The Quiet Power Behind Global Commerce
To paraphrase Visa founder Dee Hock, how many of you know Visa? Great, all of you. Now, how many of you know how it started? Or, for that matter, who started it? Who runs and governs it? Where is it headquartered? What’s its business model?
For the 11th largest market cap company in the world, Visa’s history and strategy is almost shockingly unknown. A huge portion of the world’s population uses their products on a daily basis (you might say Visa is… everywhere people want to be), but very few know the amazing story behind how that came to be. Or why Visa continues to be one of the most incredible and incredibly durable business franchises of all-time. (50%+ net income margins!! On $30B of revenue!) Today we do our part to change that. Tune in for one heck of a journey.
More on the episode
corrections
- It was South Dakota, not North Dakota that originally changed their usury laws to support credit cards. (Great PBS article here)
- It’s actually banks themselves that pay Apple when cardholders use Apple Pay, not a “swipe fee”. (See WSJ piece here)
- Visa is actually a 4-sided network, not 5-sided, since the network itself doesn’t count as a side.