When you spend years in commercial banking, you develop a particular way of seeing the world. Every opportunity is also a risk. Every projection needs stress-testing. Every impressive pitch needs to be reconciled against what's actually there.
These instincts transfer directly to technology.
Think in Failure Modes
In underwriting, you don't just model the upside. You model what happens when assumptions break. What if revenue comes in 30% below projection? What if the key customer leaves? What if interest rates move against you?
The same thinking applies to technology evaluation. What breaks at scale? Where do integration costs hide? What happens when the foundation model you're building on commoditizes?
Most technology pitches focus on the success case. Finance trains you to focus on the failure cases—because that's where the real risks live.
Distinguish Signal from Noise
When you're reviewing a $50M loan, you learn quickly that not everything in the pitch deck matters. Some metrics are vanity metrics. Some projections are anchored to best-case scenarios. Some "competitive advantages" dissolve under scrutiny.
Technology evaluation requires the same filter. A compelling demo isn't the same as production-ready. A credible team doesn't guarantee execution. An impressive architecture diagram doesn't mean the hard problems are solved.
The skill is knowing which questions to ask—and recognizing when the answers don't hold up.
Underwrite the Business Model, Not Just the Technology
In finance, a great product with a broken business model still fails. The same is true in technology. Most robotics ventures don't fail because the robot doesn't work. They fail because unit economics don't survive contact with reality.
When evaluating technology, the questions that matter often aren't technical:
- Does this scale beyond pilot programs?
- What's the deployment ops burden?
- Where does the moat actually come from—the model, or the data and workflow integration?
- How do governance and upgrade mechanisms affect the trust assumptions?
These are business questions dressed up in technical language. Finance teaches you to ask them.
Be Skeptical of Consensus
Banking is a contrarian business in a specific way. When everyone wants to lend to a sector, that's usually when returns compress and risks accumulate. When nobody wants to touch something, that's often where opportunity hides.
Technology has the same dynamic. When everyone is chasing the same trend, valuations disconnect from fundamentals. When a technology is dismissed as "not ready," that's often when the builders who understand it can gain ground.
The ability to evaluate independently—rather than follow consensus—is valuable in both domains.
What Carries Over
Finance doesn't teach you to build technology. But it teaches you how to evaluate it—how to distinguish what's real from what's presented, how to model risk, how to recognize when impressive packaging obscures fundamental problems.
These instincts aren't common in technology. They should be.
