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Welcome to today\\u2019s show.

One night last summer I attended a small dinner in New York hosted by the editors of a global financial publication, on financial innovation. We had some of fintech\\u2019s brightest stars seated around the table, but I remember offering the view that the person there who was most likely to actually revolutionize the financial system was Chris Larsen, the CEO of Ripple. Most fintech innovators are building new things on the system\\u2019s old footings. \\xa0Ripple is trying to reshape the foundation itself.

As you\\u2019ll hear in our discussion, Chris and I first met about five years ago when the wider world had barely heard of Bitcoin, and blockchains and digital currency were still causing mostly head-scratching (at best). He had an impressive past that included co-founding eLoan and Prosper before Open Coin, which is now Ripple. The company\\u2019s mission is to create \\xa0interoperable global finance -- easy movement of money, and other forms of value, throughout the world. An analogy (which we also discussed in my earlier podcast with Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire) is to do for money what the internet did for information, enabling it to move instantly, cheaply, and accurately to everyone, everywhere.

I notice that people whose work is hard to explain use lovely, lively language and imagery. It\\u2019s certainly true of Chris. He talks about paper mail and rails and siloes and blocked pipes and, my favorite -- shipping containers, which he says boosted global trade by 700%, with the simple step of standardizing containers so they can fit efficiently on any ship, truck or train, anywhere in the world. He discusses a book on how this changed the world -- The Box by Marc Levinson. That inspired me to include the picture below, of a fully-loaded container ship as it passed along beside my apartment, which overlooks Boston Harbor.

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In this episode, Chris says interoperability in finance is the last missing link that\\u2019s needed for truly efficient global commerce. He discusses the possible \\u201cscience fiction\\u201d of connecting 50 billion devices through the internet of things. He describes how micropayments can transform functions ranging from ocean monitoring to financial access. He talks about people in huge swaths of Africa who have phones and Google but no connected way to pay for things -- and imagines the global growth that would be sparked by adding two billion people into mainstream payments and commerce. He imagines these solutions even helping to solve the problems caused by globalization.

Chris also talks about the crucial roles of banks, which are key partners for Ripple, and of regulators, including the risk that America\\u2019s splintered regulatory system could undermine our leading global role in finance which he says will be \\u201cup for grabs\\u201d as many countries compete.

And he explains, tellingly, how his views on \\u201cdisruption\\u201d have evolved over time.

We recorded this discussion last summer -- before the presidential election, which he mentions -- and also before Chris\\u2019 announcement this month that he plans to step down as Ripple CEO at the end of 2016 in order to rebalance his life. He\\u2019ll remain active with Ripple and will work closely with its incoming CEO, Brad Garlinghouse.

More links:

• Chris\'s blog post on stepping down as CEO is HERE
• Ripple video\\xa0\\xa0
• My blog post: The Benefits of Bitcoin

I loved this conversation with Chris Larsen, and I think you will too. Enjoy!

Barefoot Innovation news\\u2026.

We\\u2019re posting this episode during a flurry of activity. Ten days ago I had the fun of doing a fireside chat at Money 2020 with CFPB Director Richard Cordray -- who used the venue to make some big new on big data and data aggregation. \\xa0I raced back from that to speak last week at the FTC\\u2019s fintech conference, and I\\u2019ll be missing the SEC\\u2019s first fintech event next week because I\\u2019m off to the Singapore fintech/RegTech festival that\\u2019s being co-sponsored by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, MAS. Money 2020 drew 11,000 people this year -- the largest financial conference in the world -- and the Singapore conference expects over 10,000, including for the first-ever RegTech conference in Asia.

Meanwhile, our direct subscribers to Barefoot Innovation more than doubled last month. Every week I\\u2019m encountering people who tell me they\\u2019re fans of the show. Please do send in your \\u201cbuck a show\\u201d to help us keep it going -- I\\u2019m having to bring in more helpers for it. And please remember to review us on Itunes. Also come to the new Facebook fan page. And please come to www.jsbarefoot.com \\xa0to get onto our mailing list.

Most of all, come back next time, when my very special guest will be Alfred Hannig, the executive director of AFI -- the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. We recorded this one on an idyllic day in beautiful Fiji! \\xa0AFI is driving tremendous change in global financial inclusion and I know you\\u2019ll find the episode fascinating.