The J Curve with Olga Maslikhova

Bruno Maimone, Head of Warburg Pincus Brazil, explains how AI is reshaping private equity, growth investing and enterprise software—and why Brazil’s scarcity of capital can make its category leaders stronger.
We unpack Warburg’s playbook for exits and secondaries, the cash-flow discipline that protects investors from FOMO, and why net-new revenue can reveal more than a company’s headline growth rate.
Plus: how Jusbrasil, Blip, Sólides, Contabilizei and Omie are building durable advantages—and Bruno’s bold prediction for Latin America that sounds crazy today but may seem obvious five years from now.
Partners:

Huge thank you to our partners:
⁠iFood Beneficios ⁠
⁠Jeeves⁠

Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠ newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠.

What is Stripe really buying in its $8B+ OpenRouter acquisition—and why could a company that reaches $16 billion in revenue still disappoint investors? Olga and Paulo Passoni unpack AI model routing, durable moats, runaway valuations, the compute bottleneck, and the growth benchmarks that matter now. Then they turn to Latin America: Brazil’s AI opportunity, the Series B funding gap, FIDCs and venture debt, and what Cashea signals about Venezuela’s next chapter.
Partners:

Huge thank you to our partners:
⁠iFood Beneficios ⁠
⁠Jeeves⁠

Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠ newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠.

Nigel Morris is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of QED Investors and co-founder of Capital One — the company that fundamentally changed consumer banking by pioneering a data-driven approach built around experimentation, risk-based pricing and the idea that virtually every decision in banking could be tested. Nigel later co-founded QED Investors, a global venture capital firm specializing in financial services that has backed more than 200 companies, including Nubank, Remitly, Credit Karma, Flywire, Creditas and Bitso.
In this episode, Nigel shares the operating principles behind Capital One and how he brought them into QED’s “full 90 minutes” approach to venture, the story of meeting David Vélez before Nubank existed — when David told him he wanted to build a “Capital One in Brazil” — and what he saw in David that made him believe. We discuss whether Nubank can win in the U.S. and why Nigel believes America is now the biggest prize for Nubank, Revolut, Klarna and Monzo, the biggest mistakes fintechs make when expanding internationally, his “Galapagos Effect” for why incumbent banks remain structurally bad at innovation, what has fundamentally changed in Latin American fintech, the hangover from 2021 venture excesses, and why today’s market is so “intoxicated” by AI that even companies growing 40% with great unit economics can struggle to raise growth capital without an AI or stablecoin story.

Partners:

Huge thank you to our partners:
iFood Beneficios
Jeeves

Subscribe to ⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠ newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

AI isn't changing media. It's changing what a media company is.
For years, creators monetized through sponsorships, advertising and subscriptions. Today, the most successful creators look more like startup founders than entertainers—building software, venture funds, holding companies and entirely new businesses.
In this solo episode, Olga argues that the unit of value has changed. Content is no longer the product. Ideas are.
We explore:
• Why the biggest creators increasingly resemble venture-backed companies
• Why AI transforms one conversation into an entire content ecosystem
• Why "repurposing" is becoming an outdated concept
• Why judgment—not content creation—becomes the scarce resource in the AI era
• Why Google partnered with Alex Cooper instead of another advertising agency
• What Steven Bartlett's business model reveals about the future of creator companies
• Why venture firms like a16z and Lightspeed are investing in media as a competitive advantage
• Why every company—from startups to private equity firms—may eventually need a media arm
If content becomes infinitely abundant, what becomes valuable instead?
Subscribe to ⁠The J Curve Insider⁠ newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠.

How would you invest a fresh $500 million across public markets, private AI, venture capital, secondaries and Latin America?
Valor Capital Managing Partner Paulo Passoni reveals how he would build the portfolio today—including why he would put just 15% into public markets and where he sees overlooked opportunities in LatAm growth.
In this episode of TJC Debrief, Paulo joins Olga Maslikhova to discuss:
• Why global AI mega-rounds are creating attractive valuations in Latin America
• The LatAm businesses he is watching, including CloudWalk, Plata, QI Tech, iFood and Motu
• Why AI orchestrators such as Perplexity and Higgsfield could capture more value than expected
• The capital-intensity problem hiding behind AI gross margins
• Why distribution—not the underlying model—could become AI’s strongest moat
• How CloudWalk could evolve from a Brazilian fintech into a global AI company
• Why SpaceX could become the defining test for private-market secondaries
• Tether’s extraordinary economics and the future of stablecoin payments
• What missing Anthropic and OpenAI taught Paulo about investment decisions and sunk costs
This is TJC Debrief—a monthly conversation decoding the most important developments across technology, venture capital, Latin America and global markets.
Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.