RPF0264-Dan_Macklin_Interview
00:00:00.000 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, we're going to kick off another sponsor.
00:00:05.760 | Sponsor of the day today is SoFi.
00:00:08.160 | On today's show, we're going to hear an extensive interview with Dan Macklin, one of the co-founders
00:00:13.000 | of SoFi.
00:00:14.000 | I think you're really going to enjoy this.
00:00:15.360 | SoFi is a unique new company that's trying to modernize the world of lending and they
00:00:23.360 | might be able to save you some money.
00:00:41.320 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.
00:00:43.280 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:00:45.040 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:00:46.040 | Today, I'm going to work to help you save some money.
00:00:50.040 | Saving money is important.
00:00:51.040 | Lowering costs is always a good thing.
00:00:55.120 | And SoFi, I think, might be a way for some of you to do that.
00:01:00.760 | Might be useful to those of you with student loans, might be useful to those of you with
00:01:03.480 | personal loans and maybe even to some of you who are taking out mortgages.
00:01:13.640 | I first heard of SoFi, I was about to call it social finance, I think that's where the
00:01:17.520 | name comes from.
00:01:18.520 | I first heard of SoFi quite a while ago.
00:01:20.840 | I pay attention a little bit to the world of online finance and started seeing this
00:01:26.240 | name SoFi crop up and the way that these things are usually launched as far as the world of
00:01:33.480 | online media and online financial blogging and things like that is it'll launch in the
00:01:37.440 | form of a review and usually that review leads to an advertisement or to an affiliate relationship,
00:01:42.040 | things like that.
00:01:43.040 | And so I started reading them and I started checking out the reviews and checking out
00:01:45.440 | the story and I was favorably impressed with a lot of the things that I saw.
00:01:49.840 | And then a couple of months ago and I was up in Charlotte for FinCon 2015, I was able
00:01:55.120 | to connect with the guys there, meet them there face to face, talk with them and we
00:01:59.720 | struck up a deal where I decided that they would make a good fit for supportive radical
00:02:03.920 | personal finance.
00:02:04.920 | If you're not familiar with SoFi, SoFi is a really interesting story.
00:02:09.400 | I'm not going to spoil it here in the intro because you're going to hear the entire story
00:02:13.200 | right now in the interview that I'm about to play for you.
00:02:17.040 | But SoFi might be a really good fit for some of you to be able to refinance your student
00:02:23.160 | loans and gain the ability to cut your costs.
00:02:28.160 | And as those of you who have seen the Building a Framework for Wealth presentation, which
00:02:33.280 | by the way, I often refer to these five points, ten words.
00:02:36.000 | I haven't talked a lot about that on the show.
00:02:37.760 | You can see it on the website or if you want the comprehensive overview, it's the presentation
00:02:41.800 | that I put out for all the patrons to see.
00:02:44.920 | So if you're a patron of the show, one of your benefits is you get access to that presentation
00:02:48.120 | where I lay out the five-part framework for wealth.
00:02:50.920 | But part number two is decrease expenses.
00:02:53.320 | Anytime you can decrease expenses, that's always a good move, period.
00:02:58.600 | And so especially when it comes to things like debt refinance, that can be really useful.
00:03:02.040 | If you can decrease your expenses, that can be a good move.
00:03:05.720 | So if you can cut interest rates, it's going to help you financially.
00:03:09.280 | So sit back, relax, enjoy this interview with Dan Macklin, one of the co-founders of SoFi.
00:03:14.120 | I think you're really going to enjoy it and it should provide some useful insight and
00:03:17.920 | I'll be back at the end to answer a couple of additional questions.
00:03:21.680 | Dan, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:24.800 | Joshua, great to be here.
00:03:26.800 | So we're here today to introduce SoFi as a brand new sponsor of Radical Personal Finance
00:03:32.360 | and I'm excited about talking with you because you guys are making quite the press.
00:03:35.400 | You've got quite the story and I think this will be a fun discussion.
00:03:40.000 | I'd like you to start by sharing a little bit of your personal story as it relates to
00:03:45.040 | SoFi.
00:03:46.040 | Walk us through your personal career journey and how that eventually led to your being
00:03:49.360 | involved with the founding of SoFi as a company.
00:03:52.800 | Okay.
00:03:53.800 | So as you may be able to detect from my accent, I'm not from around these parts.
00:03:57.200 | I'm from the UK.
00:03:58.920 | You're from Alabama, right?
00:03:59.920 | I hear that Southern drawl.
00:04:02.600 | Just east of Alabama somewhere.
00:04:05.320 | And I worked for a big international bank, Standard Chartered Bank in the UK, Singapore
00:04:10.480 | and China for about 12 or 13 years.
00:04:14.200 | That was great.
00:04:15.200 | And then I thought I'd like to get the US experience and do what effectively is a one-year
00:04:21.560 | MBA.
00:04:22.560 | There's a course at Stanford that do full-time one-year MBAs for people with slightly more
00:04:28.880 | gray hair than the younger people doing the regular MBA.
00:04:33.700 | So I fitted into the gray hair category, did that.
00:04:36.880 | This is back in 2010 with the intention of having a nice year in California and then
00:04:42.000 | probably going back to Asia somewhere.
00:04:44.040 | I was sponsored by my old bank.
00:04:46.000 | But really fell in love with the place, Silicon Valley and the country at large and the opportunities
00:04:52.260 | that existed here and tried to come up with an excuse to stay.
00:04:56.560 | By this time, I have a wife and two kids and we thought this is a nice place to bring up
00:05:00.720 | a family.
00:05:02.480 | And fortunately, I got into a group with some of my classmates, including Mike Cagney,
00:05:08.160 | who is the CEO of SoFi.
00:05:11.600 | And four of us, we came together and had some ideas for how we thought personal finance
00:05:17.020 | could be done a little bit differently.
00:05:19.800 | And we had some ideas and then we thought, OK, why don't we make this into a company?
00:05:23.240 | So I resigned from my old bank back in April of 2011.
00:05:27.760 | We graduated in late May, I think it was, on the Saturday and we started the company
00:05:32.720 | on the Monday.
00:05:34.620 | So that was just a shade over four years ago and then it's been a fun ride since then.
00:05:39.400 | So this is the quintessential Silicon Valley entrepreneur story.
00:05:43.280 | What a cool background.
00:05:45.960 | What was the market opportunity that you saw at that time that you guys wanted to exploit?
00:05:51.160 | OK, so I'll answer this in two ways.
00:05:53.880 | I think at a very high level, we saw the financial services industry and all of us had come from
00:06:00.800 | that industry prior to going to Stanford.
00:06:03.200 | We saw an industry that hadn't really changed, we didn't think, that much given the new technology
00:06:09.160 | that was available.
00:06:10.160 | We were in a place surrounded by very cool companies doing very cool things.
00:06:14.920 | And if you just think about what Apple and iTunes have done to music and Amazon has done
00:06:20.480 | to retail, the world of print media has been turned on its head.
00:06:25.080 | All of these industries have been turned upside down and disrupted, whatever the word is you
00:06:29.080 | want to use.
00:06:30.240 | But finance was still being done generally in much the same way.
00:06:34.520 | Lots of intermediaries, lots of-- or a lack of transparency.
00:06:39.400 | And at the end of it, you have people investing and not necessarily earning a great return
00:06:44.360 | or depositing money and not earning a great return.
00:06:47.040 | And then banks lending that money at a much higher rate.
00:06:50.500 | So we thought, why couldn't you put the users and the people that need the money closer
00:06:55.840 | together?
00:06:56.840 | And this was in the infancy of the peer-to-peer world.
00:07:00.840 | So that was our kind of high-level vision.
00:07:02.960 | But at a more ground-level view, we were at a place, one of the best schools in the country,
00:07:09.720 | depending on which ranking table you care to believe in.
00:07:12.420 | And we saw that people were borrowing huge amounts of money to go to school.
00:07:17.860 | And these were creditworthy people.
00:07:19.260 | These were people that had great jobs prior to going to business school and the chances
00:07:23.420 | are would have great jobs after leaving business school.
00:07:26.900 | Yet they were still borrowing at 7% or 8%.
00:07:30.300 | So as we dug into it, because student lending was not an area that any of us had any expertise
00:07:34.700 | in prior to SoFi, but as we dug in, we realized that student loans and student lending in
00:07:39.940 | general was a huge industry, if you can call it that, over a trillion dollars second only
00:07:45.460 | behind mortgages in terms of debt in the US.
00:07:49.340 | And even despite this huge size of it, there were very few options for people to borrow.
00:07:55.940 | Everyone was borrowing at the same rate, generally very bad levels of service.
00:08:00.740 | And we just didn't understand why.
00:08:03.060 | So that was the origins for the business.
00:08:04.620 | And that's why we started SoFi and why our first product was in the student lending area.
00:08:09.500 | Did it begin as a peer-to-peer product?
00:08:14.180 | It did.
00:08:15.180 | It did.
00:08:16.180 | So at the time, I'm sure some of your listeners are familiar with Prosper and Lending Club
00:08:21.140 | and these companies have gone on to grow very quickly in recent years.
00:08:25.260 | But back then in 2010, they were still at their infancy.
00:08:28.260 | But there was this beginning of a peer-to-peer movement.
00:08:31.380 | So our first fund, our pilot fund, if you like, we had 40 people, alumni from Stanford
00:08:39.820 | invest about $50,000 each.
00:08:41.660 | So that created a $2 million pool.
00:08:44.260 | And we then lent that money out to about 100 students at Stanford.
00:08:50.020 | So there was that peer-to-peer element.
00:08:53.080 | Since then, we've moved, we've evolved a bit.
00:08:55.140 | We take in institutional money as well as individuals, really just to allow us to scale,
00:09:00.860 | to keep up with the demand for the loans.
00:09:02.460 | But back then, it was a little bit more of a pure peer-to-peer model.
00:09:07.180 | So now, do you still allow individual investors to send money or has the peer-to-peer aspect
00:09:15.940 | gone away?
00:09:16.940 | No, we do.
00:09:18.020 | So now, it's limited to accredited investors.
00:09:22.280 | So it's not necessarily for everybody.
00:09:24.980 | But for accredited investors, they can invest in the loans that we're making.
00:09:29.780 | And there are details on our website.
00:09:34.260 | It is, I'd be honest, the bulk of the money is coming from institutions.
00:09:40.020 | But it's a mixture.
00:09:41.020 | It's a mixture of money coming from big banks and pension funds and small banks and hedge
00:09:46.380 | funds, not-for-profits, as well as individuals.
00:09:51.220 | So the actual loan products, now who are you targeting currently in 2015?
00:09:56.660 | So now, in 2015, we've expanded from just being a student loan company to offering mortgages
00:10:02.860 | and personal loans as well.
00:10:04.540 | So our customers now, we call them members.
00:10:09.820 | We are adding about close to 10,000 customers, members, every month now.
00:10:15.300 | And that's split across three primary products-- student loan refinancing, mortgages, including
00:10:22.260 | new purchase and refinancing, and personal loans.
00:10:25.840 | So across those three products, we're bringing close to 10,000 people every month who are
00:10:30.900 | enjoying significant savings and getting great service.
00:10:35.100 | Still those student loans are the biggest percentage of your business?
00:10:38.300 | What's the makeup of the loans that you're writing in terms of different channels?
00:10:41.020 | Yeah, they are.
00:10:42.020 | So at the beginning of the year, it was almost 100% student lending.
00:10:47.420 | And now, recording this, we're in October.
00:10:51.620 | And we just finished September.
00:10:53.460 | In September, about 60% of our loan volume, which was close to $500 million just in the
00:10:59.580 | month of September, about 60% was student loan refinancing in its various forms.
00:11:05.780 | 40% was mortgages and personal loans combined.
00:11:09.560 | But they're fast catching up.
00:11:11.460 | So by the end of the year, we think student lending will be dipping below 50%.
00:11:17.240 | One of the challenges is there seems to be various places that you can get money.
00:11:22.500 | What in your mind or in your business plan documents, what's the competitive differentiator?
00:11:28.580 | What makes you different from other lending institutions?
00:11:32.100 | Good question.
00:11:33.740 | There's a few things.
00:11:35.500 | I think at the heart of lending money, you have to have great rates.
00:11:39.700 | So you can have the best service in the world and the slickest website, but ultimately,
00:11:44.420 | you got to have competitive rates.
00:11:46.360 | So I think that's very important.
00:11:49.060 | And if we talk about student loan refinancing, our customers are coming to us paying about
00:11:55.060 | 7% or 8% on average.
00:11:57.100 | And they're bringing those rates down to 3%, 4%, or 5%.
00:12:01.340 | They're refinancing around $75,000, which means they're saving around $14,000 on average.
00:12:07.620 | Many are saving $20,000 or $30,000 or even more.
00:12:12.140 | So that's probably the primary reason why somebody is coming to us, because of those
00:12:16.940 | savings.
00:12:17.940 | I think that that's not the only thing.
00:12:19.940 | You have to have an easy and intuitive experience, application experience, to allow people to
00:12:26.700 | get through.
00:12:27.700 | People are busy.
00:12:28.700 | Even if you dangle a carat of $20,000 of savings, they still have to get there.
00:12:33.380 | They still have to get through your process.
00:12:34.980 | So we've put a lot of work into making our online application as quick and simple as
00:12:40.700 | we can.
00:12:42.180 | So you don't have to speak to a soul if you don't want to.
00:12:44.540 | You can do everything online.
00:12:46.020 | You can take photos of your ID and upload that.
00:12:48.780 | You don't have to fax or Xerox or physically mail us anything.
00:12:54.240 | But alongside that technology exists real human beings sitting here in California, actually
00:13:00.020 | in the wine country.
00:13:01.300 | We think happy people make for happy customers.
00:13:06.420 | And it's bearing fruit, no pun intended.
00:13:08.380 | So we have people at the end of the phone who can help you through if you have any questions.
00:13:13.580 | So it's that mixture of technology but also real people on the end of the phone.
00:13:19.940 | Why are you willing and able to lend money at 3 to 5% if the market rate is 7 to 8%?
00:13:27.660 | Well the truth is the market rate isn't 7 to 8%.
00:13:30.340 | I guess it depends what you call market rate.
00:13:32.460 | The existing rate they're paying is 7 to 8% because that was pretty much the only option
00:13:36.940 | they had when they took those loans.
00:13:39.300 | But the market rate for this individual now is the rate that we're charging them, the
00:13:43.300 | 3 to 5%.
00:13:45.020 | Because these people have graduated, they have a job, they have an income, they have
00:13:48.900 | some kind of credit history.
00:13:51.580 | They shouldn't be paying 8%.
00:13:54.200 | So that is why we are able to charge them a lower rate.
00:13:59.060 | So then where's the profit incentive for the investor?
00:14:03.140 | If the maximum rate, I don't know what the maximum rates are that you're charging, is
00:14:06.540 | 3 to 5%, why would I, if I were an accredited investor, why would I be interested in investing
00:14:11.260 | through SoFi when there's not so much profit there at that 3 to 5% rate?
00:14:17.820 | So sure, the rates are lower than they could be.
00:14:22.340 | But the truth is the credit quality of our customer base is extremely strong.
00:14:29.340 | So now I think we've just gone above 60,000 customers and of those customers only 5 of
00:14:36.300 | them have defaulted on their loans.
00:14:39.620 | And of those 5, 4 of them unfortunately passed away and we have a provision in our loan agreement
00:14:45.540 | that says if you pass away we'll wipe the debt.
00:14:49.660 | So if you exclude those people there's only really one person who's willfully defaulted
00:14:53.900 | if that's the right expression.
00:14:56.100 | So it's a very strong book credit wise, financially speaking, of customers.
00:15:03.820 | And therefore that, obviously we have to do a good job and continue to underwrite and
00:15:08.140 | approve people in that same manner.
00:15:11.500 | And let's hope the economy – we're doing well.
00:15:16.660 | The number of people that have defaulted is extremely low.
00:15:19.640 | So even though the rates they're paying are relatively low, investors can still get a
00:15:24.720 | return given those very low levels of default.
00:15:27.540 | How do you screen for applicants?
00:15:30.940 | Is it based on which school and you're a Stanford graduate and you've got an MBA so therefore
00:15:36.340 | in theory you have better job prospects than Joe Sixpack who just got a basic degree at
00:15:42.860 | the local community college or is it based on something different?
00:15:46.740 | How do you actually maintain those high levels of repayment?
00:15:50.620 | It's based on many different factors but the most important one is what we call free
00:15:56.860 | cash flow.
00:15:58.420 | And what that boils down to is do you have enough money at the end of the month to pay
00:16:05.020 | your obligations including this loan?
00:16:07.500 | So that is driven by a combination of your salary or different forms of income that you
00:16:13.020 | have and then some sense for your general cost of living.
00:16:16.940 | If you have different mortgage payments or whatever you have that have to go out, then
00:16:22.620 | we'll look at that.
00:16:24.220 | So it's not driven from your credit score.
00:16:27.100 | We do look at your credit history to see that you've been paying your bills on time and
00:16:32.980 | you haven't been bankrupt in the last couple of years for example.
00:16:36.380 | But the actual score itself is an extremely low determinant in working out whether we
00:16:42.220 | approve you.
00:16:43.860 | And then we do look at your school but more importantly really is your occupation.
00:16:48.260 | So if you're in an industry that has very low levels of unemployment then that counts
00:16:52.780 | in your favor.
00:16:53.780 | Nurses for example, there's a shortage of nurses in many cities in the US.
00:16:59.620 | So if you're a nurse and you live in whatever city you do, then it's very difficult for
00:17:05.580 | you to be unemployed.
00:17:06.580 | You have to be really bad at your job to be unemployed.
00:17:09.660 | So we look at those kinds of things.
00:17:11.980 | Obviously some industries fare better than others and all of those things combined allow
00:17:18.700 | us to make the decision as to whether we can approve you.
00:17:22.420 | But we do approve more than 50% of the people that apply to us.
00:17:26.260 | So it's a high bar but it's not unobtainable.
00:17:32.020 | Who are your major competitors in this space?
00:17:35.220 | So this is a great question and I always struggle on how to answer it because we were the first
00:17:40.380 | company to refinance federal and private loans together.
00:17:44.980 | So before we were doing it, there was no one doing it.
00:17:47.900 | So in that sense, there wasn't any competition.
00:17:50.900 | And since then, there have been some other companies coming in having similar business
00:17:56.180 | models and there are earlier stages but they're still doing something similar.
00:18:00.860 | Obviously in mortgages, there's a lot more competition.
00:18:02.900 | It's a very crowded market and personal lending as well.
00:18:07.720 | It's a much more crowded market.
00:18:09.560 | But I still believe and the answer I give to this question is that our biggest competition
00:18:13.900 | is lack of awareness.
00:18:16.260 | I don't mean that to be glib but I say it because there are millions of people out there
00:18:21.620 | with debt of one form or another who could save money and could save money by coming
00:18:28.420 | to SoFi.
00:18:29.420 | And it isn't that they're necessarily being competed for or we're not competing with lots
00:18:34.180 | of people to find them.
00:18:35.500 | We just need to do a better job to make them aware.
00:18:39.100 | So there are other players in the industry but more than anything, student loan refinancing,
00:18:43.980 | there's 40 million plus people with student debt.
00:18:47.900 | I don't know how many million of them could refinance but it is millions of them and we
00:18:53.540 | only have a tiny fraction of that today.
00:18:55.620 | Well done.
00:18:56.620 | That's an elegant answer to respond to an interview question.
00:19:00.300 | What are your major weaknesses?
00:19:01.300 | Well, let me tell you a story about a weakness that's a strength.
00:19:04.180 | Well done, Dan.
00:19:05.180 | I like the answer.
00:19:06.180 | Thank you.
00:19:08.180 | On the mortgage market, do you offer – so clearly, the rates that we're talking about
00:19:15.500 | would relate to student loans.
00:19:19.020 | What is your drive or your competitive differentiation from the perspective of mortgages?
00:19:25.860 | A couple of things here.
00:19:27.660 | We started the mortgage product because our member base was telling us that they needed
00:19:32.420 | help with mortgages.
00:19:33.800 | So these were lots of people that had recently come out of graduate school, undergraduate
00:19:38.740 | school, trending in their late 20s, early 30s, looking to buy their first home.
00:19:46.500 | And they were creditworthy people because that's who SoFi customers are but the reason
00:19:51.300 | they hadn't been able to buy their first home was because they couldn't find a down
00:19:55.500 | payment.
00:19:56.500 | Typically, most lenders are requiring 20%.
00:20:00.500 | And if they can get away with less than 20%, they'd be stuck with huge mortgage insurance,
00:20:06.620 | PMI.
00:20:07.620 | So we looked at it and we didn't think that that needed to be the case.
00:20:11.100 | So we came up with a mortgage where you only have to put 10% down.
00:20:15.020 | The minimum is a 10% down payment.
00:20:17.780 | And importantly, there's no mortgage insurance on top of that.
00:20:22.140 | So what we've allowed is many people that have otherwise been priced out of the market
00:20:27.700 | who otherwise would have to wait three or four years to save up that down payment, they've
00:20:34.020 | been able to come in and take a mortgage and buy a home sooner than they otherwise would.
00:20:39.260 | So that's one of the big differentiators that we have versus the competition.
00:20:44.340 | So it sounds like you're competing more based upon product design and appealing to a certain
00:20:48.220 | set of borrowers versus necessarily a real advantage in interest rates or a real advantage
00:20:57.660 | in an even process.
00:20:58.660 | Although, I'm sure your process is much more elegant coming from Silicon Valley rather
00:21:02.900 | than Indiana.
00:21:04.620 | But it sounds like you're primarily just focusing on a different segment.
00:21:07.900 | I mean, there's not a real huge saving.
00:21:10.780 | I'm sure your mortgage rates are simply competitive.
00:21:12.460 | Is that accurate?
00:21:13.460 | No, they are.
00:21:15.500 | So what I mentioned was for a certain demographic of people, but you hit it on the nail there,
00:21:22.580 | Joshua, in terms of the service.
00:21:25.420 | Many people at SoFi had been through the mortgage experience ourselves with other lenders.
00:21:29.740 | And I don't think any of us were willing to tell our friends about it because it was very
00:21:33.580 | painful and long.
00:21:35.340 | And what we're trying to do at SoFi is shorten that and make it easier.
00:21:39.900 | And a real example of that is you can take out your phone now.
00:21:42.780 | You can apply for a SoFi mortgage in 90 seconds and be approved with a customized rate for
00:21:48.900 | you.
00:21:49.900 | And you can dial up using your finger on your phone the amount of down payment and see how
00:21:55.060 | that affects your rate.
00:21:56.700 | Obviously, as the down payment goes up, the rate can go down.
00:22:00.660 | But that kind of instantaneous decisioning is just not provided elsewhere.
00:22:05.860 | People have to apply and wait in many cases weeks for a bank to come back and say you've
00:22:10.580 | been approved.
00:22:11.860 | So the process is extremely important to us.
00:22:14.420 | The number of days that people are in the process is very important to us.
00:22:18.500 | And that's, again, another big differentiator.
00:22:21.500 | And on the pricing, obviously, we have to be extremely competitive.
00:22:25.580 | But we're particularly competitive for the people that have only 10% to put down because
00:22:32.460 | there's a real lack of options out there.
00:22:34.340 | But also on the refinancing side, if you have a decent amount of equity in your home already,
00:22:39.060 | then we're extremely, extremely competitive.
00:22:41.060 | I have a so-fi mortgage, so I can speak from the heart on this one.
00:22:44.700 | Nice.
00:22:45.700 | Now, it's definitely the mortgage industry in many ways does seem to be-- it seems to
00:22:51.220 | be slow to have accepted and brought in innovation.
00:22:55.560 | When you think back and look at the background of it, me going through the process a few
00:22:59.460 | years ago, it's really frustrating.
00:23:01.900 | And the challenge is when you're working with an individual, how do you assure that you're
00:23:05.700 | getting the best scenario, the best product?
00:23:08.060 | I still see-- I know some companies are offering competitive illustrations, but I still see
00:23:13.220 | the value of somebody bringing more transparency to the market so people can be confident that
00:23:18.860 | they're getting the best choice.
00:23:21.700 | It's a challenging market, so I'm glad to see you bringing some competition there.
00:23:25.620 | I'm interested, Dan, in what you've learned as far as your entrepreneurial story over
00:23:32.460 | the last five years.
00:23:34.460 | What's been the growth rate as far as employees and what's been the experience like in five
00:23:40.700 | years of running a Silicon Valley startup?
00:23:43.100 | It's been great.
00:23:44.980 | It's the first startup I've been involved with.
00:23:46.860 | My previous company had 80,000 people, so a very different type of company.
00:23:52.660 | And obviously, there are challenges that come with that.
00:23:55.060 | There's a lot of uncertainty at the beginning.
00:23:57.820 | When you start, you don't really know where your customers are going to come from.
00:24:01.620 | You don't know where the funding is going to come from.
00:24:03.780 | You're not quite sure if the business model is good enough and works.
00:24:09.740 | So that's a challenge, but that's what you get when you start a new company.
00:24:15.060 | And we've been fortunate enough to grow pretty quickly.
00:24:19.940 | So in terms of people, we're now up to over 400 people.
00:24:24.140 | I think we'll be at 500 by the end of the year and probably by the end of next year,
00:24:28.300 | something like 1,500.
00:24:31.060 | And I think the loan growth that we've experienced so far gives you an idea of the growth.
00:24:36.820 | So if you just indulge me for a second, it took us, I think, three years to lend our
00:24:41.820 | first billion dollars.
00:24:42.820 | So we got to a billion dollars after three years.
00:24:45.540 | And then each subsequent billion dollars has taken a much quicker amount of time to get
00:24:49.700 | to.
00:24:50.700 | So we got to two billion.
00:24:51.700 | I think it took another five months.
00:24:54.060 | Three billion, it took another four months.
00:24:56.020 | Four billion, it took another three months.
00:24:58.180 | And we're just about to hit five billion, which will be that last billion will be in
00:25:02.260 | just over two months.
00:25:03.340 | So it's a real rapid growth.
00:25:05.620 | Most of that growth has come during this calendar year, 2015.
00:25:10.300 | And I think that's the really fun thing about building a business.
00:25:13.300 | It's tough at the beginning, but you get to some level, some level of scale.
00:25:17.820 | And then I wouldn't say it just happens because it doesn't just happen, but you got the infrastructure
00:25:23.180 | set up and you can just do a lot more and help a lot more people.
00:25:27.740 | Would I be correct in guessing that your equity stake in SoFi would be the largest
00:25:35.700 | value asset on your personal balance sheet at this point?
00:25:39.060 | Yes.
00:25:40.060 | Yes, by a considerable way.
00:25:42.660 | So feel free to be circumspect about numbers.
00:25:45.100 | And I know you're in a difficult situation running a company.
00:25:48.100 | I'm not asking for any particulars, but I would like you to comment on this theme.
00:25:53.060 | On radical personal finance, I talk a lot about entrepreneurship as simply being flat
00:25:57.700 | out the best potential investment for any person who's interested in building wealth.
00:26:03.820 | And you come from the finance background, the banking background, depending on what
00:26:08.620 | aspect of the finance world you're in, you're accustomed at some level looking for good
00:26:13.220 | investments.
00:26:14.220 | You chose to get an MBA at Stanford, which has a unique educational program there, has
00:26:22.140 | a unique culture with being there in Silicon Valley, and you've chosen to live in a unique
00:26:27.660 | part of the world.
00:26:29.140 | And it seems like it's in the process of working out well for you.
00:26:32.820 | From a risk-reward standpoint, it would seem like your risk, your personal risk – and
00:26:36.700 | I don't know how much money you put in, and again, feel free to say or not to say,
00:26:40.060 | but your personal risk was relatively low.
00:26:42.780 | You were investing a lot of energy and hard work in an idea, and your personal return
00:26:46.620 | at this point seems like it's on track to be pretty substantial.
00:26:50.140 | Talk about the process of wealth creation through entrepreneurship and what you've
00:26:54.020 | learned by pursuing this path.
00:26:55.700 | Sure.
00:26:56.700 | So, I mean, a couple of points.
00:26:59.380 | We're just starting here, so we're doing well, but we have a long way to go.
00:27:02.980 | So I don't want anybody to think that we've done it and we've succeeded because we're
00:27:09.980 | doing well, but we have a lot more to do.
00:27:11.620 | There's a lot more people out there that need our help.
00:27:15.460 | But coming back to your question, it was a very tough decision because I was being sponsored
00:27:20.940 | by my old company and I had a job to go back to.
00:27:24.460 | I was living a nice expatriate life in Asia with my home paid for, my kids schooling,
00:27:32.180 | and health care and all that stuff.
00:27:34.420 | So to give that up for what was essentially just an idea, a PowerPoint deck, was a really
00:27:40.820 | tough thing.
00:27:41.820 | And as soon as I tell this story to lots of people, but that resignation email was the
00:27:47.460 | most expensive email I sent because as soon as I resigned from my previous employer, I
00:27:51.860 | had to pay them back for the education that they were paying for.
00:27:54.780 | And I was giving up all kinds of equity and bonuses and stuff that I was no longer eligible
00:28:01.020 | for as a non-employee.
00:28:03.420 | So that was a very expensive decision.
00:28:06.940 | So looking back on it, in some ways I'm surprised that I made it because the chances of a new
00:28:13.340 | company succeeding are very low.
00:28:17.260 | Most startups fail.
00:28:20.580 | That's just the way it works.
00:28:22.820 | So I'm looking back, I'm pleased I made the decision, but I wouldn't necessarily say it
00:28:27.660 | was obviously the right decision for anybody at that time.
00:28:33.660 | But it was the right thing for me and I'm very happy with that decision.
00:28:37.020 | - Did you and your initial founding partners, did you guys fund the enterprise yourself
00:28:45.180 | or did you, as far as in the initial stages, or did you work to bring in investors from
00:28:51.060 | the early stages?
00:28:52.060 | - We did work to bring in investors fairly quickly.
00:28:55.900 | So there were a few months where we weren't really being paid anything, but we weren't
00:29:01.380 | necessarily putting our own money into it.
00:29:03.980 | It was more equity.
00:29:06.020 | But that was a relatively short period.
00:29:08.620 | We had the advantage of coming out of Stanford where we incubated the company effectively
00:29:14.340 | that we got to interact with lots of potential investors.
00:29:17.400 | So fairly quickly after we graduated, we raised a round of financing.
00:29:21.460 | It took a few months, but it wasn't a lifetime.
00:29:25.640 | And then with that, we had some funding.
00:29:29.220 | Even though we weren't paying ourselves salaries that we would otherwise be earning, we weren't
00:29:33.220 | going too far into the red every month.
00:29:35.540 | - Could you have started SoFi or a similar type of company if you hadn't been involved
00:29:41.940 | in the Stanford program or if you hadn't been in Silicon Valley?
00:29:47.780 | - So hypothetically, yes.
00:29:51.240 | It wasn't that the only people that could start a student loan refinancing business had
00:29:55.340 | to be in Silicon Valley or Stanford.
00:29:58.140 | But practically, I wasn't in the US.
00:30:03.700 | I was in China.
00:30:04.700 | I wouldn't have come up with an idea for a US company and been able to move here and
00:30:09.020 | do it.
00:30:10.380 | And I think the university environment, certainly Stanford Business School, fosters that collaboration
00:30:16.980 | and people coming up with ideas.
00:30:19.020 | And we had a year really to work on something.
00:30:21.180 | I think that's tough if you're doing a nine to five job and you have demands on your time
00:30:25.580 | through your family or whatever else you have in your life.
00:30:29.540 | It's really tough then to get a few people to sit together and create a business.
00:30:34.340 | And I think business school gives you that opportunity.
00:30:36.840 | So it's not the only place it could have happened.
00:30:39.140 | But for me, it wouldn't have happened unless I'd gone there.
00:30:42.020 | I wouldn't have met my co-founders for one thing.
00:30:44.780 | So that's, Stanford was instrumental in SoFi taking off.
00:30:49.820 | - What was the most valuable aspect of the MBA?
00:30:54.580 | - I think it really is, for me, it was coming to a place and learning about a completely
00:31:03.740 | different world that I had been exposed to.
00:31:06.620 | So I'd been more of a corporate nine to five kind of job, not nine to five hours, but salary,
00:31:13.820 | you get what I mean.
00:31:15.500 | Whereas you come to Silicon Valley and San Francisco and everywhere around here, and
00:31:20.860 | almost everybody's involved in a new company.
00:31:22.900 | So I think it just spreads that can-do attitude.
00:31:26.020 | We used to have people coming into classes, talking about their experience and how they'd
00:31:29.860 | built companies.
00:31:31.300 | Many had succeeded, some hadn't succeeded.
00:31:33.660 | But there was definitely an element of me thinking, well, if they can do it, why can't
00:31:37.260 | I?
00:31:38.940 | And there's an infrastructure to raise money.
00:31:41.700 | There's an infrastructure to find employees.
00:31:45.340 | People don't look at you as a brand new company that isn't making money and say, well, that's
00:31:49.620 | a bit strange.
00:31:50.620 | That's a bit weird.
00:31:52.460 | Because that's the norm here.
00:31:53.500 | So I think just being in that environment was hugely beneficial for me.
00:32:00.780 | Do you consider moving out of Silicon Valley or taking your company out of Silicon Valley?
00:32:05.700 | So we have offices, SoFi has offices now in five or six cities around the US.
00:32:11.980 | So we only have about a quarter of our employees now actually in Silicon Valley or in San Francisco.
00:32:21.460 | Everybody else is in different places around the US.
00:32:24.660 | So the heart of the company is still here, but we're spreading our tentacles around the
00:32:31.660 | country.
00:32:32.980 | What's the strategy behind that decision?
00:32:35.940 | I mean, a few things.
00:32:39.340 | There are great employees in many places around the US and we don't necessarily just need
00:32:44.140 | to be hiring here.
00:32:46.420 | From an operations perspective, there are advantages in having different operations
00:32:52.100 | units in different places in case of catastrophe or power outages or something.
00:32:58.740 | You don't want to have all your eggs in one basket.
00:33:01.780 | We have our legal team out in DC where they're closer to some of the regulatory stuff that's
00:33:08.340 | happening.
00:33:09.340 | So we have engineers in Montana, which is slightly less competitive than hiring engineers
00:33:19.980 | in San Francisco.
00:33:20.980 | So there are lots of reasons why we're in different cities around the US.
00:33:25.780 | Do you think being involved as a founder, and I know I'm asking you personal questions,
00:33:31.620 | feel free again to evade the question if you need to.
00:33:36.900 | The journey of the entrepreneur, the journey of the last five years, have you enjoyed the
00:33:43.580 | journey?
00:33:44.860 | Are you enjoying it because of the goal?
00:33:47.780 | Is it more about the process of creation?
00:33:49.940 | Is it more about the money?
00:33:51.300 | What are you finding being involved kind of at the tip of the tiger, whatever the appropriate
00:33:56.900 | metaphor is, with just a massively growing company?
00:34:01.740 | What's been the real joy and what's been the real challenges as a founding member?
00:34:06.820 | So it's been really great.
00:34:08.420 | I've been extremely fortunate that I think we came up with an idea that was at exactly
00:34:13.500 | the right time.
00:34:14.820 | We were in the right place at the right time.
00:34:16.900 | And there's a lot of luck involved in that.
00:34:18.420 | There's a lot of hard work and sweat and everything else, but there is an element of
00:34:24.820 | luck.
00:34:25.820 | We formed the company at a time that we were probably two years, two, three years out of
00:34:32.940 | the worst element of the Great Recession.
00:34:34.980 | So people had started to invest again, but there still wasn't that much going on.
00:34:39.740 | Banks were still relatively reticent to get back into lending, and they continue to be
00:34:45.180 | really even today.
00:34:46.260 | So we've had this four-year period where I don't think you could have picked a better
00:34:50.660 | time to launch this business.
00:34:54.600 | So that's been in our favor, but obviously there's a lot of hard work that goes along
00:34:58.760 | with that.
00:35:00.100 | So I'm extremely pleased with the decision we made.
00:35:02.580 | It's a tough ride.
00:35:03.580 | There are ups and downs.
00:35:06.420 | As long as you're trending upwards, eventually that's the main thing.
00:35:09.820 | But within that, that kind of disguises lots of daily ups and downs.
00:35:15.240 | So it's not for everybody.
00:35:16.240 | I tell this to people who are considering it.
00:35:18.180 | It's not for everybody because if you don't like uncertainty, then you shouldn't join
00:35:24.580 | a new company.
00:35:26.140 | You shouldn't start a new company because it's uncertain.
00:35:30.540 | And some people thrive on that and some people don't.
00:35:32.860 | And it's tough to know until you do it, but you have to go with your gut instinct, I think.
00:35:39.180 | It's funny.
00:35:40.180 | I feel sometimes when talking about entrepreneurship, I've got my own tiny little startup and I'm
00:35:47.140 | not trying to duplicate any kind of the scale of a technology company the way that you guys
00:35:51.100 | are.
00:35:52.100 | But I generally discourage people from doing what I'm doing.
00:35:54.500 | And one of the reasons that I discourage people is, number one, it's so difficult that if
00:35:59.100 | you don't really want it or you don't really have a clear vision, you're not going to follow
00:36:05.180 | through.
00:36:06.180 | And I basically assume that the ones who should follow my advice to walk away and not do what
00:36:11.460 | I'm doing or not follow entrepreneurship, they'll get discouraged.
00:36:15.100 | And the ones who have the tenacity to follow through will just simply ignore the advice.
00:36:20.620 | And it seems even in what you're saying, I hear the same thing.
00:36:23.540 | And I hear it as a constant theme with entrepreneurs.
00:36:25.580 | It seems like most entrepreneurs discourage other people from doing what they're doing,
00:36:29.900 | knowing that the ones who probably should do what they're doing will just simply ignore
00:36:34.340 | their advice and do it anyway.
00:36:36.020 | Yeah.
00:36:37.020 | I think there's a lot of truth in that.
00:36:38.900 | It's difficult.
00:36:39.900 | So unless you really, really want to do it, it's probably not the thing for you because
00:36:44.980 | there are obstacles along the way.
00:36:46.900 | And unless you have a real passion for it, then it's going to be tough.
00:36:52.260 | But just going back to your question, Joshua, I think one of the things I'm really enjoying
00:36:57.100 | now is we're getting to the scale and my role at the company now, I'm getting to meet face
00:37:02.180 | to face a lot of our members.
00:37:03.620 | We go around the country and host events and just get to interact.
00:37:08.420 | And there's not really an agenda there.
00:37:10.460 | There's no sales pitch.
00:37:11.780 | We just want to get to know them better and have a chance to say thank you.
00:37:16.340 | And it's really powerful once you meet people and see how you're changing their lives.
00:37:21.380 | We have the benefit of dealing with financial products that have a huge role in people's
00:37:25.820 | lives.
00:37:26.820 | If you can refinance their student debt and save them $20,000, that's big.
00:37:31.940 | And there's great stories.
00:37:33.500 | Just last week, I was at a dinner and there was a couple there who didn't feel like they
00:37:40.180 | could start a family because they didn't feel like they had their personal finances in order.
00:37:44.260 | They refinanced with SoFi, saved lots of money, got their finances in order, and now they're
00:37:48.540 | going through the adoption process because they believe that they've got things under
00:37:53.820 | control at home.
00:37:55.420 | And I think when you meet people like that and you hear stories like that, it's great.
00:37:59.980 | It's moving because you're now changing people's lives in a very meaningful way.
00:38:04.060 | So that was always the intention and it takes a while to get there.
00:38:07.740 | But now we're doing that each and every day and that means a lot to us.
00:38:10.820 | That's really special.
00:38:12.680 | Two final questions, Dan, and we're done.
00:38:15.380 | Number one, I'm interested in your perspective from an insider's view, coming from an outsider
00:38:22.220 | from the UK, from Asia, coming in and then trying to understand and deal within the US
00:38:27.780 | financial regulatory environment.
00:38:29.980 | You have different state laws.
00:38:31.180 | You're working with different products.
00:38:32.340 | Some are regulated at the national level, some at the local level.
00:38:36.780 | What's your overall perspective on the US financial regulatory framework?
00:38:42.180 | What's been your experience working within it?
00:38:43.980 | Okay, so first of all, disclaimer, I'm no expert on this.
00:38:47.020 | We have very well qualified and well paid legal experts in the SoFi team that handle
00:38:52.900 | most of this stuff.
00:38:54.900 | But what I would say is the – I mean, there has to be regulation.
00:39:00.100 | There has to be regulation in finance because it's such an important industry and you
00:39:04.420 | can't have people just investing in anything and losing all their money because the economy
00:39:09.980 | and people's lives are at stake.
00:39:12.260 | I think sometimes that regulation can get in the way of innovation.
00:39:18.140 | We are trying to – we are not a bank.
00:39:21.460 | We are a non-bank lender.
00:39:23.080 | So we have licenses in each state in which we lend and we have to obtain those licenses
00:39:27.840 | for every lending product that we wish to offer.
00:39:31.820 | And mortgages, for example, is a tougher license to get in some of the states.
00:39:36.900 | So it just takes longer to get them.
00:39:39.380 | And while we understand that, it's frustrating when you have people that want to use your
00:39:44.060 | product but they happen to live in the wrong state and can't use your product.
00:39:49.220 | So we work very closely with the regulators to make sure that we're obviously fully compliant.
00:39:55.500 | But just that, those differences across states, it makes it a little bit wonky in your offering
00:40:01.780 | because you can't offer the same things to all people on your website.
00:40:06.060 | Do you find the regulatory environment to be tilted at all in favor of the big dogs,
00:40:11.700 | the large financial institutions that are already covering the market?
00:40:17.180 | That's a tough one.
00:40:21.020 | I think if you look at the number of new companies that have started in the finance area, particularly
00:40:25.980 | in the last five years, SoFi included, it's really heating up now.
00:40:32.060 | There are lots of new players coming in.
00:40:34.060 | And in general, we have very supportive and great relationships with the regulators.
00:40:41.100 | So no, I wouldn't be able to say that.
00:40:43.300 | I think there's a lot of thirst for innovation and new ideas and competition, which I think
00:40:49.100 | is great.
00:40:50.100 | Last question.
00:40:51.100 | You've talked, here's your softball.
00:40:55.060 | Go through, and in a moment after the interview, I'll go through the Radical Personal Finance,
00:41:01.380 | SoFi relationship in detail, all the terms of the offers that we'll be making.
00:41:05.340 | But talk through who would you like to see research SoFi to see if SoFi can help them
00:41:11.140 | save money and who would you want to steer away as far as we're going to guess that if
00:41:15.620 | you're in this situation, we probably wouldn't be able to serve you the best.
00:41:19.660 | So in general, it's creditworthy people, which is a fairly vague statement.
00:41:25.860 | But if you have, looking at student loans, if you have student loan debt and you're paying
00:41:30.260 | north of 5% on it, then there's a very real chance that we can save you money by refinancing
00:41:35.540 | that debt.
00:41:36.540 | Mortgages, if you're looking to buy a home for the first time, particularly if you don't
00:41:41.340 | have 20% down payment, we offer great rates and offer the ability for that 10% down payment
00:41:47.780 | option.
00:41:48.780 | And then personal loans, we haven't spoken too much about that.
00:41:51.220 | But if you have any kind of credit card debt that's north of 10%, then our personal loan
00:41:56.780 | rates are in the 5% to 10% range.
00:41:59.900 | There's no reason to be paying 15% interest on a credit card if you can pay 7% through
00:42:05.140 | a personal loan.
00:42:06.900 | So creditworthy people, people who are employed, people that have good credit histories, you
00:42:14.100 | should check us out.
00:42:15.100 | And there are no commitments for any of our products.
00:42:17.500 | There's no origination fees or funny fees lurking in the background.
00:42:23.260 | And when you apply, you're not committing yourself to anything.
00:42:25.420 | So have a look.
00:42:28.020 | Have a look.
00:42:29.020 | See what you think.
00:42:30.020 | But many, many thousands of people are applying every day.
00:42:34.460 | And we've funded now over close to $5 billion in most of that this year.
00:42:39.620 | So the word is spreading.
00:42:41.460 | But I'm always eager to make sure that there are more people out there that get a good
00:42:45.140 | deal when they can get one.
00:42:46.380 | Dan, thanks for coming on.
00:42:48.220 | Where do you want people if they want to connect with you personally?
00:42:50.220 | Do you keep a blog, a company blog, Twitter?
00:42:52.780 | Where would you like people to connect with you?
00:42:54.460 | We do have a company blog and I write on that.
00:42:57.300 | So Twitter, the handle is @macklindan.
00:43:00.860 | I'm just starting.
00:43:01.860 | I'm a newbie at Twitter but I'm making decent progress.
00:43:05.740 | Dan, thanks for coming on.
00:43:07.620 | Joshua, thank you.
00:43:11.140 | If you would like to try out SoFi, I have a tracking link.
00:43:14.020 | And the way that you can use my tracking link so that I get credit for your actions is to
00:43:19.820 | go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/SoFi.
00:43:23.100 | That's S-O-F-I, short for social finance.
00:43:26.940 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/SoFi.
00:43:29.500 | The benefit of using that link is if you use that referral code, which automatically works
00:43:35.060 | if you go through that link, you will save $200 on the refinance of your student loans
00:43:41.260 | and $100 on the refinance of any personal loans.
00:43:44.540 | So if you execute a personal loan with them, they'll give you $100 in your account and
00:43:49.060 | $200 on your student loans.
00:43:50.660 | Then I also receive a commission if you use that tracking link, which I would say thank
00:43:54.260 | you for.
00:43:55.260 | That's very useful and helpful to me and to the show.
00:43:57.860 | So you can find that link at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/SoFi.
00:44:00.420 | I'm not going to belabor with details here, although of course if you have additional
00:44:04.900 | details I'd be happy to answer them.
00:44:06.140 | The one thing I want to mention to you is those of you who are familiar with some of
00:44:09.940 | the other sponsors of the show know that we have a sponsor named Jay Fleischman.
00:44:14.620 | Jay is a student loan attorney, and I have recommended that if you have student loans
00:44:19.020 | that you meet with Jay.
00:44:21.100 | Just because SoFi is on here doesn't mean that I've changed that recommendation.
00:44:23.860 | I mean it.
00:44:24.860 | I sincerely recommend that you meet with Jay.
00:44:27.020 | I was on the phone with somebody earlier today and I told him, "You need to call Jay Fleischman.
00:44:30.860 | You have student loans.
00:44:31.860 | Why haven't you called Jay yet?
00:44:32.860 | Do you not do what I tell you on the show?"
00:44:34.860 | I said it nicely, but that was the point.
00:44:37.060 | I said call Jay.
00:44:38.900 | The point is that refinancing student loans can be a very good thing to do.
00:44:43.660 | However, there are some reasons why you shouldn't, and how are you going to know whether you
00:44:47.140 | should just refinance directly or not?
00:44:49.140 | Well, you're going to get advice.
00:44:51.340 | Call Jay.
00:44:52.340 | So that is the key.
00:44:53.340 | Call Jay, and then if the best thing for you to do is just to refinance your student loans
00:44:56.940 | and you can do that and cut back your interest rates and improve your terms, then Jay will
00:45:00.900 | be the one to tell you that and he will recommend that.
00:45:02.720 | He is a fan of SoFi and he will recommend that you do that if that is right for you.
00:45:07.660 | So your best method of procedure here is call Jay or better – sorry, not call.
00:45:12.860 | Go to studentloanshow.com/radical.
00:45:15.540 | Studentloanshow.com/radical.
00:45:17.380 | That will take you through to Jay Fleischman who is a sponsor of the show.
00:45:20.740 | And then after reviewing your situation with Jay, then check into refinancing your student
00:45:25.380 | loans with SoFi or again if you have personal debt or perhaps some of you might be able
00:45:29.700 | to use their mortgage services as well.
00:45:31.980 | And if you'd like to do that, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/sofi.
00:45:34.700 | That's it.
00:45:35.700 | That's all I wanted to cover for today's show.
00:45:40.220 | Sorry if my timing in these intros and outros is a little bit off, feeling a little bit
00:45:43.820 | under the weather today, but I wanted to make sure to get the show out for you.
00:45:46.940 | I thank each and every one of you who listens.
00:45:49.260 | If you are listening to this in the current week, it is Thanksgiving week in the United
00:45:52.140 | States.
00:45:53.140 | The show is going out on November 23, 2015.
00:45:56.260 | So here on Thanksgiving week, happy Thanksgiving.
00:45:57.980 | I'll be releasing a number of shows for you and then we'll have a little break
00:46:00.740 | at the end of the week for Thanksgiving as we wind into the holiday season.
00:46:04.860 | I hope that 2015 has treated you well.
00:46:08.340 | 2015 has definitely treated me well.
00:46:10.900 | But I'm even more excited about 2016 than I am about 2015.
00:46:15.020 | Lots of big changes coming.
00:46:16.180 | So I hope the content has been useful.
00:46:18.020 | I hope that it has gotten increasingly better and more useful for you.
00:46:22.060 | Thank each and every one of you who listens.
00:46:23.700 | Special thanks to those of you who support the show on Patreon.
00:46:26.940 | That is the system where if you want to support the show directly, you can do so by patronizing
00:46:31.860 | our advertisers.
00:46:32.860 | That's helpful.
00:46:33.860 | Or if you want to skip the advertiser route or if you just find value in the content and
00:46:37.420 | you'd like to tell me that, then send me some money on Patreon.
00:46:40.580 | The way you do that is go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:46:43.980 | Sign up to support the show.
00:46:44.980 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron can be as little as a buck a month, as much as a
00:46:49.340 | couple hundred bucks a month.
00:46:51.540 | Various benefits there.
00:46:52.600 | One of the benefits that you may enjoy is there is a presentation there.
00:46:55.660 | It's about a 25-minute video presentation.
00:46:58.360 | At any level of support, even at a buck a month, you will gain access to that presentation.
00:47:02.980 | And that will lay out for you the framework for wealth, which is basically in some ways
00:47:07.400 | is the broad outline of the book that I'm working on and this broad outline of everything
00:47:11.100 | I know about finance fits into that outline.
00:47:13.620 | And so you can see that's one of the benefits of becoming a patron.
00:47:15.980 | Go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron and you will find all of those details.
00:47:20.860 | Until tomorrow, thank you all so much for being here.
00:47:23.100 | Appreciate each and every one of you.
00:47:52.260 | Let's see what AI knows about football.
00:47:54.300 | Hey, chatbot, should I bet on my team to win the big game this year?
00:47:58.740 | Bet on Valley High Toyota to get you a great deal on a new 2023 Toyota.
00:48:03.100 | What?
00:48:04.100 | I'm talking about football, not a new car.
00:48:06.260 | Well, your team is trash and will never make it.
00:48:09.060 | Save your money and spend it on the car you need.
00:48:11.740 | Ouch.
00:48:12.740 | Score big on a new 2023 Toyota this season at Valley High Toyota.
00:48:17.180 | It's way easier than you think.
00:48:18.660 | (upbeat electronic music)