"The company, which received initial backing from a group of A-list money types including Peter Thiel and Ken Griffin, was hoping to merge with a SPAC..."
Peter Thiel and Ken Griffin are two names I did not expect to see together. For those who are unaware, Ken Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel Securities, the market maker which received a great deal of negative press during the GME fiasco.
Matthew Levine's newsletter mentioned this exact "bank" last month, although he seems to have been overly optimistic about their prospects:
`Right now, if you go around saying...“I will consider ESG factors, but only to do the opposite of what those ‘woke’ ESG funds do,” people will fling money at you. '
`...a way to signal that you are authentically anti-ESG is by having bad governance, since “governance” is right there in the name of the thing you (and your investors) are against....You raise a bunch of money and then spend it on yachts for yourself, and your investors say things like “well the governance of this company is pretty bad isn’t it,” and you say “exactly!” '
"a plan to make a credit card out of the same material used for shell casings failed when the company realized the material could interfere with security chips and potentially be too thick for payment terminals"
The linked press release from the company mentions "startup mistakes" and "the declining economy", which seems fair enough.
But it also calls out "reputation attacks" and "multiple negative media stories", which may indeed have led to missed funding targets, but seem problematic to me.
Regardless of political ideology (if such a thing is possible), a bank requires a measure of trust from the market and from its customers. A startup bank, even more so.
Some possibility irrelevant hypothetical examples that help me think about why the press release sounds false...
- You could pitch something like a fintech company structured to limit its exposure to the current interpretation of civil rights law. "We are based in Elbonia! We only use contractors!"
- A slightly different approach to the same thing: rather than structure, there's function or active choice. You could commit to business practices which preserve your autonomy: "We do not accept contracts from the USA Federal Government, so we don't have to hire people on the basis of race or so-called gender!"
- You could offer financial instruments that include investments in activities that seem to offend progressive sensibilities: "We love Big Coal when it makes lots of money!" "Your Charter Member deposits are backed by Libertarian-approved gold bullion!"
- You could provide customer service that reinforces a sense of community values: "At our retail locations, no mask is No Problem! We encourage all customers to carry a gun when we do business!"
And so on. I wouldn't seek out such a bank, but such ideological-choice approaches to retail finance exist. Credit cards that donate to environmental causes and stuff.
I don't want to commit logical fallacy with my hypothetical -- see "straw man fallacy" or the traditional meaning of "begging the question". The specifics of my examples don't matter much, my point is that there are some ways to build a company, to approach a market by characterizing (or even creating) an under-served community.
Citing a libelous press and reputation attacks for missed funding rounds doesn't build anything. It just blames other people for the fail.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 37.1 ms ] thread`Right now, if you go around saying...“I will consider ESG factors, but only to do the opposite of what those ‘woke’ ESG funds do,” people will fling money at you. '
`...a way to signal that you are authentically anti-ESG is by having bad governance, since “governance” is right there in the name of the thing you (and your investors) are against....You raise a bunch of money and then spend it on yachts for yourself, and your investors say things like “well the governance of this company is pretty bad isn’t it,” and you say “exactly!” '
"a plan to make a credit card out of the same material used for shell casings failed when the company realized the material could interfere with security chips and potentially be too thick for payment terminals"
But it also calls out "reputation attacks" and "multiple negative media stories", which may indeed have led to missed funding targets, but seem problematic to me.
Regardless of political ideology (if such a thing is possible), a bank requires a measure of trust from the market and from its customers. A startup bank, even more so.
Some possibility irrelevant hypothetical examples that help me think about why the press release sounds false...
- You could pitch something like a fintech company structured to limit its exposure to the current interpretation of civil rights law. "We are based in Elbonia! We only use contractors!"
- A slightly different approach to the same thing: rather than structure, there's function or active choice. You could commit to business practices which preserve your autonomy: "We do not accept contracts from the USA Federal Government, so we don't have to hire people on the basis of race or so-called gender!"
- You could offer financial instruments that include investments in activities that seem to offend progressive sensibilities: "We love Big Coal when it makes lots of money!" "Your Charter Member deposits are backed by Libertarian-approved gold bullion!"
- You could provide customer service that reinforces a sense of community values: "At our retail locations, no mask is No Problem! We encourage all customers to carry a gun when we do business!"
And so on. I wouldn't seek out such a bank, but such ideological-choice approaches to retail finance exist. Credit cards that donate to environmental causes and stuff.
I don't want to commit logical fallacy with my hypothetical -- see "straw man fallacy" or the traditional meaning of "begging the question". The specifics of my examples don't matter much, my point is that there are some ways to build a company, to approach a market by characterizing (or even creating) an under-served community.
Citing a libelous press and reputation attacks for missed funding rounds doesn't build anything. It just blames other people for the fail.