Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his 2022 Bits about Money essay "Finality does not exist in payments." It argues that how final a payment is depends on the rails, the parties, and the governing law,…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his Bits about Money essay on how credit cards make money. The prompt was a listener who wondered how a card can include free travel insurance for someone who never…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) got stranded overnight after a backhoe severed a single fiber optic cable, knocking out air traffic control across much of the eastern US. His airline declined to pay for…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his Bits About Money essay "Financial systems take a holiday" (originally published February 2024), prompted by a conversation with a prior guest about how even…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his Bits About Money essay on the business of wallets, with new commentary, prompted by paying his barber $100 over Venmo and wondering why PayPal so badly wants to…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Max Spero, co-founder and CEO of Pangram Labs, which builds models that identify AI-generated text and images. Max goes under the hood to explain how AI…
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Alex Elliott (@alexpotato), who has spent his career in SRE and operations roles at financial firms ranging from ten-person fintechs to global investment…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) hosts Aerolamp CEO Misha Gurevich and Chief Scientist Vivian Belenky, a Columbia University researcher, for a Complex Systems conversation about far-UVC germicidal light at…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Manish Goregaokar, a senior software engineer and member of the Rust security response team, to discuss what LLMs do to the cost side of running a…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Misha Gurevich, CEO of Aerolamp, and Vivian Belenky, its chief scientist and a researcher at Columbia, to discuss why UVC, a wavelength of…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Garrison Lovely, journalist and author of Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us and How to Stop It, to map the three-sided debate over…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Leila Clark, founder of Stardrift and formerly a software engineer at Jane Street, to discuss her essay "What Are You Getting Paid In?" They…
Patrick McKenzie is joined by returning guest Clara Collier, editor-in-chief of Asterisk Magazine, to discuss how working writers and reporters actually use LLMs. Patrick walks through the machinery…
In this episode of Complex Systems, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Justin Kuiper, a longtime writer for MatPat's Game Theory family of channels and now creator of Proof Positive, to discuss…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his 2023 essay "Deposit Franchises as Natural Hedges," written seven weeks into that year's banking crisis, making the case that deposit franchises are a natural…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his 2021 essay "Payments in Japan," tracing how Japanese consumers navigate a landscape with dozens of competing payment methods at once: credit cards, electronic…
Patrick McKenzie reads from his 2022 Bits About Money essay on mortgages, making the case that a mortgage is best understood as a manufactured product, not a simple loan between a bank and a…
Patrick McKenzie reads from his 2024 Bits About Money essay on ACATS, the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service that governs how Americans move investment accounts between brokerages, then…
Podcast : Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) (LS 46 · TOP 1% what is this? ) Episode : Wrong numbers and why they survive, with Aaron Brown Pub date : 2026-05-14 Get Podcast Transcript →…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Aaron Brown, author of Wrong Number, to examine why institutions that produce bad statistics face so few consequences for doing so. They trace the pattern from…
The improbable but true story of how non-profits operating a private intelligence agency to combat terrorism decided to interfere with campaign infrastructure in a U.S. election. This piece includes…
Patrick McKenzie reads from his latest Bits About Money essay, walking through why bank fraud charges are a prosecutor's favorite tool, how the Bank Secrecy Act's surveillance regime is designed to…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his classic Bits about Money essay on how checks shaped the entire American payments infrastructure, from the origins of ACH to why a standard US bank account is,…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his classic Bits about Money essay explaining why revenue recognition in software is more complicated than most engineers, founders, and financial reporters think.…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his classic Bits About Money essay on why your bank deposit is not what you think it is. He explains the capital stack that makes deposits appear riskless while…
In this episode of Complex Systems, Patrick McKenzie riffs on why public sector payroll modernization is even more likely to fail than the typical public software procurement project. He then goes…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) explains how compliance regimes designed to be viral brought many more firms into the scope of frameworks like SOC 2. This created a market demand for…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his classic Bits about Money essay explaining why the debt collection industry earns its “river of effluvia” metaphor. From the accounting standards that force banks…
The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. * 00:00:00 - Introduction *…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Philip Kiely, early employee at Baseten, discuss the inference stack: the critical layer of software and hardware that sits between a model’s weights and a user’s…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) deconstructs the "original sin" of payments: building a global financial substrate on shared secrets that were distributed promiscuously to function. He examines the…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Luke Farrell examine the structural "technical imagination" gap that prevents the US government from delivering high-fidelity digital services. They discuss why states…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads an essay about "industrial-scale" fraud and why it should be treated as a professional business process rather than a series of isolated accidents. He explains how…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads an essay about the business of check cashing, a misunderstood industry. He explains why cashing a check is actually a "new credit extension" where the bank bets on…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) walks through a coding session with Claude Code to demonstrate what the fuss is about. The business problem: recovering failed subscription payments that required…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Ruxandra Teslo to discuss why drug development keeps getting more expensive despite revolutionary new treatment modalities from GLP-1 agonists to gene…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) sits down with Intercom co-founder Des Traynor to examine customer support through the lens of Conway's Law, Goodhart's Law, and several decades of accumulated…
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) reads his latest Bits about Money essay explaining why he “loves Regulation E more than any rational person does.” He explains how Reg E created a privately-administered…
Our annual year-in-review episode covers some recurring themes from 2025 and some behind-the-curtains discussion of running a podcast. Patrick McKenzie (patio11) sits down with producer Sammy…
For this week's holiday-inspired Complex Systems, Patrick reads his essay from Bits about Money on the gift card paradox: a legitimate payments rail, yet also a primary vector for fraud that leaves…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) walks through how perpetual futures work, from funding rates to liquidations to the surprise of automatic deleveraging. Perps are the dominant trading…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Ben Reinhardt, founder of Speculative Technologies, to examine how science gets funded in the United States and why the current system leaves…
Why do billions of dollars of stock trade hands based on napkin math and vibes? Billy Gallagher, CEO of Prospect and former Rippling employee, joins Patrick McKenzie (patio11) to walk through the…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his essay on title insurance, a service designed to never be performed with a "laughably low" 5% loss ratio compared to 50-80% for almost all types of insurance. The…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his Bits about Money essay on deposit insurance, explaining this critical financial infrastructure, with some thoughts on its performance during 2023. He covers what…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie reads his essay about the financial infrastructure that makes buying windows painless. When a window installer can originate, underwrite, and fund a $25,000 loan in…
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) shares his remarks to the Bank of England on critical vulnerabilities in financial infrastructure. Drawing from the July 2024 CrowdStrike outage which brought down teller…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined again by Ricki Heicklen to discuss Metagame 2025, a conference where 250 attendees were divided into Purple and Orange teams competing for territories across…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Oliver Habryka, who runs Lightcone Infrastructure—the organization behind both the LessWrong forum and the Lighthaven conference venue in Berkeley. They…
Patrick McKenzie is joined by Clara Collier, editor and publisher of Asterisk Magazine, to discuss how we create institutions that bend towards truth. Clara explains why she launched a quarterly…
Patrick McKenzie is joined by Chris Best, CEO of Substack, to discuss how the platform created new economic infrastructure for independent media. They explore Substack's evolution from a simple…
Patrick McKenzie is joined again by Kelsey Piper, who has co-founded "The Argument" to revive principled liberal discourse after witnessing how coordinated social media campaigns replaced substantive…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch, former interim CEO of OpenAI, who now runs Softmax AI alignment. Emmett argues that current AI safety approaches focused on…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Will Wilson, CEO of Antithesis, to discuss the evolution of software testing from traditional approaches to cutting-edge deterministic simulation. Will…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Bean, a pseudonymous defense industry expert, to explore the intellectual crossovers between military and civilian domains. The conversation reveals how the…
This week on Complex Systems, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Joel Becker from METR. They discuss groundbreaking research on AI coding assistants. Joel et al’s randomized controlled trial of…
In this solo episode, Patrick McKenzie reads his classic essay "Seeing Like a Bank," exploring why financial institutions often appear to have no memory of previous customer interactions despite…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Jim Weisser, a serial entrepreneur and founder of SignTime, for an in-depth exploration of Japan's software market and startup ecosystem. They discuss the…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by James Riney, partner at Coral Capital, to explore Japan's transformation from a $700 million startup ecosystem to today's $5-10 billion market. They discuss…
Patrick McKenzie is joined by AI researcher Yoav Tzfati to discuss “vibe coding” - using LLMs to delegate software engineering work to AI models. Yoav runs a bootcamp teaching programming novices to…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Cate Hall, CEO of Astera Institute and author of a forthcoming book on agency, to explore how individuals can systematically develop higher agency in their…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined again by Ricki Heicklen to discuss the evolution of her trading education business, Arbor, one year after their first conversation. They dive deep into the…
Patrick McKenzie is joined by Adam Jarvis, author of the Public Service substack and a New Zealand civil engineer and public sector veteran. They discuss how political capital constraints, funding…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Jennifer Li, a general partner at a16z investing in enterprise, infrastructure and AI. Jennifer breaks down how AI workloads are creating new…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) recorded with Zvi Mowshowitz (TheZvi) live at the LessOnline conference. They explore practical strategies for getting better results from large language…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) discusses software reversing and AI's transformative impact on cybersecurity with Caleb Fenton, co-founder of Delphos Labs. They explore how LLMs are revolutionizing the…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) revisits his widely-shared negotiation essay, which he notes may be the most impactful thing he's done in his career aside from VaccinateCA. The essay…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and returning guest Ross Rheingans-Yoo discuss the strategic advantages of starting a podcast, particularly for professionals seeking to build trust,…
Patrick McKenzie explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how credit cards work, who makes money from them and how, and gives his take on whether cash customers and debit card users subsidize the users of…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Jacob Swett of Blueprint Biosecurity to discuss far UVC technology - a specialized wavelength of UV light that kills airborne pathogens while…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Zac Townsend, a serial founder and CEO of Meanwhile, a fully regulated life insurance company operating in Bitcoin. They explore the…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Mikey Dickerson to discuss the complex realities behind government software projects. Mikey shares insights from leading the healthcare.gov…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Daniel Golliher, founder of Maximum New York, to discuss the opaque mechanics of political power and how everyday people can effectively…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Tim Fist, Director of Emerging Technologies at the Institute for Progress, to discuss how energy constraints could bottleneck AI development.…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Haseeb Qureshi, a managing partner at Dragonfly, a crypto-focused VC fund. They discuss the evolution of stablecoins, three key use cases,…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Emily Sands, Head of Information at Stripe, to discuss how they leverage AI to process over $1.4 trillion annually, while navigating the complex web of…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) challenges a recent Atlantic article claiming that low-income cardholders subsidize credit card rewards through high interest payments. Drawing from his…
TWIF founder Nik Milanovic talks to Bits About Money writer Patrick McKenzie, on topics ranging from agentic payments, to generative AI-enabled fraud, to deposit insurance and the banking crisis of…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Gary Leff, the author of "View from the Wing", to discuss the economic systems behind airlines and loyalty programs. They discuss how airlines manage to stay…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Lars Doucet and Greg Miller, co-founders who have just launched the Center for Land Economics, to discuss improving property taxation in the US. They explore…
Podcast : Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) Episode : AI, data centers, and power economics, with Azeem Azhar Release date : 2025-02-27 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 -…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) explains the standard procedure for large withdrawals in bank branches, with particular focus on the viral story published in The Cut about a woman who withdrew $50,000…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Azeem Azhar, writer of the Exponential View newsletter, to discuss the massive data center buildout powering AI and its implications for our energy…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) responds to a recent request by a crypto unicorn founder / bank CEO to retract his essay Debanking (and debunking?). Come for the note about editorial…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Zeke Faux, investigative reporter at Bloomberg and author of Number Go Up, to discuss stablecoins and crypto fraud. They dive into Tether's…
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Travis Dauwalter, energy enthusiast (and PhD), to explain the systems we often take for granted behind the US electrical grid. The conversation covers how the…
In today’s episode Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) examines a Chicago casino investment, first of its kind within the city limits. Patrick reads from his Bits About Money essay (published January 2025)…
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) revisits his March 2023 essay that explained the dynamics of bank runs and system stress during the banking crisis one month prior. With data from a newly released Federal…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) unpacks his 24k word essay Debanking (and Debunking?) originally published on Bits about Money. He discusses the contours of recent debanking claims made…
In this special episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) and his EA/producer Sammy Cottrell examine the production function behind Complex Systems, from studio logistics to transcript annotation and…
In this episode, Yatharth (@askyatharth), a graduate student and software engineer, turns the tables to interview Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) about cultural codes, writing, and AI. Patrick shares how…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Joshua Morrison, the CEO of advocacy non-profit 1Day Sooner. They discuss what worked and what didn't in Operation Warp Speed's unprecedented…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Lars Doucet, the author of Land is a Big Deal, discuss how cities determine your property's value and collect taxes. They explore how assessment…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) offers a reading of his viral essay, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" with extensive live commentary. Patrick examines payment systems, benefits…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Max Chiswick, a former professional poker player turned AI educator, to explore how poker intersects with decision making. They discuss how the online poker…
By popular demand, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Byrne Hobart for a 3rd conversation to discuss Byrne’s book "Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation." They explore how periods of…
This week, I talk with Patrick McKenzie, better known online as “patio11.” Patrick has built an impressive career by sharing his insights publicly, with more than three million words published to…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Erik Torenberg, the founder of Turpentine, to discuss the fundamentals of money movement and banking systems. Patrick breaks down how banks…
In this special episode of The Riff, Erik Torenberg and Patrick McKenzie explore the evolving landscape of tech journalism, media narratives about the tech industry, and how the industry is…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Ross Rheingans-Yoo to discuss drug development and clinical trials. Ross breaks down how drugs progress from academic research through FDA…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by economist and fraud researcher Professor Jetson Luis-Leder to examine the systemic issues underlying government program fraud. Jetson and…
In this special episode of The Riff, Byrne Hobart is joined by Patrick McKenzie, host of the podcast Complex Systems to discuss a range of topics including app business models, restaurant industry…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Moses Kagan, co-founder of Adaptive Realty, ReSeed, and Reconvene. Their deep dive into real estate investing and property management covers…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Erik Torenberg, investor and the media entrepreneur behind Turpentine, explore the evolving relationship between tech journalism and the industry it…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by his father, Jim McKenzie, for an intimate and in depth exploration of commercial real estate development. They unravel the complex web of relationships,…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined again by Byrne Hobart, writer of The Diff, for a follow up conversation about “whales” – and so much more – across the gaming, aviation, software, hospitality and…
In this episode of Complex Systems, Patrick McKenzie (aka @Patio11) is joined by Dave Guarino, a software engineer and policy wonk. They explore the complexities and challenges of public programs,…
In this episode of Complex System, the tables are turned and media entrepreneur/investor Erik Torenberg interviews Patrick McKenzie (patio11) about the intricacies of the financial system, focusing…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Dave Kasten, to discuss their experiences building VaccinateCA, a charitable effort that collected, collated, and distributed vaccine…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Austin Vernon, a petroleum engineer, to discuss the technology and economics of fracking. Austin explains the evolution of drilling technology, the financial…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Dan Davies, author of Lying for Money, and The Unaccountability Machine. They discuss how cybernetics–the study of control and communication…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Casey Handmer, rocket scientist turned CEO of Terraform Industries. Casey discusses the rapid advancements in solar power, the bureaucratic challenges of NASA,…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Zvi Mowshowitz (TheZvi) to discuss his wide-ranging career as a professional Magic: The Gathering player, sports gambler, equities trader,…
This week, Byrne Hobart is joined by Patrick McKenzie (patio11), host of the podcast Complex Systems, to discuss the complexity and endless fascination of financial infrastructures, the role of fraud…
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Stephen Grugett, a co-founder of Manifold, to discuss prediction markets. They cover how prediction markets work, their efficiency in…
Podcast : Dwarkesh Podcast Episode : Patrick McKenzie — Money laundering, big tech censorship, SBF & Japan Release date : 2024-07-24 Get Podcast Transcript → powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Kelsey Piper, a journalist for Vox’s Future Perfect. Kelsey recently reported on equity irregularities at OpenAI in May of 2024, leading to an improvement of…
I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence,…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Byrne Hobart to discuss Byrne’s vantage point as writer of The Diff, a tech and finance newsletter. Byrne explains the toxicity of the 30-year mortgage, the…
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Ricki Heicklen discuss Ricki’s innovative approaches to teaching trading. Trading is traditionally taught only by practitioners, to practitioners. The curricula that…
✨ DEBRIEF | Ryan & David unpacking the episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-patrick-mckenzie ------ Why do banks have holidays? Should we redesign the banking system? Is there a future for…
Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on salary negotiation is read hundreds of thousands of…
Bennett and Cas are joined by Patrick McKenzie of Bits About Money to discuss why cryptocurrency is not a solution for the problems of payments. Bits About Money Patrick McKenzie Twitter Protos…
Southwest Airlines had a disastrous holiday season, thanks in part to a software bug that left crews out of place and grounded thousands of flights. But Southwest isn't alone in having software in…
Guests: Bennett Tomlin (@bennetttomlin) Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Patrick McKenzie (@patio11, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Tether has always been acting in bad…
My guest today is marketer and software engineer Patrick McKenzie, who writes mostly about software-as-a-service businesses. He currently works for Stripe as a writer and an overall software business…
It's episode one hundred today — and we have a spectacular guest to celebrate! It's Patrick McKenzie, a SaaS thought leader who doesn't need an introduction. We talk about leveling up your business —…
If you want to learn about how to target niche minority markets like non-Americans, non-techies and even the 50% of the world's population that is, shock horror, female, and you enjoy laughing out…
Several years ago I wrote a blog post on salary negotiation for engineers. This probably created more value than anything else I’ve ever written — I have a folder in Gmail with thank-you messages…
Patrick McKenzie built Bingo Card Creator into a $300K business, then spent four years stuck on the long slow SaaS ramp of death. His SaaS pricing started at $30/month for hair salons that barely…
http://www.tropicalmba.com/patrick/ Patrick McKenzie from Kalzumeus.com has been one of my favorite bloggers for over half of a decade. Patrick has a storied history of writing long-form pieces about…
Ian and Andrey are joined by special guest, Patrick McKenzie (patio11), to discuss the “early” days of the Business of Software forums, Patrick’s journey and daily routine, Helpdesk systems and…
In this episode, Ian and Andrey cover a host of issues, including an apology of sorts to Patrick McKenzie, a discussion on if in fact the customer is always right, how you support .99 cent apps,…
Want to build a software product that actually earns income? In this (Part 2) episode Patrick McKenzie (Patio11) shares specific tactics for researching a market and finding a problem to solve.…
Part 1 of our interview with Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) where you’ll hear how he actually learned to program with graph paper, and how he built his first product business with $60. Show notes:…
NYT bestselling author Ramit Sethi and I continued our earlier discussion about getting your first consulting client by addressing a common pain point for freelancers/consultants, particularly those…
Patrick notes: Hiya long-time blog readers. Last year I wrote two articles on career advice for young engineers, largely informed by conversations with a buddy of mine, Ramit Sethi.
Stack Exchange Podcast - Episode #12 w/ Patrick McKenzie by The Stack Overflow Podcast See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at…
Justin & Jason talk to Amy Hoy of Freckle, and Patrick McKenzie of Bingo Card Creator about finding an audience and making money from it, what is SEO and how to do it, how important is design?,…
79: TZ Interview - Patrick McKenzie / The Long Tail of Optimization by techzing