Chapter 1: Getting Back to First Principles

Chapter 1, titled "Getting Back to First Principles," emphasizes the need for a fundamental rethinking of banking in the context of evolving technology and customer expectations. The chapter advocates for first principles design thinking, which involves breaking down existing banking concepts to their core utilities — such as safely storing value, facilitating money movement, and providing access to credit — rather than relying on analogies from traditional banking structures. It draws parallels with innovations in other industries, like the automotive revolution initiated by Benz, and highlights that if we were to design a banking system from scratch today, it would look drastically different, focusing on embedding banking services seamlessly into customers' everyday lives.