Disrupting the Banking Industry with Shamir Karkal

Shamir is a software engineer turned finance and banking expert. He is the advisor, Co-Founder and former CFO of Simple. Prior to Simple, Shamir was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. specializing in strategy consulting for financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and the US. Prior to McKinsey, Shamir was a software engineer. He has a bachelor’s in computer science, a master’s in information technology, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Some of the topics covered on this episode of Breaking The Borders with Shamir Karkal include:

How startups in a heavily regulated industry can be complicated. But this barrier to entry also means that there can be less competition How the 'startup' tech business model is just starting to hit some of the bigger industries, ie Uber, etc... The ways that the banking industry's model of making money on fees hurts their overall relationships with their customers The reason that it is a good idea to take advantage of times in your life without additional responsibilities (children, etc) to pursue startups The ways that the banking industry and other entrenched industries make innovation extremely difficult, with so many levels of bureaucracy to go through to get anything done The important of reading books, and always continuing to learn Finding the best partners and advisors that you can Making sure that you are working on something that you are genuinely passionate about
"If there's any trick to success, it's find the best partners / advisors you can, and be certain that you will never give up." - Shamir Karkal (click to tweet)

Resources: Simple.com Twitter: @shamir_k LinkedIn