Name: Steve McLaughlin Built a Multi-Billion-Dollar Investment Bank and Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game
Uploaded: 2026-08-12T16:00:23+00:00
Duration: 4586 s

Speakers

Steve McLaughlin — Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners

Summary

Steve McLaughlin explains how he left Goldman Sachs at 32 to build FT Partners into a 250-person fintech-focused investment bank over 25 years. He discusses FT's deep-diligence model, founder-aligned incentives, and its own investments, including Revolut, Model ML, and Digital Asset Holdings. The conversation closes with a bullish long-term view on fintech, crypto/blockchain, real-world asset tokenization, and AI as the biggest disruptor to financial services.

Steve McLaughlin recounts leaving Goldman Sachs and founding FT Partners in 2002.
FT Partners differentiates through deep diligence, data science, and long-term founder relationships.
The firm structures incentives to give founders more upside when milestones are hit, including at Revolut.
FT invests its own capital in clients and fintech companies, including Revolut, Model ML, and Digital Asset Holdings.
Steve discusses what he looks for in founders, culture, and surviving downturns.
He sees fintech as a long-term share gainer within financial services.
He is bullish on crypto/blockchain, RWA tokenization, and AI, calling AI a bigger disruption than internet, mobile, or crypto.
He is cautious on legacy fintech incumbents and no-moat AI vertical solutions.

Ideas

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 5:37

Fintech remains a long-term secular grower.

Steve argues fintech is still only a single-digit percentage of financial services but is growing much faster than traditional financial services. New fintech waves keep regenerating the sector, so he expects it to remain a major long-term growth area and produce large companies over coming decades.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 6:06

Legacy fintech providers risk AI disruption.

Steve describes former core fintech providers like FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry, and PayPal as increasingly legacy, with management churn and slower innovation. He sees AI-native entrants taking share as incumbents fail to automate fast enough, making the legacy group vulnerable.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 23:13

Revolut can become multi-trillion-dollar fintech.

FT invested $50 million of its own money in Revolut, bought common stock from the founder, and built a 20-year model. Steve believes Revolut can become the first multi-trillion-dollar fintech company; later higher valuations validated the thesis.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 49:58

Model ML automates investment banking workflows.

FT invested $25 million in Model ML, which Steve views as the future of investment-banking automation, automating transcripts, models, decks, and other workflows. He sees it as an enabling AI company for FT's business.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 51:32

FT invested and re-upped in Digital Asset.

FT put money into Digital Asset Holdings before being hired, then got hired and re-upped in a large capital raise. Steve highlights this as putting its own money behind conviction and building a partnership with the company.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 69:32

Blockchain and crypto are massive secular waves.

Steve is a massive believer in blockchain and crypto, viewing crypto as part of fintech. He sees large long-term opportunity in moving money and assets globally and removing friction, a wave that has barely started.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 69:40

Positive on Bitcoin, but prefers RWA.

Steve says Bitcoin is great and FT loves Bitcoin, though his longer-term focus is more on the real-world asset and tokenization side of crypto.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 69:42

Tokenization is a massive, barely started wave.

Steve is a huge believer in real-world asset tokenization. He expects all kinds of assets to become buyable and sellable on the blockchain in infinitely divisible fractions, taking friction out of global asset movement; he thinks this wave has barely started.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 70:39

AI is the biggest fintech disruption.

Steve believes AI will be a bigger disruption to financial services than the internet, mobile, or crypto. Almost every fintech company he deals with is focused on AI, it is still early, and AI-native providers can automate back offices and take business from slow incumbents.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 72:46

Leading AI-first names are not bubbly.

Steve argues leading AI-first companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Open Evidence are not in a bubble, unlike me-too AI vertical solutions without data or network-effect moats. He sees durable value in the quality AI-first names.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 73:19

Cloudwalk is next favorite AI-native fintech.

Steve calls Cloudwalk his next favorite company outside Revolut. It is a Brazil-based, full-stack fintech that went all-in on AI, built its own fraud, payment, and ad stacks, improved margins, and is approaching $1 billion of EBITDA while going global.

Steve McLaughlin Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner, FT Partners 74:38

Ramp's AI push supports $40B valuation.

Steve says he likes the Ramp team and calls it a great business, noting Ramp has pushed AI into its platform and is now worth $40 billion. He uses it as an example of a non-AI-first company successfully becoming AI-native.

Steve McLaughlin Built a Multi-Billion-Dollar Investment Bank and Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game

Summary

Ideas

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