In this episode of Terminal Value, I'm joined by David Sosna, founder and CEO of Sympera AI, which raised a $10M seed round to bring agentic AI into relationship banking, to discuss why a copilot is the wrong model for enterprise AI, whether AI replaces relationship bankers or expands the market they serve, and why the real win is embedding AI into the banker's process instead of bolting on a chatbot.

We cover why relationship banking is a large, human, relationship-driven market, why more query and data tools never fixed the banker's day, how Sympera narrows a huge book down to a few fully-researched opportunities and tells the banker what to do next, how it blends public, purchased, and internal bank data without ever exposing what the bank holds, why betting on a single AI model is risky and how a multi-model stack with tuned tools answers it, why running everything through the most expensive frontier model doesn't scale, why banks that try to boil the ocean get nothing done, and why vertical AI's real edge is embedded judgment rather than a better chat box.

0:00 Hook: Why AI copilots fail without process redesign
0:45 Intro to David Sosna and Sympera AI
1:29 How relationship bankers grow and protect client relationships
4:04 Why CRM and data tools still depend on banker judgment
9:28 How Sympera narrows a market to five actionable opportunities
12:43 From bank priorities to ranked leads and next-best actions
16:39 Data security, lead accuracy, and continuous model validation
19:47 Feedback loops, inference cost, and scanning at scale
24:46 Why Sympera uses multiple models and keeps outreach human-reviewed
29:22 Bank targeting, pricing, and the work of changing user behavior
34:53 Salesforce, vertical AI, and the future banking agent stack
41:38 AI-native teams, banker productivity, and why copilots fall short
49:05 Closing takeaways

In this episode of Terminal Value, I'm joined by John Taylor Garner, founder and CEO of Odynn, an AI-native travel and loyalty infrastructure company that has raised over $9M in seed funding from Bonfire Ventures and Fiat Ventures, to discuss why points and miles behave less like a rewards program and more like a private economy, why the real product in travel is the decision layer rather than the booking, and how Odynn turns a multimillion-dollar embedded-travel build into something a late-seed startup can afford.

We cover how the fragmented travel rewards stack works today, why Expedia and Booking quietly control most of embedded travel, why points and miles only ever depreciate, how Odynn acts as a "Shopify for travel rewards" that compares dollars, points, and miles in one place, how the company prices and earns alongside its bank customers, what it takes to sell to banks as a young startup, and how an agentic AI concierge could turn travel from something you search into something you delegate.

0:00 Hook: Airlines don't make money flying planes

0:45 Intro to John Taylor Garner and Odynn

1:35 How the travel rewards stack works today

3:25 Banks, OTAs, and the Expedia/Booking duopoly

5:55 Where it breaks down for the consumer

8:10 Why points and miles only lose value

10:35 What Odynn is and how the product works

16:15 Pricing, commissions, and supply economics

20:30 Customers, competition, and the $60K disruption

25:00 Winning big banks and proving longevity

30:00 The AI concierge and the future of loyalty

36:00 Building AI-native: agents, engineers, and OpEx

41:55 Closing takeaways

In this episode of Terminal Value, I'm joined by Curt Aubley, co-founder and CEO of Sevii, and Stephen Collins, co-founder and CTO. Sevii is building autonomous defense and remediation for security operations, backed by Overline and BMW i Ventures. We discuss why the SOC was built for a slower world, what separates autonomous remediation from automated playbooks, and whether companies are culturally ready to let AI take real security actions.

We cover the legacy SOC workflow from alert to remediation and why it hands attackers a 15-minute head start, how Sevii's agentic "cyber warriors" go from detection to reported remediation in 2 to 15 minutes across the tools you already own, why per-asset licensing keeps security budgets predictable, Sevii's rule of only using AI where it's necessary, and why the hardest competition may be cultural trust rather than another vendor.

0:00 Hook: Why attackers get a 15-minute head start

0:40 Intro to Curt Aubley, Stephen Collins, and Sevii

1:26 How legacy SOC workflows reach remediation

4:35 Where speed, scale, and economics break the SOC

7:00 Why existing security tools still leave a bottleneck

9:29 What Sevii's autonomous remediation platform does

15:02 How Sevii moves from detection to remediation

19:31 How cyber warriors change SOC staffing

24:00 Customer control, MDR limits, and AI cost strategy

31:20 Sevii's ICP, buyer, and forward-deployed model

37:33 Asset-based pricing and predictable budgets

40:53 Competition, culture, and the future of autonomous defense

48:35 Closing takeaways