Pedro Franceschi: Lessons from an Evolving Entrepreneur, from Hacking iPhones to Building Brex

At just 13 years of age, Pedro Franceschi was one of the first to jailbreak the iPhone. By the time he was 15 he had co-founded a payments company that would process over a billion in transactions. And by the time he was in his early 20s, helped transform a last minute YC pivot into Brex, one of the most iconic fintech breakout stories of the decade. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate speaks with Franceschi about how he made headlines and found startup success in his native Brazil, why he traded it in for stints at Stanford and YC, how mental burnout can destroy a business, and why adaptive flexibility can be a vital founder superpower, if you build it like a muscle with practice, commitment and time. Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike. Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books. Follow Mike on X!

You can listen to Pedro Franceschi: Lessons from an Evolving Entrepreneur, from Hacking iPhones to Building Brex online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Pedro Franceschi: Lessons from an Evolving Entrepreneur, from Hacking iPhones to Building Brex is an episode from Starting Greatness by Mike Maples.

This episode is 00:43:19 long.

This episode was published on Jun 30, 2025.

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