The man who built a bank for people banks don't want - Jason Wilk [Dave]

On this episode of BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Jason Wilk, four-time founder and CEO of Dave, the neobank built to take on the predatory overdraft fees that quietly bleed billions a year from the Americans who can least afford them.

Jason's story is one of the wildest comebacks in fintech. After going public via SPAC in January 2022, Dave hit a $5 billion valuation, then the macro turned.

Rates spiked, growth capital dried up, and within nine months the stock had collapsed 98%, dragging the company's market cap down to roughly $50 million, less than the cash sitting on its own balance sheet.Most teams would have panicked, slashed headcount, or sold cheap.

Jason did the opposite: he froze hiring, refused layoffs, killed every non-core product, and put the entire company behind one number, unit economics.

Today Dave is back to a nearly $4 billion market cap, with 2026 guidance of over $700M in revenue and over $300M in EBITDA, a ~$400M earnings swing in just a few years.

In this masterclass, we break down:

• The $75 microloan bet : how Dave used cash-flow data instead of FICO to underwrite the smallest loan in the country, importing a model that worked in India and Africa but no one had cracked in the US.
• 120 meetings for a Series A : why traditional VCs had never even heard of overdraft fees, and what it took to finally get the check.
• Surviving a 98% wipeout : the operational playbook Jason ran when growth capital ground to a halt and raising more was off the table.
• Making millionaires at the bottom : how a Performance Stock Unit structure turned the crash into the biggest wealth-creation event in the company's history.
• "VC money is just very high-APR debt" : why Jason wishes he'd taken his $10M Series A as venture debt and kept the equity.
• Eating other people's margin : Dave's new credit card and multi-product roadmap, aimed at the $100B+ a year Americans pay in credit card APRs and late fees.

TIMELINE :

00:00 – Why he declared war on the $34 overdraft fee
01:55 – The $75 microloan that ignores your credit score
04:26 – 120 investor meetings to close the Series A
09:48 – Going public via SPAC at a $5B valuation
11:15 – How the stock crashed 98% in 9 months
16:19 – Making employees millionaires at rock bottom
19:38 – From burning $100M to $300M in EBITDA
23:17 – Why VC money is worse than a loan shark
27:00 – The new credit card attacking a $100B market
43:29 – Running a $4B company with 300 people

REFERENCES :

• Jason Wilk

• SV Angel

• Ron Conway

• Paul Graham

• GoBuyside / « Gocleff »

• Dave

• Plaid

• Acorns

• BankSimple

• Norwest Venture Partners

• Tiger Global

• Y Combinator