor. >> Sorry. Sorry for being late.
1:11:42
I was picking up some market color. >> Okay. What's that?
1:11:46
>> The from the the floor traders.
1:11:46
You know, I feel like I needed to accumulate a little bit more.
1:11:50
I need to know where rates are headed.
1:11:52
>> I need to know where spreads are going.
1:11:54
>> What'd you get for us?
1:11:54
What What's the What's the market color? What are people saying?
1:11:57
>> Everyone's talking about CLA. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's very excited.
1:12:00
>> What about interest rates? Anyone?
1:12:02
>> No, it's it's proprietary. >> Proprietary. Okay. >> Proprietary Alpha. Uh yeah, it really is.
1:12:07
It's great seeing you back here.
1:12:07
We uh I love hanging out in the stock exchange. >> It's fantastic.
1:12:12
>> I also love hanging out in the stock exchange.
1:12:13
>> Tell us the initial story.
1:12:13
Uh how did you initially uh wind up investing in CLA?
1:12:18
>> Well uh when Sequoia first invested in CLA, I was a sophomore at Ammeris College.
1:12:24
>> Um I think I probably could have pointed roughly where Sweden one was on a map, but I certainly never been there.
1:12:28
Um and Mike Moritz, uh who had, you know, famously invested in PayPal and Google and a bunch of other great companies.
1:12:36
Um and got in Chris Olsson who's now at a firm called Drive Capital worked together and Pat Grady by the way also did some of the initial financial modeling when he was a >> legend associate. Yeah.
1:12:48
Um >> and you know we invested um >> in >> 2010, right?
1:12:55
>> 2010, right? 2010 in a company that was a Swedish alternative >> jump scare every >> uh it was you know Swedish slash maybe pan Nordic >> alternative payment company for e-commerce where you know you wouldn't pay until the thing arrived so you knew you're going to get what you were getting
1:13:16
>> I mean a lot of Europe at that point was e-commerce but and the internet was there but they didn't have the payment rail so it was like you pay cash to the delivery driver and car was like some was like part powering building on top of that those rails like not even I don't even call them rails
1:13:30
hands >> and you go into the you know you go into the memos from back in the day and it was >> um you know how might CLA find success in making it next hop you know so it was Germany and the Netherlands and we had this incredible detail on like might they succeed in Germany and demographics in Germany and competitive landscape and
1:13:48
the Netherlands seemed like a you know if they do that we're you know we're money good you know >> and Um, and one thing sort of led to another and Sebastian just put his head down and 15 years later >> with all of the ups and downs and twists and turns has >> founder. >> Yeah. Sebastian. Sebastian, he has that >> Yeah. Sebastian.
1:14:11
Sebastian, he has that dog in him. >> He does. >> Truly, >> it's crazy. >> Yeah, I can see that.
1:14:17
I mean, he come he comes through incredibly incredibly relaxed, >> but it says a lot.
1:14:22
It says a lot that he's here.
1:14:24
He's like he has he said today he didn't sell a single share. No. Like he's all in. >> He is all in.
1:14:29
No, he's and and he um >> and the other thing that stood out to me, I just thought this was hilarious.
1:14:34
He said he didn't bring his family here.
1:14:37
It's just like a work trip.
1:14:37
He just came to Wall Street to IPO.
1:14:38
It's just another another week. >> Yeah. He is very eager.
1:14:41
He's he's very eager to get back back to to work. Yeah.
1:14:46
He's um but Nicholas the CFO. I don't know.
1:14:48
Have you anyone shout out Nicholas? >> No. >> Legend.
1:14:51
Nicholas Nleen Cler CFO >> probably incredibly important for this business. >> He has been Yeah.
1:14:56
For for all the reason and pay some salaries a whole you can get into cash crunch.
1:15:01
He was describing that in the early days Christmas came and they had a ton of cash that needed to go out the door. >> Yeah.
1:15:08
Nicholas is I'm pretty sure taking a nap right now. I think he is.
1:15:10
In fact, I can guarantee that he's taking a nap right now before dinner. >> Nap on the trading.
1:15:16
>> I'm going to take his hat off. A little too tight. Okay. >> Yeah.
1:15:18
>> I'll put it back on when I leave. Yeah.
1:15:21
um where I I guess like walk through by the time they were going to enter the US market, you were you were on team Sequoia, right?
1:15:29
Where you were able to witness that.
1:15:31
And >> I guess like give us give us a backstory there because >> I think that uh >> the level of of traction they have in the US market was I don't I don't even know if you could have underwrote that as they were starting starting. >> Yeah.
1:15:45
So when I joined Sequoa in 2014, Clara was still blue CLA.
1:15:49
They had not yet made the transition to the pink Clara and the logo did feel a lot like PayPal or a firm or JP Morgan Chase, you know, sort of felt like that sort of a company, but coming from Northern Europe.
1:16:02
And in the mid2010s, you know, the whole brand of the company was repositioned to be much more consumer first, different, you know, we're going to go after the retail banks and not just try to build like a nice profitable compounding, you know, pan European business.
1:16:17
And one of the things, one of the reasons to do that was to expand into the US.
1:16:20
And it was >> around this time that >> the term B&PL, you know, BNPL wasn't a term until probably 2017.
1:16:30
>> You know, Sebastian had been doing this since 2005, right?
1:16:32
So it became a big thing and Afterpay started taking a lot of share and a firm obviously was doing tremendously well.
1:16:38
Um, and the thing with like CLA's business obviously is you know each country is different, right?
1:16:44
right? Like right now a huge portion of the Swedish population uses CLA every month >> and you know for for those customers you know CLA has seen them a zillion times by now right like when they're underwriting a transaction it's the you know zillionth transaction for that customer going to a new market right
1:17:02
you're having a lot more first-time customers so the business model is very different country by country by country >> and just culture yeah cultural differences between the US and >> merchants and exactly frequency >> yeah American consumers don't have the same like loyalty to CLA, right? It's
1:17:13
It's not like a national >> even heard of us. Yeah, exactly.
1:17:16
Um but then you know uh CLA got into the US in the end of 20 I think probably sometime 2017 2018 and then really during co um when e-commerce obviously was you know booming that's when they really you know got their foot in the door with the big US merchants.
1:17:33
Um but amazingly if you look at the um the momentum now like um in the F1 I hope we got these numbers right you know Q1 year-over-year growth in the US was 33% Q2 was 38%. Right.
1:17:44
So like the actual like forwardlooking momentum or not forward-looking statements the real time momentum for Q2 is very very impressive. >> Yeah.
1:17:55
How do you think about the long-term structure of the fintech market broadly?
1:17:59
It feels like there's a ton of companies that I can think of that are like big scale decacorns or almost 100 billion.
1:18:06
Uh you're invested in many of them.
1:18:09
Uh founderled big, you know, big markets already, but going into super apps and everything apps, but at the same time throughout history, going back to like Goldman and JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, like we've always lived in this world of igopies.
1:18:26
>> Should we be thinking about long-term fintech?
1:18:27
fintech? like it's like hyperscaler clouds like it'll be competitive but everyone will still make money or is there a winner take all world that in in point solutions like how do you think about the market in the long term >> the thing I find most interesting about fintech especially for a company like
1:18:43
CLA you know which has its um which has footprint across Europe and the US like fintech penetration in Europe is actually quite high you know if you think about revolutes market share in some of these European countries or trade republic for trading >> yep or CLA for payments. >> Yep. Um, and you know, they've really >> Yep.
1:18:59
Um, and you know, they've really started to make a dent on the legacy retail banks and the US fintech market share is still tiny, right?
1:19:09
>> And that's where they're eating from.
1:19:10
>> And I think the US market, which obviously is the biggest profit pool in the world, >> y >> um is that's right.
1:19:15
Um, it's still pretty much it's JP Morgan, it's Wells Fargo, it's Croup, >> it's and then that huge long tail of you know from the next tier down to the credit unions >> and >> um >> also I mean with AC like Visa and Mastercard also market share to take from that. >> Yeah.
1:19:34
>> Yeah. And you know not to mention stable coins and all that stuff going there's so much interesting stuff happening in US fintech >> and somehow US fintech is like lower penetration than Europe fintech and I think for a company like CLA which is obviously going to be growing here
1:19:49
it's >> how are you thinking about early stage fintech because with that frame of mind of like if I'm going to be a fintech founder I'm going up against Sebastian Clara you know Max Levchin's a active founder you got Brian at Coinbase Vlad at Robin Hood Have you seen that YouTube video? >> You got Eric. You got Eric. Like it's >> You got Eric. You got Eric.
1:20:05
Like it's just like every category has like a serious person with like a billion dollars on the balance sheet and they're ready to go and they're bought in and they're not asleep at the wheel at all.
1:20:18
It's not the early days of of like, you know, enterprise software was like, oh yeah, like there's some integrator that did this in the '60s with paper and like you're just going to take everything.
1:20:26
Uh so have you been how do you think the next wave of fintech at the early stage looks? Is it just Yeah. What? >> Yeah.
1:20:33
The last um you know like I dabble in fintech.
1:20:36
I wouldn't say I'm you know compared to like Ruof who knows everything about everything.
1:20:40
I'm certainly not a specialist.
1:20:42
Um >> the last fintech investment that I led was was in uh a company called Phantom Wallet which is you know to me it's sort of the >> you need a discontinuous shift in the market.
1:20:53
It needs something meaningful to be >> uh to differentiate yourself along.
1:20:58
store Phantom it was you know centralized to decentralized wallets >> and >> yeah and then benefiting from Salana like timing picking the right chain to originally partner >> to get out of the gate now it's multi- chain and it's all non-custodial and it's a different business model different footprint >> um
1:21:14
>> that to me is the sort of market change you need to be like to plant your flag and go up and compete against people who have big footprints because you're right these like the founders you just mentioned the founders you just mentioned are the And so it feels dangerous to go like headtohead with any of these guys. But
1:21:31
But but yeah, something completely different counterposition like you carve out and then you can build and eat off of someone else's plate. It makes a ton of sense.
1:21:41
>> What was going on in 2021 and 2022 when Square bought Afterpay for now?
1:21:45
If you just look at the transaction value, it's like seven I think it's like 65 70% of their current market cap paid >> uh or or their current market p uh market cap.
1:21:58
What um why why do you think Yeah.
1:22:03
Was that just like fintech overheated broadly?
1:22:05
Also >> I think there were a few of these stock for stock deals during that era.
1:22:09
I think octa zero is another one you know where the actual marktomarket value of the transaction was just different than what was reported at the time. Yeah.
1:22:15
Um, I think like you know that Peter Teal thing about how in 1999 there's a moment of peak clarity at some level where like know we saw the future perfectly.
1:22:24
We just totally overestimated how fast it would come.
1:22:29
>> I think a lot of the e-commerce things in 21 remind me something of that where we were on a straight drop. >> So much demand.
1:22:34
It was also the you know the co e-commerce >> and it was a you know >> and I think we just actually got back to the same level of ecom penetration that we had in like 2020 2021.
1:22:44
Yeah, >> we're back to the same original growth trajectory.
1:22:49
>> Not growth trajectory, but I think overall penetration.
1:22:51
>> Yeah, but the way I I think about that trend is, you know, in 2021, it was obvious that we were headed towards 50% plus e-commerce penetration across categories >> and and it's happening so quickly.
1:23:00
And then 2022, 2023, the narrative was like e-commerce is dead.
1:23:06
It was all pull forward, you know, and then sure enough, like no, we are in fact headed towards e-commerce penetration. We'reing those levels. Yeah.
1:23:13
And now you look at like you know the Shopify numbers that came out um their quarter was incredible right like on topline and everything else.
1:23:21
So it's like yeah e-commerce is still a long-term trend >> and that's even during this rocky year with with tariffs and uncertainty on the vendor side or on the merchant side. >> Yeah. Uh anything else for me?
1:23:32
>> Um >> I hear we have some people waiting so I don't I have a bunch more questions but come on the show again.
1:23:37
>> I will be I will Thank you for being here.
1:23:38
I'm sure we'll be back here.
1:23:38
Love to meet you guys at the stock exchange. >> It's fantastic.
1:23:42
>> It's the best place to hang out. Thank you. >> What's up? Have a good one. >> The mayor. Thank you. >> The mayor of Ny.
1:23:47
>> Let's bring in Marcus. >> What? >> Okay.
1:23:56
>> It's not really um >> some breaking news. One second. Uh yeah, we're okay.
1:24:00
Uh let's uh let's bring in Marcus. Yeah.
1:24:03
>> Uh and >> hey, Marcus, great to meet you in person. >> Absolutely. Likewise. Great to meet you. >> Please take a seat.
1:24:10
Uh would you mind introducing yourself for the stream and then we can talk about everything? >> Sure.
1:24:15
Hey, I'm Mark Silic, founder and CEO of Bolt.
1:24:18
>> Um and I do you remember the first time we interacted online? >> I do.
1:24:21
>> I made a I made a YouTube video essay all about Bolt.
1:24:23
I had a friend on my team who was obsessed uh from Estonia and I dug in and it was the most fascinating story and uh and I remember asking you like so did I get the story like roughly correctly?
1:24:33
I should have just asked you because I wasn't doing I was doing video essays like blog posts instead of uh like actual interviews but here we are interviewing anyway uh tell us your story of how you got involved in CLA. >> Sure.
1:24:46
So I um started Bolt as an entrepreneur when I was 19 years old back in 2013 and back then I was looking at our neighboring at our neighboring country of Sweden where Clarab already back then was one of the biggest tech companies.
1:24:57
Uh so I was always following it when we were building B from Estonia >> just as like a role model. >> Exactly.
1:25:01
So I mean I saw they were obviously in a very competitive space uh very tightly regulated complex um and I saw they were doing well in Europe and then over time they started obviously expanding outside as well um so that was a big role model for us so that's how I sort of started following the company.
1:25:15
>> Yeah and uh and and walk me through a little bit of your journey what uh how long did it take you to expand like take me through the first couple eras and the acts. >> Sure. Sure.
1:25:24
So I mean with with Bolt we took I think a lot of lessons from what Clara has done as well.
1:25:29
So we first focused on winning in our home market and uh obviously our product set is a bit different there and I think same applies to Clara where like the products they offer in Europe are a lot more comprehensive than they already do in in US. >> Sure.
1:25:41
>> Um and then we just uh first saturated the home markets and then started expanding and uh I think Clara has done the same strategy really well. >> That's fantastic.
1:25:48
Is this your first IPO, first public company board? >> Uh it is actually.
1:25:53
So for the 12 years I've only been focused on Bolts.
1:25:55
I haven't wanted to take on any distractions.
1:25:58
uh but uh grown to um known Sebastian and the Clara team over the years and I was always really impressed.
1:26:04
So uh earlier this year when Sebastian reached out that uh would I be open to joining uh I thought about it for a for a couple of hours but uh it made a lot of sense.
1:26:12
It only took a couple hours.
1:26:13
>> What are what are the benefits of being a founder CEO on a on a board?
1:26:15
I I know that there's people that do public company board work and like that's how they pay the bills but uh for you it must be more about the connections and the industry insights.
1:26:24
Is that something how do you think about it? >> Absolutely.
1:26:27
So um actually I mean Sebastian p pitched really well to me.
1:26:31
So I was like hey like I think there's three unique angles here.
1:26:32
A um we're one of the largest European technology companies with 110 million customers.
1:26:37
So I think you can learn a lot from what we've done.
1:26:41
>> Um second uh they're one of the few European companies that's really made it big in the US and obviously for any uh company in the world like coming to the largest market and succeeding here is is a big lesson to learn from.
1:26:52
>> Uh and third he was like we're going to have a blockbuster IPO so you want to join and see how that's done.
1:26:55
And I think all of those three things have proven to be true over the last year.
1:27:00
>> Uh what is CLA getting right about running a company that's it's sort of a two-sided marketplace.
1:27:05
They have, you know, customers that need to implement CLA and then customers that use it to check out and you're in a similar business where you have drivers and riders.
1:27:13
Uh what what lessons have you learned from their branding, their business, their their their marketing, anything like that?
1:27:19
>> I'd actually say that building a payments network and building a ride sharing network actually have a lot of similarities in terms of how you build a two-sided marketplace.
1:27:25
Um, and what we found is that it's always starts off on the supply side because unless you have the right supply available, like there's little value for the consumer.
1:27:33
And I think that's actually what Clara has always got right.
1:27:35
They're very customer obsessed and they wanted to go and make sure they get the best merchants all around the world to sign up with them.
1:27:41
So you can use Clara as a payment method.
1:27:43
Uh, and then once you have that supply base and you have a great product offering, then it makes sense to start to focus on the consumer side. >> Yeah.
1:27:49
>> Otherwise, you know, you can bring millions of consumers to the platform.
1:27:51
If they can't use it to pay anywhere, it's useless.
1:27:53
>> Yeah, that makes sense.
1:27:53
Uh, talk to me about the state of ride sharing and and Bolt's business.
1:27:58
Um, >> in San Francisco, everyone's obsessed with Whimo.
1:28:01
Elon's talking a big game about robo taxi rolling out.
1:28:03
Uh, what do things look like in your business and where do you see things going?
1:28:09
>> So, first of all, I I think it's it's great.
1:28:11
Self-driving cars are completely going to revolutionize cities.
1:28:13
I think for Bolt specifically, we're really well positioned.
1:28:16
So, this kind of 100x the size of the business and uh we're really looking forward to the next decade.
1:28:20
On the other hand though, like we got to bit be a bit more realistic and I mean know I'm always the pragmatic guy in the room.
1:28:27
So when I look at the numbers like we got to admit like these things are still a number of years before the commercial unit economics makes sense. >> Sure.
1:28:33
>> Um I think it's one thing to put a couple of thousand cars on the roads and and uh I think what way has done is absolutely unique and impressive >> but they are operating only in the wealthiest cities in the world.
1:28:41
It's still going to take a number of years before the costs come down to a level where you can actually offer this in most cities not to mention in Europe but in emerging markets as well.
1:28:49
So in that sense I think Paul's business is quite well insulated like we have five to 10 years before it is going to have a major impact in terms of any downside or risk to our business. >> Yeah.
1:28:58
I I think the the bull case for at least Uber in the era of self-driving is that uh Dar Koshari ran was it Trip Adviser before Xedia?
1:29:08
>> Expedia and and and that is an aggregation platform.
1:29:11
They don't own any planes.
1:29:13
They don't own any airlines.
1:29:14
They route you to the correct airline.
1:29:16
uh are you thinking about the business similarly if there's a if there's an owner of a self-driving car in 10 years from now and they want to bring their their capex or their asset to the bolt network.
1:29:29
You act as an aggregator for uh for customer demand for them.
1:29:34
>> So um >> is that the correct is that the correct partnership?
1:29:35
I mean >> I think the the industry is for sure going to evolve over time and it's still not clear how it's going to end up 10 years from now.
1:29:40
Um but um I think in the short term uh we're absolutely ready to own the cars on our own balance sheet as well. >> Interesting.
1:29:46
So do you own anything right now? Scooters or anything? >> We do actually.
1:29:50
So so so I think that's a core distinction B has versus any other ride sharing company in the world.
1:29:55
>> The craziest thing like you went into scooters and you didn't get destroyed like >> but to me to to me to me that feels like again something we've been asking some of the other guests is like cultural differences between the American consumer and maybe the European consumer in America.
1:30:09
I I was living in LA during the um during the Bird scooter era, the Lime scooter era, and people used to destroy scooters for sport.
1:30:17
It was like it was it was a >> Wait till you see what happened in Paris.
1:30:21
So, I mean like we were at some point losing 2% of the fleet each week. >> What are they doing?
1:30:25
Throwing it in a pond or something?
1:30:28
>> Literally into the river. >> Into the river. >> Yeah. >> Into the Shaz.
1:30:31
>> But there are markets that it work where people respect the the robots and they they take care of >> Absolutely.
1:30:36
And I think overall though like when we just like compare the journeys of of Bolt and Clara, I think there's a lot of similarities with how these European companies are built.
1:30:42
I mean generally we start off not having access to the same amount of capital.
1:30:45
So that forces us to be a lot more frugal and more efficient in how we operate.
1:30:50
>> You don't want to lose 2% of the fleet weekly for that long. >> No, no, exactly.
1:30:52
Like we didn't raise hundreds of millions for the squirter business.
1:30:55
Like we we had to be very clever in how we operate it.
1:30:56
Uh and so I think overall I mean what we've done is that uh we've operated some of these hardware capex heavy business as well whether it's quarters or we have a car sharing business with thousands of cars we operate in in more than dozen cities around Europe.
1:31:09
>> Um so in that sense like we're not really afraid to to similarly operate self-driving cars uh if need be in the early stages of the market >> long term once this gets into hundreds of thousands of cars obviously the industry is going to pay out differently.
1:31:20
>> How did the initial Sequoia deal come together for you?
1:31:22
because I don't think they have an office in Estonia, but is through the Straight Mafia or the the Skype mafia.
1:31:28
>> Uh so so actually I mean uh Sequoia back when they invested in us back in 2021, they hadn't made too many European investments.
1:31:33
I think actually Clara was probably the first one they did a long time ago and and I think that was a successful one.
1:31:37
So they started looking around more in Europe. >> Okay.
1:31:40
>> Um and actually funny enough I I met with um with two of the Stripe founders.
1:31:45
Uh they actually so they they came to Estonia.
1:31:47
Uh it was it was a great uh fun time catching up with them years ago.
1:31:49
uh and then actually uh they went back to uh Silicon Valley and then they were chatting with Sequoa about what are some interesting startups they've seen in Europe and then V came up and that's where the original interest came from.
1:32:01
>> What's the state of the Estonian early stage startup scene? >> It's fantastic.
1:32:04
Honestly, I think the Estonian startup scene per capita is the best in the world.
1:32:08
>> Um Talon's half a million people.
1:32:08
We got 11 unicorn companies.
1:32:11
Uh so for sure there's something in the blood in the Nordics.
1:32:14
when we look at or we look at Stockholm, they're just absolutely per capita better than almost any city in the world.
1:32:20
Um, and when we look at just the number of entrepreneurs coming out of these companies, whether it's Bolt or Clarina as well, it's absolutely fascinating.
1:32:26
Like I mean, this is booming now the second and third generation of companies.
1:32:29
A couple of the narratives that I've heard thrown around about why Estonia punches way above its weight relative to uh population size is uh huge investment in highsp speeded internet early on.
1:32:39
And then also just uh the the uh the geopolitical situation of becoming an independent country and having the entire population animated.
1:32:50
Hey, hey, we we we got to take this stuff seriously, guys.
1:32:52
Uh do those two narratives sit well with you?
1:32:54
Does that sound about right?
1:32:57
>> It's uh those are absolutely true.
1:32:57
I mean again when we look at I mean Estonia was under Russian occupation for 50 years and during the communism era entrepreneurship was literally banned.
1:33:06
So you had all this bottled up energy for decades where people wanted to build businesses and they couldn't.
1:33:09
So when in '91 Estonia regained its independence we had this massive entrepreneurial boom where everybody wanted to build a company.
1:33:16
So that's the environment I grew up in.
1:33:18
>> Um but that actually a third very important factor that I think is same for Sweden and Estonia is that we have some of the best education in the world.
1:33:25
So when you look at all the rankings, Estonia is always at the top and so is Sweden.
1:33:29
And I think that's the other thing that's fueling all the technology company creation in both countries.
1:33:34
>> How are you thinking about artificial intelligence just AI generally either applying it to your business or uh this idea of uh >> we've heard from two we've heard from two CEOs, two public company CEOs in the last week >> that they are happy to not grow headcount and but they're certainly growing revenue. Right.
1:33:52
So that's that's Alex uh Alex Karp over at Palanteer and then obviously Sebastian here at >> CLA.
1:33:58
>> Is that a similar approach that that you're taking in terms of you know >> finding what what that balance is? >> Absolutely.
1:34:03
So actually um it's very similar I think with us and with CLA over the last couple of years.
1:34:08
So Clara has done it I think even better than what we have.
1:34:11
They've actually reduced head count meaningfully over the last couple of years.
1:34:13
Um partially by just improving efficiency through conventional means, partially by AI.
1:34:17
Um and it's been the same with us.
1:34:19
Like we've now been massively growing the business the last 3 years and the headcount has been completely flat.
1:34:23
So the only department that's been growing has effectively been tech and in every other department we're just finding more efficiencies. >> Yeah.
1:34:31
Um what about a data center national champion an AI national champion in Estonia?
1:34:36
Do you think we'll see it?
1:34:38
Do you think that there's is there a potential for even if it's like latent capacity, there's just like a cheap data center down the street from the school and we get another wave of that story of the of the of the past internet and there's a 13-year-old kid who's like, "Yeah, I'm going to fine-tune a llama 4 or something and you get the next generation of entrepreneurs."
1:34:56
Do you think that's possible?
1:34:56
Um I wouldn't rule it out honestly because uh when we look at where is the biggest concentration of data centers in Europe um it's usually in the places that have a very good grid connectivity that have cheap power uh stable internet etc etc and actually Nordics has been one of the most dominant places for it.
1:35:12
So >> Nebius is I guess main data centers in Finland. Right. >> Exactly.
1:35:16
Which is literally between Sweden and Estonia.
1:35:17
So and I mean you you saw the announcement probably today from them.
1:35:20
So overall like we're not ruling it out that very likely they want to expand in the region setting up more data centers both in Sweden and Estonia. >> Yeah.
1:35:27
What about uh the the geop the geographic footprint of both now?
1:35:30
I know there were uh experiments or business expansion into Africa like how are you thinking about conquering the globe playing the game of risk internationally?
1:35:42
>> So um again for us the the first priority was we needed to win in the core markets.
1:35:45
We need to have a home base that was generating enough cash flow so we could offset the costs and actually generate some actual capital we could use for expansion.
1:35:52
So we did that first in central eastern Europe which the number one player in.
1:35:56
Then after that we looked at the emerging markets.
1:35:59
So Africa was top of the list but also some markets like Paraguay, Mexico, Thailand where we're again now doing extremely well.
1:36:06
Um and then actually we did this a bit unconventional story where then after that we went into more established markets like Western Europe and Nordics. Sure.
1:36:13
And um funny enough actually that was a very easy expansion then for us because we started off in these lowcost markets that were hard to compete in like >> same same with with uh with Cara. Right. >> Exactly.
1:36:23
So that was what I was about to get to that like if you're able to operate with very low ASPs in very difficult markets then actually later going into high ASP much more wealthy markets like the US is significantly easier.
1:36:34
And I think that's why also Clar has been taking so much share here and then winning the market. >> Yeah.
1:36:38
Do you think that you'll expand in the US or has the capital fight already played out?
1:36:42
Is there any opportunity left?
1:36:45
>> Uh not something I can disclose today, but uh keep watching us and uh there's probably going to be some news in the future.
1:36:51
>> We will definitely be following. Very excited.
1:36:55
>> Well, thank you so much.
1:36:55
>> Thank you for joining us. This was a pleasure. Great to meet you.
1:36:58
>> We'll talk to you soon.
1:36:59
>> Come back on the show anytime. Zoom you in.
1:37:01
Um, some crazy news hitting the timeline. I don't know if you saw.
1:37:07
>> Charlie Kirk was shot at an event.
1:37:07
It's unclear yet if he is alive or dead, but absolutely tragic.
1:37:18
>> Uh, otherwise, Sam Alman was on Tucker.
1:37:21
Uh, >> on Tucker Carlson.
1:37:23
>> Sam Alman was confronted by Tucker about the death of the OpenAI whistleblower such.
1:37:28
Sam Alman says, "I haven't done too many interviews where I've been accused of murder."
1:37:33
>> I mean, that makes sense. Yeah.
1:37:33
Does not >> um >> that is a crazy crazy >> uh three I guess Oracle and uh OpenAI have signed a $300 billion computing deal.
1:37:48
So, you basically called this earlier in the show.
1:37:54
Where's that uh where's that revenue >> ramp has to be with OpenAI and it has to be it has to be underwritten on the growth of >> of uh OpenAI's cloud business.
1:38:02
>> of uh OpenAI's cloud business. OpenI's losses OpenAI's losses are are Larry's >> uh yeah yeah yeah his his revenue and then but OpenAI yeah I mean they should be losing burning as they grow um but you know they will still be bringing in a ton and ton of revenue on top of this both on the businessto business side which they're taking more seriously uh in the uh in the uh in the the provision
1:38:31
of tokens they're starting to take coding more seriously this has been kind of the narative around GPT5 was that uh GPT5 was uh them you know kind of redoubling their efforts in just selling being token sales for B2B and so uh my our you know the thesis that that that everyone's been kicking around is basically uh we could see an oblig an igopoly in frontier model inference sort of play out. You have GCP with Gemini uh
1:38:59
You have GCP with Gemini uh rolling out.
1:39:03
You have um you have Anthropic obviously teamed up with Amazon and then you have OpenAI teamed up with Microsoft but also needing to scale their own business.
1:39:13
They've been hitting rate limits.
1:39:14
Ben Thompson's been talking for a long time about why do I have a rate limit on my consumer app?
1:39:19
Your consumer app isn't fantastic.
1:39:19
Uh pull back on the businessto business side.
1:39:23
Well, if Oracle can deliver massive ten of uh H100 equivalents, uh they're good to go.
1:39:31
and OpenAI has been co-developing uh chips with Nvidia put those, you know, but you need a you need someone that's like a hyperscaler like Oracle to actually go and implement that.
1:39:43
>> Um anyway, uh our next guest will be here in a few minutes.
1:39:45
Do you have any other >> prayers?
1:39:46
Uh >> yeah, this is shocking news >> for Charlie Kirk.
1:39:49
Regardless of uh your political beliefs, it's absolutely tragic.
1:39:54
I feel like X needs to figure out uh some type of uh >> give people content warnings.
1:40:00
There's been a lot of videos floating around, but absolutely tragic. >> Yeah. >> Insane.
1:40:08
Um well, um anything else?
1:40:08
We have uh Lynn Martin from the New York Stock Exchange joining in just four minutes.
1:40:17
Um we will bring her on to the stream.
1:40:21
Um and uh see what the chat has to say. We miss you guys.
1:40:30
Yes, we've been on the road for two days.
1:40:32
We will be back in the TBP and Ultradome tomorrow.
1:40:34
Uh a little bit more travel coming up, but uh hopefully uh the great lockin begins in full the following week.
1:40:43
And uh I uh yeah, the chat is also talking about this news.
1:40:48
Um very very sad, very rough.
1:40:52
Um >> yeah, everyone's saying don't open X.
1:40:55
So if you're watching this on X, I guess >> go over to YouTube, I guess.
1:41:03
>> Over to YouTube or log off. >> Well, rough.
1:41:05
Well, um we have uh two two or three minutes until our next guest is joining, we are going to be hanging out here.
1:41:14
Uh we are again, if you're just tuning in live from the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, Manhattan, if you couldn't tell if you've been maybe maybe you're listening to the audio, you know. >> Yeah. We are at the Clara IPO.
1:41:26
Uh we've interviewed the CEO and other folks, board members today, Marcus Vilig.
1:41:32
Um Marcus Vilig is such a uh such a wild entrepreneur.
1:41:37
The uh the the clickbait title that I used or my team used on his video essay was uh Europe's youngest billionaire and it ripped.
1:41:45
It has a million views on YouTube. >> Wow. >> Ripper. Absolute ripper. >> Seems like a Chad.
1:41:51
>> Yeah, he's a killer entrepreneur.
1:41:51
uh started the business very young uh in a very contrarian market.
1:41:56
There's this massive capital war going on over in America, Lyft and Uber, of course. Yeah.
1:42:02
>> And he's just like, I'm I'm going to work on myself.
1:42:03
I'm going to be over in Europe, uh building.
1:42:05
Um anyway, uh anything else you want to talk about?
1:42:13
Um really uh nothing like a shooting to kill the vibe >> in in incredibly vibe killing. I agree. I agree.
1:42:24
>> Still unclear what is happening.
1:42:32
I'm sure that story will develop over the next 24 hours.
1:42:37
Um hopefully there will be some good reporting from the folks who >> cover this sort of thing. >> This type of stuff. It is a thankless job. >> Not our wheelhouse.
1:42:47
>> Not our wheelhouse at all.
1:42:51
>> Anyways, >> we're hanging out. >> Yeah, it's tough.
1:42:54
We like to have fun on this show, but uh doesn't feel right when a tragedy like this strikes. It is rough.
1:43:08
>> Yeah, I feel bad for people that um people are sharing around a close-up video of the shooting, which is like >> rough.
1:43:15
>> Seems like >> I'm sure Nikita can figure out a solution so that >> X does have the ability to add a sensitive content warning.
1:43:25
>> Yeah, for an image, but I don't also I I'm not exact I' I've seen people use it as like as a meme.
1:43:30
So, it must be a button that you can click, but I have yet to actually see that used.
1:43:34
And if it kills your reach in the algorithm, people won't do it because they they they want to grow their accounts no matter what. Um, very very rough.
1:43:46
Tough day in the news business.
1:43:46
Um, well, on some other good news, in 10 days, Jason Carman will premiere his first sci-fi film, Planet. Come see it.
1:43:56
He's he's playing it at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and you can go and get tickets.
1:44:00
So, if you're in San Francisco >> and you want to see Jason Carman's latest work >> this morning, Buco Capital Blo said, "My timeline is literally just Oracle earnings and a woman being murdered."
1:44:11
Obviously, the uh >> Yes. Yes. Yes.
1:44:13
The the the >> other murder.
1:44:18
Um really, really tragic.
1:44:26
>> Well, we condemn all violence of all forms, of course. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:44:29
And it's just you violence generates more violence. >> It's very bad.
1:44:35
>> Unfortunately, >> very rough.
1:44:38
>> Um well, we will be closing out in just a minute.
1:44:41
Um in the meantime, let me >> There is some news.
1:44:47
We've been we've we've unfortunately been missing a few big uh fundraising as announcements.
1:44:51
Uh but we will be catching up with tons of founders tomorrow. Be sure to tune in.
1:44:57
Uh, and we'll also be taking you through hopefully a bigger deep dive.
1:44:59
I I I would love to go deeper on the iPhone.
1:45:04
Uh, I don't know if you saw that X-ray photo of the iPhone Air, but folks were speculating that this looks like the future. >> Fantastic.
1:45:14
>> The the Oh, she has her hat on. >> She's got her hat on.
1:45:17
>> She has her hat on already.
1:45:21
>> Welcome to the stream.
1:45:24
I got to put it on quickly. >> Here you go. Good to see you again. >> Good to see you.
1:45:29
>> Good to see you again.
1:45:30
>> Thank you so much for hosting us once again. >> Got the hat. >> You got the hat.
1:45:34
Thank you for wearing it.
1:45:35
Um, >> walk us through the day. >> Yeah. How did you say? How did today go? >> Great. >> Today went great.
1:45:42
>> I mean, just since we saw you, how busy have you been?
1:45:45
I feel like we we when we left, we were like, we'll be back for the next one.
1:45:48
And then I think the next one happened like literally the next day.
1:45:50
So, there's been a number of IPOs, right?
1:45:53
walk us through the last couple weeks like what's been >> there's um there's been a bunch there's been bullish there's been there's um there's been quite a few that have been coming out I mean I know we talked about you're obviously here for Figma day >> um fantastic
1:46:08
>> we have CLA today we got VIA on Friday excited about that one >> next week it's going to be busy too so we got the market is open you know what I really feel like the market's open because >> the tradition traditional media just said, "Yeah, the IPO window's open. It's It's been open." It's like, "Yes, it is. It is."
1:46:28
>> Yeah, it certainly felt like that.
1:46:28
The uh >> today feels uh even Sebastian himself was like remarkably like calm and collected and when you look at like the process this morning, I'm sure I don't know what was happening behind the scenes, but it felt like this is just another day at the office for you guys in terms went very smoothly. It went very smoothly.
1:46:47
And this IPO had a different pop, but it's it's it stayed there, which is good. It's still healthy.
1:46:54
It was like a textbook IPO.
1:46:56
Traditionally, you want to see like that 20% pop, and that's >> kind of where they are.
1:47:00
I think they're about 25%, maybe 30%.
1:47:05
>> That was It was great. It was great. Um, >> it was great.
1:47:09
But I mean, this this deal has been thinking about going public for a couple of years now.
1:47:15
It's been rumored for a couple of years, been working with them for a couple of years >> on IPO readiness.
1:47:20
So, >> everybody had to be patient.
1:47:24
>> Everyone had to be patient.
1:47:24
But now that this one went well, I think the next few are going to go Touchwood >> okay as well.
1:47:31
Um, >> give us your thoughts on uh the market overall right now.
1:47:36
Uh, obviously yesterday was crazy. Oracle earnings.
1:47:42
>> I was going to say this is kind of a huge day here as well.
1:47:44
I mean, we're so proud to be partnered with Oracle and Oracle will be one of our our list of companies.
1:47:50
Last I checked, it was up 35%.
1:47:52
I think it's more than normal for it is because they just announced the dealership with Open AI.
1:47:58
It's like everyone was wondering, okay, where news plus good news RPO?
1:48:06
>> Yeah, the massive backlog. >> Yeah.
1:48:07
I mean, thrilled for them.
1:48:07
Uh, and I'm thrilled to see the market rewarding them, too, because that's been a deliberate strategy that they've employed.
1:48:16
They've kept they've stayed focused on rolling out that strategy, and now they're >> seeing success from it, which is great.
1:48:24
>> It's good to see Larry finally get a win.
1:48:26
He's been a bit of an overnight success.
1:48:29
>> He's been he's been working at Oracle >> decades in the making, grinding away for decades.
1:48:34
>> Give us give us the update on Texas. >> Yeah. >> Yes, please. >> Yeah.
1:48:36
So, we announced NYC Texas uh February 11th, 12th, 10th, something like that, >> opened on March 31st, >> and now have just over 50 listed companies and 13 listed ETFs. So, incredibly excited.
1:48:54
We just had a big launch party >> at uh at the Star at Dallas Cowboys Stadium, although I'm a Giants fan.
1:49:00
Um, although Sunday was rough for the New York Giants, I don't know if you watched that.
1:49:09
>> What goes into the decision to go to Texas instead of New York >> for a company? >> Yeah.
1:49:14
So, the reason we launched NYSSE Texas was because of the amazing pro business legislation that Governor Abbott's been pushing forward really filling a gap around >> company um company governance and a variety of other measures.
1:49:34
Uh it's been met with tremendous positive reception.
1:49:40
you see companies moving their headquarters, changing where they're incorporated >> from state that y'all are based in in California in particular to Texas, but also some of the New York companies have built huge presences. >> Yeah.
1:49:53
Joe Londale at ABC's talked about it a lot.
1:49:55
Elon Musk's talked about it a lot. Absolutely.
1:49:57
Starbase is a company town now.
1:49:58
It's become a whole economy unto its own.
1:50:01
We have a friend who went and toured it and they have their own shops and their own housing.
1:50:05
Everything it's become this massive movement over >> Yeah. and Illinois as well.
1:50:09
A lot of companies have moved out of Illinois to >> to NY to Texas.
1:50:14
So, we were >> just being responsive to our customers >> in Texas.
1:50:19
Uh does that just align you with being registered as a business in Texas or >> it allows you to benefit from some of the pro business legislation.
1:50:30
>> And is it but is it a prerequisite to be headquartered in Texas? You don't have to. It's an or. >> Okay. It's an or and cool.
1:50:34
actually the whole stack.
1:50:38
>> Our first company >> to do a list on us was Trump Media and Technology. >> Okay.
1:50:44
>> Which is based in Florida. >> Sure.
1:50:46
>> So they're not even based in in Texas.
1:50:48
But they were such proponents of the pro business mentality, the pro business legislation that was going through. >> Yep.
1:50:56
what uh taking a a step back, what what is the what is the right profile of a business uh for uh in the current IPO market?
1:51:06
I think that there's so much capital available in the private markets.
1:51:09
We haven't seen as many, you know, I would have thought we'd maybe see some AI companies getting out with like, you know, 50, you know, sub nine figures of revenue.
1:51:18
We we haven't seen that uh at least from our view a ton so far.
1:51:23
So what is the right what what what does the investment banking community see as like the right profile for a company today?
1:51:29
I >> mean there's always the question around the rule of 40.
1:51:31
Um I think the companies that are being rewarded are the ones with a very deliberate strategy that they've had a track record of success with.
1:51:40
Not a strategy that is throwing a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and seeing which of these products winds up sticking.
1:51:49
staying very focused on the strategy and telling the story of okay here's the core products and then here are the additional products that we're layering onto those products.
1:52:00
>> Um there was a question for a while of whether a company needed to be profitable or not to go public. Um I don't think you do.
1:52:07
I think you need to have a path to profitability that you can articulate >> to an investor, but you don't have to be 30% ebida margins, things of that nature to to go public. >> Yeah.
1:52:20
How do you think it do you think it's helpful?
1:52:22
I mean, how helpful is it that that a firm reported earnings like couple weeks ago, did very well.
1:52:26
I think people woke up to the you know, that that felt like kind of a turning point in people in the way that people were kind of viewing PNPL as a category.
1:52:35
Does that help at all with a road with with with uh you know CLA's road show and give people more confidence in the category?
1:52:45
>> I think the probably one of the success points for Clara's road show was the expansion that they've been able to do not just in Europe but also outside of Europe into the US market.
1:52:56
I'm sure that was something that resonated >> with investors.
1:53:00
um macroeconomic environments also tend to factor into a lot of these road shows as well.
1:53:10
>> What do you think uh change that sentiment about profitability to go public?
1:53:14
Was that is it okay to chop that up to what Jeff Bezos did for so long with Amazon just like not really delivering profits to shareholders, reinvesting them again and again and again?
1:53:27
Is that do you think the the story that people should be telling or are there other companies that have done it really well?
1:53:33
>> Yeah, I think the when you're with an investor, they're asking you what you're going to do with your capital.
1:53:39
Are you going to use it to pay down debt?
1:53:42
>> Y >> are you going to return it to shareholders or are you going to reinvest in the business?
1:53:45
I think any of those answers are good.
1:53:47
Y >> um particularly with companies during an IPO process, investors do want to many investors, not all, but many investors want a medium to long-term growth story.
1:54:01
And that's going to involve reinvestment in the business.
1:54:06
But there's needs to be a clearly articulated story about where you're investing and why you're investing and how it's going to make your business stronger or provide a really unique entry point >> into another tangential area to your business.
1:54:25
>> Uh well, thank you so much for coming on the stream. It's always >> for me.
1:54:28
Going to put my hat back on. Fantastic.
1:54:30
Thank you for representing. >> Yeah.
1:54:32
And thanks for >> always great to be here.
1:54:34
>> Great to be here with you.
1:54:35
>> Hopefully hopefully we'll be back soon.
1:54:37
>> Hope to have you soon. Absolutely. Market is opening up. It's open.
1:54:40
We'll come find you after this. We'll talk to you soon. >> Cheers. >> Bye.
1:54:46
>> And on that note, I think we can uh >> Yeah, wrap it up.
1:54:51
>> Thank you so much for tuning in to our live stream from the New York Stock Exchange.
1:54:54
We will be live from the TBNN Ultradome in Hollywood, California tomorrow.
1:54:59
So and we will bring you >> thoughts and prayers uh to Charlie Kirk and his family and loved ones.