In episode 39 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Myra D’Souza, founder of Autyn, an AI-native mortgage origination platform built for mortgage brokers. Myra shares how her background in software engineering, data science, fintech, and real estate investing led her to identify a major gap in the mortgage lending process: borrowers often feel left in the dark, while brokers are buried in manual workflows, PDFs, and admin-heavy processes.

The conversation explores what it takes to build AI in a high-trust, highly regulated industry like lending. Myra discusses why explainability, reasoning, guardrails, and human oversight are essential when AI is supporting decisions that directly affect borrowers’ financial lives. She also breaks down the metrics that matter most as an AI startup founder, including net revenue retention, gross margins, AI spend per loan file, and the importance of building customer trust before scaling.

Laurie and Myra also discuss the future of work, the role of women founders in shaping responsible AI, and why the next generation of lending should empower borrowers instead of keeping them dependent on gatekeepers. This episode is a grounded look at AI, risk, financial decision-making, and what it really takes to build technology that customers can trust.

QUOTES

• "We're not just using AI for the sake of using AI, we're using it exactly where we need it." - Myra D’Souza
• "We have to be very careful about AI adoption and how we're thinking about that as well." - Myra D’Souza
• "You need good financials to build a good company." - Myra D’Souza

Laurie Chen

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/

Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/

Myra D'Souza

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myradsouza/

Autyn: https://autyn.ai/