I had an interview request from this company, which I declined after taking a look at the premise. Somewhat glad I did now

One failed initiative does not mean the company is bad. In fact if a company always succeeds, Im suspicious that they’re aiming too small. Is there something else that made you doubt them?

Right, there's always room for the "exception" in startup land. But majority will fail right? For me personally, it just wasn't worth the risk to jump, especially given this surge of AI right now. Also, already working at a fintech company has shown me that margins can be razor thin/tiny at times, depending on the product. For Mesa, I am guessing they relied upon interchange fees, partnership/commissions, and interest income.

Not surprising, Bilt is apparently losing quite a bit of money on their rent payment rewards. Unless Mesa had a hefty transaction fee built in, they were probably burning through that 9M in cash pretty quickly.

Bilt is allegedly launching a new version with rewards for paying mortgages lol

Sure, but they are also transitioning to another bank. Wells-Fargo was losing around 10M/month on Bilt and ended it's partnership with Bilt.

Before everyone dogpiles on and says this was an obvious money losing scheme one of their competitors that does the same thing for rent is expanding into mortgages.

If the only skin in the game is VCs, then that is not a counterpoint against this being an obvious money-losing scheme.