WSJ: How Peter Thiel’s “Anti-Woke Bank” Crashed

The Wall Street Journal reports:

An A-list group of financial backers including Ken Griffin and Peter Thiel gave Toby Neugebauer tens of millions of dollars to build a new kind of bank—one aimed at people who see Wall Street as too liberal. The potential customer base was huge, Mr. Neugebauer and his business partner, former Mike Pence chief of staff Nick Ayers, told the investors. Plumbers, electricians and police officers, the pitch went, are fed up with big banks that don’t share their values.

The startup, called GloriFi, initially aimed to launch with bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages and insurance, while touting what it called pro-America values such as capitalism, family, law enforcement and the freedom to “celebrate your love of God and country.” Within months, the investors’ money was nearly gone, and GloriFi was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Read the full article. No paywall.

NEW: Ken Griffin, Peter Thiel and other A-list investors backed a new anti-woke bank last year. Missed launch dates, layoffs and allegations of workplace drinking and volatile tempers followed.

I dove inside this start up with @rudegeair & @AAndriotishttps://t.co/0nrMqdHNAC

— Rachel Louise Ensign (@RachelEnsignWSJ) October 10, 2022

lol – bone heads tried to up-armor their bank cards:
“a plan to make a credit card out of the same material used for shell casings failed when the company realized the material could interfere with security chips and potentially be too thick for payment terminals”

— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) October 10, 2022