Paul Gu, Co-Founder and CEO, Explains the Upstart Macro Index (UMI) Reporting Changes
Gu explained why Upstart streamlined UMI reporting and how the index estimates the effect of macro conditions on credit losses for Upstart-powered loans.
Paul Gu
CEO, Co-Founder, Upstart Holdings, Inc. (UPST)
The CEO view
CEO since May 1, 2026; Thiel Fellow and primary architect of Upstart AI.
Podcasts, interviews & articles
6 recorded appearances
2026
'Credit access is absolutely a problem': Upstart's Paul Gu
In his first weeks as CEO, Gu argued banks still lean on outdated creditworthiness signals and described how Upstart has been changing its underwriting models to widen access.
Paul Gu Spills on Plans for Upstart
As incoming CEO, Gu discussed the 2022 macro shock, the Upstart Macro Index, Model 25, insider buying, and product expansion plans.
2025
How Upstart's AI is mastering growth, credit performance, and profitability
With Zack Miller: the path from zero training data in 2013 to 91 million repayment data points, and why predicting prepayment alongside default changes the economics of a loan.
UPST Stock: Upstart's Co-Founder on 92% Loan Automation
The technical deep dive from his CTO period: how the models actually work, the 92% fully-automated approval rate, conversion, fairness and fraud, the data advantage, and the move into secured products.
AI Day: Paul Gu, Co-founder and CTO: Our AI Advantage
His most detailed public technical talk: why traditional credit scoring is limited, the Loan Month Model predicting default and prepayment for every month of a loan, the proprietary loss functions and embeddings, treating time as a feature to handle macro shifts, and the separation-accuracy advantage over textbook models.