Impact Investing at $10: The Fortune He Lost, The Fund He Built | Arjun Agarwal, inaam
Arjun Agarwal's family lost their fortune to a business betrayal in South Africa — Patek Philippe watches sold to survive, a mansion traded for a two-bedroom apartment. He's now the founder and CEO of inaam, the fund his father never had: an ASIC-regulated impact-investing app built after nearly every VC in Australia passed on it.
Thea and Arjun cover cold-emailing a CEO to land his first banking job and the system that company still runs today, why he turned down running his family's business, and how he quadrupled a teenage crypto fund before giving every dollar back.
0:00 Intro
1:26 Money At Dinner
5:38 Made Peace Late
6:32 The Watches Survived
11:11 The Founder Pressure
14:16 What Is inaam
17:07 Ten Dollars Flat
18:26 Every VC Passed
18:47 They Kept His System
21:37 Arbitrage At Eighteen
23:16 Returned Everyone's Money
24:45 How Systems Work
25:54 Not For Everyone
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