BCG: "Global fintech revenues surpassed half a trillion dollars in 2025, growing 22% year over year. That also means fintechs outgrew traditional financial services four-fold and now account for approximately 4% of total global financial services revenue".

Defi bros in a room: The banking system is cooked. We can replace it all with lending vaults, tokenized credit and risk curators. Oh shit, we have a big duration mismatch between short-term lenders and long-term borrowers. How was this solved before? Oh right...banks.

BREAKING: Electronic Arts is cutting 400 jobs and shutting down BioWare, the legendary development studio behind Dragon Age and Mass Effect. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

"Work to clear the rubble is ongoing at the site of a RUSSIAN MISSILE STRIKE ON A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING in Pryluky. As of now, 18 people have been reported killed, four of them children: Oleksandr, Kyrylo, and Serhii, who were only one year old, and eight-year-old Maksym"

my prediction: personal ai agents won’t monetize through monthly subscription fees. they’ll monetize by owning the fintech stack and earning revenue every time their users spend money. Instinct already measures internal performance based on monthly payment volume. to monetize this they can: > issue their own Visa credit card > earn 2-3% interchange on every transaction > negotiate bulk discounts directly with merchants > take a percentage of the savings they generate > earn yield on balances sitting inside the ecosystem instead of charging you $20/month to use your personal agent, the agent becomes the interface through which you spend thousands of dollars every month. if your agent books your flights, hotels, restaurants, and everyday purchases, owning the payment layer underneath becomes far more valuable than a $20/month subscription. the biggest personal ai companies will end up looking less like software companies and more like fintechs. personal ai agents + fintech will eventually blend into an entirely new category: agentic finance.

The next BMW 3 Series is here! • Neue Klasse design • M Performance gets a turbocharged 3.0-liter I6 • Up to 437 hp • Drift mode for M350 xDrive The new 3 Series will arrive in the US in early 2027. Prices will start at $49,900.

$FICO down 62% YTD You still need credit scores. They just won’t use FICO as much. Newer alternatives will take its share. “@CashApp Score” can carve out a place in the market. Nobody is pricing this into $XYZ (cuz no one knows the economics of it)

"Affirm used the model to approve additional eligible applications that its existing system would have declined, including those with limited credit histories and no FICO scores. Measured against a control group, that produced 3.4% more completed purchases, and those additional loans performed better than a comparable expansion under Affirm's previous machine learning models. The model is now live at checkout in the U.S." $AFRM

Happy Tuesday. On today's show: - @gdb (OpenAI) - @ScottWu46 (Cognition) - @eric_seufert (Mobile Dev Memo) - @danwrightSF (Armada) - @HarryMellsop (Antioch) - @sahirjaggi (Forus) - @endswithay (Split Pay) See you on the stream.

I just moved to Cyprus 🇨🇾 My first impressions and why I moved: > it's safe (unlike rest of Europe) > friendly people (unlike rest of Europe) > quiet > clean air > fast WiFi > tax friendly > great coffee > amazing food > very walkable > incredible weather > affordable (€2 for coffee, €7 for meal) > great laptop cafe culture (unlike rest of Europe) > growing tech scene (unlike rest of Europe) It's been so long since I had somewhere I could lock in from and call home. I was torn between UAE and Cyprus but the last month made my decision for me. And so far I am so happy with my decision.

Stripe dashboard of a YC W26 company. Insane