Inside Lava: Mitchell Jones on the Future of AI Payments

Today’s conversation with Mitchell Jones covers what most founders miss: survival comes first. We unpack second-time founder advantages, fundraising psychology, and long-term trust with investors. And we go deep on why AI agents demand a new payments infrastructure. Mitchell Jones is a fintech founder building Lava Payments, a modern payments infrastructure company focused on enabling faster, more flexible capital movement for businesses. Before launching Lava Payments, Mitchell Jones co-founded Lendtable, a fintech platform designed to help employees access capital to participate in employer-sponsored benefit programs. Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGunderson Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:00 Mitchell Jones’ Background and Founder Journey 2:02 What Mitchell Learned From Building Lendtable 6:41 The Three Biggest Founder Lessons From His First Startup 8:24 The Pros and Cons of Being a Second-Time Founder 13:19 Why Mitchell Is Building Lava and Betting on AI Payments 18:57 How Lava Helps AI Companies Track Usage and Monetize 20:27 Fundraising Advice: How to Think Like a VC 25:17 What Really Gets an Investor to Say Yes 29:44 Why Founders Should Pitch Believers, Not Convince Skeptics 32:01 Why Trust Comes Before the Transaction 35:24 Mitchell on AI Applications, AGI, and the Future of Companies 41:18 Great Man Theory and the Future of AI 44:40 Outro More on Mitchell:   / mitchell-jones-333559a2   More on Brandon: https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-b...    / @wallstreetpaper   https://x.com/wallstreetpaper The Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies. Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome. We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.