More than a decade ago, someone I respect told me to go meet these young, Irish brothers - Patrick and John Collison. The brothers had started a small company called Stripe, and my friend assured me they were primed to accomplish big things.

The Collisons were working on payments, and I had no interest in payments, so my attention waned a bit as they described how Stripe functioned and what it would one day do. What was very clear, though, was that the brothers were bright - as in exceptionally bright - and focused and determined. I interview start-up founders for a living, and there’s been a handful of times where I knew for certain that the people in front of me would succeed at whatever they chose to do. This was one of those times.

This is a long way of saying that I have the utmost respect for the Collisons and try to take particular note when they and/or Stripe make big bets. They tend to have a pretty accurate window into the future.

Last year, Stripe bought Bridge for $1.1 billion. Bridge was a two-year-old start-up that had started out doing some NFT nonsense and then pivoted almost right away into stablecoins.

Going off the premise that the Collisons must have spent $1 billion on a very, very, very young company for a reason, we asked Bridge CEO Zach Abrams to come on the podcast to explain what Bridge does, what the hell stablecoins are and where the future of money is heading.

Abrams, thankfully, did not disappoint.

The short of it is that Bridge has made it much easier for companies and governments to move money internationally. SpaceX, for example, relies on Bridge to collect and process payments for its Starlink internet service in far off lands. The same goes for people sending and receiving remittances, which happens to be a massive part of our global economy.

We discuss all this in the show and then get weird. Abrams talks about AIs using credit cards to accomplish tasks out in the world and a future where an AI might end up as the wealthiest being on the planet and what that could mean for us humans and the economy.

This podcast was made possible with support from the fine people at E1 Ventures.

Enjoy!

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The Future of Money - EP 19 Zach Abrams

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