[David] You’ve done so well. I love some of the companies that you started. Talk about that one, the first company that did extraordinarily well. It was a very interesting
[Granger] So the first company that I really started that is notable was a company in Bermuda actually. I wrote the first law for e-commerce and back in nineteen ninety eight, ninety-nine, there was no legislative body around e commerce transactions. So my partner and I saw an opportunity to do this. We did it in Bermuda under Commonwealth Law. My private active legislation, which is what we wrote kind of like a bill you put in the US, but in Commonwealth law, it’s private act of legislation. You can create your own law for your company and if it’s approved by the Parliament, which ours was, it becomes law. Same as Lloyd’s of London was incorporated, right? So we wrote this legislation that dealt with the settlement of transactions, where they occur, how you sign, digitally sign, which you use docu sign today. Back then they had nothing. First digital signature law, and different types of financial instruments, how what the nexus is, how they settle, so where your tax basis is. So I wrote that legislation with two large law firms and that was really kind of cool. It was called EBS Limited Act of nineteen ninety-nine. EOC Net was the company, and then we sold it to London Telecom. So after that, I helped build a software company. And during that time, had been racing IndyCar with Buddy Lazier, who I grew up with in Vale. So Buddy and I, that’s Buddy behind me, together, and he was driving with a broken back, won the Indy five hundred in nineteen ninety-six. And subsequently I partnered with Eddie Achiever in ninety-eight, and we won that. So one won twice in three years. And and had a lot of fun in IndyCar and met a gentleman by the name of Peter Diamondis. When I started to so I started a think tank for CIOs, right? CIOs like Frank Campagnani at GE, which is the biggest company in the world then. Who do they call at two o’clock in the morning when they have to figure out how to report to the board the next five year mobile plan or what their digital plan’s gonna be? who do they call and who they talk to? So they can call McKenzie and get a McKenzie report, throw it on the table, it’s safe. Well, I thought, hey, let’s let’s get, you know, forty five, fifty of the most brilliant minds in the world and make them fellows and put them together in a think tank and really let these guys talk to the best guys on the planet, right? and that’s what we did. So that was called TrendSphere. And I ended up selling that to the ex-CIO of Karstead Quell, which is the largest retailer in the world at the time. But anyway, Trendsphere is really cool. Peter is one of my fellows and Peter at that time was starting the X-PRIZE Foundation to give a $10 million prize for the first team that could build a spaceship privately funded carrying the payload of three people to go suborbital twice in two weeks. And so
[David] Sub orbital orbital in two weeks. There’s some complications with that.
[Granger] Lots of complications. You gotta have leading ed technology. It’s never been done before. the basis, the reason why, if you can do that, then you can bring down the cost of space flight, right? And that’s why myself and Elon and other guys put money into were benefactors of the X Prize Foundation and the Ansaris came in and wrote a big check to underwrite the final thing. And it was won by Bert Rattan and Paul Allen from Microsoft in two thousand four. October 4th. The reason that is so important is because it changed mankind as we know it. Right. SpaceX just went public, it’s $115 a share today. That’s Elon’s company, right? So I’ve known him since, yeah, 26 years or something. So we met where after he sold PayPal and actually Peter and I met him right around the same time, became friends. I mean, I’m he’s not a close buddy of mine, but I’ve helped him out a little bit and he’s helped me out and but we’re both the same. We both think about how can we create technology or support technology to change mankind. That’s what the basis of XPRIZE is, that’s the basis of Tesla, that’s the basis of SpaceX, you know, that’s the basis of what I was doing in the technology company that we wrote in Bermuda and is how I look at investing in companies, right? So
[David] I think there’s there’s really significant something significant there because you’re looking, you’re yes, you want to make money and you want to prosper and all those things, but when your goal is ultimately have a one of your whys, you would say, if you’re listening to Simon Sinek, he’d say, We want to better society as a result of what we’re investing in, creating, and things like that, which is very significant. In fact, there’s a lot of setbacks that happen when it comes to any business. One of those setbacks happened when you when you were racing indie cars, there was a horrible crash. Tell that story and what came out of that because this the I’m talking about this that was such an amazing story.
[Granger] Right, so about eight and a half weeks, nine weeks before the ND five hundred in ninety-six, we were in testing in Phoenix and Buddy got hit by Lynn St. James and went backwards into the wall. hit the hit like right if you did if you crossed an X in the back of the car where the starter is, it was like right in the middle of the starter. 99 G’s came up through it and smashed, broke his back in sixteen places. So it looks if you drop and it cracks everywhere. That’s what his sternum looked like, right? So we thought, you know, is he gonna walk again? You know, I mean, I was crying driving to the airport as the helicopter was taking him. I was freaking out. This is my friend since I was born in Vale, right? Anyway, so he recovered, you know. We we got him back to Vale and and he he just recovered fast and he’s tough. And for Indy, we usually do eight hundred laps of practice. For the race to get the car 800 laps
[David] Eight hundred laps in practice, yeah.
[Granger] To get the car dialed in, 600, 800,000, whatever, to get the car dialed in. But he did 50 practice laps that year. 50. 50. That’s nothing. And we had to have a special seat design for him. The Lear Company, Lear is a seating company. And Dr. Brock Walker from IndyCar, is a wonderful guy, designed a seat that came from his neck down to the top, just the bottom of his ankle, right above his foot and just molded it to him. And we molded it in the car. So we literally poured him in the car, strapped him down as tight. And if you watch the replay of the Indy five hundred ninety six, on yellows you can see Buddy doing this. Because he’s trying to get circulation in his arms, right?
[David] Wow.
[Granger] And we won the ND five hundred. I mean, it was unbelievable. I can’t even tell ya. And that’s a great thing that came out of a horrible situation, right? And new technology. The seating technology brought now puts into some of the Air Force jets, military jets, I can’t go into details, but our military is using. And now that also translates into upgrades in commercial, I mean a general aviation, right? So if you land and you hit the ground, he’s designed shock resistant seating for that. So that’s great if you’re in a personal GA plane and you crash, or for automobiles. So technology that comes out of, you know, endeavors like IndyCar, Formula One, Rocket Racing, etcetera, they impact and change the world.
[David] When I heard you talk, you were talking that really capture my attention. I mean, there’s so many speakers in there, one after another, and they’re outstanding. All y’all were just just amazing. But then you were talking, what really caught my attention was you talking about rocket racing, racing rockets in a vertical manner rather than the normal horse. Talk about whose idea was that? That sounds absolutely crazy.
[Granger] Right, so Peter joined my think tank and I invited him to the Indy 500 in 2000, was it in 99? I can’t remember. 2000. Anyway, he came to the ND500 with me and I took him down, introduced him to Alancer Sr. and Alancer Jr. and Robbie Alancer and AJ Foyt and everybody and showed him the track and you know I had my winner’s rings on. So anyway, VIP’d him and that night we had steak and shake. I love steak and shake. Steak and shake fries, a little chili. Anyway, we were eating steak and shake, and Peter looks at me and goes, Why don’t we do this with rockets? and I said, what are you talking about, Peter? With what with rockets? He goes, We can we can make an indie car style thing, racing event with rocket planes. I’m like, what are you talking about? Like now, so Peter’s a rocket guy. He’s a space guy, he’s all space, and I’m all like race cars, right? So anyway, we literally sat down and we drove drew out the first idea for the first patent for the Rocket Racing League. And we said, when we award the X Prize, we’ll start it. So 2004, October 4th, we the X Prize was awarded to Paul Allenbert Rutan October 4th, 2005. One year the date later, we launched the Rocket Racing League. IndyCar style racing, instead of a road course 90 on the ground. Turn it 98 degrees and race in the air. Lots of issues there, right? How do you turn on and off a rocket engine? How do you turn off liquid rocket engine on and off? You only have them for a couple of reasons. One, as a missile to hit a target off of a wing of a planet. Two, launch a rocket to the moon. Like you don’t want to turn off, you want to get through its mission, right?
[David] Even exactly right.
[Granger] So that technology had to be delivered. The the
[David] This is Peter’s brain. Peter’s brain is just so imaginative and why not? And this is if I love Patrick Lencioni’s
[Granger] Peter?
[David] The Six Working Geniuses. He is clearly a guy that works at the wonder. Why can’t we? He asks those questions. Why can’t we do this?
[Granger] Peter?
[David] Yeah, Peter.
[Granger] yeah, Peter’s fabulous. I love him. He’s like a like a brother, he is definitely out there. And you know, we were talking about mining asteroids and many things and all the different X prizes that came after the Space X Prize, right? for Progressive Auto X Prize and the Cancer X Prize and all the different ones they have now are all about for breakthroughs or mankind. That’s really what it was. First it was the SpaceX Prize, now it’s breakthrough for mankind. So we’re really he is an out of the box thinker. and then some of us execute. So, you know, you need both. So anyway, yeah, so it’s pretty interesting what w what happened.
[David] So good. Explain how you set up the race course with the lines and how watching how on a football game, how they lay down the imaginary lines where the fooball is.
[Granger] Right. so if you if you think about an airplane in the sky and speed, they look like they go very slowly. If you sit and watch a plane go by, you’re like, wow, that plane’s going slow, right? Unless it’s in the clouds and then you see it picking up speed in your eyes. So, I had to figure out how to make speed with these planes relevant to a race. And, you know, from IndyCar racing or Formula One, there’s red and white stripes on tracks and on turns and as the car goes over it, it looks like it’s going really fast or if you drive a car, you guys go by a bunch of light posts or fence posts, you’re look like you’re flying, right? So, I saw the first down line in football. It’s a yellow line. Every 10 yards you pass the first down line. That yellow line, that’s super imposed graphic. So I called the guy who patented. Actually, I ended up I knew him. But anyway, and I licensed that for IndyCar and created rings and squares and circles that we would have the pilots see in the heads-up display. So they would race their color triangle, square, circle, so they knew where they were, and that we had separation for accidents. And on TV, you would see them racing through the rings, and you could root for your guy, right? plus they have 15 foot flames, we seeded them of different colors. It was just an incredible spectacle, what you saw. And then we took that and put it into a video game. So that you can race along with the pilots and you could play the video game. And same thing, the rings and so that the you can press the rings closer together, you get more speed and you can really feel it and see it.
[David] Wow. And that out of that came the reusable rocket.
[Granger] Well, out of the X Prize came the reusable rockets, right. Yeah.
[David] The record by human every reasonable record. Okay. So we
[Granger] Other technology came out of that, right? So heads up display for safe return. So you take that same technology, you put it into your piper, your beachcraft, your own plane, and then you’re in difficult situation. Maybe you’re not an inclement weather pilot, so you hit a button and boom, up here is a bunch of squares, and you just fly them back to the runway. Safe return. Yeah.
[David] Fly it right in there. That’s the that’s the Sirius Vision Jet Vision Jet 2 has that, and you had the button, it automatically flies right back. And that’s the technology that came out of it. It’s just I love how people like you think. Now let’s take this from rocket science racing cars to the mortgage industry. You also spotted an opportunity within the mortgage industry some years back. Now that one didn’t go quite as planned, but it had to do with time. We talk about that a little bit. I want you to all I want to connect our audience you you know
[Granger] Yeah, I know.
[David] The mortgage industry, you know the space.
[Granger] Yeah, so you know, I’m an adventure capitalist, right? I mean, that’s really what I’ve been doing for years, and now I’m more of a more of a long-term investor, investment banker. But yeah, so a gentleman came to me, he had a really new technology and platform he had built to acquire the listings of homeowners well before they were gonna sell them.
[David] To acquire the listings of home orders, okay.
[Granger] Right. So look at all the you know millions of homeowners, right? So he came and he built this platform and his idea was, and he executed it, to have Remax and Coel Banker and all the big listing agents on there and go to the homeowners and say, Here, I’m gonna give you a fifteen hundred dollar Home Depot card, which you can use to improve your home or whatever you want. The only condition is when you sell your home or transfers to your children, when they sell the home, you must pick someone off my website, off my platform, one of my realtors in your area. Well, of course people would do that. There’s no downside. They get to pick the realtor. The four or five big ones are all on there.
[David] They still have selection, they still have a choice. So there’s it’s not like you’re narrowing into one realtor. You have a choice of realtors. Is that all part of it?
[Granger] No. Brilliant idea, great technology he built, great he had a great quant on staff, became a friend of mine, met with one of the biggest banks in the world, put together a three billion dollar, you know, facility for him, a warehouse facility, and we launched it in July of two thousand and eight.
[David] Timing. Boom.
[Granger] So timing is everything, right? Timing can be good and timing can be bad. We all know what happened shortly thereafter. The market melted down and that company blew up. So unfortunately, no pun intended. But
[David] I mean I think
[Granger] Yeah, that was that was a cool technology and a cool business model in the mortgaging industry and that just didn’t go unfortunately because it
[David] I think there’s some people gonna rewind this and listen to that and go, Why can’t that still now work work now? Let’s go back and read. Yeah.
[Granger] You can do it. There’s no I mean you you can do it. It’s it why not? But what a brilliant idea, right? You go to the listing guys, Remax, and say, listen, you’re getting six percent back then, I think it was back two thousand seven or whatever, when we put the contrast together. So we’ll our side of that’s three and a half. We take one point seven five, you take the other half, and I will bring the listings to you. You do nothing.
[David] Wow. I love it. Such a brilliant idea. So let’s talk about you are an active investor. You’re now more working on the bank side, as you said. And so an investment banker looks for investment banking opportunities, then a banker is more of a long-term type player. And so I wanna talk about what you our industry it lacks so much innovation. And we have been struggling with that for my 52 years in this industry. Granger, and we are still struggling with it, although we are starting to see some very encouraging signs. And I’m wanna get your perspective of what you’re seeing out there that is catching your attention right now.
[Granger] Sure. Well, I think it is kind a boring industry, right? Like banking, it’s just boring. I didn’t want to be a banker. I didn’t want to work for a bank like my dad or whatever. You know, I want to be a venture capitalist. And but anyway, more high risk. But you know, I think a lot of the problems with, you know, mortgage banking and the industry itself is that it’s a regulated industry. So whenever you’re in a regulated industry, you can’t get too entrepreneurial. What I’m seeing today now is with the introduction of AI and new technologies that it’s going to change that industry. And one of your great guests who is a friend of mine actually, Pavan Agarwal at Angel AI, is way ahead of the curve. Now I’ve seen better and I’ve seen lower and there’s other guys out there doing stuff in technology, but there’s nobody that does what Angel AI is doing. And I think that is a company that everybody should look at how they can be emulate that and be a part of that in any way they can. So being able to do a transaction from origination all the way through to closing and then add on other services on the backside. Who thought that could be done? Right? I mean, that’s great. And the fact that the regulators have approved it and audited it and are standing behind it, that’s unheard of. So, you know, that is a perfect storm coming together for the positive. When you get the regulators behind a company that’s as brilliant and as forward as that, that will change mankind. That will help change access the mortgages for everybody at any income level. And that’s amazing. That that truly is amazing.
[David] Yeah. And it really is. And there’s an announcement. I just recorded a podcast with Pavan earlier this morning. And in that podcast he gave you a big promote for everyone to listen to this podcast, which is we’re going to be interviewing releasing after the one we did with Pavan.
[Granger] That’s funny. Yeah.
[David] But one of the the criteria that you said when you come to investing is You invest in companies that you know. If you own an Apple phone, you said in this other interview that I really loved, you said, invest in Apple. If you own a Tesla, drive a Tesla, interest in Tesla, interested in cars, invest in Tesla. And you said, I look at those companies where the owners have deep knowledge of the industry. I you and I both know Pavan. He I met him when he was 11 years old when I was trading loans to his dad. And I told you that story as we were getting to know each other. It’s an extraordinary story about
[Granger] Yeah, that’s great.
[David] How so this young man has been raised in it by someone who challenged him, told him, Go ahead. It’s not that complicated. Go learn it. Figure this out. And Pavan figured out a way of doing that. And so I think that is one of the things that I was impressed by the investment criteria that you mentioned in this interview on Money Mondays. And or money, Money on Monday, or whatever the name of that podcast is. I got the link is down in the
[Granger] Money and lose
[David] Yeah. And you you said that’s one of the criteria. And I thought that was really significant because there’s a lot of people, AI is the buzzword now. Everybody’s getting into it. I’m listening to some of the top mortgage lenders investing in this right now. But sadly, they don’t have a strategy. Pavan has been thinking about this since he was well, I met him at 11 years old and he was already thinking about it and he has been designing AI and he said he saw the day when AI would be able to have a huge impact on the market. And it is. So what’s so good for me is I get a lot I take
[Granger] And he didn’t build it like an LLM. He designed his own platform and he designed it ground up to do exactly what it’s doing. So to go out and replicate what he had would be I mean, almost impossible today. It would take you I mean millions and millions and millions of dollars and time because of how he built that. So yeah, and my point in it’s a couple of different things you’re talking about. So it was actually a friend of mine who said and I agree because I have the same theory that if you know you’re gonna use a Seagate hard drive, invest in Seagate because if it’s that good and you know it is, other people are gonna do it, right? So invest in things you use, certainly. If you’re you know certainly a low level beginning investor, intermediate investor, you should always do that, right? as far as investing in managements, a hundred percent you wanna invest in management that knows what they’re doing. But you also want to invest in managements that are humble, that don’t aren’t ego-driven, because that kills almost every company. I’m telling you, if they’re if a venture capitalist only hits you know eight or seven out of ten deals, five or six of them are because of ego of the board or the CEO. You gotta have alignment with the board or the CEO. You they gotta be humble. They have to understand how to align other people around them to help build the business where they’re weak. If they can’t do that, I just walk away. And I mean, I tell you. David, some of the best deals I ever did are the ones I walked away from. If that makes any sense to you. Makes perfect sense to me. So so yeah, and then and then if you’re if a friend of yours comes to you and says, Hey David, man, I want to go build buy these franchises or I want to go do this new business. If you know that industry and you have deep knowledge of that, then you should be able to vet that deal on your own and make a decision. If you don’t unless you just have money to throw away, I wouldn’t do the deal. So, you know, I think that if people ask me, How should I invest? Invest in things you know or understand. That’s always the best thing, even if it hurts your friends’ feelings.
[David] Yeah. Great. That’s really, really good point. And Pavan has won the respect of now other countries. He announced on today’s podcast, in fact, there’s press release coming out. We’re recording this on Wednesday, August 5th, and he releasing a podcast. I mean, releasing a press release today that the Japanese, invested a Japanese fund invested in a fund of a hundred million dollars with many more hundreds of millions to flow into it, but it’s all predicated upon using the angel AI technology. And it’s once you build a solid foundation, more money will come in because of it’s in this his case, it has been vetted by the those that regulate our industry and they’re giving thumbs up to it and there’s to the point where Pavan will actually warrant the loans that go through that system, especially if they’re going to SunWest. So there’s a there’s a wonderful story, but one of the things I love everything about what you the way you think in the background. I’m a snow skier, so I was snow skiing and I’m probably younger than your mom, but I’m sitting here looking at the days when I used to live in Aspen and ski all ski and Vale. And I wish I had met you in those younger days, way back way back when. But it you what really captured my attention was what you have done with your wealth. You believe in giving back. I love your foundation. Would you talk about that? Because listeners, it’s great to have success. Many of you have said success and say, Well, we were more successful back in the good days now. We have I think there’s a principle that when you were have a mindset to give back, I think you’re set up for success.
[Granger] Yeah. I mean having a giving mindset or impact mindset is key. So for me, you know, at this point in my life, I everything I do is kingdom oriented, right? I’m a strong Christian, Christ follower, and Faith Stone Capital is my company. we have a nonprofit called Faith Rock and a DAF called Faith Rock as well. And I and the DAF is part of the Waterstone group. So Waterstone Group is manages DAFs and charitable foundations, et cetera. and it’s a phenomenal organization and they help you take money that you’ve made or assets that you’ve now created and have a value at exit and put them into a DAF, which is a donor advised fund. And they help you manage that because you can put the
[David] So DAF is an acronym for donor advised fund. Yeah.
[Granger] And rise fund. Right. And you can put your ten million dollars in there, your one million, your hundred million, whatever it is. If I take that money and I put it into a DAF, then I can say, Hey, you know, I’d really like to invest in my friend’s taco stand he’s gonna build, or, you know, I wanna buy this real estate and I wanna I wanna buy that building or those residences and I’m gonna rent them out and and take the income from it and then they appreciate over years and you sell them a hundred percent tax free. All that money is 100% tax-free forever. Now you yourself can’t benefit from it, but the DAF can. And you can impact a lot of people that way in a positive way. And so Waterstone gives away $5 million a week right now to Christian charities that come from the people who put the money into the DAF and the profits from that spin out to these charitable organizations. It’s an amazing thing to do. So if you can do that, it’s a wonderful thing to do. If you don’t know what a DAF is, I would invite you to Google it, donor advise fund. And the Waterstone Group is the leading one in the country as far as I’m concerned. so I think that’s what you’re referring to, correct?
[David] That’s exactly what I’m referring to. Yeah. I think a donor advice fund. So they’re the donors are actually
[Granger] I’ll tell you something else I do.
[David] Yeah, go ahead.
[Granger] In any deal I do now, if you came to me and said, Hey, I wanna sell my company, okay, I’ll take the sell side engagement, I’ll sell your company and we’re gonna sell it and you’re gonna make twenty five million dollars. I’ll say, Listen, John or David When you sell it, I’d like you to take 10% of that or 20% of that and put it towards a Christian charity. Put it into a DAF, put it into a 501c3, put it into your Jewish temple, if you’re Jewish. Like I because I mostly work with believers of any faith, right? But you gotta be a believer. I’m not talking to you. So and that is a way to kind of push them into and invite them into being charitable and have the resources to help them if they don’t have them, if they don’t have the experience. Hey, I know who you can call and I’ll take our commission and I’ll match you. Let’s do it together, right? And if people do that more and more today, if people do that, just think about it in the very beginning, it has immense rewards. So it’s their choice where they want to put it, heart foundation, it doesn’t really matter. But try to be impactful with the money that you make. It’s different than tithing. This is this is direct impact investing and you can be really, really helping a lot of people in doing it.
[David] I’m thinking of one of my clients particularly several of them actually that are seeking ways to do this. They’ve been very successful. They accumulated a good amount of money. And they’re looking for Lykken, how can we find this? I was not aware of a DAF. And now I do. And I’m gonna be directing them to the Waterstone and yourself and to get these set up. It’s really wonderful.
[Granger] I’m happy to talk to them and and there’s other dafts to it I know, but Waterstone is by far and away the really the most entrepreneurial and phenomenal people. The board of directors, Ben Carson Junior and Ricky Kaplan, Ken Harrison, they’re just phenomenal people. Aaron Brown, salt of the earth, all strong believers. So you can’t go wrong there.
[David] Yeah, you can’t go wrong. One of the things that has also been key to your success is you find people that share your values, that are have deep knowledge, as you said. And one of those individuals you’re recently talking to is Bill Dallas. And in fact, I’m so excited about you connecting with Bill because this is someone that I’ve watched his career. We’ve had a parallel career, both old mortgage companies, both done similar things, both sold into them and that’s what became a debacle, a housing debacle. We did went through all of that together. But I love yeah, and it crashed. We’ve
[Granger] I crashed. We’re all part of that, right?
[David] All been through that. I I I came out out of that thing. All right, Bill’s all right. He survived, he’s doing really, really well. But I love the fact that you find people like that. And so I want to give a shout out to Bill Dallas and some of the things that how you’re working with him. So you’re not drawing away. I mean, we listened to space rides, well, all the space, all the things you have done in investing, you still have an eye on the mortgage industry and you’re pulling on really sage knowledge from guys like Bill. So kudos to you for finding Bill and I can’t wait to hear about some of the stuff that you guys are doing together.
[Granger] What a superhuman being he is, right? So it’s someone who I’ve met recently, but he is part of a Christian group I am in of very, very, very accomplished men. And I have the highest respect for him and his background and to me that’s god knitting, right? It really is. I mean I when I tell you I I’ve completely surrendered to Christ, I completely have surrendered to Christ. I gave him all my business and everything every day to run. So, you know, I’m not a holy roller, but I am fully yoked in Christ. And so is Bill. And I can tell you that that it’s more and more I see it happening every day, Christian men and women working together. So I don’t have the ego anymore that I used to when I was younger. And I that’s what I said, if you can’t back people with big egos and who aren’t humble. I want to be humble in everything I do. And I don’t know anything about the mortgage industry like you do and like Pavan does and like Dallas does and other gentlemen that I know who I’ve surrounded myself with. I I’m just a good communicator and I’m trying to help some people do some things. So when I find them because I think I just open myself up to taking advice from people and guidance, really.
[David] Well, we desperately need innovation. You’re connected with, I think, the most innovative product that I’ve seen come along in the five decades plus that I’ve been in this industry. And that’s what Pavan what Angel AI, what he’s built. I think there’s others to come along as well. I encourage others to come along because I think it’s competition that really helps us all fine-tune and hone our skills to what we’re doing. So Granger, thank you.
[Granger] Well I think we you may see another one come that that is more faith based.
[David] Yes, yes, yes. I love it. I love it. I want to say thank you so much for you being here and being a part of this podcast today. I do want to have you back. Don’t stay in touch again. Id in fact us talking about Bill the other day inspired me to set up a podcast, but Bill and I are gonna do a podcast because we’re seeing the resurgence of the non-conforming, even some no-income verification loans. And so we’re seeing, are we going to just go back to the way it was? It’s still a much smaller percentage of the loans, but we’re going to pull on Bill’s knowledge, my knowledge, and see, you know, are there opportunities there? Bill thinks there are because of where interest rates are, the regulatory environment, and there is some opportunity. So what did we learn? Where could we go with all of that? And I think when you bolt something like Celligence, Angel AI into the middle of that, all of a sudden some of the risk is taken out. So I think we’re in some exciting new days for our industry. I’ve never been more excited to be a part of the mortgage industry. I’m 75 years old. Who cares? We’ve got with it’s all about the new creating new.
[Granger] You’re you’re the youngest seventy five year old I know, David. Come on.
[David] I love it. I’m so excited about being
[Granger] And listen, congratulations on everything that you’ve done too. I want you’ve been cracking about me and everybody else. But listen, you are such a superhuman being, the connection I had with you was a spiritual one when I met you. I felt so good just to be in your presence and you’ve done such great things in your life and you helped so many people. So thank you. I wanna let you know that that that that people need to praise you
[David] Well, kind of you to say kind of you to say. Well as the saying goes, we’ve only just begun. And I really believe that. They say seventy-five. I think about a Moses didn’t get called into his primary job until he was 85. So I’m still maybe 10 more years in training before I get to my primary assignment. Granger, what a yeah, what a what a joy to have you here and so looking forward to continuing to get to know you better as we both work with Pava n and Bill and all the other new exciting new initiatives that are hopefully going to be emerging in the mortgage space. So good to have you here. Blessings to you, brother.
[Granger] Thank you. God bless you.
[David] You bet. Thank you.
Important Links:
- Faithstone Capital website
- LinkedIn – Granger Whitelaw
- From Rocket Racing to Venture Capital podcast
Granger Whitelaw is a visionary entrepreneur, investment banker, and technology innovator whose career spans Wall Street, fintech, venture capital, media, and philanthropy. Over the past three decades, he has helped raise more than $10 billion in capital, pioneered innovations in e-commerce, founded and scaled multiple successful companies, and advised global businesses across technology and finance. Beyond the boardroom, he has partnered with Indy 500 championship teams, co-founded the Rocket Racing League with Peter Diamandis, and supported groundbreaking philanthropic initiatives, including the XPRIZE Foundation. Today, as Chairman of Faithstone Capital Partners and CEO of the Raybar Group, Granger continues to shape the future of innovation while sharing his insights with leaders around the world.