🧠 Brazil: The country of Fintech's Future

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Hey Fintech Nerds 👋

We got a Unicorn “exit” of sorts this week, when Nuvei went private for $6.3bn, we also have a profitable API-first bank that specializes in embedded banking in the UK with Clearbank that grew revenue 91% YoY.

The market shift to profitable and growing has happened. Despite that only 8% of W24 batch of YC companies were in Fintech, with a whopping 50% in AI. Lessons from the past bubble? Profitable growth solves everything.

Your Rant this week is by guest author Joel Rosenbaum. I originally had this queued for paternity, but it was so long and detailed that it needed a little longer. 

Here's this week's Brainfood in summary

📣 Rant: Brazil Fintech 101, 201 and 301.

💸 4 Fintech Companies:

1. Cache - Tax efficient stock diversification

2. Lago - Open Source "Stripe Billing"

3. Altura - Proposal management SaaS 

4. Zone - The licensed Blockchain payments network for Nigeria

👀 Things to Know:

1. Nuvei to be acquired for $6.3bn

2. UK API-first digital bank Clearbank posts full year profit

📚 Good Read: Why polarity pays 

Weekly Rant 📣

Brazil Fintech 101.

Intro by Simon Taylor, main text by Joel Rosenbaum.

Winning at Fintech in Brazil feels like an unfair fight. The incumbents are poor, interest rates are high, and the need for something actually good is astonishing. But as he'd say, things are never really that simple.

Nubank just passed 100m users and is on track to be the world's most profitable bank. Indeed, winning at Fintech in Brazil, is winning at financial services globally.

Brazil is the world's most vibrant and challenging fintech market. It is

• Home to the benchmark consumer fintech company, Nubank. 

• The benchmark in real-time payments with Pix 

• A top 10 global economy. 

Brazil is a cheat code. I always used to say doing business in the U.S. felt like that after working in Europe, but Brazil is like that x 10. People want to do business, and the need is great, but so is the opportunity.

Brazil is the B in BRICs and is growing into a globally competitive world, positioned geographically closer to the U.S., but internationally, it has options. After decades of being the country of the future that never quite made it, is Fintech the thing that will carry it there? 

Maybe.

This country has complex labor laws, heavy taxation, and currency controls that make trading across borders challenging. 

If Brazil can repeat its domestic fintech successes on the international stage, then perhaps we'll all benefit. 

1. Macro context:

• Brazil's economic history

• Inflation, stability, incomes

• During the 2008 global financial crisis in Brazil, it was a boom time, not a crisis. 

• The population, demographics, and geopolitics (The B in BRICs)

2. Fintech history and the new titans

• Nubank as a case study

• Creditas

• Other flagship players

• Redi Redi

3. Fintech present

• National infrastructure (Pix, central banking)

• Brazil's Central Bank is unique

• Regulators are young and cooperative

• Currency controls add taxation and complexity

• Payments and open banking regulation

• BaaS, bank partners and processors

• Upcoming regs

4. Consequences

• Pix means no payments revenue?

• Where is big tech in this conversation?

• What about the incumbents? 

5. Opportunities

• B2B?

• Cross border?

• Trade finance?

6. Summary

1. Macro: Rough seas make great sailors

a) Economic History. Like many European colonies, Brazil's economy was focused on agriculture and natural resource extraction, such as sugar, hardwood, coffee, beef and beef by-products (e.g., leather), precious metals and minerals, and, more recently, soybeans. 

In the 20th Century, Brazil largely adopted an import substitution industrialization policy that placed a heavy tax burden on businesses and consumers alike (in the final years of the USSR, the USSR typically had higher involvement in global trade than Brazil). The impact of this policy still shapes Brazil, but today, many factories and major multinational companies operate in Brazil.

b) Inflation, [in]stability, incomes. Brazil has faced substantial political instability, often confronting competing pressures from left and right with their respective foreign supporters. Facing inflation, from 1967 through 1994, Brazil had 8 different currencies.

Per capita gross national income in Brazil has risen substantially over the past 40 years; however, when expressed in dollars, it also shows some significant dips, namely because Brazil's currency has dropped against the dollar.

Source: Macrotrends.net, citing World Bank data.

• Inflation. Historically, inflation has been a problem exacerbated by the 70s energy crisis, with inflation hitting 100% during some periods. Foreign debt also ballooned, creating other economic problems.

• Interest rates. Historically, local interest rates have been high. Goods have been expensive, largely because of the taxes.

• Incomes. Over time, incomes have risen, as has home ownership. Despite ongoing challenges, Brazil turned a corner in the first decade of the new millennium in terms of consumer purchasing power and standard of living in much of the country.

c) 2008 was a boom time, not a crisis. Brazil's Real approached parity with the dollar, and Brazilian companies had real purchasing power for M&A and international expansion. Several Brazilian banks bought the foreign portfolios of competitors, including U.S. banks.

Interest rates remained high, and banks could regularly go to public debt markets for financing and were strong across various verticals, e.g., retail and commercial, investment banking, wealth management, and payments. Brazil had several large and profitable banks, but it still excluded many consumers.

d) The population, demographics, and geopolitics (The B in BRICs) With over 200m inhabitants, the median age in Brazil has consistently risen; it's just under 34. The population is exceptionally diverse in ethnic background and income levels. There are areas where poverty reigns, alongside regions that are among the most privileged on earth. Some Brazilians may rely on propane gas and a small generator as the only power sources in their houses. In contrast, others go to schools with quality education and amenities that rival (or exceed) the top private schools in the U.S. and Europe.

Geopolitically, Brazil has played a balancing act between various powers. It has felt increasing competition for influence between the U.S. and China and plays this to its advantage. 

e) Crime and Security. Foreign perception is not reality. Crime and personal security are real issues, and as with most places, the situation worsens during economic downturns. At different points in their lives, most of my Brazilian friends have been crime victims. Sometimes the incidents are severe, like organized gangs holding entire apartment buildings hostage, while other incidents seem like normal big city crime, such as an assailant demanding a cell phone on the street.

Personal security concerns have helped drive mobile and e-commerce channels and strong anti-fraud and information security protocols.

2. Fintech History and the New Titans

a) Nubank. I split Fintech in Brazil into B.N. (Before Nubank) and AN (After Nubank). Before Nubank, it was hard to build credit; the banking sector was highly concentrated with a limited focus on mobile. Fintech services were poor by global standards, as incumbents led innovation.

• Hard to build credit: Until the law changed fairly recently in Brazil, it used to be illegal to have any kind of positive credit record-keeping or scoring. In other words, negative credit records could be kept, but there was no way to build credit. As a result, it was very hard to underwrite a consumer without being the consumer's primary retail bank.

• Concentration among a few big names: Brazil's banked population was spread among a handful of institutions, which rigidly segmented customers by status even within the same bank (i.e., literally had different branches and ATMs in some cases, much like different classes of airline service).

• Strong desktop digital, but not the same focus on mobile:  Consistent with Brazil's digital focus, its banks offered strong digital banking platforms, but they favored those who have personal computers. Between 2012-2014, the number of smartphones in Brazil exploded, and there was a significant portion of the population with smartphones who perhaps did not have a computer.

• High interest rates for borrowers: A lack of competition allowed interest rates to remain even higher than what the market justified.

After NuBank: You can't talk about Fintech and Brazil without talking about Nubank. As Simon wrote recently: 

Simon's always called Brazil a "cheatcode": With A 200m population and limited local competition, Nubank, when founded, had a massive home-field advantage. But it's not like they're the only bank or fintech company operating there today or the only Brazilian Fintech that has gone big (e.g., Dock, Creditas, C6 Bank, Neon, among others).

The historic lack of competition is not a sign that it is easier to make a splash in Brazil, but rather that it is much harder to build a company in Brazil from zero.

Why NuBank's model has been successful:

• Understanding tech-facilitated underwriting: NuBank understood that new tech models could allow a bank to better model and predict customer behavior and offer financial products that made sense for them.

• Mobile retail banking: There was a need for greater financial inclusion and a real need for basic retail banking precisely because the banking system was not historically egalitarian.

• Single platform: All products use the same tech and operating model and benefit from modern machine learning and software engineering techniques.

• Cautious expansion: NuBank did not try to conquer the world or even all of Latin America. NuBank has had cautious expansion into markets that have the same need.

👉 Takeaway: NuBank exemplifies the Brazilian approach to Fintech: Success is using digital channels to meet widespread needs. We see the same approach with other successful Brazilian start-ups, such as QuintoAndar (proptech) or Dock (cards/core banking as a service).

b) Creditas (consumer lending marketplace). Creditas was born out of the same environment as NuBank. It is now a unicorn a few times over and even announced its purchase of a bank in Brazil. When Creditas started, most consumer finance came with sky-high interest rates for everyone except those who would never need the financing. The market also lacked solid data for underwriting (until a recent law change).

What Creditas did

• Solved the underwriting challenge: Creditas looked to underwrite customers based on three different factors that could secure the debt: home ownership, car ownership, and regular salaries and paychecks.

• Tapped an underutilized network of smaller banks: 80% of Brazil's banked population was concentrated in 5-6 large institutions, and the inability to effectively underwrite non-customers meant that there was capacity at smaller and mid-size banks that would never directly lend to the customers.

• Created a digital marketplace with a good UX:  Creditas would pre-underwrite customers and allow its tech to be the matchmaker.

• Compare:  In the U.S. and Europe, it is unlikely that we would see HELOCs, title lending, and long-term income-secured loans all being made out of the same marketplace. Yes, there are some regulatory differences, but a marketplace does not have to be a lender; appropriate lenders can be matched across a marketplace.

👉 Takeaway: Creditas combined different lending channels in the same marketplace, which enhanced opportunities for borrowers and lenders alike, and created a new lower-rate market. 

c) Other Flagship Players: There are many other flagship fintech companies (i.e., unicorns) that have similarly impressive stories, such as Dock (BaaS/cards), C6 Bank, and EBanx (payments), each one with its own place in the market and some with international reach. In other sectors, Brazil has additional unicorns, many of which are comparable to solutions in mature markets, such as QunitoAndar or Loft (proptech/real estate listing), MadeiraMadeira (a next generation/digital Ikea), Wildlife Studios (gaming) or Flash (H.R./benefits management).

d) RediRedi (payments/ecommerce). RediRedi is a very young start-up, but it exemplifies the innovative Fintech thinking in Brazil. It is included here, even though it is a "newbie" compared to the flagship companies covered above.

RediRedi enables merchants to grow sales and focus on their business by simplifying the process of selling across multiple channels and marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, MercadoLivre) and managing everything from a single dashboard.

Wha RediRedi did

• Offering the hard marketplace integrations first: RediRedi started with the most complicated integrations but also those most useful to merchants. They went right for the major marketplaces, where the lion's share of e-commerce occurs. 

• Making those integrations simple: Merchants can register their products and generate SEO-vetted descriptions just by entering the SKU/barcode. Relying on the SKU/barcode also means the service helps with inventory management.

• Building a platform: RediRedi can add more functionalities and value-added services (e.g., embedded inventory finance/working capital lending for merchants, shipping solutions) as a platform.

👉 Takeaway: RediRedi lives up to the saying, "Go big, or go home" and represents another aspect of Brazilian Fintech: Companies are built to succeed (or fail).  

3. Fintech Present: Infrastructure and Regulation

a) National infrastructure (PIX, central banking) Pix uses a "handle" – similar to how Zelle can work with a cellphone number – giving users a human-friendly unique identifier. This eliminates the need to have all the banking details to send a bank transfer. This is mobile-based for retail users without needing PoS systems, cards, etc. Users need an account at an approved provider, a bank, and a fintech with the right "payments institution" license to be connected to the national payments system. Payments are instant and 24/7

No fees for retail customers and low fees for business users. For businesses accepting payments, costs are only a fraction of what they are for credit/debit card payments.

b) Brazil's Central Bank is unique

1. It is an innovator, leading change rather than responding to global events. The head of the Central Bank has already foreseen the end of credit cards.

2. It has used technology to a level that few other central banks achieved to create visibility into nearly every non-cash money movement in the country.

3. The Central Bank sees its innovation as almost like that of a tech company. For instance, the Central Bank Chief has suggested expanding PIX across Latin America.

c) Regulators are young and cooperative. Brazil's top regulatory body for the financial sector is the National Monetary Council, which is under the Central Bank and the CVM (the Brazilian SEC/securities regulator). Brazilian agencies cooperate, and leaders are young and often have impressive business backgrounds and international experience.

d) Currency controls and taxation add complexity. Brazil has a tax on financial transactions that applies to foreign exchange. The "IOF" tax also applies to other financial transactions, including lending, investments, securities, and insurance. IOF most typically affects consumers and Fintech on two fronts: credit cards and foreign exchange transactions.  

For consumer goods, and particularly tech. that powers fintech (e.g., smartphones and computers), the taxes drastically increase prices. Multiple taxes can be applied to the same circumstance; in some cases, one tax may even be imputed into the taxable base to be paid. Brazil has a plan to reduce the IOF rate to 0% on many transactions related to foreign currency and money transfers by 2029. 

Brazil requires prices and cash transactions to be in Reais, so foreign currency cannot be spent in the way one might find in Argentina or in border regions between the U.S. and Mexico. While Brazil is currently working on potential tax reform, it has historically had one of the most complicated tax systems in the world—related to its history of import substitution industrialization. 

e) Payments and open banking regulation. For payments, Brazil has both bank licenses and "instituição de pagamentos" (P.I.s), which can initiate and process payments, issue cards, and serve as on and off-ramps for various services. There are some other licenses for forex-only banks and other services. Brazil also adopted an open banking regulation, which is similar to PSD2 in Europe but arguably more efficient and has more mandatory elements. 

f) BaaS, bank partners and processors. The traditional banking partner model remains more common than BaaS, and in many cases, the smaller banks in Brazil serve as partners. The larger players have such market share that they often lack the motivation to work with fintechs. There are exceptions (e.g., Itaú-Unibanco and Liqi–related to digital assets).

Brazil's "Coke and Pepsi" of processing/transmitting, acquiring, PoS, and the like are Cielo and Rede (a/k/a RedeCard). Cielo is publicly traded, while Rede is now part of Itaú-Unibanco. In 2015, these two giants controlled around 90% of credit card payments. By 2020, this percentage had dropped to about 72%. This is due to more competition from fintech platforms and is a classic example where there can be tremendous growth, but the dominant players are still orders of magnitude higher than the rest. For reference, in 2022, Brazil had nearly 13 billion card transactions.

g) Upcoming regs. The planned IOF reductions to a 0% tax rate on several foreign-currency/transfer-related transactions will also change the landscape and allow typical fintech business lines to compete without that additional cost affecting their business. Brazil already passed its primary crypto law at the end of 2022, beginning the period in which regulations will be issued to give that law meaning, with the Central Bank taking the lead. The CVM (securities regulator) also has suggested openness to tokenization. 

 4. Consequences for Operators

a) PIX means no payment revenue. Pix is a public good that should increase the volume of payments more than the revenue loss from higher toll-based pricing for local market players. The private sector loses revenue, and a big part of that loss falls on foreign companies (e.g., global card networks), so PIX is also a political win for Brazil.

Does this hurt Fintech? The argument goes that reducing the friction of payments means that Brazil is a more attractive market to experiment and bring new approaches to Fintech, which brings more investment to Fintech.  

🔮 Prediction: PIX will be copied regionally. Argentina has already deployed its own domestic QR-based payment system, as settling with the card networks also puts pressure on central bank dollar reserves. Many countries believe that the dominant payment systems send a lot of money each year to U.S.-based companies.  

b) Where is big tech in this conversation? Brazil, like India, has succeeded in using strong national infrastructure (Pix) and regulation to ensure Big Tech plays by its rules. Big Tech has witnessed Facebook's (now Meta's) repeated conflicts with Brazil over Whatsapp, resulting in court-ordered temporary suspensions of Whatsapp in Brazil and subsequent Whatsapp payments before it was allowed to operate. 

c) What about the incumbents? Incumbents are in an odd position; even where they have lost ground, they still are in an extremely strong position. Some incumbents are also heavily involved in innovation. Itaú-Unibanco, for instance, is one of the top banks globally in the digital assets space, looking at retail opportunities and capital markets.

Stratification in Brazilian society may also be part of the explanation. Many of NuBank's original customers were not necessarily taken away from incumbents but rather those that NuBank brought into the system. The same is true for many fintech payment players that provide their customers with de facto bank accounts. 

Brazil has transformed over the past twenty years, with more access to financial services for lower-income consumers. In other words, incumbents haven't lost, but Fintech has won the growth.

 5. Opportunities

a) B2B is just getting started. B2B has been a powerhouse of the U.S. Fintech ecosystem, driving more deposits and profit and moving into lending. RediRedi is an example of B2B services that will grow as platforms will be able to embed services for businesses the way many other companies do today for consumers. Looplex* is an excellent example of a B2B service (law tech) solving a problem that helps businesses move more quickly and reduce costs–where a machine learning/A.I. approach was developed nearly 10 years ago. These "finance adjacent" opportunities are an opportunity to drive a wedge into Brazil's B2B market.

b) Cross-border will explode when IOF goes to zero. Brazilians enjoy buying things abroad, where prices are better because of Brazil's tax issue. Brazilian businesses, too, are major import/export players. Brazil is not a major remittance destination. There are some flows from the U.S., as well as from Spain and Portugal, but they are nothing like the U.S.-Mexico corridor or remittances to Central America or India. 

🔮 Prediction: There are cross-border opportunities, but the lion's share will be Brazil's domestic market of over 200 million consumers.

c) Trade Finance. The real action will be trade with India. India and Brazil have many cooperation agreements, and each country sells the other billions of dollars in imports annually. Both economies are market economies, with a substantial role for private sector players and modern domestic payment infrastructure, and both nations have been active in the "Global South" movement.

👀 6. Summary

Brazil was a giant consumer market but with a catch: Complexity.

Brazil is now the Fintech innovator and case study.

The historically high taxes and "country of tomorrow" narrative mask a transforming country. 

Brazil's recipe for success is world-class payment infrastructure, wide-ranging open banking regulations, and a young, thoughtful set of regulatory agencies.

Brazilian entrepreneurs and innovators are amazing. Their constraints led them to create solutions from which the world is now learning.

Brazil is leading the way with instant payments and digital assets, two of the most important aspects of Fintech. 

With 17 unicorns, Brazil is a powerhouse of Fintech and is just getting started.

JR.

4 Fintech Companies 💸

1. Cache - Maximize the utility of your company stock 

Cache allows holders of concentrated stock positions (e.g., $1m in META or APPL) to exchange their stock for a share of a diversified fund without tax implications. They also allow users to lend out their stocks via brokerage for a 60% revenue share and borrow against their stock for mortgages. The service is available to any accredited investor ($200k+ salary or $1m+ assets aside from primary residence).

🧠 This is ideal for the paper-wealthy, cash-poor millennials who can't afford a property in high-priced areas. The population earning over $200k with a good chunk of equity they're just sitting on is substantial. Traditional wealth banks didn't serve this segment, but the Cache is disrupting that with lower-cost, tech-driven distribution. It's very well put together. 

2. Lago - Open Source "Stripe Billing"

Lago provides metering and usage-based billing for companies like Mistral.ai. It pulls in multiple data sources and handles billing schedules, currencies, and pricing based on a range of variables like percentages, volume tiers etc. 

🧠 Unbundling Stripe is the new thing. Developer-first control is a huge theme. Billing is a problem that seems to be solved but isn't. Your choice is to do everything with Stripe or build 80% yourself. Complex billing is 100% build yourself. This is especially important as companies look to go multi-PSP later in life. This is also the first time I've seen a Fintech Devcon talk used in marketing (which is awesome). 

The team are early hires at Qonto; the founder was the first employee and V.P. of growth. The open-source solution is feature-limited, but for most small businesses, it would help them get started and maintain control over their billing engine. 

3. Altura - Proposal management SaaS 

Altura helps teams win more bids by forecasting when RFPs are issued (based on previous cycles), creating a single view of all bids, and providing bid win/loss analytics. Companies can avoid RFPs they're unlikely to win and identify competitor weaknesses and relative strengths. 

🧠 Arguably, this is revenue ops more than Fintech, but go with me here. Most Fintech companies are trying to sell to enterprises, and RFPs come with the territory. Developing that without a large revenue ops team is challenging. I'm surprised this isn't a category or a thing. It feels like it should be a feature for Gong. 

4. Zone - The licensed Blockchain payments network for Nigeria

The zone is a payment service with direct access to the Nigerian Central Bank. It is expanding into ATMs and POS systems. Fintech companies can use Zone as a gateway to any bank or payments endpoint. The service also provides instant settlement and reconciliation, increasing payment reliability. 

🧠 I've never seen a Layer 1 Blockchain network lean this hard into being regulated before. This is compelling for cross-border remittance, e-commerce, and payroll companies. Reliability is the #1 issue in payments across the continent, and being regulated and being a blockchain potentially helps solve that.

Things to know 👀

1. Nuvei to be acquired for $6.3bn

Canadian payments company Nuvei will be taken private in an all cash transaction led by Advent International, a premium of 56% of its price on the NASDAQ at market close. The company reported US$1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 on a total processed volume (TPV) of $200bn. Philip Fayer will continue to lead Nuvei as Chair and Chief Executive Officer. Nuvei founded in 2003 operates in 200 markets, does local acquiring in 50, and supports 680 payment methods.

🧠 6x revenue doesn’t immediately feel huge. When you compare this to the ZIRP phenomena and multiple payments that Fintech companies were getting, it feels “small.” But to be fair, it’s closer to the long-term mean. It makes you wonder what Stripe would IPO at (although I doubt they ever will at this rate).

🧠 This is about being able to invest in growth rather than share price growth. Nuvei has been the quiet innovator while everyone focussed on Adyen or Stripe. In true Canadian style, they’ve consistently grown and delivered a modern set of platforms and capabilities.

🧠 I worry about them moving into their M&A era. Nuvei has been successful at acquiring in the past, but with PE backing will they maintain that? Acquisitions drive revenue growth, but it’s also how companies gradually become in-efficient and slow. If they can keep bringing everything into a single platform they could create an interesting new chapter. The fact that they’re keeping the existing management team says to me, they might just pull it off and the new investor believes in the leadership.

🧠 I’m just gonna leave this here.

2. UK API-first digital bank Clearbank posts full year profit

Clearbank is a digital only bank in the UK focussed on payments and deposits. It does not offer direct consumer or business accounts. Customers like Coinbase, Tide, Alica Bank and Raisin have helped drive it to a full year profit of £18.4m ($23.3m) after a 91% YoY revenue increase to £111m( $140m). The company says they have benefitted from rising interest rates and customers diversifying deposits after the collapse of SVB’s UK arm.

🧠 BaaS in the UK is being driven by banks with APIs. Clearbank can help its non bank clients (like Chip and Raisin, savings focussed apps), pay high APR yield to its customers, and give FSCS protection (think FDIC US readers).

🧠 Clearbank has been around for a while but seems to have got its act together. After starting strong, Clearbank lost its way in the late 2010s emulating many of the big banks and going after a similar correspondent banking go-to-market. The pivot to focussing on embedded banking is a niche that it has started to win.

🧠 Rates will come down. The Bank of England is signalling rates may come down this year (a bit like the Fed), so those sweet deposit yields won’t be quite as sweet. Although today, Clearbank does pass most of that back to their clients. This is a business that runs lean and a model for the future of BaaS.

🧠 Competition is coming, but Clearbank has a head start. Griffin just got its Series A and full banking licence and competes directly with Clearbank. Natwest Boxed is attempting to do more embedded banking. My read is the big banks will play for big retail, new entrants like Griffin will play for smaller companies. Clearbank’s sweet spot is that middle ground of companies like Tide, who bank around 10% of all SMBs in the UK or Alica the fastest growing company in the UK.

Good Reads 📚

1. Why polarity pays 

As a tech (or Fintech) writer, you must be either hopelessly optimistic or brutally pessimistic to get clicks. That's how the online game is played. 

🧠 I may delude myself into thinking I offer balance to you, dear reader. But often find the reward of the clickbaity titles (like Embedded Finance in Crisis or BNPL is Good; I will die on this hill) create such an avalanche that it is hard to ignore. 

🧠 Remember everything you read; even this sentence is colored by bias, some conscious, some unconscious. That's why my disclosure section is getting longer with each passing year. I'm giving you my take, attempting to be balanced but not a trained journalist. If you get value from it, awesome. If the clickbait annoys you, sorry. But I'm just a boy sitting in front of a keyboard tryin' to make sense of Fintech.

That's all, folks. 👋

Remember, if you're enjoying this content, please do tell all your fintech friends to check it out and hit the subscribe button :)

(1) All content and views expressed here are the authors' personal opinions and do not reflect the views of any of their employers or employees. 

(2) All companies or assets mentioned by the author in which the author has a personal and/or financial interest are denoted with a *. None of the above constitutes investment advice, and you should seek independent advice before making any investment decisions.

(3) Any companies mentioned are top of mind and used for illustrative purposes only. 

(4) A team of researchers has not rigorously fact-checked this. Please don't take it as gospel—strong opinions weakly held 

(5) Citations may be missing, and I've done my best to cite, but I will always aim to update and correct the live version where possible. If I cited you and got the referencing wrong, please reach out