Happy Tuesday.
The current thing in tech and business is Erebor bank deposits reach $7B+.
Today’s LineupRockefeller Capital Management President & CEO Greg Fleming at 12:00 PM
General Medicine Co-Founder & CEO TJ Parker at 12:15 PM
Melius Co-Founder & CEO Joowon Kim at 12:35 PM
National Christmas Tree Association Executive Director Rick Dungey at 12:45 PM
Figma Co-Founder & CEO Dylan Field at 1:00 PM
Vinci Co-Founder & CEO Hardik Kabaria at 1:20 PM
Erebor Passes $7B in Deposits
Exciting news from the Financial Times today for Palmer Luckey’s Erebor. The bank just passed $7B in deposits just eight months after launching back in February. Over the last quarter, they’ve added more than 500 customers and $3B+ in deposits, according to sources close to FT. Remember, it was just a couple months ago when Erebor announced $4B of deposits.
What’s interesting is how little of that money Erebor is actually lending out so far. At the end of Q2 Erebor made around $78M in loans and was keeping about 90% of its assets in cash at other banks.
Whenever there’s news around Erebor, I’m reminded of Palmer’s appearance on the show earlier this year, because I think it gets at what the bank is actually trying to be.
“Erebor is a bank for Americans”, “It’s a bank for startups”, “It’s a bank for the crypto industry.”
I think Palmer puts all those pieces into a much cleaner framework here:
Clip Spotlight: Bryan Johnson says peptides are a psychological phenomenon.Think of it as the opposite of HSBC. They were banking the cartels, desperately trying to avoid government interventions that would make that clear to the public markets. Put Erebor at the other end of that spectrum.
There are a lot of banks that — whether they are good or bad people is irrelevant — you might have good people who nonetheless are very beholden to European markets, Chinese markets, other foreign markets that they need to keep happy. Either because they want to keep them happy to make money, or because they don’t want their executives in those jurisdictions to get arrested.
Erebor is taking a very different approach. We’re an American company, we’re an American bank that supports American companies, and we will comply with US law, but we will not comply with spurious rulings from people who have no real jurisdiction or authority over us. And you’ll have a very hard time finding a bank that takes that position. I’m not aware of any other than us.
“I think the enthusiasm around peptides far exceeds the evidence and the potential benefits.”
“People would be much better off getting a dose of growth hormone by going to bed on time.”
WSJ: A Data-Center Crunch is Coming
Semafor: Exclusive / CEO’s podcast sparks tensions atop The Atlantic
WSJ: A Viewer’s Guide to Warren Buffett’s Nightly Trips Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole
FT: Insurance claims to test Altman and Amodei liability for ‘rogue’ AI
Bloomberg: Uber to Buy EzCater for $2.3 Billion in Enterprise Push
WSJ: Hackers Use Chinese AI Tool to Hit South Korean Banks, Exposing New Risk
Will Manidis: Asset Light Software
WSJ: France’s Appetite for ‘Magic Money’ Has Turned Into a Debt Bomb
Ramp: Businesses are changing AI model providers more often
WSJ: Former German Spy Chief Arrested on Suspicion of Espionage
Kevin Roose: The Essay That Started the AI Race
WSJ: The Popular Jeweler That Got Caught in a Whirlwind When Gold Went Haywire
The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Artificial’ Took on a Big Tech Giant. Hollywood Wasn’t Ready
Posts of the DaySpecial thanks to our sponsors: Ramp, Shopify, CrowdStrike, MongoDB, NYSE, Codex, Public, Console, Railway, Figma, and Cisco.