Hey everyone, Ian here.

Hope everyone’s doing well and staying safe. I had fun Saturday afternoon—I spent an hour talking to Steve McLaughlin, founder and CEO of FTPartners.

There’s a lot to admire about Steve—he left Goldman Sachs at 32 to bootstrap an investment banking business, a pretty non-traditional track for most people in banking. FTPartners is now (reportedly) makes $400 million in annual revenue, according to a Bloomberg profile late last year. We spoke about his beginnings and how he got started in banking, and a lot more.

• Leaving Goldman and starting FTPartners
• Building credibility
• How he was able to identify fintech companies
• FTPartners’ high quality research, and why it matters for the firm
• Advice for founders
• The impact COVID has on VC investing in fintech
• Why FTPartners has doubled down on COVID-related content
• What should founders look out for in fundraising and M&A deals
• Qualities in successful fintech entrepreneurs
• Snoop Dogg, Lenny Kravitz, Eddie Vedder, and FTPartners’ epic Money 2020 parties

You can view the full interview here. It’s about an hour long.

Thanks a ton to Steve for taking the time to chat. I learned a ton and hope you do too. I also want to mention that Steve and FTPartners have a great panel line up this week with Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky and Chime CEO Chris Britt to talk about building a digital bank during COVID. Highly recommend tuning in at the link here.