Engineered to Never End
PayPal, Stripe, Ramp, and the state of venture-backed fintech companies in 2026.
Recent posts
Money’s Public Cloud Moment
And the work we have to do to meet it.
An Agent Walks Into a Bank...
Highlights from the Fintech Takes Podcast
Anatomy of an Agentic Transaction
Listen to the Fintech Takes podcast.
How Do You Verify if an AI Agent is Acting as a Fiduciary?
3 news stories, 2 reading recommendations, & 1 question.
Fintech's Rebundling Cycle
Unbundling wins customers. Bundling keeps them. The industry tends to cycle through both, in that order.
Plaid vs. FICO and the Credit Bureaus
There’s an opportunity (finally) to really go after this market.
A 15 Min Bank & Other Bad Ideas
Highlights from Fintech Recap
Fintech Recap: Whop, Revolut, and Chime Buys Stride
Welcome back to Fintech Recap. I’m Alex Johnson, joined as always by my partner in recapping, Jason Mikula.
Can it take action? And how much does it cost?
3 news stories, 2 reading recommendations, & 1 question.
Fintech Takes x C&R Software Presents: Fintech’s Next Test Across the U.S. and U.K.
Welcome to Season 2 of Collections Conversations , a new miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software.
Five Questions About Agentic Finance
Reporting back from Salt Lake City.
The Investor Diaries
Listen to the Fintech Takes podcast.
Replay: The Science (and Fiction) of Friction
Learn how to tell the friction that protects your portfolio from the friction that's costing you applicants.
Dear Investor Diary
Highlights from the Fintech Takes Podcast
Whop Whop Whop
3 news stories, 2 reading recommendations, & 1 question.
Life (and Screen Scraping) Finds a Way
And why banks will sing a different tune on access regulation this time.
The 2,000 Years of Rain Problem in SMB Lending
Two dentists. A dozen restaurants. Four large manufacturers. Maybe a couple of oyster farms.
An Accountable Credit Score
Or why a first-party credit score is such a novel idea.
Under the Hood
Highlights from the Fintech Takes Podcast
Under the Hood of Fintech Products
Welcome back to the Fintech Takes podcast. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Jas Shah , fintech product consultant and author of one of my favorite newsletters, Fintech: Under the Hood , which gets into serious detail from a builder’s perspective.
Amazon’s War Against Agentic AI Continues
3 news stories, 2 reading recommendations, & 1 question.
Fintech North
Observations from a week spent north of the border.
Stop Competing For Your Own Customer
One of the stranger things about consumer lending is that a lender can do everything right and still end up competing for its own customer.
