Micky Malka - Building Ribbit

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy, and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:52)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUMVC.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:20)
My guest today is Micky Malka. Micky is the founder of Ribbit Capital, one of FinTech's most influential investing firms. Ribbit's mission is to change the world of finance through financial innovation rather than through financial engineering. Through Ribbit, Micky has backed transformative companies like Coinbase, Robinhood, and NewBank from their earliest days. We discussed his perspective on FinTech's evolution, including his provocative declaration that FinTech is dead and explored his theory of the grid, how knowledge, wealth, and power are being transformed by technology. We also dive into his deep interest in digital art, which he sees as an early indication of broader cultural and technological shifts. You'll soon hear how he is taking a truly generative approach on all fronts. A final note for me, the world just needs more people like Micky. He's one of the kindest, most alive people that I've met in this business. There just aren't many people like him. Please enjoy this in-depth conversation with Micky Malka.
So Micky, I know this is a hard question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. I want to just have you describe what Ribbit is. It's one of these firms that's if you know, you know type firm, but there's basically no information of any kind about Ribbit anywhere. You can learn if you ask lots of great founders out there. But that's kind of how the word on Ribbit has spread. It's through founders, not through normal channels. Can you just describe what it is today and what it was when it started? We'll ask about the origin story. But I know it's a hard question to answer because it's an amorphous entity. But what is Ribbit to you? How would you describe it?

**Micky Malka** (3:45)
That's the hardest question I think you're going to ask me today until probably the next one. We are a bunch of rebels. Let's start there. And from the inception, we always use Star Wars as our motive and our decks and our presentations. And we're a bunch of rebels. And the way that we describe it is wherever the status quo grows bloated, wherever there's not enough innovation, wherever there's nothing new that benefits a customer, you're going to find us there as rebels, trying to find the rebels who are going to change the status quo. And that's who we are. And there's no bigger status quo in the last 20 years than financial services. And that's where we started. It wasn't innovating. It wasn't bringing new services to the customers. It wasn't bringing anything new to the businesses. And we were like, this cannot be. Where are the people that are going to change this? So, we dedicated the first decade of our lives just to do that.