The Burdens and Benefits of Regulation

When we started column, the regulatory framework was a little bit different. Brian Brooks was the head of the occ and he wears skinny jeans and thinks he's a startup guy now. The OCC kind of doesn't like startups anymore and so we were less concerned about it at the time. I think there was a little bit of a moment where regulatory bodies were sort of like slightly more open to fintech becoming a part of the regulated world, sort of like entering what's called the regulatory perimeter. And that's sort of no longer the case. And so, you know, I think it's just kind of a cost of doing business. What I will also say though is what on one hand is a burden is also a really beautiful moat around what we do. Like, it's not easy to get a banking charter and once you get it, you have to like, work hard to keep it. They could take it away. And for us, you know, like, that's just. We'll just hire again more lawyers than we thought we necessarily needed to and like, focus a little bit more on compliance. But at the end of the day, what that's really going to do is fend off competitors. And so there actually is a little bit of a silver lining to it. If I were entering the space now, I think what I would just say is it doesn't, you know, I think we just saw this with FTX and sbf. Like, he thought that he could exist. He sort of thought he was smarter and he could exist outside of our regulatory schema and sort of be a cowboy. I just would be. I would hesitate to have that same thought. So whatever kind of space you're entering, I just make sure you're familiar with the reg, even if it doesn't directly apply to you. Talk to people who will talk to you about maybe the future of the reg, because it will shift and there's people who kind of can see where it's going and like, again, maybe build some lawyers into your headcount models a little earlier than you thought.