[David] Allen, let’s get over to you. It’s good to have you here. Appreciate it. Congratulations on the sale of your house, dude. I only hope I can be so fortunate is to be able to have my house sell that quickly.
[Allen] Yeah. Thank you, David. You know what’s funny is, and hopefully the new home buyer’s not listening to this podcast, but I had to fix a sprinkler pipe, and that’s one of the things that I do really well and I enjoy doing, but, last minute, I don’t enjoy doing it and so I spent two days digging holes looking for this one pipe that I know for a year has been broken. But I just didn’t run that zone and so I finally fixed it. I dug up this big square. I didn’t have the right fittings. I had to run to Home Depot, come back, run again. Anyways, got it all fixed last night at 7:30 at night before, the sun completely went down and I threw all the dirt back on and I wanted to put a piece of sod there, but all I had was this, like a quick patch covering. I covered it. So, the home inspector they never even checked the sprinklers because it was, it’s all wifi and he didn’t have any buttons to push. So, they said, just ask the homeowner to send a video of the sprinklers working. But they sent a picture of the spot that I patched up and they go, what is this? So the first thing I told my realtor is that’s where I buried the treasure, but I can’t believe I forgot to spray painted green this morning. I’m so sorry. So, she goes, can I send that to the other realtor? And I said, sure. And then I told them, it’s where I patched the pipe. And I took a picture of the pipe before I buried it so they have a picture and all that. But it was pretty funny. They have a picture.
[David] Yeah. That’s so funny. You know why that reminds you? I gotta tell a story because you’re a storyteller, Allen. So you and I enjoy storyteller. It’s the guy who’s dad’s writing his son, who unfortunately had just made bad decision, ended up in the incarceration for a little while. He is in prison for a little bit and dad wrote, son said, I’m so sorry that you’re not here to help me dig up the garden this week because I am really getting old and I can’t do it as much. I’m probably not gonna be able to get my garden planted and son says, yeah, I’m so sorry, but dad, whatever you don’t dig in the garden. That’s where I buried the bodies. And so the next day there’s FBI agents out there and dug up the whole garden and they go. Sorry, couldn’t find anything oh, later that day, son wrote Dad, sorry I couldn’t be there to help, but this is the best I could do.
[Allen] I love it. Yeah.
[David] Oh yeah. Anyway, what do you have for a Tech Update, brother?
[Allen] Woo. Alright, so, I couldn’t make it last week I apologize, but two weeks prior I said, I’m gonna start off the next podcast with what a Burger King and your LOS have in common and so back in 2020, Burger King launched this wild campaign. It recently showed up all over TikTok rather, where they showed their whopper getting moldy over 35 days, and they did it on purpose, full on decay, fungus, the whole thing is what they called it. Why to prove it has no artificial preservatives, real food, mold, the fake stuff. Question mark. Stays pristine forever and they were obviously referring to the Mickey D’s that people left it forever and it looked just fine. So anyways, there’s a tie in to Mortgage Tech and obviously GPT helped me out with the tie in because I love GPT so much. It said Legacy mortgage systems. They’re the tech equivalent of the never decaying cheeseburger under a heat lamp. Unnatural, untouched, but definitely not appetizing in today’s digital world. Real modern tech. It evolves, it changes. It might even break occasionally, but that’s because it’s alive, improving, adapting the borrower’s needs, investor demands, and market volatility and so the message that GPT wants you all to know, I’m just the messenger. It says just like Burger King wanted to show, they’re using real ingredients. Tenders need to show they’re using real innovation lenders rather. I don’t know why. I guess food’s on my mind that said tenders. Lenders need to show they’re using real innovation, not just hiding behind the preserved, outdated systems that haven’t changed since the CD ROM days. So the message is, if you haven’t updated since the old moldy Whopper first aired, it might be time to throw it out before your compliance team finds it in the back of the fridge. So GPT couldn’t be more, more accurate. It doesn’t mean that your LOS or your systems are wrong. What it means is you may be using an old implementation or workflow. You may not be doing things the new way. You have a moldy burger, go get rid of it and get a new burger. That’s pretty much what we’re trying to say here.
[David] Yeah. Good stuff. Good? Yeah. Good metaphor. Yeah. Alright, let’s move on.
[Alice] I thought you were gonna say I could have my technology my way.
[David] Yeah, that’s exactly.
[Alice] Have it your way, Burger King. Have it your way.
[Allen] That would’ve been great. I should go back to GPT and say, why didn’t you say that and see what it says. Yeah. Because that would’ve been the best pun. So GPT has released a new image version, by the way. You can edit photos. You can create photos. It’s pretty darn good. You have to know how to talk to it because if you don’t, it doesn’t generate great results. But it is pretty good. Also, GPT is now free for all college kids. So, if you have a college student or you are listening and you’re in college or taking classes, you have the ability to get chat GPT Pro for free. My kids do it. Go do it. Check it out. Are you in love with ai? And I don’t mean love it. I mean in love with how many people are going too far or fallen into a relationship with their AI. I’m not gonna tell you the analytics because I pulled it up and then I got distracted. But I’m gonna tell you, I’ll pull, I could get that for next week, but I’m gonna tell you this, I don’t mean life like a best friend or the person in your relationship. What I’m talking about is your mirror version to champion you and work you to keep you on track, to motivate you, to push you, to hold you accountable, and to get you, you can program it to be whoever you want. Whatever that other version is of you that you’d like GPT to be. You can talk to it, tell it what you want. Many people do it today. Many people are online telling you how to do it. They’re using GPT for life changes, how to get outta debt, mediation, how to talk to their realtor, how to consider certain properties, how to work out their fitness schedules, how to do recipes, even daily motivational messages. GPT will check in with people. You tell it to and say, how’s your day going? You tell it what’s going on. It may help you get through the rest of your day and how to plan your next day. It can become the better version of yourself and so the question I leave you with is, do you know how to talk to it? So you can check that out, give it a try. Alright David, a couple quick little things and I want to get to that point I mentioned I’ll save a couple for next week because I talk a lot. Dark Matter Technologies. Everyone knows Sean Dugan. He is Sean Dugan. Sean Dugan is now the new CEO, so congrats to Sean Dugan.
[David] Yeah, good buddy Sean. Congrats. Yes.
[Allen] Yeah. ICE Mortgage Tech has introduced brand new features into Encompass their LOS platform. I keep calling it Ice Mortgage Tech, by the way. I always call it Encompass, aiming to improve data validation and streamline the origination process. These enhancements are part of their effort to provide more efficiency and compliance. Now get this UWM just partnered with Google to enhance loan processing. So, what they just did is they’re looking to, they’re integrating AI driven automation and cloud tech into in one big unit in order to streamline the home loan process for brokers and borrowers. Folks, there are a lot of people that have put AI into their system. They’ve tackled it on this, you’ve seen what UWM do this and we’re gonna see many more. You’re gonna see a lot of solutions that say that they have AI that, and they may, but you’re gonna see a lot of people trying to do it on their own. AI underwriting, the ability to dissect or diagnose a loan defect upfront is going to skyrocket. If you wanna say, where’s AI gonna make a difference? It’s right there. Nobody’s gonna trust us to completely underwrite alone just yet. But to find those defects, and we used to call it back in the day to interrogate the data, AI is where it’s at and it’s going to explode in many areas, but in that one area is going to be amazing. So I’ll leave you with that as far as what UWM is doing and then David, let me bring this up. We talked about a little bit earlier, why find the right technology superstar for your executive team? And it’s real easy. It’s because the right tech leader doesn’t just support your strategy, they accelerate your strategy. That’s really important. I’ll say it again. The right tech leader doesn’t support your strategy, they accelerate it and in today’s market, your next competitive edge might be the CTO you haven’t hired yet and I just have a couple quick points that go with it. That CTO or that executive superstar, they don’t just write code, they write the future of your business. They integrate the future of your business with those vendors. A great tech exec turns complexity into competitive advantage. That’s probably the number one thing. Innovation isn’t optional anymore, David. It’s leadership. We all know that and those CTOs align product data and growth like no one else can and why are they doing that? because they’re giving you that competitive advantage and then finally, your ops team driven by your technology leadership reduces your friction. Your tech lead removes it entirely. Wow. Great. Yep. So a that’s good stuff. Great quote I had today. I’ve said it a few times, it’s let it flow, and I’ll leave you with that.
[David] Let it flow, yeah. That’s good. That don’t, that, that almost sounds Canadian. Don’t you know? Yeah. Anyway. Very good. Allen, appreciate your update. Congratulations on the sale of your house. Appreciate so much.
Allen Pollack
, Chief Operating Officer, Tech Consultant
Allen Pollack, a Mortgage & Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.
In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.
Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.
Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.
Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.