The Credit Bubble with Derek Brunelle

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Peter Goldstein, CEO of a Nasdaq-listed acquisition corporation and a four-decade entrepreneur with five exits behind him. Peter traces his arc from starting a perishable food business at 24 — and selling it at 30 with no banker, no transactional lawyer, and millions left on the table — to running his own boutique investment bank and now leadin...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Krista Morgan, co-founder of Edited Capital, a lower-middle-market private equity firm that acquires controlling interests in venture-backed software companies. Krista's career runs from digital marketing in London, to building an invoice-financing fintech platform in Colorado that cycled roughly a billion dollars of receivables, to now buying...

In this episode of the Credit Bubble, I sit down with Ruben Shafir, founder of Luna Park Capital. His path runs from Brooklyn to Wharton at 16, Lehman Brothers at 18, and ultimately to founding his own credit platform. We get into how an early sense of capital as a scarce resource wired him as a deep-value investor, and how running workouts at Lone Star in London through the 2008 crisis taught him...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Charles Thor to explore his path from commercial banking at Union Bank to global roles with MUFG and HSBC, and ultimately into credit leadership at Silicon Valley Bank. We discuss how early underwriting experience shapes long-term judgment, what changes when you move from the deal team into the credit seat, and how global banking experience inf...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Aznaur Midov to explore his career progression from institutional banking to independent entrepreneurship. Aznaur shares how his experience across venture banking, leveraged lending, and private credit shaped his views on underwriting, risk, and market cycles—and how that experience ultimately led him to build Debt Serious and launch Kior Lior,...

In this episode, I sit down with Marshall Hawks, author of Venture Debt Deals: How to Fund Growth with Less Dilution and former senior leader at Silicon Valley Bank, for a wide-ranging conversation on how venture debt actually works in practice. Drawing on more than 16 years inside the venture banking ecosystem, Marshall unpacks why venture debt is ultimately a relationship business—and why the ch...

Today’s episode features Ben Johnson, a longtime colleague and friend from the Silicon Valley Bank ecosystem whose career spans nearly three decades across private banking, commercial lending, venture debt, seed-stage ecosystem building, and now specialty finance at Celtic Bank. Ben walks us through his early life in Minnesota, the path that led him into banking, and how he ultimately found his wa...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble Podcast, I sit down with Matt Schwartz, Partner at DLA Piper, to talk about his path into law and how he became a go-to counsel for banks and private credit funds. We dig into the evolution of venture and growth-stage lending, the impact of SVB’s collapse, and the role of AI in credit. Matt also shares the story behind his “Law Dad” posts on LinkedIn and how op...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Ryan Edwards, founder of Prospeq and partner at Lioncrest, to discuss his leap from SVB to launching a credit fund aimed at overlooked markets and founders. We explore Prospeq’s focus on businesses outside the traditional venture mold, the diligence required when institutional backers aren’t present, and why hands-on lending creates value beyon...

In this episode of The Credit Bubble, I sit down with Jake Bernstein, Vice President at Avenue Capital, to trace his path from Comerica to Oxford and now to Avenue’s growth lending platform. Jake explains how moving from a permanent balance sheet to a GP/LP fund model reshaped his approach to risk, structure, and upside. We dive into Avenue’s underwriting in life sciences, what makes an attractive...

Host Derek Brunelle speaks with Scott Aleali, Head of Private Equity Finance – New York Region at Citizens Private Bank, about how fund finance has expanded from simple capital-call lines to a full suite of solutions for private equity and venture capital firms. They explore the financing life cycle, NAV lending trends, underwriting uncalled capital, and how today’s market impacts fund formation a...