Good morning & happy Monday! Today, we're exploring the collapse of the Stripe-Advent bid for PayPal to see why Stripe refusing to stretch past $60.50 is the most important data point in the whole saga (the $7-9B gap that was never close, why PayPal's Q2 'beat" didn't change anything for buyers, a third buyer that was part of the original consortium and quietly dropped out before anyone knew, and what PayPal's board now has to prove every quarter to justify the cash it turned down + bonus deep dives into Stripe, the latest PayPal's financials & How to Turn Claude Fable 5 Into a McKinsey-Level Consulting Engine inside), and going to dive deep into Affirm's latest financials to see how the most profitable operator in BNPL just beat the top of its own guidance on every line (breaking down the most important facts & figures from Affirm's Q4 2026, including the 5.8% cost of funds that built every point of margin over 2 years and has now stopped moving, the fiscal 2027 guide that quietly...
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