Paul Erlanger

Co-founder & CEO, fomo

Search every verified Paul Erlanger interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Paul Erlanger, co-founder and CEO of the social-first trading platform Fomo, discussed the company's growth and strategy in a June 2026 podcast appearance. He noted that Fomo has raised approximately $94 million in funding, including a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark and a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures with participation from USV, valuing the company at $550 million. He stated that the platform has grown to 600,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, and operates with a team of 17 people, adding that early team members received founder-level equity and worked without pay for the first eight months. In the interview, Erlanger said he is not primarily driven by the thrill of winning or the fear of losing, but rather by the pleasure of doing the work itself. He expressed a hope that major AI models become commoditized and cheaper over time, and suggested that design will become increasingly important as AI handles more mid-level engineering tasks. He also commented on Robinhood's horizontal expansion, saying he understands why the company scaled into areas like prediction markets and sports betting, but argued that Fomo's approach centers on the social graph as the unifying element for expressing investment theses across different markets.