Jason Lampkin

Look, I don't know everybody like Harry does, but someone that was a smaller investor in the company, I asked what, what, what,

what she thought and the outcome was well given where we are in the world in 2026 it's a good outcome and that qualified answer kind of was interesting and so that was my thought it's like some folks are taking pot shots on the x that's that's the way it is but why do we have these these weird feelings why are we not sure if this is a good exit at 5.1 billion in eight years i mean i would have loved to have led the seed round right maybe it's not good enough for harry but rory and i would have been happy to have led the round right

So why do we do we have this feeling?

And look, this is nothing new.

I just this is the era I called it, you know, hubritic financing.

You've got to keep doing these Harvey's and the Gore's and what open evidence from one to 12 to keep up.

And if you don't, you put yourself at a competitive disadvantage, but then you set yourself up for disappointment.

Because these companies that are fundraising to the nth degree, the thinking machines today, the Brex's back then, they are promising, as Rory says, this 0.1% growth ad infinitum, not just a couple years of sustained growth.

Brex was basically promising it would own all of business finance at some point.

And that was the bet at 12.

And so it leaves us with a weird feeling when, put the late stage investors aside on paper, all other stakeholders have a great outcome.

Even the liquidation preference, it's not like it ruined the deal, right?

They raised like a billion something equity in debt.

This wasn't one of the grouchy deals where 7 billion went into the company.

This was a great outcome for everyone on paper except the late stage.

But versus the promise, the commitment made to everybody, customers, employees for four years, it's do you have to make these promises to win today?

Do you have to make them to win today?

We're actually, I'm going to get a Capital One card in the mail as soon as this deal closes.

We're going to forget about Brex in 24 months.

We're going to even forget whether it was two Xs or how to spell it.