Patrick O'Shaughnessy

I more want to know the version of Clear that people might not appreciate the business and the product having just experienced it that way.

Let us in on a little bit of the surprising elements of Clear the business and the product that gets you excited about it today and in the future.

What did you learn about the product to platform switch or flip that happens in companies from your Wall Street days?

the old bill gates line definition of platform was this idea that more economic value was created on top of the platform than was captured by it and at that point is when you became a real proper platform or something like this it's evolved a lot where there's third-party platforms in the sense that it enables outside businesses to build and then there's more first-party use of the install base fundamental identity layer in your case

that you've created through a product that lets you create all sorts of other things.

How do you think about that difference, opening up identity as an API to outside developers versus owning the experience yourself?

It'd be fun to break the story 15 years now into chapters and talk about each chapter a little bit.

Now everyone knows Clear.

Obviously, you bought it out of bankruptcy.

A lot of people listening will know Clear.

We'll welcome them all.

The origin stories are super interesting to me and how these things get started.

So you were a professional investor.

I remember the first time you talked, you said you didn't want necessarily some of your IRR or something to be on your tombstone and have that be the thing you were known for.

It wasn't good enough.

So maybe talk about that pure origin of why you went searching for a business in the first place, how you found this one, what it's like to buy something out of bankruptcy first couple of days.

I have this company now.

We'll call that the prologue.

Before we get to chapter one, I have a couple of questions from everything else you said.

The first is a little bit abstract and away from Clear specifically, but you said that you didn't know what Proforma and EBITDA were.