More than half of Americans with bank accounts have linked them through Plaid, giving us a unique perspective on consumer finance data that no other financial institution has.

We built Plaid to create a new financial infrastructure that allows consumers to link their bank accounts to digital applications, addressing the outdated banking system that required in-person visits for most transactions.

After the acquisition fell through, Plaid's business continued to grow significantly, leading to a valuation of $13 billion in a subsequent fundraising round.

In January 2020, we announced that Visa was acquiring Plaid for over $5 billion, which was the result of months of negotiations and interest from Visa as an investor.

High levels of trust are essential for companies like Stripe, Lyft, and Airbnb, as they involve users engaging with strangers or handling money online.

Our rapid growth since launch has been driven by a charmingly relentless push to modernize an industry that I believe is sleepwalking towards a precipice, especially regarding payment solutions like Apple Pay that don't integrate well with outdated systems.

This debanking phenomenon has been particularly prevalent among crypto and fintech entrepreneurs over the last four years, as they face increasing pressure to protect established banks.

We've developed three major new product areas: anti-fraud tools that analyze user patterns across apps, a real-time credit system that uses real-time data to assess credit risk, and improved bank payment analytics.

The fintech boom was characterized by rapid growth and innovation, but as interest rates rose in 2022, we faced challenges as investment and lending markets froze, impacting our business.