Fintech Company Executives Actually Met at NSO Toga Party

For some, networking begins on day one. CEO Jake Howard (E '10) and CFO Adam Kaminsky (W '10) of CryptoCrack, a revolutionary fintech company that describes itself as the “Venmo, Square, and Robinhood of Crypto,” reveal the story of how they met—during New Student Orientation of their freshman year.

Kaminsky describes his philosophy coming into college. “College was my second choice. There’s really no point to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in learning stuff you can find on Youtube. I could’ve just gone for the Thiel Fellowship, but I started my application the night before it was due so I just bullshitted my essays. I probably would’ve gotten accepted if I had started just a few days earlier. But now that I had to settle for college, I knew I would have to set up strong connections if I had any chance of making it.”

Howard met Kaminsky in what he describes as divine intervention. “I was standing in front of the museum, scanning the field for potential co-founders,” Howard explains. “I had this amazing fintech idea, but I knew that few people would be capable of starting the company with me. Everyone was socializing and getting to know one another. I was just about to lose hope when I heard Adam’s voice like an angel in the crowd. I followed his voice until I found him talking to a group of Wharton students about using machine learning with cloud computing to analyze cryptocurrency trends in a SAAS model. I knew it was meant to be.”

“Jake walked up to me and started pitching his idea, and from the get go I knew it would be groundbreaking. At that moment, I realized everything would be okay. In an industry of uncertainty and competition, Jake’s strong determination and comforting grasp of trends in big data gave me a feeling of invincibility.”

Howard and Kaminsky promptly left the Toga Party and back to their freshman dorm, where they immediately began drafting a business plan, and just weeks later, CryptoCrack was born. You never know where you might meet that special someone!