Matt Levine, Columnist

Tech Companies Want to Be Banks

Also AIG, minotaurs and lifestyle jobs.

February 22, 2019 at 4:58 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

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Crudely, there are two ways for things to trade:

Aesthetically, there is a lot to like about the first approach. It feels honest, transparent, natural; the people who want to buy for fundamental reasons are buying from the people who want to sell for fundamental reasons, without a grubby middleman imposing himself to take a cut. The gains from trade are shared by the principals, instead of being siphoned off by intermediaries. Everyone can compete on a level playing field, instead of some middleman controlling information for his own advantage.