Walk On

Walk On (Original Recording)

Although every company is becoming a fintech now, Wix didn’t set out to do so – the firm’s entry into financial services started from observing what millions of small business owners actually needed when building their online presence. 

For Amit Sagiv and Volodymyr Tsukur, co-heads of payments at Wix, the path to serving these SMB customers well was paved through financial products: Wix had to take the payment infrastructure it had built for itself and transform it into tools that could help merchants manage their businesses. 

The foundation was already there. Wix had developed sophisticated billing systems to support its freemium model, accumulating deep expertise in payment routing, risk management, and global processing. "We built tremendous payment capabilities," Sagiv explained. "The billing manager of Wix wanted to take that offering and build a service for our users."

What started as a small project evolved into a comprehensive financial platform serving businesses across the globe. The company now processes over $3 billion per quarter with a team of 160 people, covering payments, checking accounts, and capital lending. 
Listen to the podcast to hear how a chance collaboration between Wix's billing team and gateway developers turned into a fintech operation processing billions quarterly. 

Sagiv and Tsukur discuss why they deliberately avoided becoming a full-fledged bank, and how website data reveals creditworthiness before transaction history does. It’s a conversation that dives deep into what it means to be serving SMB customers digitally and how firms can do embedded finance right. 


How Wix built payments, checking, and capital for 293 million users

Ken Alltucker from USA Today joined America's First News breaks down what Idaho's healthcare costs can show the rest of the country. 

Rising rates, dropped coverage. Idaho's lesson for the rest of America

Democrats win hotly-contested races, California voters approve new US House map to boost Democrats in 2026, and the best places to retire.
Surf Shark - www.Incogni.com/Gordon

This Morning with Gordon Deal November 05, 2025

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump's tariffs today. Trade Attorney Michelle Schulz gives us a look. 

SCOTUS hears what Trump calls "most important case ever"

Sanjit Biswas is the co-founder and CEO of Samsara, a global leader in allowing physical operations organizations to harness data, AI, and the Internet of Things. He started the company with the mission to increase the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of the operations that power the global economy. In this presentation, Biswas tells the story of how he co-founded his first company as a graduate student and pivoted to a new industry to found Samsara, sharing advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on finding meaningful problems to solve, building a team, and running feedback loops to understand what customers need.

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders and other Stanford eCorner content is produced by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at the Stanford School of Engineering. STVP empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to become global citizens who create and scale responsible innovations.

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Sanjit Biswas (Samsara) - Making a Real-World Impact

U.S. to reduce flight traffic by 10% at 40 airports because of shutdown, conservative Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of Trump’s sweeping unilateral tariffs, and New York pizza maker sells his one millionth pie after 20 years.
Surf Shark - Incogni.com/Gordon

This Morning with Gordon Deal November 06, 2025

Banks dramatically underestimate how their customers share financial data, and most of it happens through insecure screen scraping that creates fraud vulnerabilities and slows performance. Shane McWilliams, Head of Retail Digital Banking at FIS, breaks down the three critical challenges separating thriving institutions from those being left behind: serving small and medium businesses as a central financial hub, enabling secure data sharing through APIs, and moving beyond product-centric thinking to build sticky customer relationships.

McWilliams reveals that when he asks bank executives to guess what percentage of their customers are sharing data with third parties, "they're not even close" to reality. He explains how modern SMBs expect their banks to integrate everything from cash flow monitoring to accounting systems, why personalization needs to go beyond UX optimization, and how banks that orient around customer needs rather than products will win in today's competitive environment.

FIS's McWilliams on SMBs, data sharing, and the strategy that wins in a competitive environment

Guidebook researcher Cameron Hewitt opens our eyes to the history, nature, and genuine welcome that awaits travelers venturing to the Slavic nations of central and eastern Europe. Then a tour guide from Switzerland explains what compels him to join in the thunderous running the bulls in Pamplona each summer, as he's done for five decades. And listeners chat with Rick about their latest European travel discoveries.

For more information on Travel with Rick Steves — including episode descriptions, program archives and related details — visit www.ricksteves.com.

09 - Sumthin Vicious 2 (Produced by J Beale)

J.beale