Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy · Colossus | Investing & Business Podcasts

William Hockey - Building the Operating System for the Dollar and Silicon Valley Heresy

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

Our annual profits are our funding round - that's how we build a bank without venture capital

Patrick O'Shaughnessy starts by pressing on what a company owes the people who work there. Hockey answers with a broader definition of care than a simple long-term equity pitch. He says people want to know whether they will be taken care of now, not just after a 20-year hold period. That concern, he argues, shapes culture. It also shows up in the numbers. He suggests that optimizing for the full employee journey can be unusual and can still produce really good results. The conversation then shifts to whether his own path was only possible because he had already become wealthy. Hockey says that picture was misleading. He explains that paper wealth and liquid cash were very different for him. Plaid attempted to sell to Visa for about $5 billion, but the deal was blocked by the DOJ, so he did not receive a payout. That left him with credibility in the market, but not the cash people assumed. To start again, he says he went to banks with Plaid shares as collateral. He describes borrowing against those shares rather than funding the company from cash on hand. The financing was expensive. The best offer he found was roughly SOFR plus 10 percent on a 5 percent loan-to-value basis. He says he pledged over a billion dollars of stock to borrow about $70 million. That capital let him keep moving, even if it was not a simple or comfortable setup. The exchange closes on a personal note, with Hockey crediting his parents for the resilience behind his path.

As heard by us

A founder story about employee care, liquidity, and building again with debt.

This founder conversation keeps its attention on employee care, liquidity, and the hard business of rebuilding after a major exit fell through. Its strongest idea is simple: a company should think about employees in the short, medium, and long term, not only as a distant payday.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the liquidity math behind a founder's second act in fintech.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy