Fintech Podcast Episode 134 - MoneyGram Merger, Quora's successful fund raise and Neural Hooks

Episode 134

This week the trio is back after a long break. Mike, Brian, and Faisal discuss a wide variety of subjects points for this week’s show.  Faisal updates us on his travels to Madrid, attending the IMTC (International Money Transfer Conference) EMEA 2017 earlier in April, and his trip to Istanbul. The conversation then flows in the direction of Ant Financial, MoneyGram and Euronet’s bizarre love triangle. The quest to buy MoneyGram is growing stronger, but don’t be surprised if a third suitor emerges. Brian comments on Quora’s recent raise of US$ 85 million, valuing the company at US$ 1.8 Billion. As both Brian and Faisal are Top Writers for 5 years in a row 2012-2017 - they briefly comment on what is working for Quora and what is not.

Brian then discusses Facebook’s F8 Conference which he attended and discusses in depth how Neural hooks on humans are right around the corner as Elon Musk cites. Brian and Mike both hold opposing viewpoints if they would like neural taps to happen or not.

Article shoutouts:

  1. Gadi Evron: https://medium.com/swlh/how-strong-techies-destroy-startups-and-how-it-can-be-avoided-b633c6a721d9
  2. David Weinberger: https://backchannel.com/our-machines-now-have-knowledge-well-never-understand-857a479dcc0e
  3. Ali Mese: https://medium.com/swlh/build-a-product-vs-focus-on-growth-addc4d8fa7c2

Live Topics:

  1. Ant Financial, MoneyGram, Euronet love triangle. https://www.ft.com/content/de2b5514-231c-11e7-a34a-538b4cb30025
  2. Quora raises $85M at $1.8B:
  3. F8 Updates: https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/27/elon-musks-neuralink-wants-to-boost-the-brain-to-keep-up-with-ai/
  4. http://readmultiplex.com/2017/04/19/facebook-is-working-on-silent-voice-first-systems/
  5. Facebook plans ethics board to monitor its brain-computer interface work
  6. Elon’s Neurolace:
  7. Dangers of being hacked
  8. GOOGLE HOME NOW HAS INDIVIDUALIZED VOICE IDENTIFICATION.

http://readmultiplex.com/2017/04/20/google-home-now-has-individualized-voice-identification/

As always, if you have a question or a comments, write to us or tweet to us.

Sponsors:
Otter Labs -> Otter helps startups hire talented inexpensive developers faster through staff augmentation, focusing on Argentina.

Redeeem -> Redeeem is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that lets you save 15% or more on gift cards using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Hosts:

Brian Roemmele

Mike Townsend

Faisal Khan

We are also available via:

MegaphoneYouTubeQuoraMediumTwitterFacebookLinkedInSoundcloudApple PodcastStitcher  Spotify Google PodcastPlayer FM

Episode Transcript