Upstart’s Q1 2026 was one of those quarters where both sides had a point. The bulls saw the obvious stuff: originations grew, revenue grew, funding looked stable, and management reaffirmed full-year guidance. The bears saw the other obvious stuff: GAAP EPS missed expectations, adjusted EBITDA came in lighter than the market wanted, and balance sheet exposure didn’t step down the way many investors hoped. So, yeah. Strong quarter. Messy message. And for Upstart investors, that’s kind of been...

I’ll be honest: this quarter was better than it felt. That’s probably the cleanest way to describe Upstart’s Q1 2026 results. The underlying business looked strong. Originations grew. Revenue grew. Funding sounded stable. Guidance was reaffirmed. Paul Gu handled his first earnings call as CEO pretty well. And yet… the market still had plenty to chew on. That was the setup we talked about in our Q1 preview. Upstart came into earnings with improving fundamentals, a better funding picture, more...

Upstart heads into Q1 2026 earnings looking a lot stronger than the stock price suggests. That’s the short version. The longer version is a little messier, because this is still Upstart. Volatile stock. Complicated business. Private credit headlines. Margin pressure. Macro worries. A management team that has not always made life easy for investors. But strip away the noise and the setup is pretty clear: Upstart is trying to prove that AI can do in credit what Amazon and Costco did in retail....