Sohel Roopani is the co-founder and CEO of Exponent, a New York fintech building a financial operating system for America's multi-unit franchise operators. A former Visa and Stripe executive with an MBA from Columbia Business School, he raised more than $40 million in combined equity and credit to underwrite the operators behind Burger King, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings and roughly 10,000 other franchised storefronts, replacing spreadsheets and month-end closes with charge cards, term loans and AI-powered bookkeeping.

Ben Thompson is the founder of Stratechery, the subscription newsletter that essentially invented the paid independent newsletter model. Writing from Taiwan for over a decade before returning to the US in 2025, he developed Aggregation Theory - the most influential framework for understanding how internet platforms accumulate power - while building a solo business earning $5M+ annually from 40,000+ paying subscribers. Substack's founders literally used him as their pitch-deck inspiration. He also co-hosts three podcasts, including Dithering with John Gruber, where every episode is exactly 15 minutes by design.