The Fintech OG's from TWIF

Welcome back to another episode of Fintech OGs with This Week In Fintech!

Today, I’m joined by two incredible founders who have each redefined their corner of the financial world:

• Jack Zhang, Co-founder & CEO of Airwallex, the global payments and banking platform powering 150,000+ businesses
• Leif Abraham, Co-founder & Co-CEO of Public, the next-gen investing platform helping the top 20% of millennials build long-term wealth

In this episode, we explore their journeys from coffee shops and olive oil to building billion-dollar fintechs, why they both value first principles thinking over traditional industry experience, and their candid takes on hot topics like stablecoins, AI in finance, and tokenized assets.

They share career highs, the lows of early struggles, and the unconventional advice they’d give to anyone starting in fintech today.

Huge thanks to Persona for sponsoring today's episode! Persona is the adaptable identity platform helping businesses fight fraud, meet compliance requirements, and build trust from the very first interaction. Check them out at withpersona.com/thisweekinfintech.

Welcome back to FinTech OGs! This week, I’m joined by two leaders whose careers have shaped the evolution of modern financial technology: David Haber, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and co-lead of their AI Apps Fund, and Owen Jennings, an executive officer and Block’s Business Lead.

From early ventures like Bond Street and the first days of Cash App to today’s frontier of AI in finance, David and Owen share how FinTech continues to evolve—what’s working, what hasn’t changed fast enough, and the massive opportunities they see ahead. We cover everything from consumer financial health to small business challenges, AI-driven automation, and the next wave of credit innovation.

This is a masterclass in FinTech past, present, and future.

Welcome back to this week in FinTech and another episode of the FinTech OGs. This week I'm joined by two guests whose careers have helped shape. The evolution of modern wealth management. We have Charles Birnbaum partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and Cynthia Loh, who is a senior vice president at Capital One.

Charles and Cynthia first crossed paths in the early days of Betterment. This is back when robo-advisors were just starting to redefine how everyday consumers invest and have spent, over a decade building in, investing in and advising some of the most influential FinTech companies out there. It's a great conversation and I'm excited for you to dive in!

I also want to take a moment to send out a special thanks to our sponsors this week. 100% of what we got in ads for this episode is going towards Texas Flood Relief. Those of you that know me know that I am based in Austin, Texas, and while thankfully my daughter is too young to go to a sleep away camp, it hits close to home with friends having kids that go to camps that were hit along the river.

The two guests this week, Charles and Cynthia, also both have kids, and it's just unimaginable what these parents are going through. I ask all of you to keep these families in your prayers.

With that, I'll also tell you a little bit more about our sponsors. I have a feeling you guys are very familiar with all of them but just in case you're not.

First up is Lithic, who is a modern payments infrastructure provider that enables technically ambitious teams to build better payments products. Lithic's cutting edge technologies cover issuing and processing, end-to-end fraud prevention, dispute management, and cardholder support implemented as either fully managed offerings or self-service tools.

Learn more at lithic.com.

Next up we have Rho, which is the all-in-one banking platform for startups and the accountants who support them. Thousands of startups switching to Rho because they don't have time to wait days to open an account or the patience for email support queues when they just need real help.

Rho is building a new standard for business banking. With Rho, you get fast banking setup, up to 2% cash back on cards and yield on idle cash. Everything you need all in one platform from day one. Every client gets real dedicated support from a team that goes to the end of the earth to help you win.

Head to rho.co/startups to learn more. That's rho.co/startups. Rho is a FinTech company, not a bank or an FDIC. Insured depository institution checking account and card services are provided by Webster Bank NA member FDIC. See rewards terms for complete cash back details.

Last but not least, we have Spade. It’s 2025 and fintechs can spin up cards in minutes and move money in real time. But we still can’t decipher the transactions on a bank statement. Most still show up as a jumble of letters and numbers — no clear name, no location. Just noise and guesswork. 

That’s why so many fintechs and banks are turning to Spade. Spade’s API maps messy transaction strings to verified businesses — returning real merchant names, categories, and store locations in real time. So if you want reliable transaction data across cards, ACH, and more, head to spade.com. 

You know you’ve found true fintech OGs when your guests were almost roommates before “fintech” was even a buzzword. That’s exactly the case with today’s guests, Sheel Mohnot and Amit Kumar—two longtime friends and collaborators who’ve not only seen the fintech industry evolve over the last decade-plus, but have helped shape it.

In this episode, we dig into their early startup days—FeeFighters, CardSpring, and Twitter M&A tales—plus what it was like building before infrastructure existed, the bets they wish they’d made sooner, and why they believe fintech is still one of the most promising sectors to build in today.

We also get into:

• What Apple Pay did accomplish—and what it still hasn’t replaced
• Why a modern global Venmo still doesn’t exist
• What Sheel looks for in the next 10 years of fintech innovation
• And why Amit advises CS students to do their “master’s degree at Stripe”

Whether you’re a founder, investor, or just love hearing two friends go deep on the evolution of a category they’ve helped pioneer, this episode is packed with insights and reflections. 

🎙️ Welcome back to Season 3 of the Fintech OG series on This Week in Fintech!

To kick things off, we’re joined by two of the most influential voices shaping the future of financial infrastructure: David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark and former head of Libra at Facebook, and Dan Kimerling, founding partner at Deciens Capital and early pioneer in banking-as-a-service.

We cover everything from the rise—and regulatory fall—of stablecoins, to why Bitcoin might just be the TCP/IP of global money movement, to what it really takes to endure the emotional highs and lows of building in fintech.

And before we dive in, a big thank you to our sponsor Persona, the adaptable identity platform helping businesses fight fraud, meet compliance requirements, and build trust from the very first interaction.

Let’s get into it.