Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBe

Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBerry app). I used to use it exclusively by SMS starting around 2011. It used to be smart enough where I could text in "Pay John $5 for food" and it would figure out which John I meant and do it. I loved that. It's been amazing to watch Venmo grow to what it is now. If I could only keep three apps on my smartphone, I would choose Uber/Lyft, Venmo, and Google Maps. I can't navigate my life without all three of those. In my last year of college my Venmo year in review showed that I had spent $17k on Venmo and received $18k. So not a huge net, just a constant movement of money in and out among my friends (rent, food, parties, etc). If I had to use cash we would have never been able to make the small things work, and if I had to use PayPal I would have accrued $100s to $1000s in fees. So basically: thank you Venmo. You make my life measurably simpler.