Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Nik Storonsky

Transcript

Nik Storonsky · The David Rubenstein Show

0:03
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, Nick Keoronsky started a small company designed
0:07
Speaker 1: to help people with their foreign currency exchanges. Today that
0:10
Speaker 1: company is Revolute. It is the most valuable pre IPO
0:13
Speaker 1: company in all of Europe. I had a chance recently
0:16
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC to sit down with Nick Keoronsky to
0:19
Speaker 1: talk about his amazing story how he grew a very
0:22
Speaker 1: small company into such a giant financial behemoth. Let's talk
0:25
Speaker 1: about Revolute because it's a company that's based in UK,
0:30
Speaker 1: focus more on Europe than the United States. We'll get
0:33
Speaker 1: to that in a moment, but let's talk about what
0:35
Speaker 1: it does for the American audience. For example, what is Revolute?
0:39
Speaker 1: What does it actually do well?
0:40
Speaker 2: I wrote, it does a digital bank, so we provide
0:43
Speaker 2: global banking services for our people in more than fourty countries.
0:48
Speaker 2: So everything is expected into one simple up. So you
0:51
Speaker 2: can do your banking, You can do a wealth management,
0:54
Speaker 2: stock trading, CDs, bones, crypt can borrow mania also have
1:00
Speaker 2: a lifestyle service. For example, it can get yourself or
1:04
Speaker 2: you can book a lounge, you can book a hotel
1:06
Speaker 2: and so on. So everything is in one up for
1:08
Speaker 2: your financial services.
1:10
Speaker 1: Do you have a partner to start it with?
1:12
Speaker 2: I actually started alone. So I built a product, I
1:15
Speaker 2: hired a team, then one fire first siture that I hired,
1:20
Speaker 2: so later made him or I think it was till
1:23
Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen. I made him co founder as well because
1:26
Speaker 2: it was easier for him to kind of, you know,
1:29
Speaker 2: recruit engineers if he had title co founder.
1:32
Speaker 1: So you start the company and the mission you had
1:36
Speaker 1: was to enable people to do what that they couldn't do.
1:39
Speaker 1: What was your purpose in starting a company?
1:42
Speaker 2: So I was a trader back then, and then I'm
1:45
Speaker 2: very quick in calculating numbers in my head. And then
1:48
Speaker 2: every time when I went abroad or when I send money,
1:51
Speaker 2: I could instantly calculate, okay I lost here, ten dollars,
1:54
Speaker 2: fifty dollars and so on. And my initial idea was
1:58
Speaker 2: to build a product, a simple up with a cut
2:00
Speaker 2: at tasted that allows you to spend money anywhere in
2:04
Speaker 2: the world at interomand create so saving effects to fifty
2:07
Speaker 2: to seventy dollars and every one thousand dollars that you spent.
2:10
Speaker 1: In other words, you weren't trying to convert people's currency.
2:14
Speaker 1: You were letting them have a card that would enable
2:16
Speaker 1: them to buy something and whatever currency they wanted.
2:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's both right. You can pre exchange currency
2:23
Speaker 2: or you can buy directly from your existing currency.
2:27
Speaker 1: Normally throughout Europe. When you go to Europe, you see
2:29
Speaker 1: everywhere currency exchange places and they always charge a fee.
2:33
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it is, six seven percent. So
2:38
Speaker 1: you decided to start a currency exchange business without charging
2:42
Speaker 1: a fee.
2:42
Speaker 2: You can call currency exchange businesses intermand create without charging
2:47
Speaker 2: a few.
2:47
Speaker 1: Correctly, you didn't go out and build a physical bank.
2:50
Speaker 1: You did it all online, is that right?
2:52
Speaker 2: Exactly?
2:52
Speaker 1: Yeah? So how did you get people to know about
2:54
Speaker 1: this service? Did you start advertising online anything?
2:57
Speaker 2: We didn't spend any single marketing for the was five
3:00
Speaker 2: to some years for being in operation, so it was
3:03
Speaker 2: all a road of mouth. So I remember when I
3:06
Speaker 2: finally launched the product. It was somewher twenty fifteen, and
3:12
Speaker 2: I physically, you know, I was selling my product to friends, family,
3:17
Speaker 2: even on people I don't know.
3:19
Speaker 1: Okay, So if I go to one then today and
3:22
Speaker 1: I say, here's ten dollars and I wanted to change
3:25
Speaker 1: it on a regular place that I would get back
3:28
Speaker 1: pounds minus about a six seven eight percent fee. So
3:32
Speaker 1: if I went on your service, what would I get
3:36
Speaker 1: back if I when I get back everything with birth
3:38
Speaker 1: CERTA essentially no fee exactly. Then you make the money
3:42
Speaker 1: in effect on the float because you're getting paid by somebody,
3:46
Speaker 1: and then you kind of can invest that money and
3:49
Speaker 1: then you don't have to pay somebody for a while.
3:50
Speaker 1: Is that how you make the.
3:51
Speaker 2: Money several time when you were spent with a cod
3:55
Speaker 2: MESSI defectly pay pays two to three percent. Yeah, okay,
3:59
Speaker 2: well that's not customer pain but rather a business itself.
4:02
Speaker 2: But I want to be clear that was initial product
4:05
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. Now, especially for your customers, we have
4:08
Speaker 2: fully kind of licensed digital bank providing all kinds of services.
4:13
Speaker 1: You have a European banking license, now, is that right?
4:17
Speaker 2: So we have European Bank all so we are regulated
4:19
Speaker 2: by European Central Bank. We have a UK banking license
4:24
Speaker 2: regulated by PRA. Then we also have multiple other licenses
4:27
Speaker 2: for example Mexico, Columbia, Toison.
4:30
Speaker 1: And you're now applying for a US banking license. Correct,
4:33
Speaker 1: How long does it take to get a US banking license?
4:36
Speaker 2: Right now? It should take out up to twelve months,
4:40
Speaker 2: but again it depends, so official target is four months.
4:43
Speaker 2: But then there are multiple steps involved, it can be longer.
4:47
Speaker 1: Are you confident that you can get a banking license
4:50
Speaker 1: in the United States? You think you'll get it?
4:52
Speaker 2: I think it's obviously much easier for us given a
4:55
Speaker 2: new administration, plus that we have so many other banking licenses,
4:59
Speaker 2: plus we have a bank lesson you Cano, So for
5:01
Speaker 2: us it became much easier compared to two years ago.
5:04
Speaker 1: Do you have a credit card business as well?
5:06
Speaker 2: You will have credit cars in several markets, yes.
5:09
Speaker 1: Is that? And you have credit cards and debit cards.
5:13
Speaker 2: We have debit casts in every single market and the
5:15
Speaker 2: credit cards I think in five or six markets. So
5:17
Speaker 2: in Europe have twenty percent plantration, so one out of
5:21
Speaker 2: five adults in Europe they use Revelute cars and then
5:25
Speaker 2: as certn mIRC as we have much high penetration. For example,
5:28
Speaker 2: in Ireland we have four out of five adults using Revelute.
5:32
Speaker 1: So younger people seem to like things that are called cryptocurrencies.
5:37
Speaker 1: Are you involved in cryptocurrencies? Do you trade cryptocurrencies or
5:41
Speaker 1: make markets for people?
5:42
Speaker 2: So as a business, we have a pretty large crypto
5:45
Speaker 2: currency business. I think we are the largest. We have
5:48
Speaker 2: the largest crypto business in Europe with our volumes personally,
5:54
Speaker 2: I don't speculate crypto, but I use it sometimes, you know,
5:58
Speaker 2: for transfers.
5:59
Speaker 1: So in the United States, what do you hope to
6:01
Speaker 1: be able to do with your banking license if you
6:03
Speaker 1: get it? What is the market gap that you think
6:07
Speaker 1: you can feel that maybe others aren't doing.
6:09
Speaker 2: So basically I mentioned a radioh retail business. So it's
6:12
Speaker 2: one simple up where you can do everything what you
6:16
Speaker 2: need for your financial life. And then second direction, well
6:18
Speaker 2: also provide the revolute business accounts for businesses. And again
6:22
Speaker 2: it's end to end services that you need to run
6:24
Speaker 2: your business. So payments, banking, credit will come as well,
6:30
Speaker 2: wealth management or treasury, well call it treasury, then acquiring
6:33
Speaker 2: as well. So for example, right now, if I'm an
6:35
Speaker 2: American company, I'll need to stop say Stripe for acquiring,
6:39
Speaker 2: then GPY Morgan for my business banking. Then you know,
6:43
Speaker 2: something else for payouts, something else for payroll. So we
6:47
Speaker 2: provide all these services in one product.
6:49
Speaker 1: Well, if you conquer the US the way you've conquered
6:52
Speaker 1: the UK and Europe, is China next, or you're not
6:56
Speaker 1: going to focus on that?
6:57
Speaker 2: Eis your way Definitely focusing, So spending a lot of
6:59
Speaker 2: time studying Asia and then as a sarch. So we
7:02
Speaker 2: applied it for multiple banking licenses in Asia as well,
7:05
Speaker 2: and then some of them but we got already. And
7:07
Speaker 2: then China is on the least as well. You know,
7:09
Speaker 2: one day I hope we can set up a business there.
7:12
Speaker 1: Now, some people have written that your bank revelute is
7:17
Speaker 1: worth seventy five billion dollars? Have you ever thought of
7:20
Speaker 1: taking your organization public?
7:21
Speaker 2: But the way I think about it will be ready
7:24
Speaker 2: to probably in two year's time. But then again depends
7:28
Speaker 2: on how good the market is.
7:31
Speaker 1: Bench you don't have an IPO, how do people who
7:33
Speaker 1: work for you make some money? You make a market
7:36
Speaker 1: for people to sell their shares internally?
7:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we do secondaries every one or two years
7:41
Speaker 2: when people can sell certain portion of their stocks to
7:46
Speaker 2: excel investors.
7:47
Speaker 1: So you've done secondary sales for your employees, so employees
7:50
Speaker 1: can then get some liquidity. Do you expect before you
7:53
Speaker 1: go public you'll do any more of those or you're
7:55
Speaker 1: just going to wait to you go public before you
7:57
Speaker 1: liquefy any more stock.
7:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so we might do secondaries as well
8:01
Speaker 2: before we do IPO, because we do it every one
8:04
Speaker 2: or two years. So we might do a second results.
8:07
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if anybody wants to sell their shares
8:09
Speaker 1: to me, let me know. And have any investment bankers
8:12
Speaker 1: told you why they're the best to do the IPO
8:14
Speaker 1: for you?
8:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously every single one is the best.
8:16
Speaker 1: Everyone is the best. You're not in a rush to
8:18
Speaker 1: do it.
8:18
Speaker 2: You don't need the money, so we a bank. And
8:21
Speaker 2: then for the bank, it's super important to have trust.
8:25
Speaker 2: And then public companies are trusted and more compared to
8:28
Speaker 2: private companies. So there's the reason.
8:30
Speaker 1: What are you most proud of having done so far
8:32
Speaker 1: and what do you most enjoy?
8:34
Speaker 2: Well, it's basically designing something, designing solution to solve a
8:37
Speaker 2: problem that I see it are being realized, and then
8:40
Speaker 2: are using it. That's what I enjoy when I see
8:43
Speaker 2: some elegant solution.
8:44
Speaker 1: Many people think that companies like yours, which are often
8:48
Speaker 1: called fin tech companies financial technology companies are changing the
8:53
Speaker 1: world dramatically, but they could be changed dramatically. So for example,
8:57
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is coming along. You worried about ourtificial intelligence?
9:00
Speaker 1: Or do you use artificial intelligence to help grow your company?
9:04
Speaker 2: An additional tool that we obviously use and I think
9:07
Speaker 2: with LLM chatbots, so it's another surface on top of
9:11
Speaker 2: the infrastructure that we build, because banking is not a
9:15
Speaker 2: simple UP right under UP you have a lot of
9:18
Speaker 2: back end, a lot of systems, and a lot of
9:22
Speaker 2: regulatory systems and so on. And then UP is effective
9:26
Speaker 2: interface to all this back end logic. And then LLM
9:29
Speaker 2: can be something on top of the UP or directly
9:32
Speaker 2: interacting with our back end logic. So call it another interface.
9:37
Speaker 2: That's what we're building as well and allowing people to
9:39
Speaker 2: interact with all our products through Childbot.
9:42
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how you came to start the company.
9:46
Speaker 1: So you are doesn't sound like you're a native of
9:49
Speaker 1: England from your.
9:50
Speaker 2: Accent, originally from Russia. So it came to u K
9:54
Speaker 2: first in two thousand and six for the internship, then
9:57
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven I came for another internship
10:00
Speaker 2: afterwards our estate to be employed by Leman Brothers as
10:04
Speaker 2: a trader.
10:05
Speaker 1: And at what age did you leave Russia?
10:07
Speaker 2: Twenty years old? And then as soon as I finished
10:09
Speaker 2: my university I moved to London to work full time
10:13
Speaker 2: for Leman Brothers.
10:15
Speaker 1: And were your parents educated? Are they math specialists or
10:18
Speaker 1: they have computer training or not?
10:21
Speaker 2: So my father he is a physicist by training. My mother,
10:25
Speaker 2: she's a teacher.
10:26
Speaker 1: I assume you're a pretty good math student or a
10:28
Speaker 1: physics student or something because you have technology background.
10:30
Speaker 2: I assume yeah, I was always trained in mass physics
10:34
Speaker 2: as well.
10:35
Speaker 1: Right, So you go to England and did you have
10:37
Speaker 1: a job lined up before you got there?
10:39
Speaker 2: So Lyman Brothers came to my university and then they
10:43
Speaker 2: tried to recruit some people for the internship. So they
10:47
Speaker 2: recruited me for internship. I came there in summer two
10:50
Speaker 2: thousand and six, and then they invited miss for second
10:54
Speaker 2: internship in the spring two thousand and seven, and they
10:57
Speaker 2: also gave me a job for a full time when
11:01
Speaker 2: I graduated from my university. So when I graduated in July,
11:06
Speaker 2: I think it was July two thousand and seven, I
11:08
Speaker 2: came to London to rock full time for Lehman Brothers.
11:12
Speaker 1: Didn't Leman go under at some point.
11:14
Speaker 2: Two thousand and eight, Yes, I wasn't Are you there then?
11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah?
11:18
Speaker 2: I was there. I was one of probably two hundred
11:21
Speaker 2: people on the trading floor. It all happened. I still remember.
11:25
Speaker 2: There was Sunday evening announcement and then I was wondering
11:29
Speaker 2: I could do I need to come on Monday morning
11:32
Speaker 2: to my kind of job? So I came and then
11:35
Speaker 2: we had all these two hundred traders locked at one
11:38
Speaker 2: trading floor. Everything, all the systems were locked, and we're
11:41
Speaker 2: all playing the same game. I think it was a
11:44
Speaker 2: game shooting helicopters or something, all all two hurrying people
11:46
Speaker 2: because there was nothing to do.
11:48
Speaker 1: So did you think capitalism wasn't such a great system
11:51
Speaker 1: at that point when you go to Lehman Brothers and
11:53
Speaker 1: they go bankrupt and you're out of work.
11:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was full of confidence right about myself. I
11:58
Speaker 2: was not afraid to lose the job because I knew
12:01
Speaker 2: I can always find any one.
12:02
Speaker 1: So did you have a hard time finding another job? No?
12:06
Speaker 2: I got kind of a job from the Mura and
12:10
Speaker 2: then from Credit.
12:11
Speaker 1: Swiss as well. All right, and so where did you go?
12:14
Speaker 2: I went to Cratsis, I went to Credit Swiss.
12:17
Speaker 1: They've had their problems too. Actually, did you leave Credit
12:21
Speaker 1: Swiss before they had their problems?
12:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I left Credit swiez twenty thirteen. So
12:28
Speaker 2: basically as soon as I got my British passport I resigned,
12:32
Speaker 2: and then when I came to UK. It was never
12:35
Speaker 2: a kind of objective to stay there more than two years.
12:39
Speaker 2: I always wanted to start my own business. But then
12:42
Speaker 2: I know, I said one year, then the second year,
12:44
Speaker 2: and the third year, and then after year six, when
12:47
Speaker 2: I got my passport, I decided to resign and then
12:50
Speaker 2: start my own business.
12:51
Speaker 1: Okay, you started your business in twenty fifteen.
12:55
Speaker 2: So I started working in twenty thirteen and I launched
12:57
Speaker 2: it twenty fifteen.
12:58
Speaker 1: Did you have any capital to help you start the company?
13:01
Speaker 2: I have my own savings, yes, right, so you.
13:03
Speaker 1: Put in some of your own money, but you presumably
13:04
Speaker 1: weren't a multi billionaire, so you didn't put in that
13:07
Speaker 1: much money, right, I.
13:09
Speaker 2: Mean back then I put probably about or half a
13:11
Speaker 2: million dollars half a million overall. But obviously I also
13:14
Speaker 2: didn't work for two years myself, so if you don't
13:17
Speaker 2: count my salary, I didn't have any salary. So to
13:21
Speaker 2: build something back then was my ship I compared to
13:23
Speaker 2: you nowadays, you have.
13:24
Speaker 1: A venture capital arm I it's called Quantum Light.
13:29
Speaker 2: So it's a separate business. CE think it was three
13:32
Speaker 2: years ago as entrepreneur. I've done a lot of fundraising
13:35
Speaker 2: rounds with the vcs, and then I think at a
13:38
Speaker 2: certain point of time. I was very pissed off with
13:41
Speaker 2: the crowd thinking mentality right. So I had cases when
13:48
Speaker 2: termships were withdrawn, sign termshets, I had cases when a
13:51
Speaker 2: round was mucked down because I spro was down. So
13:55
Speaker 2: I had quite a lot of negative experience with the vcs.
13:59
Speaker 2: And then as a founder, I also wanted to invest
14:01
Speaker 2: my own money and I thought I can create something
14:05
Speaker 2: better in terms of investment. I think that has to
14:08
Speaker 2: be a scientific approach rather than human judgment. And then
14:12
Speaker 2: we build effective models that invest in startups Series B
14:17
Speaker 2: based on millions and millions data points on our startups,
14:22
Speaker 2: so they are trained machine learning models that invest plus.
14:25
Speaker 2: On top of it, I'm able to share with these
14:27
Speaker 2: statups my perisional knowledge. As a fund of revlut Plus,
14:32
Speaker 2: we help our startups to distribute their product for Revolute
14:36
Speaker 2: or to sell into Revolute, So we're all it's much
14:39
Speaker 2: better value proposition to funders compared to VC.
14:41
Speaker 1: What would you call you what you're doing angel investing
14:44
Speaker 1: or around A or we.
14:46
Speaker 2: Do serious B. We started we just launched a fund
14:50
Speaker 2: for serious LYS.
14:51
Speaker 1: What did you raise money for it? I assume people
14:53
Speaker 1: gave you all the money you wanted, but did you
14:55
Speaker 1: just use your own money and your friends money? Did
14:57
Speaker 1: you have to go out and raise money?
14:58
Speaker 2: First fund was two hundred and fifty million, so I
15:01
Speaker 2: put around twenty five percent of my own money under.
15:04
Speaker 2: The rest was external LPCE and.
15:06
Speaker 1: What types of rates of return do you think you
15:08
Speaker 1: can get in that fund?
15:10
Speaker 2: So basically, when I had this idea, when we build
15:12
Speaker 2: a model and then we started back testing the model,
15:15
Speaker 2: it produces effectively forty to fifty percent a year on
15:20
Speaker 2: the year returns, long term returns. So when we started
15:23
Speaker 2: investing based on the model, I think now we are
15:27
Speaker 2: called top four or five percent of the funds the
15:29
Speaker 2: world in terms of returns. So it's usually thirty to
15:33
Speaker 2: forty returns.
15:35
Speaker 1: So you ever use your credit card and it gets
15:38
Speaker 1: turned down. In other words, you got to use a
15:40
Speaker 1: credit card at a restaurant or somewhere and they say
15:42
Speaker 1: your credits tonight? Is whatever happened to you?
15:45
Speaker 2: Initially? Yes, yeah, but it was more than a eight
15:48
Speaker 2: nine years ago when service wasn't that stable. Now we
15:51
Speaker 2: just don't have declines.
15:53
Speaker 1: But now that happened to you, did you tell people
15:55
Speaker 1: who you were? You didn't say, look, I'm the founder
15:58
Speaker 1: of the company.
15:58
Speaker 2: And was just coding engineers and trying to find out
16:01
Speaker 2: what happened. YI is declined.
16:03
Speaker 1: How many customers a rebel doold have? Now?
16:06
Speaker 2: So have seventy five million customers.
16:09
Speaker 1: How big do you think you can take it? Do
16:10
Speaker 1: you think you can take it to one hundred million
16:12
Speaker 1: customers or more?
16:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can definitely take it to a hundred million customers.
16:16
Speaker 2: Our internal target is one hundred million daily active customers,
16:21
Speaker 2: and then one hundred million daily active customers will transfer
16:23
Speaker 2: about three hundred million monthly actives.
16:25
Speaker 1: It's said that companies, if they're really going to survive
16:28
Speaker 1: and prosper for over many period years at the time,
16:31
Speaker 1: they have to have a good culture. What is the
16:33
Speaker 1: culture you're trying to build in your company?
16:36
Speaker 2: So we have these five cultural values pretty well defined,
16:40
Speaker 2: starting with never settle, so never settlers, about being ambitious
16:43
Speaker 2: and setting up for big goals. Secondly, it's about dream team,
16:48
Speaker 2: so we prefer to work in a small team of
16:51
Speaker 2: extremely high intelligent people rather than in the lash teams
16:55
Speaker 2: for average people. Or third one is get things done.
17:00
Speaker 2: It's very important to be kind of you know, getting
17:04
Speaker 2: things done oriented. Then we have a cultural principle called deliverable.
17:09
Speaker 2: It's about almost perfection in everything what we do in
17:13
Speaker 2: terms of product.
17:15
Speaker 1: I suppose I say I have an account at a
17:17
Speaker 1: famous British bank, but I'm not happy with it, and
17:21
Speaker 1: I feel secure because I know they got all these
17:24
Speaker 1: buildings there and it seems like they have a lot
17:26
Speaker 1: of money behind them. You don't have any physical place
17:29
Speaker 1: for me to go right exactly.
17:32
Speaker 2: So we are solving this trust issue through different methods.
17:37
Speaker 2: For example, yes, absolutely correct, it's important for people visually
17:40
Speaker 2: see a big building of massive columns and then feel
17:43
Speaker 2: as you know, there's in a lot of money behind
17:45
Speaker 2: the building. So we do differently as we build trust
17:48
Speaker 2: and reputation through brand. So for example, if you look
17:51
Speaker 2: at European airports, so majority of European airports we advertise
17:55
Speaker 2: on affectedly buy the whole airport and then advertise on
17:59
Speaker 2: the whole airport, on the bridge just and so on.
18:01
Speaker 2: So we would build a brand through a lot of
18:05
Speaker 2: advertising rather than having these massive buildings.
18:07
Speaker 1: Banks we're in the business hundreds of years ago principally
18:12
Speaker 1: to do two things. One have a place where people
18:15
Speaker 1: can park their money and also to borrow money. You
18:17
Speaker 1: borrow money from banks can I borrow money from you,
18:20
Speaker 1: it can borrow money for loss, right, So where do
18:22
Speaker 1: you get the money?
18:24
Speaker 2: Balance it right?
18:25
Speaker 1: The reason people like dealing with you rather than the
18:28
Speaker 1: big conventional bank is that you're less expensive.
18:31
Speaker 2: So well, not only saving the money, we're also saving
18:33
Speaker 2: that time everything is automated.
18:36
Speaker 1: If you look at the future of the financial service world,
18:40
Speaker 1: do you think that there's a future for large banks
18:42
Speaker 1: to keep having these big buildings or do you think
18:44
Speaker 1: ultimately five or ten or fifteen years from now, everybody's
18:47
Speaker 1: going to be online with everything in five times?
18:50
Speaker 2: Yes, then we'll see one and more consolidation and thing.
18:53
Speaker 2: We'll see more and more certain digital champions and the
18:57
Speaker 2: regions taking one and more banking shs regions. So maybe
19:01
Speaker 2: it will take ten years, maybe it'll take fifteen years,
19:03
Speaker 2: twenty years. But I do think that we'll see less
19:07
Speaker 2: and less legacy banks, or less and less legacy banks
19:12
Speaker 2: will make so much money.
19:14
Speaker 1: So are you enjoying doing all this? Are you enjoy
19:18
Speaker 1: running the bank, running the adventure fund and doing interviews
19:21
Speaker 1: with people like me? Are you having a good time
19:23
Speaker 1: or you're not that happy?
19:24
Speaker 2: I mean certain like certain things I like, certain things
19:28
Speaker 2: I don't like so I love building products. I love
19:31
Speaker 2: kind of solving problems. I don't like delays, which can
19:39
Speaker 2: be quite often in the regulatory business, because certain things
19:42
Speaker 2: can be outside of for kind of you know, your
19:46
Speaker 2: decision making and speed.
19:47
Speaker 1: What are the skill sets that you think are required
19:50
Speaker 1: to build a company like this and do you look
19:52
Speaker 1: for those same skill sets in the people you hire?
19:55
Speaker 2: Well, you definitely do not need to be good at
19:58
Speaker 2: trading at all. For me, when I started, I knew
20:02
Speaker 2: nothing about banks because I was in a trader investment
20:06
Speaker 2: bank and has a very different organization compared to a
20:08
Speaker 2: retail bank and than payments company as well. So I
20:12
Speaker 2: learned everything from scratch and skills wise we're going to have.
20:18
Speaker 2: I think you're definitely have an ambitions and hunger plus
20:23
Speaker 2: as a character, plus in a lot of energy because
20:27
Speaker 2: it's pretty painful, you know, in a lot of ways
20:31
Speaker 2: with all the problems. Plus you always need to have
20:35
Speaker 2: a very strong logic, logical thinking, abstract thinking. You should
20:41
Speaker 2: be good with product as well, like you know, ability
20:44
Speaker 2: to build something nice and sleek. We're just looking for
20:48
Speaker 2: ultimately three things. First is high IQ or brains. I
20:55
Speaker 2: don't have certain ways how to understand whether person is
20:59
Speaker 2: smart or not, logical or not number one. Number two
21:03
Speaker 2: is a character, how ambitious they are, how hungry they are.
21:08
Speaker 2: And thirty is the skills. Right, if you hire a designer,
21:11
Speaker 2: they need to be good at design and so on.
21:13
Speaker 1: What new worlds do you want to conquer? You've built
21:15
Speaker 1: a big company, eventually you might take in public, You've
21:17
Speaker 1: got a great venture capital firm. What do you want
21:20
Speaker 1: to do next?
21:20
Speaker 2: Well, majority of time are edicated still to revolute. We're
21:24
Speaker 2: still scrashing the surface in terms of what is possible
21:27
Speaker 2: in building a first truly a global bank.
21:30
Speaker 1: Are you worried that somebody who's ten years younger than
21:33
Speaker 1: you is going to come along and with a better
21:35
Speaker 1: mouse trap and beat what you're doing, or you're not
21:37
Speaker 1: worried about that so much?
21:39
Speaker 2: I mean, really, I think there are windows of opportunity
21:42
Speaker 2: in the world, and then when there are certain tools
21:44
Speaker 2: sort opportunities, and then usually what happens ten twenty people
21:49
Speaker 2: jump on these opportunities in this particular country to do
21:51
Speaker 2: this particular product on them, people compete. I think an
21:56
Speaker 2: opportunity for fintech I think in the majority of conscience
22:00
Speaker 2: is gone now because they already players and legacy banks.
22:05
Speaker 2: They kind of cut top as all of products. So
22:08
Speaker 2: this is very hard to build anything new in fintech,
22:10
Speaker 2: or at least I don't see opportunitia. But nonetheless, I
22:14
Speaker 2: mean maybe I don't see anything. Maybe there is you know,
22:16
Speaker 2: someone smart who can come up with a better product.
22:19
Speaker 1: So most of the bankers I know have hair that's
22:21
Speaker 1: like mine. It's shorter, yours is a little bit longer.
22:24
Speaker 1: Is that your trademark? Or if you want to get
22:27
Speaker 1: a banking license in the United States, you think you
22:28
Speaker 1: need to cut your hair or not?
22:30
Speaker 2: I think you're definitely into wears whatever.
22:33
Speaker 1: Do you have friends from high school that call you
22:36
Speaker 1: up and say, remember me, I was your friend in
22:38
Speaker 1: high school?
22:39
Speaker 2: Sometimes friends of friends.
22:41
Speaker 1: It's not that hard to get get a hold of you.
22:44
Speaker 2: No, no, it's easy.
22:45
Speaker 1: It's easy. Okay, Well, next time I'm in London, I
22:47
Speaker 1: will call you up.
22:48
Speaker 2: And make sure you tell me so recorded otherwise I
22:51
Speaker 2: don't pick up no numbers.
22:53
Speaker 1: You're now probably the richest person in UK, or certainly
22:57
Speaker 1: one of them. What are you going to do with us?
23:00
Speaker 1: You're going to build art galleries or museums or give
23:04
Speaker 1: it away to social causes? What do you want to
23:06
Speaker 1: do with all those wealth. You can't spend twenty five
23:08
Speaker 1: billion dollars in your lifetime.
23:10
Speaker 2: Probably, well, just very focused on business, continue to make
23:15
Speaker 2: the best products, and then continue to expand, and then
23:20
Speaker 2: all this wealth is in the company rights. I don't
23:23
Speaker 2: know really to plan. I don't really plan to sell
23:26
Speaker 2: the company then spend all this money. So I just
23:29
Speaker 2: continue to work on, you know, what's necessary to to
23:35
Speaker 2: build a first global bank, because now we're in forty countries,
23:37
Speaker 2: we want to be one hundred countries.
23:41
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
23:43
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
23:47
Speaker 1: wherever you listen