YouSaid · the spoken record

Paolo Bertolotti

lines on the record: 57
first: 2025-11-20
most recent: 2025-11-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I remember reading The Cold Star problem when we were getting this going together and thinking, you know, Trying to solve the coalsar problem in a network effects business with financial institutions has to be the worst idea of all its time. But now that we're on the other side, it's worth it.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What gets me so excited to your point on you proved that deposit networks can be an unbelievable edge, an incredible business. I mean, you know, you created billions of dollars that, you know, value it at your last company. But, you know, if I think back to your PhD and bank balance sheet optimization, right now we're only focused on the liability side. I think once you get the network built, there's Whole other side of the balance sheet to even think about and lots of other products and analytics that we can kind of route, not just in the network, but serving an individual institution. But again, the hard part is solving the Cold Start problem. And I think that's been what's been For me, even to just watch in the last few months together”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is as big as you both have articulated and as modern FI is and as NBIT is, you've really got to make it a customer-centric operation. And I think if you look at the biggest, most successful tech companies in the United States, you will find that the way they operate is in essence. That focus in mind. So that's exciting. I think Paul is doing is exciting. It's great to be part of it. And there's a lot of moving parts and work on everything.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the thing I think that's been done here with that, and basically the company itself is it's actually an interesting lesson that even goes beyond finance, goes beyond the company. So if you're really going to have a really winning technology enterprise, you've got to do three things. You've got to have good technology, right? And people can create adopt good technology. This company's done that and has that team. It's got to be well managed, which is often a challenge for young companies. This company has got that. But then the other part of this, which is often, you know, in the Ether, but it's not as precisely focused on as this company is modern fives figured out this is about the customer. This is about adding critical value for the customer. If you have an idea”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and for everyone involved, that mission, that vision is just beyond exciting. And the banks want to be part of that. They want to own it. They want to be on that journey. They want to see the upside. They want their customers to see the benefit. And so that has been a huge motivator for everyone involved.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The US has seven water control systemically important financial market utilities. These are some of the firms we talked about, DTCC, Ice Clear Credit. They are a lot of the organizations that provide the deepest and most critical infrastructure behind our financial markets. And what we're doing with Envid in a lot of different ways is building what could be and what will be the eighth.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have a better search than Google, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to Google. So there needs to be more. There needs to be real differentiation. And in this case, it was born from just having, I think, hopefully a deep understanding of what these institutions were actually looking for, what they were actually worried about, what they actually wanted, what they would get excited about, and for the folks at Modern Fi, but very much so for the banks and the partners that we're fortunate to work with, What's been such a joy is how excited and enthused and motivated they are to make envy to success. And I think that's how you drive the success that we've been having is when you have, of course, our firm excited, but the actual participants, the actual members just amped up to make the success and something that, you know, the bank board talks about something that we talk about, something our members talk about a lot is”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Having some notion of a revenue share. I think all the best consortium models, the members, whether it's modified, whether it's institutions, have alignment and upside and you align the incentive so that everyone wants to do well. And what's been so exciting about that is, to your point, it is this. Folks building firms, right? Sometimes you think, oh, just better tech is going to be enough, but that's not always the solution, right? I think to your point about competing against entrenched incumbents.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. So NBID is a bank-owned, bank managed consortium that Core does the deposit network for banks. And what has been so nice about that is, you know, we were talking about these financial market utilities. Like I had mentioned, the banks themselves are the ones providing the value to these networks in terms of the insurance, in terms of the liquidity. So building a structure where they can actually benefit from the value that they add. And so they benefit in terms of alignment and oversight. They have oversight over the firm, financials, things like that. They have a say in the direction and the management. They have better economics from these networks. We talked about how the margins in these business, not the margins per se, but just the economics have never been institution friendly, which is actually been short-sighted because it limits the actual total addressable market. It just limits the adoption of these products. And then finally, actually.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Happened from the beginning thanks to Paolo, but now even more double down is making sure that in the regulator's eyes this is really a first class well run, respectful from a regulatory perspective operation. And we've stunned that in every conceivable way. But in addition, it's got people in the organization who are former FDIC regulators and who actually have been senior people understanding how this is to be done correctly.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A bank board and ownership governance structure. And then priced it sensibly so that what that does is it really not only makes for a better organization, but it also means it creates the enthusiasm to do what they should be doing, which is basically using this mechanism to ensure all their deposits because it's theirs. And of course, the volume and the benefits to the company are profound. To the banks is profound. And to the public, it's profound. Now, the other thing we've done, which”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things have changed dramatically. That's since SVB has been a sea change event because banks can't pretend anymore. They know they can't pretend. They really have to take this on full-throatedly. And Paolo's great credit and yours, David, my thought that we really ought to create a board of banks that would both have ownership stakes in the company and have governance rights in the company is something that I said a lot of entrepreneurs and other VCs wouldn't have the courage to do or the foresight to do. So we've done that and we've created a robust”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I started this activity, what I had assumed would happen is that I would have the banks have ownership stakes in it and that they would help run it because it does have a really national significance And I also recognize that one really had to make sure that it wasn't just safe and sound in terms of good operating, but it had to be safe and sound in terms of what the regulators would view as a really well-run organization. So you had to do two important things that were a little bit less common than you had in another business. But in the original days, people didn't take it seriously enough. They thought this was a nice to have, not a must-have. While they cheered it on, they didn't feel that it was necessary or desirable even to spend time being part of it in an ownership way. And also having, you know, some governance rates.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you can get that right, that is a very, very powerful, a very, very powerful vector here. And there's so many wonderful historical precedents for this. Something that we had talked about a lot when we got this going together. All three of us was, look, you know, if we think about visa in the early days, if we think about DTCC, if we think about SWIFT, clearinghouse, Zell, early warning systems, these are all member-owned coalitions for utility services. Totally. And we had the opportunity to do something very similar with reciprocal, which I know is something that, you know, Gene back in the day was already thinking about. And so to be able to finally make that vision happen, I think has been very, very rewarding.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In our mind, really, a utility service where you have all these institutions coming together, really the value of a reciprocal network at the end of the day is the banks themselves. They're the ones providing the insurance, they're the ones providing liquidity. So is there a way that we can build a coalition model where the banks have a notion of oversight, have a notion of ownership, have a notion of true membership?”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you have these markets where there are only a few providers, sometimes you get some of these undesirable outcomes and a lot of the undesirable outcomes come from pricing. And so the margins and the existing pricing structures have just been to the detriment of the clients and there just haven't been existing alternatives. And that's why competition is great because competition leads to better products, better service, better tech, better pricing. And so, you know, we came in with, look, it's going to be better products, it's going to be better service. And it's also going to be better economics. And that makes a huge difference for these institutions that are so margin sensitive. And then the last piece is we can talk about the end of its structure, but you have this beautiful opportunity to say, look, this is actually...”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's how you make it a default, right? Because let's say you run a business and you're going to want an operating account, maybe you want a high yield account, and then maybe you have a reserve account and you want the reserve account to be 10 million of insurance. Perfect. That seems like a very natural product tech stack And so that's it, right? Really simple. The second piece, and I'm sure we'll talk about the Envid Coalition and some of the genius that Jean's been able to put together as well, is this notion of”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And historically, these reciprocal products have not lived within the bank's existing digital experience, meaning the bank has a web app, they have a mobile app, but to access these reciprocal products, you're not going through those apps. You're going through third-party portals and whatnot. If these products truly are going to become the default for large value accounts, you're going to need checking, you're going to need savings, you're going to need an insurance sweep account, right? And so it needs to be integrated, needs to be digital. Not a crazy idea, but definitely didn't exist before us.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bank side, it looks very different because these products exist. But as we were talking about, they're not utilized in the way that they really could be, both to the benefit of the end customer, the business or the VC firm or the tech company or the high net worth individual, but they're also not utilized for the benefit of the institution because there's a little bit of a hesitation to use them. And the hesitation to use them comes from I would call it three things the tech, the economics, and the alignment. The tech is the sense that We live in a digital age for everything, but banking has historically been a little bit behind the times. And so digital banking, it's so So, second nature to many of us in the younger generation, but for a lot of institutions.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very detrimental to sort of the execution, their mission. So bringing reciprocal to credit units has been a wonderful step change for the industry. And there's so much more work to do around public funds and all these different pieces. But now these institutions are able to serve a wider member base in a more meaningful way. And so that's been a wonderful network to grow and to scale. But that's been an interesting. An interesting process because a lot of education. You've never had this product before. The alternative is do nothing.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and so, you know, we've done two things really to start and can get into the longer term vision. I do think we view these deposit announces maybe the most incredible, profitable, impactful wedge because then there's so much more that you can do. But what we've done so far is a couple things. First, the US has, call it roughly 5,000 banks, roughly 5,000 credit unions. These solutions exist for banks, but they don't exist for credit unions. And so one of the first things we did was we built the first reciprocal network for credit unions. And again, sort of that binary value proposition has been so powerful because if you're a credit union, you're very mission focused, you're very member focused. Now, without these products, you cannot serve public funds. You cannot serve small businesses. You cannot serve nonprofits. And that is...”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so how very important this is and what Paolo's doing is essential SVB didn't have like a lot of junk assets on the other side. What was on the other side, the mismatch, was with US Treasury bills, good as gold treasury bills. It was just a duration mismatch so that just imagine a normal bank that is actually supposed to lend and support the economy that way. And the durations are longer. So you really can't have the magic of banks, the generation of business, if you don't have confidence in the deposit system.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you'll plug the capital. That's the sort of classical banker on where everyone wants their money at the same time. And the bank on paper is solvent. It has enough assets. But if everyone wants their funds at the same time, there's not enough liquidity. And that liquidity crunch causes a huge.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a few reasons, all of which we've set out to solve, but it's technology, it's economics, it's alignment. And so I think SVB is actually a great example in the sense that SVB was a client. It was a member of these existing alternatives, of these existing networks. SVB had 94% on insured deposits, meaning no one at the institution was using these products, which again raises the question of why, because if they were The institution would have had no trouble.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I think Gene's far too humble as well with the story because reciprocal on the bank side has grown now to roughly $450 billion in reciprocal. And so that's a half trillion dollar market using these networks. I think there's some interesting takeaways from that as well in the sense that It's a huge market, yet for the average person, for the average business, no one really has heard of these products. No one really utilizes these products.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Money flowing, and we had to invent the use of resident memory as opposed to normal memory to basically be able to do the match instantaneously. So it grew from there and it was a lot of fun getting the network together and running around the country. To banks hither and yon, taught me a lot too. This whole taught me a lot because you learned about the banks and their communities and their needs. And so I got myself the first 450 banks bank by bank. And then I got a team together sales. And I was pretty well exhausted. He's stronger. Younger is stronger.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aunt Betty's around the country with similar problems, that reciprocating mechanism would allow for deposit insurance, as I said earlier, using the unused capacity to be broadly shared and satisfied the need of the consumer for safety, not just Aunt Betty's, but small businesses. And on the other hand, creating a larger funding safety funding source or deposit gathering source for smaller banking organizations. And we created early models and algorithms to make it happen. I'll tell you, things were so early then that when we started to do our match, computer technology had not advanced to the degree that it could actually accommodate the complexity of a serious amount of”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So she used to get on the bus and go from To get a CD that was insured, including interest up to the limits. When she got older, to this day, I believe she forgot where she put it. And I don't think the families ever figured out where the money is. But it was an essential safety net for her. And it dawned on me that this is crazy. You can solve both problems one way. If a bank was in essence collecting for Aunt Betty all the deposits and basically parceling it out or deposits to the other banks in terms of CDs, but it was actually doing the creating the mechanism. It was solving Aunt Betty's problem. And if it did that, but there were other...”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The second reason was how it affects the individual. So I had an aunt aunt Betty Betty Chadwick in Philadelphia, who, both by Anna, my father were immigrants, sons and daughters, and themselves almost immigrants. And so they were very conservative. And they saved every penny, and they put it in the bank. But the problem was, as she got older, she realized, oh my God, the bank only has 35 in those days, it was 35,000 of a deposit insurance. And she had a couple hundred thousand dollars. That's all. She was able to save as a secretary to a brokerage house. But she still wanted every penny insured.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, oddly enough, as I know, I bored you guys with before, the idea of creating a reciprocal network came to me because of two factors. One was the little bank, and it was actually a little bank in a disadvantaged community in Kansas City that couldn't get a decent deposit flow because the big banks kept saying, you know, they're wonderful people, but you have a fiduciary responsibility. And if they didn't get 100% deposit insurance, they weren't going to get decent deposits. And even though they were wonderfully run bank.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had on occasion had larger institutions, neighboring institutions say, well, you can't really take your business, Mr. Businessman, down to that bank because I'm sure they're fine people. But you have a fiduciary obligation. And I'm the big one safe.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a little niche. It's important expertise. This is critical for America. It is a wonderful time for modern FI to start this because the mechanism that is being used, the reciprocal deposit mechanism, is now widely understood and accepted by the regulators and indeed accepted broadly as a real contribution to American finance. And so now that it's understood both by the banking system that uses it, and more broadly, it means that the ability for modern FI to grow and prosper is dramatically different than it was when I started creating it. Oh, nobody was against it. There was no regulatory negatives, but it seemed to people peculiar. One, smaller institutions.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I remember when we first met out, you know, I think you were the only person I've ever met that did a PhD machine learning at MIT on bank balance sheet optimization. You're an NF1, Paolo. We're in essence. It's a little bit.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“10,000 institutions, roughly four and a half trillion of that is wholesale funding where banks are just buying and selling these deposits. Turns out there's no real great deposit optimization. Turns out there's no real great deposit infrastructure. They're firms like the ones that Gina founded that have really been paved the way and have been vanguards in the space. But we're 25 years past the founding of a lot of those firms. So the opportunity set to build something so meaningful, so critical, and so impactful to these institutions was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. And that's how we ended up starting the firm and partnering all together.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These institutions, the banking business model, as Gene, and you know so well, is a fascinating business model because you are using short-duration deposits to make long-term loans. You're using money in a checking or savings account to make a 30-year mortgage. So how you do that matching, how you do that asset liability matching, the modeling, the optimization, how you source that funding is a fascinating problem. And unfortunately, we see from the SVB situation, the first republic situation, you can get it wrong and you can get it wrong in a big way. And when you do get it wrong, it's critical or it's vital. And so I think you know this being, both of you know this being founders, you kind of start to see these ideas and they become like onions where it's like you peel back a layer and it's interesting and you peel back another layer and it's even more interesting and that was definitely the story of modern fire where okay it's a huge market there's you know 20 trillion in deposits in the us there's nearly”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But no, this has been a field and a topic that the team and I and me personally have been involved with and fascinated by for a long time now is in finance previously. I was at a hedge fund. Really enjoyed it. Fixed income, doing funding markets. So thinking a little bit about these problems and the firm was well known for robust portfolio optimization tools. So really enjoyed those market clearing problems and went off to grad school. I was fortunate to do my doctorate in ML and did a few different things, but was fascinated by a few things, but was fascinated by bank balance sheet optimization. Talking about SVB”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And to Jean's point about that exchange mechanism, you can also use these in interesting ways in the sense that. Some folks are exchanging deposits one for one, some folks, you know, a lot of. Sponsor banks want to remain a certain size due to regulatory requirements, things like the Durbin Amendment, which we can get into. So they have an incentive to just sweep deposits. You have folks on the other side willing to accept the deposits for liquidity and lending purposes And that's one of the beautiful things about deposit networks and just markets in general is that you have that efficiency, right? You're making connections, you're clearing the market. So that's the core of what we do. We have some analytics, some data services around that as well as we expand and grow.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A reciprocal deposit, a community bank, a regional institution can provide access to more deposit insurance to their customers. So your community bank. Want to bank a business They have 10 million of deposits. Normally, that's insured up to 250,000 with a deposit network through these exchange mechanisms by placing deposits at other institutions. You can actually provide 10 million or access to 10 million, 20 million, 30 million returns. And that is so critical because for that institution is the difference between being able to serve that customer and not being able to serve that customer. We talk a lot in DC about is a nice to have or a must have. It's a must have for those institutions. Without it, they just don't serve those segments.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Modify helps financial institutions grow. That's the mission. We're talking about the importance of these institutions regardless of size, regardless of location and our mandate is to provide software, infrastructure services to help them grow compete and thrive. And you can do that through a lot of different angles. Our core product is a deposit net. Depause network to Jean's point is you can almost think of it as a market for deposits. Institutions. Really sweeping, sourcing, or reciprocating deposits, or buying, selling, exchanging deposits. Folks use that for different reasons. Gene sort of touched on the insurance piece. One of the key pieces is it's, well, Get into it through the conversation is what's called a reciprocal deposit gene. Invented the market, invented the idea in 2003, so a few years ago now. But the whole idea is.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, a deposit network is, let me just give the concept, is each institution has a certain amount of deposit authority. And often a certain amount of that is not used at a deposit network, in essence, allows one institution that has capacity that's unused to allow its fellow institution of the same size to use that capacity. And so it's basically a pooling of the capacity. Now, the way it has to be done is different than just simply trading insurance chips. But the concept is really taking a certain amount of unused capacity and sharing it.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like. So I think it is a reflection and a good example of how important these institutions actually are to the economy as a whole, but specific areas of the economy.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To that point, I mean, you know, we're Here, talking about the importance of Cunyan regional banks and something that I remember well from that weekend was one of the arguments, I'm sure there are arguments for and against The regulators stepping in that weekend, but one of the arguments for was. This institution or this concept of an institution is so important that if we don't support this institution, what does American startup ecosystem look like? What does the American tech ecosystem?”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People would lose faith in community regional banks, right? That the market would sort of consolidate into the GSIBs. And that was the reaction that many companies like our portfolio companies were having, which was taking their deposits out of SUB and then putting them into one of the largest banks in the country. And so, yeah, the fear was that it would sort of hurt some of that dynamism and the kind of local context that I think a lot of these institutions play such an important role providing.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Services is going to be a critical piece. And that's why I wanted to start with the SVB crisis, because I remember we were actually as a GP group all in Las Vegas at an off-site when that whole thing was going down. I remember, you know, the CEO of SVV being on a big screen saying, you know, don't panic. It was just a wild weekend. And many of our portfolio companies, you know, freaking out that they couldn't make payroll, you know, that Monday. But I think that I wasn't that concerned that their deposits would be gone. I think the bigger kind of ripple effect concern was that”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Econom It's very easy when these institutions go away. The Fed, you have what the Fed calls banking deserts. It's just whole, not just communities, not just geographic areas, but actually verticals as well, industries, whether it's”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tech to get started Dream and to execute and become big tech, right? And that's a key part, obviously, of Much of American economic success. That role on the credit side Small businesses Get started and grow and thrive. They stay small businesses or eventually become business, big businesses. So that access to credit, I mean, credit in a lot of ways.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gene also sort of tied it back to VC. And I also love that analogy because Something that Andreessen does, or you have this sort of little tech manifesto, right? One of the things. So special about Andreessen, but VC in general.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“America's great. It has great institutions like JPM that are huge and fulfill an important role. And it has small and medium-sized institutions that fit our own, and it makes our economy unusually dynamic. Totally. And we want to do everything possible to keep that.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I have a problem with my business, and I want to basically talk to the bank CEO to get advice and get a loan. I pick up the phone. I'm going to call Jamie Diamond. Now, do you think that Jamie Diamond, who is one of the most talented people that ever lived, has the time to call every little small business all over the United States? Of course he doesn't. And so he has very talented people around that help and do this, but you're not going to get the CEO. But if you're dealing with your local community and regional bank and that fellow picks up the telephone and says, I want, that's who he gets in the phone. And that matters, both in terms of the flexibility of the institution, the advice, et cetera.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Business people, the banks in England were dealing with, but were important business folks. So we ended up with this multi-bank system. And as Paolo said, and I agree with him entirely, it served us very, very well because we have an enormous economy that's incredibly diverse. And we are very innovative. I think it is not an accident that Andreessen Horowitz and Canopy and all kinds of venture companies exist in the United States.”
2025-11-20 · a16z Podcast · Can Community Banks Survive the Next SVB? | ModernFi CEO Paolo Bertolotti and Former Comptroller Gene Ludwig · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source