Building an AI-Native Platform to Take On the Bloomberg Terminal — with Aidan McConnell

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Most conversations about AI in finance stop at "we use AI." This one goes deeper.
Aidan McConnell started as a data science intern at Sezzle in 2019, worked his way up to Head of AI/ML, then left to build QuantLink AI — a vertically integrated data and analytics platform for investors. Think premium market data, quant workflows, and institutional-grade charts, made accessible enough that a first-time investor can actually use them.
In this episode, Arun and Aidan trace the build using Arun's five-stage framework for sustainable success — and Aidan gets specific about the decisions most founders gloss over:
Why 100% of QuantLink's software is written by AI — and the ontology and deterministic validation that stops it from hallucinating "slop"
The gap he saw in a market already crowded with Bloomberg, Merrill, and Schwab
Why exposing all of their code became a trust strategy for a young company with no institutional track record
The surprise: customers didn't come for the AI — they came for the charts and the reports
Where the platform goes next: an open marketplace for data, models, agents, and templates
His bet on the future of AI architecture — deterministic graphs over generated code
Chapters
00:00 — The thinking gap: why organizations fall behind on AI
00:28 — Meet the guest: Aidan McConnell, QuantLink AI
01:08 — Arun's five-stage framework for sustainable success
02:34 — Finding the niche: the gap in a saturated market
05:49 — Flipping the game: letting users build their own signals
08:30 — The B2B shift and user responsibility
09:51 — Transparency as a trust strategy
11:27 — Building the core: AI-first, human layer on top
12:24 — Ontologies and deterministic validation
16:00 — The eval harness: data-fetching vs. product layer
21:30 — Diversification: charts, reports, and the "boring" wins
28:28 — Becoming a platform: the open marketplace vision
31:20 — People and the ownership mindset
35:10 — Affiliates and incentives
36:37 — R&D: vertical models and the future of AI architecture
41:03 — The external environment: regulation and consumer education
44:21 — What's shipping next + how to try it
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Guest: Aidan McConnell
QuantLink AI (https://www.quantlink.ai/) ·
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-mcconnell-341259108/ ·
X: https://x.com/Aidan_mcconnell
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