Michael Tannenbaum is the CEO of Figure, the blockchain lending company he took public in 2025.

He was employee #1 at Brex, and before that ran the mortgage business at SoFi. Mike Cagney, who founded both SoFi and Figure, pulled him back to take Figure public in 2025.

This is a conversation on how to think and act like a founder, the framework he uses to run Figure, plus a look at how a lending business works under the hood, why he ran the broken mortgage business at SoFi to prove himself, the time Masa offered him a billion dollars, how he nearly walking away from Brex right before they launched, inside the SVB collapse, how Figure originates loans for $1,000 instead of $12,000, their recent Kiavi acquisition, and the gas station test his dad taught him.

Thank you to Mike Cagney, Art Levy, and Sam Blond for helping brainstorm topics for the conversation!

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Timestamps:

(0:00) From Brex employee #1 to public-company CEO

(1:28) Operating vs managing a career

(3:23) Why he took the worst business at SoFi

(9:33) The Big Rock framework

(11:02) How to get real customer feedback

(14:58) The best nose for value in fintech

(17:49) Why banking the affluent beats down-market

(21:12) Figure: cutting mortgage cost from $12k to $1k

(25:41) Do you actually need to use blockchain?

(28:03) Why memecoins took over crypto

(32:17) Masa's billion-dollar offer

(36:29) Leaving SoFi for two kids in a kitchen

(39:05) Six months from almost quitting to a unicorn

(44:09) The finance guy who ran Brex's marketing

(47:03) Inside Brex during the SVB collapse

(51:09) The two SoFi insights behind Figure

(54:40) From direct-to-consumer to B2B marketplace

(56:41) AI can’t get you better credit ratings

(58:50) Figure is a modern Fannie Mae

(1:01:28) Buyers who commit before the loan exists

(1:03:59) Following customers into new products

(1:06:35) Buying Kiavi, the fix-and-flip leader

(1:12:15) Why more fintech’s don't become marketplaces

(1:14:46) The AI risk in outsourcing customer acquisition

(1:18:23) What going public actually takes

(1:20:14) Life as a public-company CEO

(1:22:38) Getting shorted

(1:24:12) The gas station test

(1:25:42) The reverse pyramid of big corporates

Referenced

Figure: https://www.figure.com/

Careers at Figure: https://www.figure.com/careers/

Kiavi: https://www.kiavi.com/

Follow Michael

Twitter: https://x.com/MBTannenbaum

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltannenbaum/

Follow Turner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

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Brex’s 1st Employee On Thinking Like a Founder | Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure

The Peel with Turner Novak

Brex’s 1st Employee On Thinking Like a Founder | Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure