fintech

a16z General Partner David Haber talks with Marty Chavez, vice chairman and partner at Sixth Street Partners, about the foundational role he’s had in merging technology and finance throughout his career, and the magical promises and regulatory pitfalls of AI.

This episode is taken from “In the Vault”, a new audio podcast series by the a16z Fintech team. Each episode features the most influential figures in financial services to explore key trends impacting the industry and the pressing innovations that will shape our future. 

Resources: 
Listen to more of In the Vault: https://a16z.com/podcasts/a16z-live

Find Marty on X: https://twitter.com/rmartinchavez

Find David on X: https://twitter.com/dhaber

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

As we close off 2023, we wanted to revisit some of our favorite episodes from the last year. From AI hardware, to healthcare regulation, to disrupting the world’s largest asset class, to the electrification of nearly everything… there’s  something in here for all listeners.

Resources: 

AI Hardware, Explained:

https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/ai-hardware-explained

Chasing Silicon: The Race for GPUs: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/chasing-silicon-the-race-for-gpus

The True Cost of Compute: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/the-cost-of-compute

AI Revolution: Disruption, Alignment, and Opportunity: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/ai-revolution-disruption-alignment-and-opportunity

The Robot Lawyer Resistance; https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/the-robot-lawyer-resistance

The Quest for AGI: Q*, Self-Play, and Synthetic Data: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quest-for-agi-q-self-play-and-synthetic-data

The Road to Autonomous Vehicles: Are We There Yet?: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/the-road-to-autonomous-vehicles-are-we-there-yet-PstZz2G_

The Electrification of Everything: From Sky to Sea: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/the-electrification-of-everything-from-sky-to-sea

When Two Giants Intersect: Healthcare Meets Fintech: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/when-two-giants-intersect-healthcare-meets-fintech

Salary Transparency: Clarity or Chaos?: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/salary-transparency-clarity-or-chaos

Disrupting the World’s Largest Asset Class with Adam Neumann: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/disrupting-the-worlds-largest-asset-class

The Data Highway Above with Privateer’s Steve Wozniak, Alex Fielding, and Dr. Moriba Jah: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/new-the-data-highway-above-with-privateers-steve-wozniak-alex-fielding-and-dr-moriba-jah

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Software crosses borders effortlessly. The globalization of money, however, is considerably more challenging. This is especially true for multinational businesses, which grapple with managing multiple accounts in diverse currencies, navigating costly foreign exchange rates, and unpredictable money transfers.

As businesses increasingly embrace a global default, top fintech entrepreneurs are rising to the challenge, addressing cross-border infrastructure issues and offering comprehensive solutions.

In this episode, a16z partners Angela Strange, Joe Schmidt, and Gabriel Vasquez discuss the challenges of cross-border payment infrastructures and what fintech entrepreneurs are doing to create a more integrated, financially inclusive world.

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Software crosses borders easily; money does not. 

03:02 - Why has global payments been a challenge for so long? 

05:44 - How global payments and money currently moves

07:25 - The metrics used to measure a country's financial health

12:13 - The impact of regulation on financial services

16:23 - Can the same regulations be applied to any country? 

21:29 - Why each country has its own fintech system

24:54 - Opportunities in global payments infrastructure

34:47 - Advice for founders navigating global fintech systems

36:58 - What does a truly global system enable? 

Read the Fintech Fuels Global Payments package: https://a16z.com/global-payments

Watch ​​’Foreign Exchange 101: What Happens When You Send Money Abroad?’: https://youtu.be/eoXdyO9oGJc?feature=shared

Find Angela on Twitter: https://twitter.com/astrange

Find Joe Schmidt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joeschmidtiv

FInd Gabriel Vasquez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GEVS94

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this episode, you’ll hear directly from 6 founders trying to reinvent the healthcare system with the help of Fintech.

They’re tackling everything from the lack of price transparency, the complexity of billing, getting clinics paid on time, mental health support for the masses, virtual first-care, and the millions of Americans about to lose access to Medicaid.

Topics Covered:

• 00:00 - The biggest problems in healthcare
• 02:22 - The lack of price transparency
• 07:13 - The complexity of medical billing
• 14:32 - Getting health clinics paid on time
• 20:00 - Mental health support for the masses
• 24:58 - Millions about to lose Medicaid
• 29:12 - Adopting virtual-first care

Resources:

• Learn more about the intersection of Healthcare and Fintech: https://a16z.com/healthcare-meets-fintech/
• Check out Turquoise: https://turquoise.health/
• Check out Cedar: https://www.cedar.com/
• Check out Juniper: https://www.juniperplatform.com/
• Check out Headway: https://headway.co/
• Check out Propel: https://www.joinpropel.com/
• Check out Firefly: https://www.firefly.health/
• Find Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crsevern?lang=en
• Find Florian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/flottobrasil?lang=en
• Find Jade on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadeyychan/
• Find Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewlangadams?lang=en
• Find Jimmy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimmychen?lang=en
• Find Fay on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fyietc

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Most people don’t need a reminder of the state of healthcare in America. But it’s not just the consumer that’s hurting.  Medical debt is increasing, billions are lost in unpaid claims, hospitals are in the red, service prices can range up to 30x…. 

In this episode, a16z GPs Julie You and David Haber explain where the healthcare system breaks down and how the three party system — between payors, providers, and consumers — can be rethought through the lens of Fintech.

Learn more about Healthcare x Fintech here: https://a16z.com/healthcare-meets-fintech/

Topics Covered:

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 02:50 - The intersection of healthcare and fintech 
• 05:40 - The problems within US healthcare 
• 09:00 - The stats behind US healthcare
• 12:10 - Where do the problems stem from in healthcare?
• 15:50 - New opportunities and regulatory changes
• 17:50 - Pushback on regulations
• 19:40 - Provider and patient models and transparency
• 21.10 -  The ‘No Surprises Act’ and the ‘Cures Act’
• 23:20 - Applying fintech infrastructure to healthcare
• 26:00 - Example: how Juniper in embedding fintech in healthcare
• 30:10 - Opportunities in the healthcare/fintech market
• 33:05 - Payvidors unbundled 
• 34:55 - The financial operating system for healthcare
• 37:40 - How founders can approach the problems
• 39:23 - The investor standpoint on company opportunities
• 41:00 - Unsolved problems in the market
• 45:25 - The bridge between start-ups and incumbents 
• 47:20 - Healthcare incumbent stats  
• 48:50 - The window of opportunity for healthcare and fintech

Resources:

• Read the article ‘Healthtech x Fintech’s Biggest Prize: The Financial Operating System for Healthcare: https://a16z.com/2023/02/07/healthtech-x-fintechs-biggest-prize/
• Read the article ‘ Payvidors, Unbundled: Opportunities in Healthcare Fintech’:https://a16z.com/2022/06/01/payvidors-unbundled-opportunities-in-healthcare-fintech/
• Find Julie on Twitter :https://twitter.com/julesyoo
• Find David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dhaber

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

At the end of 2022, our team at a16z asked dozens of partners across the firm to spotlight one big idea that startups in their fields could tackle in 2023.

Emerging from this exercise came 40+ builder-worthy pursuits for the year, ranging from entertainment franchise games to precision delivery of medicine to small modular reactors, and of course loads of AI applications.

In our 2-part series, we’ll be covering 12 of these big ideas with the partners that shared them.

Here in part 1, we’ll cover Consumer, Games, and Enterprise, with a little Fintech sprinkled in. Listen in as we chat with Connie Chan, Anne Lee Skates, Jack Soslow, Doug McCracken, Sarah Wang, and Sumeet Singh.

And look out for part 2 dropping soon, covering Fintech, American Dynamism, and Bio & Health!

For the full list of 40+ ideas, check out the full article: https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/

Topics Covered:

• (1:30) Breakthroughs in Buying (Finally!) - Connie Chan
• (16:40) Unlocking the “Third Place” - Anne Lee Skates
• (30:14) Games as a Neverending Turing Test - Jack Soslow
• (46:09) The Metaverse Goes Fashion Forward - Doug McCracken
• (59:24) Generative AI Advances Beyond “Text to Image” to Complex Workflows - Sarah Wang
• (1:12:23) Embracing Large Language Models and Maintaining Trust - Sumeet Singh

Stay Updated: 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

This week, student loans are back in the news, with the administration's announcement of a plan to forgive student loan debt for certain kinds of borrowers. Outside of the specific policies, though, student loans are often the first of many big financial decisions that young people make as they begin to build credit history and join the labor force. So what role can technology play in serving this demographic's particular needs, now and into the future?

In this episode from October 2020, Amira Yahyaoui, the founder and CEO of Mos, a platform that helps students with their banking needs, like getting financial aid for college, joins a16z general partner Anish Acharya, partner Seema Amble, and host Lauren Murrow to discuss fintech for Gen Z and millenials. They dig into some of the issues around student loans today, the underserved banking needs of this group, and how fintech can help younger consumers today as well as set them up for a better financial future.

This episode features two relevant but previously recorded episodes, discussing the relevance of the Paycheck Protection Program (or PPP) from the Small Business Administration and the role of government stimulus/ pandemic relief for the economy as well as where tech comes in. 

It combines 2 separate episodes, beginning with one recorded much earlier this year (on our show 16 Minutes), which outlines a useful analogy of "eminent domain" for government-mandated shutdowns of certain businesses and technology considerations; and then is followed by an episode (recorded later this year) on preventing fraud and the role of fintech. 

Both episodes feature in common a16z general partner in fintech Alex Rampell, who also wrote about how Small Businesses Depend on the Stimulus Package, and The Stimulus Will Depend on Fintech, which you can find at: a16z.com/pandemicstimulus

The intersection of social and finance—as well as shifting attitudes around what we share about money online—have given way to an ambitious new wave of financial products.

While revealing one’s financial information was once considered taboo, now people are more apt than ever to openly discuss money online, particularly Gen Z and millennials. That’s evident on both ends of the spectrum, whether people are bemoaning their crushing levels of student debt on Twitter and Instagram or bragging about their latest stock trades on WallStreetBets. The repercussions extend far beyond social media, fueling a wave of new social-fintech products like Public, Commonstock, and Doji, among others.

In this conversation between fintech partner Anish Acharya, formerly a product manager at Credit Karma, consumer partner D’Arcy Coolican (who himself is a former founder in this space), and host Lauren Murrow, we discuss why the “holy grail” of social plus finance is both so challenging and, potentially, so rewarding. 

This episode was originally released last year and has been resurfaced as part of Social Strikes Back, a new series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they’re shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Millennials and Gen Z have been hard-hit by the one-two punch of the 2008 and 2020 financial crises. That experience has radically shaped their approach to finances and their mindset around credit and debt. This episode explores how fintech founders are now designing products tailored to the financial challenges of younger consumers, from managing and avoiding student loans to building credit to saving and budgeting apps. 

Historically, students have largely been overlooked by traditional banks. Due to a combination of economic forces, predatory lending practices, and uninformed decisions, millennials have more outstanding student loans—and owe more money—than any prior generation. According to a poll conducted this month by the data intelligence company Morning Consult, just 46 percent of millennials believe their student debt was worth attending college. 

Amira Yahyaoui wants to change that. She’s the founder and CEO of Mos, a platform that allows students to apply for every government college financial aid program with a single application. In this episode, Amira joins host Lauren Murrow and a16z fintech partners Anish Acharya and Seema Amble to discuss how fintech can cut through bureaucracy, downsize student debt, and optimize—and ultimately automate—consumers’ financial futures from an early age.

This episode examines the potential for misuse and fraud among those applying for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—and how fintech and software provide overlooked tools to stop it.  

On March 27th, the government enacted a $2.2 trillion dollar stimulus package called the CARES Act, the largest aid measure in history. The act provides more than $500 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, a low-interest, forgivable loan program designed to help small businesses and self-employed individuals retain workers and stay afloat during the pandemic. Since March, the Small Business Administration has approved billions of dollars in PPP loans. But it is also estimated that U.S. losses from coronavirus-related fraud and identity theft have reached almost $100 million. According to the New York Times, the Small Business Administration’s fraud hotline has received 42,000 reports about coronavirus-related cheating and misuse; by comparison, last year it had less than 800.

To date, the Department of Justice has charged more than 40 cases of PPP-related schemes, from claiming non-existent employees or non-existent businesses to identity theft, kickback schemes, fake tax documents, and multi-state fraud rings. Most of those cases have alleged fraud of more than a $1 million. But what about the countless others that may be cheating taxpayers out of smaller—but not insignificant—sums? How does the government decide who should get money and who shouldn’t among millions of applications from businesses of all industries and sizes—and what role do banks play? How does the program then distribute that money quickly and accurately—or not, in many cases? And what tools are at our disposal to catch those who cheat the system? 

Host Lauren Murrow is joined by Bharat Ramamurti, the original member of the COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission, which is tasked with evaluating the impact of coronavirus relief loans; Naftali Harris, the CEO of SentiLink, a software company that builds technology to detect synthetic fraud; and a16z fintech general partner Alex Rampell.

"Why Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company -- The Next Era of Financial Services and the 'AWS Phase' for Fintech" by Angela Strange.

You can also find and share this essay at a16z.com/fintecheverywhere

This is the next cycle (Q1 2020) of Hustlin' Tech, a podcast series (from the a16z Podcast) about technology platforms that create opportunities for people. Recorded right before the coronavirus pandemic, these next 3 episodes touch on many things that are top of mind right now: from the profession of nursing and taking care of the elderly and the professionalization of caregivers; to fighting bureaucracy to get money back (and to now get help delaying utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver of late fees due to the coronavirus crisis).

Episode #6, “The Hustler’s Guide to Suing the Man” features:

• Joshua Browder, CEO and founder of DoNotPay, the world's first "robot lawyer" which helps people automatically fight bureaucracy to get money back, whether parking tickets or hidden bank fees; find other hidden money or cancel free trials; sue others or go to small claims court -- and now also helps people delay utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver of late fees due to the coronavirus crisis.
• Makiri Duckett, a small business owner who currently operates an adult on-demand delivery service (and therefore gets frequent parking tickets) and is a power user of the platform;

...both interviewed by Ben Horowitz and Shaka Senghor.

You can find the first cycle of this series (Q4 2019) -- including more about the what and the why -- here.

The last financial crisis prompted many consumers to reassess their banking expectations—none more so than millennials and Gen-Z-ers. While revealing one's financial information was once considered taboo, now consumers are more apt than ever to openly discuss money and debt on online platforms. It's a trend that's evident on both ends of the spectrum, whether that’s people divulging their crushing levels of debt on Twitter and Instagram (#debtfreejourney), bragging about their credit scores, or bemoaning their latest stock trades. And the repercussions extend far beyond social media. 

In this conversation with fintech general partner Anish Acharya (a former product manager at Credit Karma), consumer tech partner D'Arcy Coolican (a social+ fintech founder himself), and host Lauren Murrow, we discuss why the "holy grail" of social plus fintech is both so challenging and, potentially, so rewarding. We cover which products and companies are taking advantage of it (some in rather novel ways), how it's being driven by various subcultures online, and why this shift is happening now.