“The biggest businesses in the world, whether that be Google, Amazon, Apple, Shopify, have absolutely no interest in extending credit to their customers. They outsource it. It's hard and requires a lot of expertise. And they have core businesses to run.”
Business Breakdowns · Startups & Venture · October 2026
Asked what investors should learn from Affirm, Christie says he likes tech-native companies operating in non-tech industries. He argues Affirm's moat is combining serious underwriting talent with serious engineering talent, something he says can't be built with Claude Code.
Transcript
…through the history and study how the business self-healed through that process, I think you can get comfort on the credit. Not to say the share price won't get hurt if there's major interest rate hikes, but it's not an existential risk, I think, the way some people would otherwise think of it.
…like to close with a lesson for founders building a company today. And I think we kind of covered that today with HVF, do things that are hard, valuable, and fun. That's kind of Max's way. And so, maybe the last question can be for investors: what's the lesson from studying and investing in a firm?
…talent, but they've also got serious engineering talent. And so, you sort of merge all the best things about a tech company with all of the complexity of a real world operating business. And that gives you a competitive advantage that can't be built by Claude Code, frankly. And we could run through a list of businesses that we think fit in this category, but a firm is clearly one of them. The biggest businesses in the world, whether that be Google, Amazon, Apple, Shopify, have absolutely no interest in extending credit to their customers. They outsource it. It's hard and requires a lot of expertise. And they have core businesses to run. And so, a firm has been able to build its competitive advantage by marrying its tech talent and its underwriting talent. And that gives it a competitive advantage previously before AI became a huge factor. And we think a competitive advantage in this new environment.
Awesome. Fraser, thank you for your time. Awesome. Thanks for having me.
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