Gifted young Argentines tend to leave home to “make it in America” and never look back, but after earning a degree from Harvard, writing a book about the Spanish Civil War, and living in the United States for 12 years, Pierpaolo Barbieri has returned to Argentina. And he’s bringing foreign capital and talented expats with him. Pierpaolo’s FinTech startup Ualá works to bring universal banking to a Latin American market in which huge swaths of the population are still stuck using cash for everything. By giving the working classes power over their own money, he hopes to produce greater prosperity and social mobility in his home country and beyond.
Pierpaolo joined Tyler to discuss why the Mexican banking system only serves 30 percent of Mexicans, which country will be the first to go cashless, the implications of a digital yuan, whether Miami will overtake São Paolo as the tech center of Latin America, how he hopes to make Ualá the Facebook of FinTech, Argentina’s bipolar fiscal policy, his transition from historian to startup founder, the novels of Michel Houellebecq, Nazi economic policy, why you can find amazing and cheap pasta in Argentina, why Jorge Luis Borges might be his favorite philosopher, the advice he’d give to his 18-year-old self, his friendship with Niall Ferguson, the political legacy of the Spanish Civil War, why he stopped sending emails from bed, and more.
Follow us on Twitter and IG: @cowenconvos
Email: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Follow Pierpaolo on Twitter
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Newsletter
Audrey Tang on the Technology of Democracy
Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism
Matt Yglesias on Why the Population is Too Damn Low
Jason Furman on Productivity, Competition, and Growth
Nicholas Bloom on Management, Productivity, and Scientific Progress
Nathan Nunn on the Paths to Development
Melissa Dell on the Significance of Persistence
Annie Duke on Poker, Probabilities, and How We Make Decisions
Rachel Harmon on Policing
Ashley Mears on Status and Beauty
Paul Romer on a Culture of Science and Working Hard
Adam Tooze on our Financial Past and Future
Glen Weyl on Fighting COVID-19 and the Role of the Academic Expert
Philip E. Tetlock on Forecasting and Foraging as a Fox
Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar
Ross Douthat on Decadence and Dynamism
Russ Roberts and Tyler on COVID-19
John McWhorter on Linguistics, Music, and Race (Live at Mason)
Garett Jones on Democracy (More or Less)
Tim Harford on Persuasion and Popular Economics
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Mayo Clinic Talks
The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad
Positive Thinking Mind
ŒIL pour YEUX, DENT pour MÂCHOIRE 😎
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast