Hello everyone, this is Dalia D'Agostino with FinTech TV coming to you from the floor of the iconic New York Stock Exchange.
Keith Grossman, President of Moonpay.
Thank you so much for joining us, Keith.
Thanks, Dalia.
A few years ago, I started a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching financial literacy to kids.
Now I am teaming up with FinTech TV to interview business leaders and hear their views about money, along with their advice for kids just beginning their financial journey.
Let's begin.
Looking back on your childhood, what is one experience with money that most shaped how you think about finance today, and how does that lesson influence the way you talk to kids and families about saving, spending, and giving?
Sure, so when I was um.
When I was 12, your age.
Um I got my first laptop, right?
It was a Dell 386, and I kept on breaking it.
And um and at the same time, my parents kept on telling me like one day when I'm 17, so it was so far off into the future, that like it just seemed forever, but it was close enough that I could see it, right?
You could see 17, right?
Um, they said, wouldn't it be cool for you to um have a car.
And I was like, I want a car, and they're like, I'll make a deal with you.
If you could pay for half of your car.
And for all of your insurance and the gas, we'll pay for the other half of the car.
And so I started to try and figure out, I'm like, how am I gonna pay for half of the car?
I'm 12 years old.
As I kept on playing with my laptop computer, I kept on breaking it, and I kept on fixing it, and I realized I was very good at it.
And so what happened was I started a computer consulting business at 12.
And what I did was, I looked at the entire market in 1992, and everyone who was helping people with computers was charging like $150 and I just went out and I charged $10 cause I was 12.
But I knew just as much on the basics of fixing computers, and I started by putting banners under flyers under every door in my apartment building.
And um I, I'll never forget this.
My sister helped me.
I lived in a building that was 35 floors in New York City, had 12 apartments per floor.
I put flyers under each one of the apartments.
My sister said this will never work.
The first person who called me was thought that I needed help.
Uh, uh, and I was, and I was so disheartened, and then the second person forward, it never stopped ringing, and so from 12 to my senior year in college, a senior in high school, I had a computer consulting company that started charging people at $10 an hour, and then I was able to raise it up to $60 an hour, and during that time, I kept on installing things into people's computers, whether it was Windows or whether it was buying Dell computers or whatnot, and um I started to look at the newspaper and see all the stock um uh uh symbols, and I was like, what are stocks?
And like you look at this great background where we are, and I started to get an understanding of what the stock market was, and because I was investing in, uh, because I was installing so much Microsoft and so I was buying so many Dell computers, I started to buy those companies, um, with my savings, and that was like my first foray into it, and, um, and it was a really good, good example, but the only way that I was able to get into it was My parents had set a really ambitious goal of, if you want a car when you're 17, you have to figure out how to pay for half of it.
That is so amazing and that's actually really funny.
I am doing something similar.
I started a business.
I do tailoring and I take in like sweaters and I learned how to from my dad and I've charged and I'm charging less than tailors would charge.
And, and, and think about it this way.
What is the benefit?
The benefit is, one, people will give you the benefit of the doubt because you're 12.
2, if you deliver a quality return or great product, they'll keep coming back at you.
And so the goal is, keep building up your clientele and then slowly keep raising your prices.
When I started, it was $10 an hour.
When I was in 12th grade, it was $60 an hour, right?
During your leadership at Time, you supported Time for Kids, which helps young people become critical thinkers about news and current events.
How do you think media created for kids can also teach them about money, the economy, and new technologies like crypto in a way that feels empowering rather than overwhelming?
Sure, so, so first off.
I think when you think about media, right, like people overcomplicate everything, um, they think about the technology, they think about the distribution.
The reality is, is, um, think about some of the most famous stories of all time.
Let's choose one, Harry Potter, right?
Harry Potter, you would agree, is one of the most popular stories of all time, right?
You could read Harry Potter in a book.
You could actually read Harry Potter on your phone.
You could read Harry Potter on your computer, you could say to Alexa, Alexa, read me Harry Potter and it will read you Harry Potter, right?
You could read it on a Kindle.
Um, all of those things I had sort of, um, described are a distribution or technologies, right?
What makes Harry Potter really powerful is the fact that it's a story, right?
It's a great story, and so I think that the only way to make money relatable to kids is is you have to tell it in a manner that makes sense to kids.
So I'll give you a real example.
Are you on Roebuck?
OK.
Have you ever asked your father for Roebuck?
Um, when I was little, when I was little, yes, OK, now you just pay for, for yourself, OK.
When you pay for Roebuck, what you are actually doing is, is you're saying, I want this because this gives me that, and that's where my friends are at, right?
That's how you think about it, right?
How I think about it and how your father would think about it would be, um, you as a 12 year old are asking for a digital currency.
To go into your dimensionalized social media experience.
To buy a digital asset to show off to your friends.
That is so utterly unrelatable to you, right?
So like the way that we think about it from a business perspective and the way that you think about it from your mindset as a 12-year-old or my daughter would think about it from her mindset as a 12-year-old is two totally different things.
And I think that the only way to sort of um explain that is to go backwards, not to try to explain to you, um, Hey, you want a digital currency to buy it, like, cause you probably never thought about that, right?
It's rather to be like, you just want this because this is where your friends are at, right?
Now let me show you how it works backwards of all the components that are there, and I think that that's probably one of the hardest things that happens when it comes to telling stories or, you know, providing news to children is they try to explain it the same way that they would explain it to an adult.
I think that's such good advice.
I, the reason I started my YouTube channel and one of the reasons is because I think it's so important that kids are learning in ways that kids understand, and one of the best ways for that to happen is if they are taught by another kid.
So I started a YouTube channel.
We're trying to teach kids about money in a way that they would understand it.
I love that.
So what's the best lesson that you learned?
Best lesson that I learned, um, I mean, honestly, it's very simple, but basic investing.
And the stock market and that stuff and it was one of the first lessons I learned, one of the first lessons I made videos about, but compounding interest was so important that's the first thing I learned and now I put in money in the bank and it's just grown.
I lost that.
Um, as president, IMe, you help bridge traditional finance with crypto, making it easier for people to, um, making it easier for people to move in and out of digital assets like Bitcoin and stablecoins.
If you're explaining the future of money to a classroom of middle schoolers, how would you explain how crypto is important in the future of money, and what digital money, what money habits will stay the same no matter how technology evolves?
Sure, so it's such an interesting question, um.
I think What you have to think about when it comes to money is what does money really enable, right?
Like money enables you to access something, right?
So if you have $5 and you wanna buy this coffee, because coffee is so expensive today, right?
Um, my $5 will get you that coffee, right?
Historically, there's only been one way in which you've been able to buy that coffee, right?
It's by using.
Actual government backed money, right?
We've now entered into what I would say is a new world of of bartering, right?
And so there's many different ways in which you could buy something.
Going back to Roblox, for instance, Robux is money, right?
And so like you can buy something in Roblox because you have Robux, right?
And so, If you think about like the history of like how people come together and engage and go back and forth, um, it all originated with bartering, right?
Like you learned about bartering back in the day, right?
Like you would see like even the Native Americans in America would barter with like like the seashells and like like different sort of like um uh creations.
Um, people used to barter and say I'll trade you 3 sheep for like 1 turkey or whatever it is, right?
I don't know if that's even a barter, but um.
After The barter system came like these government backed currencies that people were like, I believe in this, but we've now re-entered into a world where people can use many different things of value to get something in exchange for that value.
Would I call it money?
No.
OK, I think that that's where it becomes confusing.
I wouldn't say cryptocurrency is money, right?
I would say cryptocurrency is a form of value exchange that you can have online.
The second thing I would say is um.
What year were you born?
Um, 2013.
OK, so you've only known a world of iPads.
You only know a world of touchscreen TVs.
You only know a world of like digital, right?
And when you think about it, right, like what stablecoins are, is it's the internet has evolved to allow all this commerce to take place, but it doesn't have a digital currency to sort of back it, right?
And so stablecoins for the first time ever allow for The dollar or other government backed currencies to exist online and to operate at the speed of the internet.
And so like, I think what you're gonna see is the world as you know it is just getting faster, it's getting more efficient, it's getting cheaper to operate, and as things speed up, like you need a value exchange that can keep up with the speed that you want to operate at.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, it does.
I, I mean, I think it's so important that kids are learning about crypto because that really is the future of money, and we're just going to get more and more advanced, and they're gonna need to know it more and more.
Here's a really interesting way to think about crypto.
Um, crypto is not one thing, right?
So, you know, as you'd mentioned, I came from time and I came from media.
When I was at Time, we had Time magazine.
Print is a vertical category, right?
So you're either a magazine, or you're not a magazine, right?
Um, radio is another vertical category.
You're either radio or you're not radio.
Television, right, is another vertical category.
You're either television or you're not television, but let's come back to that for one second in a minute.
But when it's something's digital, that's a horizontal category, right?
You could have digital text, you could have digital audio, you could have digital, um, video, right?
So like all of a sudden you're like print is this way, radio is this way, TV is this way, digital is this way.
You following me?
OK.
All crypto is, is an extension of digital.
So crypto is not one vertical thing like print, it's not like you're either crypto or you're not.
Crypto is many different things, the way that digital can be very many different things.
So Bitcoin is one aspect of crypto, stable coins are another aspect of crypto, meme coins are another aspect of crypto, right?
And so like there's infinite sort of verticals within crypto.
And what people just need to understand is, is like what is the value of each one of those verticals, and each one of them is so different, right?
Um, now, the other thing to think about is something like the word money, OK.
Here's the difference on like how you should think about money and what you said about crypto and money.
Um, think about the word TV, OK, when I say TV and I'm 45, right?
Um, I mean, Cable television, so spectrum, you live in New York City.
I mean that one little box when you turn it on above the TV where it's like Spectrum TV.
When you say TV or my daughter says TV, she means a video on a screen, right?
So you think.
Apple TV, you think YouTube, you think, um, you think Spectrum, you think Amazon TV, you think Prime, it doesn't matter, right?
You're just like, there's a screen, I wanna watch TV.
Video shows up, that's TV, right?
In my mind, in your father's mind, TV though has a much different definition.
The word still exists, right?
So when you think about money, right, or value, people will say, Money and money to one generation, right, will mean um government backed.
Money like the US dollar, money to another generation, to you, for instance, may mean, oh, like, I have this digital currency and I can exchange it for that, right?
And it serves the same purpose.
Yeah, I, I agree.
When I think of money, I think of anything that can buy me something, anything that can buy anything.
But ask your dad tonight what does he think money is, and he'll say it's the US dollar, or he'll say it's something else got backed by government.
Yeah.
You chair the Stand with Students Campaign at New York CARES, which raises hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide tutoring, SAT prep, and resources to NYC students in schools facing financial hardship.
What have you learned from this work about the connection between educational opportunity and financial security for kids, and what practical steps would you encourage parents, schools, and the finance slash crypto industry to take.
To close that opportunity gap, so.
Look You know, um, you're very lucky.
You know that as much as we joke with your father before this, right, and, and whatnot, you're very lucky.
My daughter is very lucky, right?
Um, there's a lot of kids who are not lucky.
Um, and so I think that one of the things that people have to recognize is, is that, um, there's a certain amount that you want to sort of look at.
Um, uh, how can you sort of, um, uh, do good for yourself, right?
Like what you're doing right now with this YouTube channel, um, but then there's a certain amount that you wanna think about, like how can you give back to others, right?
And like actually you're doing the same thing with this YouTube channel, right?
So on one level, Um, you're building your acumen, and you're building sort of your communication style, your confidence, your brand of Dahlia, doing YouTube.
On the other end, um, there's a lot of kids who will watch this and, and don't have access to maybe the New York Stock Exchange or whatnot, but will have access to the information that you're providing them, and by giving them that resource, and by providing other kids that resource, you never know how it might actually impact their lives for the better, right?
And so the best advice I ever got in my career. was from Mike Bloomberg, where he said to me when I was at Bloomberg and I became the global chief revenue officer, he said, people remember you for what you do for a living and for how you get back to society.
And at that moment, he said, I just gave you a really good job, make sure you get onto sort of a philanthropic board and you get back to society.
The the reason I focused on STAnd with students was because I looked at my daughter and I said, I'm so happy with that like I can.
Afford to put and give her a certain life, but like I think about all these other kids and I go, I wanna make sure that they're not disadvantaged, so whatever I could use my platform for to push good into the world, um, I try to do that to give everyone whatever chance they can to have at least the opportunity to succeed.
Yeah, 11 of the main reasons I chose a YouTube channel is because I know that I'm trying to get to kids that don't know about finance for any reason really, but also because they don't have the opportunity to maybe they can't pay for fancy courses or fancy classes and they don't have parents who know.
So YouTube is something that If someone has a computer.
And Internet, they can get to it and.
Anybody who has parents who doesn't know about finance or isn't in a spot to pay for fancy classes or fancy courses, I can teach them.
And as you learn something, you can share it with them, right?
Amazing.
Well, thank you.
Like I, I love that question.
Yeah, that's the end of our interview, um.
It's been a very inspiring conversation, and I hope you and everyone watching has a great day.
Before we end, can, can we just do one thing for the YouTube channel?
Can we see who does a better impersonation of your father?
OK, you ready?
OK.
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure, a pleasure.
