mFoundry was founded in 2003, pre-iPhone, to solve two problems: roughly 400 incompatible handsets and carriers controlling app distribution and billing.The pivot that saved the business: landing Citi as a client convinced Drew to drop every other vertical and focus entirely on banking -- within a few years, mFoundry counted a third of the top 20 US banks as clients.Drew's biggest career regret is moving straight into investing after selling mFoundry to FIS instead of taking time off first. His advice to his past self: take three to six months, then bet on yourself as an operator again rather than betting on other founders.Near-term agentic AI in banking is landing in the unglamorous places -- fraud, AML, compliance, reconciliation, onboarding, and customer support -- because these are controlled environments where ROI is measurable and regulators are comfortable with augmentation over full autonomy.Appetite is real, not just theoretical: 88% of finance leaders surveyed would allow some form of agentic AI in banking workflows, and 71% say AI-initiated connectivity now factors into which bank they choose. (flag: confirm source before publishing)The long-term battleground is orchestration -- whoever controls permissions, identity, auditability, and governance across banking data captures the outsized value.Reframe on AI errors: human-run banking workflows already carry 10-15% error rates, so an AI system that cuts costs in half while improving to an 8% error rate is a trade banks will make every time.A $10B bank could plausibly run with roughly 50 people, per Drew -- the constraint isn't the technology (a core system is "a fairly straightforward ledger"), it's getting chartered and regulated.Speed comparison: a team at Drift rebuilt a full agentic AI product in about four months, work that would have taken 18 months on a traditional SaaS timeline.Drew's take on AI funding: conversations with veteran investors consistently land on "under-hyped," not overhyped, despite the volume of capital flowing in.M&A dynamics are shifting -- competitive barriers to entry have collapsed, so outcomes increasingly hinge on go-to-market speed rather than product differentiation. Expect a small number of massive winners and a long tail of fast flame-outs.Founder advice, delivered as a two-part rule: expect the best and worst job of your life, so stay even-keeled -- and never run out of money, because everything else is downstream of that.Drew's outlook: the shift plays out over five to ten years, possibly faster, and will be decided by whoever wins the orchestration layer first.
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