Sankaet Pathak, Founder & CEO Synapse completed a Master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Memphis, where he previously majored in computer engineering, physics and mathematics. A scientist at heart, much of Pathak’s academic work was focused on physics and research related to the solar corona. As a student at the University of Memphis and a recent immigrant to the USA, Sankaet Pathak needed to open a bank account. He was surprised to learn that wasn’t an easy task. Sankaet knew he had to develop a better option not only for himself but for the over 20% of adults in the USA with poor or limited credit history. Sankaet founded Synapse with an eye toward offering a viable alternative to legacy banking systems, while providing operational simplicity, efficiency & ease of integration to perform virtually any banking interaction. Sankaet is launching an AI startup soon called Foundation.
Sankaet Pathak, Founder & CEO Synapse completed a Master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Memphis, where he previously majored in computer engineering, physics and mathematics. A scientist at heart, much of Pathak’s academic work was focused on physics and research related to the solar corona. As a student at the University of Memphis and a recent immigrant to the USA, Sankaet Pathak needed to open a bank account. He was surprised to learn that wasn’t an easy task. Sankaet knew he had to develop a better option not only for himself but for the over 20% of adults in the USA with poor or limited credit history. Sankaet founded Synapse with an eye toward offering a viable alternative to legacy banking systems, while providing operational simplicity, efficiency & ease of integration to perform virtually any banking interaction. Sankaet is launching an AI startup soon called Foundation. Foundation is developing the future of general purpose robotics with the goal to address the labor shortage. Foundation’s mission is to create advanced robots that can operate in complex environments, reducing human risk in conflict zones and enhancing efficiency in labor-intensive industries.
Sankaet Pathak, Founder & CEO Synapse completed a Master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Memphis, where he previously majored in computer engineering, physics and mathematics. A scientist at heart, much of Pathak’s academic work was focused on physics and research related to the solar corona. As a student at the University of Memphis and a recent immigrant to the USA, Sankaet Pathak needed to open a bank account. He was surprised to learn that wasn’t an easy task. Sankaet knew he had to develop a better option not only for himself but for the over 20% of adults in the USA with poor or limited credit history. Sankaet founded Synapse with an eye toward offering a viable alternative to legacy banking systems, while providing operational simplicity, efficiency & ease of integration to perform virtually any banking interaction. Sankaet is launching an AI startup soon called Foundation. Foundation is developing the future of general purpose robotics with the goal to address the labor shortage. Foundation’s mission is to create advanced robots that can operate in complex environments, reducing human risk in conflict zones and enhancing efficiency in labor-intensive industries.
Transcription
Pemo: Welcome Sankeat, it’s a while since we’ve talked May 2017, quite a few years really, and obviously we’ve all learnt lots of stuff about FinTech in the interim. I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about Synapse, which is obviously what you were involved in when we first met, quite a few years ago. Any lessons learned for for other FinTech companies? What were the issues? What were the problems? Because I know you were working with the banks. I was with Evolve and Trust, so I got notified but didn’t have any problems, but I got notifications.
Sankaet: Yeah.
Pemo: So over to you.
Sankaet: Yeah Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think there are learnings that probably are helpful, generally as an entrepreneur, and obviously there are learnings that I think are helpful that specifically apply to fintech. So leaning on the latter one, I think the biggest thing is, it’s becoming increasingly clear that whichever bank you end up partnering with needs to be very tech forward and tech capable. There are not a lot of banks like that that exist today. So something needs to change in our current ecosystem where we don’t just have these old community banks, with really bad software, trying to do these things at scale and then fumbling and messing up.
Pemo: Mm.
Sankaet: I think there are more? Like you need more banks like Column. So banks that are kind of built from ground up with modern technology. So my biggest advice to anyone who’s wanting to do something in FinTech is swallow the painful pill and probably think of doing a bank versus anything else. Because right now the biggest barrier is technology enabled from the ground up at scale bank, which does not exist because even Column is relatively small compared to something like Chase, right? So i think I think that’s kind of the bigger lesson on the fintech side.
Pemo: Right.
Sankaet: Then generally on the business side, I think it’s not a good idea to build a company that is so highly reliant on one or two partners, right? So you want to be able to control your own destiny.
Pemo: Ah.
Sankaet: So I’d like vertically integrated more, which I was trying to do. I was trying to get a bank charter as well. But I think that’s like the biggest lesson which I’ve taken away and coming into Foundation. I pretty much want to make sure that our destiny is in our control and in our execution and doesn’t rely on the whims of the third party that can at any point, either have issues going with them or change their mind? But that piece probably is most crucial and there are a bunch of other lessons, around like how to build teams, how to scale them, how to keep things going super fast, what’s the culture? But that wasn’t really why Synapse died, Synapse died because of the Evolve issue. I think Synapse would have eventually died if I did not solve those issues as well, or at least completely slowed down. So I think there are a lot of lessons in how to build a team and not having the team be too top-heavy, etc., that I’ve taken away and lean super heavily on product and image engineering, which I’ve also taken away. But those are the overall lessons that I have learnt.
Pemo: And so your summary is that with FinTech really looking at NeoBanks rather than reliant on the incumbents? Is is that one of your suggestions?
Sankaet: I think there needs to be more tech-first, tech-forward banks in the ecosystem, and there are not enough tech-forward banks in the ecosystem.
Pemo: Yeah.
Sankaet: That’s the bigger issue. I also think long-term, given the experience with Evolve and people’s money getting stuck, I am of the mindset that the right outcome for a deposit account is a multi-sig stablecoin wallet. So you have a key and then the bank has a key and you can go and independently verify how much money sits in your wallet at any given minute and you have to authorize and approve transactions along with the bank. I think that’s probably going to be like the future state? That probably won’t happen in the next five, six years, but I think it will happen eventually.
Pemo: Right.
Sankaet: But right now, especially with the administration changing, there’s going to be some easing on being able to buy Bank Charters. And I think more people need to do that and build more technology forward banks from the ground up.
Pemo: Right. And I know that you were talking last time, we spoke many years ago about the blockchain. Was Synapse built on the blockchain?
Sankaet: No, we didn’t we we did on-ramp, off-ramp stuff on the blockchain, but we never really custodied any of the crypto ourselves and ended up not doing a whole lot in blockchain.
Pemo: Right, okay. And so now that you’re about to launch Foundation. Do you want to talk a bit about that and how you’re building that?
Sankaet: Yeah, so a step back in why I got into Synapse was because I was in college, like super obsessed and focused on computer vision. And I saw computer vision as a way to be able to automate the back office of a bank. And that’s how really Synapse started.
Pemo: OK.
Sankaet: So now when I was thinking of kind of like making a change, I wanted to kind of go back to what I did more in college, which was electrical, mechanical, and computer vision. So I decided that based on all the technology advancements in the last like five to six years, now it’s feasible for the first time to be able to build. And real world artificial intelligence that is able to navigate and essentially manipulate in the real world. So decided to start Foundation solely for that purpose, which is we want to be able to track the code on generally useful robots, which is essentially generally useful AI in the real world. And initially take that technology and focus on factories and warehouses and a bunch of automation there. I’m generally concerned about the plummeting birth rates in the next 30 years. We will have less people in in the labor workforce than we even have today. And we already have a labor shortage. So this could be a big, big civilizational, existential risk where things get really expensive and it’s very hard to manufacture anything.
Pemo: Right.
Sankaet: So that needs to be mitigated. So the primary so the primary objective is we want to be able to automate all of the manufacturing GDP in next 30 years. um The long-term goal for Foundation is I want to build foundation as a company that builds technologies that makes like humanity self sustainable. So ah um humanoid robots is a big component of that in defense, in um manufacturing logistics, ah getting a bunch of work done that does not endanger human lives. So I see this as also the path of probably going to Mars and beyond, because that’s the only way of sending humans to Mars and expecting them to essentially construct the entire ecosystem. So over time, as we execute and succeed more on the humanoid that we’re currently working on, and we probably work on some other products with the lens of those products we need to make it a reality for humanity to pretty much move anywhere and be self-sustainable and we’ll kind of accelerate and build technologies to make that happen.
Pemo: Wow, it sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate? Looking forward to hearing all about it? And it also sounds like you’ve obviously stepped out of the fintech arena with this focus, is that correct?
Sankaet: Yeah, I think so
Sankaet: Yeah, I just want to work on things that I think are… most likely to impact the future for humanity for good.
Pemo: Right.
Sankaet: And just like I started what I work on through that lens. If it does not accelerate humanity to be like like a type one civilization,? I would not work on it. So in the current framework and reference, I don’t think anything I can do in FinTech accelerates humanity to being a type one civilization. So I’m probably not going to do FinTech any time soon.
Pemo: No problems. But I guess everything that you’ve learned through Synapse and the wins and the losses hopefully will embolden other FinTech startups or founders to learn from.
Sankaet: Yeah, I hope. I hope that happens.
Pemo: Yeah. Yeah.
Sankaet: Yeah, I do think there are some pretty key and crucial learnings in the mix. And I think, I hope once it does, that this ends up being a good learning experience for everybody.
Pemo: Yeah. Well, wow. You’ve certainly got a great vision there of transformation and innovation with Foundation, and I wish you all the best with it. I hope that those lessons you’ve learned through Synapse, obviously, you won’t have moving forward with this startup, and you’ll be able to just do the creative work, rather than get caught up in the all the regulations and issues with other companies or banks. Yeah.
Sankaet: Yeah thank you I appreciate that. Yeah, I think we’ll probably have some stuff to show early next year, so January February timeframe.
Pemo: OK, well, its fabulous to reconnect with you again. And I really wish you all the best with Foundation. And yeah, hopefully we’ll check in once you’re up and running with the new company.
Pemo: Great, great. Fabulous, okay. Thanks again, Sankiet and happy holidays. nice
Sankaet: Happy holidays to you as well. Thanks for having me.
Pemo: Thank you.
