Luca Cosentino

currently

general manager at cross river (a16z, kkr, t. rowe price), the fintech-infrastructure bank powering stripe, coinbase, revolut and intuit. building its next-generation businesses: agentic banking and stablecoin payments.
teaching agentic ai at mit pe.

previously

ran product at cross river through its scale years: embedded finance across payments, cards, lending and international payments; customers from fintechs to the fortune 500; acquisitions integrated; the firm's first enterprise ai platform.
employee #1 at oasis labs (privacy compute for ai, backed by a16z and accel), from seed to a ~$2b token-market valuation.
product roles at google, american express and p&g.

background

engineer by training, mba from uc berkeley.
italian, based in new york.

writing

/ / / /

projects

some things i believe

our role on this planet is to advance things
- humans have evolved for 300k years—every step forward matters
- whether for 5 or 5 billion, impact scales exponentially anyway
reality always wins
- the game is about leveling up as fast as possible
- learn by copying or feedback
- the faster you collide with reality, the faster you learn
technology and knowledge drive evolution
- experimentation, launching, and scaling are cheaper than ever
- picking the right problem is probably very important
- execution, not capital, is the limiting factor
quality of decisions matters
- i graduated top of my class, but only after a failed startup
- plan, team, execution: get one wrong, survive months; get all wrong, and you become obsessed with decision quality
objectives bring people together
- truth-seeking conversations are easier said than done
- life is a multivariate optimization problem - understanding motivations goes a long way, and it’s rarely about just finding the truth
- learn to expand opportunities and find common ground early
rational optimism helps
- enthusiasm for the challenge often drives the best work
- optimism to start, realism during, optimism to finish
- results come from effort and method, not genetics
connecting the dots, building, and selling are the skills of our generation
- data and technology cut through noise
- nothing is happening for the first time, but most things won’t be exactly the same
- mission clarity, fluid tactics, critical path, focus: these win
- the first 80% of a project is as important as the second ~~20%~~ 80%
critical thinking empowers individuals
- lack of expertise should rarely be a showstopper
- adapting to change and controlling what you can tends to work better
- i prefer thinking about the range of possibilities over what's conventional
- feedback helps, but your barber will always say you need a haircut
objective alignment is critical
- in small orgs, hyper focus
- in large orgs, self-reinforcing systems
micromanagement is as harmful as misalignment
- great managers define outcomes and obstacles early
- the priority is to address obstacles before they become evident
- cultures of approval kill accountability. let excellence lead
principles
- accountability matters
- family and close friends come first
- play nice, but win
- learn daily: 1.01^365 = 37