David Rosenthal: commitment

Transcript context

…And we are your hosts. Today, we tell the story of an absolutely incredible system. You can show up anywhere in the entire world with a piece of plastic and transact for anything you want in any currency. The merchant doesn't need to know you or trust you, and you do not need to know or trust the merchant. Visa, along with just one other competitor, MasterCard, has tirelessly spent decades stitching together all the banks, merchants, and the relationships with consumers to make this possible. This is just the rosy side of the story. Merchants may harbor far less rosy feelings about Visa—given how much of their profits go to interchange fees—but the duality of the story is what makes it so interesting to understand. Today, we will explore how the whole thing came to be, and try to understand the value that the credit and debit card system creates compared with how much it captures and by whom, in what situations. Here are some astonishing stats on Visa. It is the 11th most valuable company in the world. It is worth more than any bank in the world, including every bank involved in creating it. Visa's brand is among the very most trusted in the world associated with reliability and security. But that said, if you ask most people what Visa does, they could not actually articulate it. Visa does not extend credit. They do not issue cards. They do not work directly with merchants. They do not work directly with consumers. They are not a bank or a financial institution. They don't ever bear any risk. They are merely a network connecting banks to other banks. David, it is insane. This is such an insane story. I can't believe we're all the way in season 13, and we haven't talked about this company yet. But as we will get into, it's always been overlooked and underrated. Perhaps not underrated the last decade or so. If you, listeners, want to know every time an episode drops, you can sign up for email updates at acquired.fm/email. Two new fun things: (1) Emails now include little hints and some teasers about what the next episode will be. If you want to play the guessing game, sign up at acquired.fm/email. And (2) the emails have another new feature we are including follow ups from previous episodes when we learn new things from you after the release. Come talk about this episode with us after listening at acquired.fm/slack. If you want more from David and I outside of these big, long main Acquired episodes, check out ACQ2, our interviews on a second podcast feed. Without further ado, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. David Rosenthal, where are we starting today?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.