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Today’s episode is slightly different. We have spent this season looking at the infrastructure, behaviours, and product principles shaping the next generation of finance. We have talked about invisible rails, agentic workflows, programmable confidentiality, stablecoins, super wallets, financial intuition, organic growth, and the transition from crypto as a visible story to crypto as quiet infrastructure. Today, I want to bring those ideas together through something much more concrete. Today, we are launching Angelo. Angelo (https://ask-angelo.com) is a conversational and social-native investment dashboard for angel investors. It is a product I built because I could not find the tool I wanted for my own portfolio: something that could consolidate investments, handle the difficult mathematics, make sense of fragmented data, and help me communicate what I was seeing. So I built it. And then I became Angelo’s first client. That is usually where the most interesting products begin. Not with an abstract market map or a feature checklist, but with a repeated frustration that the builder is unwilling to keep accepting. The problem with angel portfolio management. Angel investing has become more accessible, but the infrastructure around it has barely caught up. The investments themselves are often exciting. The portfolio management experience is usually not. Information lives across spreadsheets, PDFs, emails, data rooms, fund reports, cap tables, bank records, and memory. Valuations arrive in different currencies. Instruments behave differently. Distributions need to be reconciled. SAFEs, convertibles, direct equity, and LP fund positions all require different interpretations. Then there is the reporting problem. An angel investor may want to know: What is my current unrealised return across seed investments? Which companies represent the largest share of my exposure? What is my portfolio worth in Swiss francs? How much capital have I deployed by year? Which investments have distributed cash? What is my exposure by geography, sector, stage, or instrument? Which positions are driving my performance? What can I confidently share with my community? Today, answering those questions often means opening several files, updating formulas, checking exchange rates, reviewing old emails, and trying to remember whether a number represents invested capital, current value, or a previous estimate. This is a strange gap. Angel investors are making long-duration, high-conviction decisions about companies that may shape the future of entire industries. Yet the system used to understand those investments is often a spreadsheet that has quietly become unreliable. The problem is not that spreadsheets are incapable. The problem is that they were never designed to become an intelligent, conversational, social layer for a modern investment practice. I built Angelo because I could not find the tool I needed for my own portfolio. Now I want to make that clarity available to other angel investors. The beta is live at ⁠ask-angelo.com⁠. Build your portfolio, ask Angelo your first question, and see what your investment data can tell you. - Authored and produced by Raphael Grieco.

Today, I am launching Angelo, the conversational and social-native investment dashboard for angel investors. Angelo brings your fragmented portfolio data into one place, handles the difficult mathematics across investments, currencies, instruments, and performance, and lets you ask natural-language questions about what you own and how it is performing. You can then turn those insights into beautifully designed social cards to share privately or publicly. The value proposition is simple: see your angel portfolio clearly, understand what is happening, and communicate the judgement behind your investments. I built Angelo because I could not find the tool I needed for my own portfolio. Now I want to make that clarity available to other angel investors. The beta is live at ask-angelo.com. Build your portfolio, ask Angelo your first question, and see what your investment data can tell you. - Authored and produced by Raphael Grieco.

Today for "Everyday Money #8": -- If you watched Robinhood’s “Engines of Creation” (their HOOD Summit 2026) you saw a stream of product launches spanning 24/7 continuous markets, autonomous AI agent loops, verified social execution, and embedded earnings prediction contracts. But beneath the sci-fi presentation framing lies something more profound for product builders and venture capital investors. What Robinhood showcased is the real-world convergence of our four core investment pillars at Olive Capital: invisible rails, the agentic economy, everyday consumer finance, and sovereign cryptographic trust. Today, we are mapping Robinhood’s major announcements directly to our investment thesis and podcast episodes from across this season. Let’s break down how the future of finance is being built right in front of us. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Disclosure #3": -- A lot of people hear the phrase “digital identity” and imagine a more convenient login. One app instead of many passwords. A faster KYC process. A government-issued ID on a phone. That is part of it. But it misses the more interesting question. What would a user-operated identity vault actually look like in 2027? Not a database that collects more about you. Not another profile that a platform owns. A vault you operate: a place where verified facts about you live under your control, and where you decide what gets shared, with whom, for what purpose, and for how long. The practical starting point is familiar. You already carry fragments of your identity across dozens of systems: your passport, driving licence, payroll records, bank relationship, university degree, proof of address, insurance policy, professional credentials, and transaction history. Today, every time a service needs one of those facts, the default process is often to create a new copy. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Disclosure #2": -- There is a strange ritual embedded in modern finance. You apply for a loan, rent an apartment, request a credit card, or try to access a financial product. And almost immediately, someone asks for proof of income. What they often receive is far more than they need: a payslip, a tax return, a bank statement, sometimes several months of transaction history. In order to answer one narrow question “can this person afford this?”, we routinely disclose an entire financial biography. Your employer. Your exact salary. Your account balances. Potentially your spending habits. Sometimes information about other people in your household. All of that, just to establish a simple fact. This episode is about a different model: how to share your salary without sharing your salary. The underlying idea is called selective disclosure. Rather than handing over the complete document, you provide only the specific proof required for the decision at hand. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #7": -- A few weeks ago, Konstantine Buhler, Partner at Sequoia, published a research graph titled “What the internet hyped, versus what got built”, to measure hype over the past two decades: https://x.com/Konstantine/status/2085053452640817334. Take a look at the chart if you can, but let me walk you through what it shows, because it captures something we talk about a lot on this show: the difference between hype and infrastructure. The chart tracks what topics dominated the internet's attention each year since 2007, ranked by hype, alongside the most valuable company founded that same year. And if you trace the yellow line, the one labeled Crypto and Web3, you see a very specific arc. It barely registers in the early years. It climbs sharply around 2017, spikes again around 2021, and then falls off a cliff after 2022, dropping out of the top rankings entirely by the more recent years on the chart. At first glance, that looks like a story of decline. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #6": -- A few episodes ago, we talked about the idea of a $0 CAC consumer finance product, and whether that was actually achievable. Today I want to come back to that question with a concrete example, because there is a company that has built its entire growth engine around exactly this principle: Revolut. Their internal slogan was famously displayed in neon signs across their offices: Deliver “wow”. On the surface, that sounds like a marketing line. But underneath it is a genuine economic strategy, and it explains a lot about how organic growth actually compounds. The idea is simple to state but hard to execute. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #5": -- There is a pattern that shows up again and again when you study companies that manage to keep growing long after their first product matures. They do not just add features. They build entirely new verticals, one after another, each one landing faster than the one before. Revolut is one of the clearest examples of this playbook in action. The company entered the UK in 2015 with three simple propositions: prepaid FX cards, peer-to-peer payments, and multi-currency accounts. That was the wedge. It gave people a reason to open the app regularly, without the usual banking friction. The interesting part is what happened next. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #4": -- For a long time, consumer finance has rested on a familiar assumption: growth costs money, and user acquisition is usually one of the biggest line items. If a company wants to scale, it tends to pay for that growth through ads, incentives, referrals, or distribution deals. That is why the idea of a $0 CAC consumer finance product is so compelling. The closest analogy is product-led growth. In PLG, the product itself does the heavy lifting: users try it, get value quickly, and often bring others in through usage and word of mouth. A strong consumer finance product can work in a similar way, but with higher stakes. In that case, growth comes from utility, habit, and repeat usage. People keep returning because the product solves a real financial problem well enough to become part of their routine. They tell others because it is genuinely useful. They expand their use over time because it earns more and more trust. That changes the business logic in a meaningful way. When acquisition costs fall toward zero, product quality matters even more. Retention matters more. Word of mouth matters more. The degree to which the app fits into someone’s financial life becomes central. A consumer finance product is no longer just competing for attention; it is competing to become part of someone’s default behavior. The most plausible path to $0 CAC usually comes from alignment. Sometimes that shows up through network effects, where the product becomes more useful as more people use it. Sometimes it comes through embedded distribution, where the product sits naturally inside another workflow or platform. Sometimes it comes from a strong utility loop, where the user has a reason to return without needing to be re-acquired. And sometimes it comes from being so specific and valuable that users effectively become the channel. There is still an important caveat. [Learn more in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Agent Dispatch #3": -- Tax settlement is one of those parts of the economy that most people never think about, but every business feels it. It is usually slow, operationally heavy, and buried inside systems that were not designed for real-time movement. That is starting to change. When B2B tax settlement becomes autonomous, the entire workflow shifts from manual coordination to embedded execution. Instead of teams chasing invoices, reconciling records, and waiting for periodic processing cycles, the system itself can calculate, validate, and settle obligations as transactions happen. That is a much bigger change than it sounds like. Because tax is not just an accounting issue. It is part of how trust, compliance, and cash flow work inside businesses. If settlement becomes autonomous, then companies can reduce friction, lower operational overhead, and move faster without having to keep so much human effort tied up in repetitive back-office work. -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Agent Dispatch #2": -- Portfolio management has always been about making sense of complexity. You take a large universe of assets, filter for relevance, monitor risk, and try to stay aligned with a goal. That process has traditionally required a lot of manual judgment, a lot of research, and a lot of ongoing maintenance. Agentic indexes change that structure. At a basic level, an index is a way to group assets around a thesis, a strategy, or a rule set. But once you introduce agentic systems, the index stops being a static container and starts becoming something more dynamic. It can adapt, update, monitor, and even act on its own logic in response to new information. That is a significant shift. Instead of treating portfolio construction as a one-time allocation decision, agentic indexes make it possible to think of the portfolio as a living system. One that can ingest signals, adjust exposure, rebalance according to constraints, and reflect a more continuous view of the market. This matters because most investors do not have the time, bandwidth, or infrastructure to track every relevant variable manually. In practice, they rely on summaries, dashboards, and periodic reviews. Agentic indexes introduce a different model: one where intelligence is embedded directly into the structure of the portfolio itself. That can change several things at once. It can make thematic exposure more precise. It can reduce the lag between signal and action. It can help users express a thesis in a more automated and repeatable way. And it can make portfolio management feel less like a series of disconnected decisions and more like a governed process. There is also an important behavioral angle here. People often struggle not because they lack conviction, but because they lack a mechanism that turns conviction into action. Agentic indexes can help bridge that gap. -- [ More in the episode ] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #3": -- There is a quality that the best financial products have that is hard to name but easy to feel. You open the app, and it already seems to understand what you need. The information is in the right place. The action you want to take is one step away. Nothing feels out of order. That quality is what I would call financial intuition in product design. It is not about features. Most financial products have enough features. It is not about data either. Most apps show users plenty of numbers. Financial intuition is something more subtle. It is the ability of a product to anticipate behavior, reduce friction at the right moments, and present complexity in a way that feels manageable rather than overwhelming. And it is genuinely difficult to build. Part of the reason it is difficult is that financial behavior is deeply personal. Two users with identical incomes can have completely different relationships with money. One wants control and visibility. Another wants simplicity and automation. One checks their balance every day. Another wants the product to handle everything quietly in the background. A product with financial intuition does not force all of those users into the same experience. It adapts, or at least it creates enough clarity that different users can find their own path without friction. But there is a more fundamental layer underneath that. Financial intuition in product design starts with a clear understanding of what the user is actually trying to resolve. Not just the transaction, but the anxiety, the decision, or the goal sitting behind it. When someone transfers money, they are often managing a commitment. When someone checks their balance, they are often checking a feeling. When someone sets up a savings goal, they are often trying to translate an aspiration into something concrete. The best products understand that financial actions are rarely purely mechanical. They carry emotional weight. Designing for that weight is what separates good financial products from genuinely trusted ones. [More in the episode] -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Rails Report #4": -- When people talk about AI agents, they usually focus on what the agent can do. Can it plan? Can it execute? Can it make decisions? Can it complete a task end to end? But once agents start interacting with real-world systems, another question becomes just as important: how do we know what, or who, we are trusting? That is where modular verification matters. ERC- 8004, in simple terms, points toward a more structured way for agents and systems to prove things about themselves. Instead of relying on vague assumptions or one-off integrations, the idea is to create a modular layer where identity, capabilities, permissions, and verification can be checked more cleanly. Why does that matter? Because agents are only useful if they can operate in environments where other systems are willing to trust them enough to let them act. If an agent is going to move value, access services, trigger workflows, or interact with financial rails, then the system around it needs some way to verify that it is legitimate, authorized, and behaving within bounds. Today, that kind of trust is often handled manually, or through fragmented point solutions. One platform does one check. Another platform does another. A third layer tries to enforce policy. It works, but it is brittle. Modular agentic verification is interesting because it suggests a more composable future. Instead of forcing every application to reinvent trust from scratch, you can build a shared framework where different components handle different parts of the verification problem. That could mean proving an agent’s identity. It could mean checking what permissions it has. It could mean validating that it is allowed to perform a specific action. And it could mean making those checks interoperable across systems. The big picture is simple: as agents become more capable, verification becomes more important. Without verification, agents are just software that can act. With verification, they become software that can act inside systems that care about trust, compliance, and accountability. So when we talk about ERC-8004 and modular agentic verification, we are really talking about the plumbing that makes autonomous systems usable in the real world. Not just smarter agents, but trustworthy ones. And once that layer exists, a lot of what comes next in finance, infrastructure, and automated workflows becomes much easier to imagine. -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Rails Report #3": -- Stablecoins win where crypto UX loses, because they solve a problem users actually care about: moving value without making them think about the machinery underneath. That sounds simple, but it is the core issue. A lot of crypto products have been built around interesting technology first, and usable experience second... The result is often a system that works for experts, but still feels awkward for everyone else. Stablecoins are different. They are useful because they sit closer to the behavior people already understand. They can feel like money, move like money, and settle faster than traditional rails, without asking the user to become a crypto native. That matters because most users do not want to manage wallets, seed phrases, chains, bridges, gas, or technical jargon. They want speed, clarity, and confidence. If a product creates too much cognitive load, the underlying innovation does not matter. The user leaves before they ever benefit from it. Stablecoins succeed because they reduce that load. They make payments easier to reason about. They make transfers more predictable. They make cross-border movement cleaner. And they can be embedded into products in a way that feels operational rather than ideological. That is where crypto UX often loses. Not in the technology, but in the interface. Not in the ambition, but in the translation from protocol to product. The best stablecoin experiences do not advertise themselves as crypto. They behave like better financial infrastructure. They hide complexity, shorten the path to completion, and let users focus on the outcome instead of the mechanism. And that is the deeper lesson. In finance, the winning product is rarely the one with the most sophisticated back end. It is the one that turns that sophistication into something people can actually trust, use, and repeat. Stablecoins win where crypto UX loses because they make value movement feel normal. And in consumer products, normal is powerful. -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Today for "Everyday Money #2": -- One of the most useful things a fintech builder can understand is not just what people spend money on, but how their spending behavior changes across generations. Gen Z and Millennials both grew up with digital products, but they do not behave the same way. Their expectations around money, trust, convenience, and identity are different in ways that matter a lot for product design. Millennials came of age during the rise of smartphones, neobanks, subscriptions, and digital-first consumer habits. They are often more comfortable with structured financial tools, planning, and products that help them organize complexity. Many of them have already built routines around budgeting apps, payment apps, and account consolidation. Gen Z is different. They are even more fluid, more mobile, and more selective about the products they keep. They are less attached to traditional financial institutions, more sensitive to design and social proof, and often more willing to experiment with new tools, but also quicker to abandon anything that feels slow, opaque, or generic. That shift matters because spending is not only about income. It is about interface. It is about how people feel when they open an app, how quickly they get value, and whether the product fits into their real behavior instead of asking them to change it. For product teams, this creates a few important implications. First, the user journey has to feel lighter. Gen Z often responds better to products that are simple, visually clear, and immediate. They do not want to do extra work to understand the value. Second, trust has to be earned quickly. Both generations care about safety, but younger users are often more skeptical of institutions and more influenced by peer signals, transparency, and product experience. Third, financial products need to reflect how people actually live. That means supporting variable income, flexible spending, social payments, short planning cycles, and increasingly fragmented financial lives. There is also a deeper shift happening underneath all of this. Millennials often think in terms of optimization. Gen Z often thinks in terms of access, flexibility, and identity. One generation wants better tools. The other wants tools that feel native to how they already operate. That difference is easy to miss, but it can shape everything from onboarding to retention to monetization. If you build consumer finance products today, the question is no longer just how to serve “young users.” The question is which behaviors are changing, which expectations are becoming permanent, and which assumptions about money management are already outdated. Because the spending pattern shift is not just about age. It is a signal about what the next generation of financial products has to feel like in order to matter. -- The podcasts are authored, edited and produced by Raph Grieco (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠raphael-grieco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠olivecapital.vc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).