Compound Interest from Semafor Business

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Is Walmart backing America’s next financial super-app?

July 21, 2026

America’s biggest retailer is quietly getting into banking. After trying and failing to crack financial services a few times, is back at it with OnePay, which has 7 million customers, $50 billion in annual payment flow — and virtually zero in acquisition costs. Piggybacking on Walmart’s 1.5 million employees and 150 million customers, it thinks it can succeed where other fintechs have floundered. Liz and Rohan talk to CEO Omer Ismail to find out whether the big box titan can really compete wi...

AI is coming for lawyers. Are they ready?

July 15, 2026

Big law firms have run the same playbook for 50 years: hire armies of young lawyers, bill their hours at steep rates, and funnel the money up to the partners. AI is about to upend that model. It can already do much of the grunt work that associates cut their teeth on and is coming for the sacred cow of Big Law — the billable hour. This week on Compound Interest, Liz and Rohan sit down with Rachel Proffitt, partner and CEO of the Silicon Valley-based Cooley, to talk about what the rainmakers o...

Is the World Cup a raw deal for host cities? FIFA’s New York frontman disagrees.

July 07, 2026

The World Cup prints money — an estimated $10 billion this year. FIFA keeps almost all of it. The business case for the host cities shouldering much of the costs, however, isn’t so clear. New York-New Jersey Host Committee CEO Alex Lasry joins Liz and Rohan this week to break down what’s really in it for New York (and, ahem, New Jersey), why he thinks you can’t put a price on the opportunity, and the hypothetical logistical nightmare that keeps him up at night. He also reflects on his famil...