Latest / Giant Ideas / "We Hire For Default Optimism": Deel Co-founder & CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Arsenal, His Father, and Video Games

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"We Hire For Default Optimism": Deel Co-founder & CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Arsenal, His Father, and Video Games · Giant Ideas

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Quite literally posted something on Reddit where I was like, I need someone who helped me with designs.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have this idea I want to put together.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually all I knew from him for like the better of two years was his Reddit username.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we're working together on like a daily basis.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Today on the podcast, we're joined by Alex Boaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deal.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, I want to ask you about the person behind the idea.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: You built this enormous$17 billion business.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the rapid growth.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: As a venture capital investor now, at PreSEED, we're looking for like insights into is this person somehow very special?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: That this we can see at the beginning that this person is going to go build a really big business or at least has an unfair chance of doing so.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did you see that in yourself when you were getting started?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did you believe that you were going to do it to this degree?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's two parts of this.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I could tell you, yes, 100%.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I always knew I can tell you the real answer, which is like I don't think most entrepreneurs do.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think what they're most excited about is can I build something that's really impactful?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Can I build something that's going to help people?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can I build something that's going to generate revenues for my shareholders and things like that?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Although I don't think people think I don't think most founders think of that part uh early on.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh you know it's just a means to means to an end, right?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of how you how you function, how you're structured.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean the real answer is no.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: What I knew is that I wanted to build.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and yeah, I think um the team you were with before, right, in in London, the venture team world before, saw me through a few iterations of what building really is, right?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know, building a lot of different products.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I just saw myself as someone that wanted to build products and put in the hands of people and and get their feedbacks and thoughts and iterate on this really quickly.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that mindset, I think, is the most valuable mindset, right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: If this is what you're driven by, or if you're driven by something that has shaken you at the core and built you at the core as you were a bit younger, uh, then I think you're more likely to be successful.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what does successful mean from a scale is a lot harder to really say.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I've I've seen enough founders around me where I know their business is gonna fail, but I know they're gonna be successful.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a matter of how many times they're gonna try.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the more they try, the more likely they're gonna get there.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've talked about being in constant wartime as a as a CEO.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: A wartime leader.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a wartime CEO.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is why I have uh Ben Horowitz working with me all the time.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: What what why and what does that mean?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what kind of a leader are you?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: One thing we're not very good at at Dylan, I think that's uh the caveat of being a quote unquote wartime CEO is we're not really good at reflecting and patting ourselves on the back and saying, good job, you've done a good, you know, you've done something great there, or something like that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really how we function.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so what that means is at every single instant, every single week, every single deal, every single product releases, we're very intense because we feel like we're at our at war all the time.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and the funny part is we're not at war with others.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think we're probably one of the best, if not the best, company in our space.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're very much at war with ourselves in terms of how we build for our customers and how we think about our customers.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that I think we carry throughout the whole company, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there's some people, you know, I think there's some great CEOs who are usually here in good times.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you kind of like take the company and you're kind of like cruising it and you know, spending a lot of time thinking about um things you, in my opinion, shouldn't be worried about, specifically when the whole world is changing consistently.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and they're the CEOs that create chaos in the organization, but chaos that results into, in my opinion, really, really good outcomes.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's usually what I'm what I am, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think about how, for example, we've adopted and navigated AI over the last three months, I can tell you that the only way to go through a transition like this is through being a fool on wartime as a whole, not just at the CEO level.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Does part of that wartimeness come from the shots that have been fired at you from all sides?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got this insane lawsuit where you know your competitor can accuse you guys of doing corporate espionage and it blew up on Twitter, and it must have been incredibly intense for you and your family.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is is part of the fire in the belly, I know you probably can't talk about the specifics of the lawsuit, but just this idea of your competitors coming for you.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're an outsider to Silicon Valley, they're coming for you.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: How does that make you feel?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to be honest, not really, you know, I think as you grow as a business, um, people are gonna try to eat your lunch, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh however they can, specifically when you're winning in the marketplace, which is what we we keep on doing and we want to keep on doing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, not really.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've always been very focused on ourselves.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's what I was telling you earlier, like we're at constant war, but we're constant war with ourselves more than anything else.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's, you know, these type of things are expected.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, uh, a lot of uh interesting allegations, and uh we we look forward to to our day in court on that front.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I think it's part of growing up, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of building a great company.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh again, we'll always prefer to compete from a product and customer perspective, which is what we've continued to do and we'll keep on doing that way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, the other question that Elliott O'Connor, our mutual friend, told me to ask you is just about the values that you and Shu have for deal and how that sort of parlays into not just kind of values on the wall, but the reality of how you operate the company.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: The different values we're built on are always very similar, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like what I care about from a business standpoint is do we care about our customers?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the values is genuine care.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do we genuinely care about our customers?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Do we do the right things for them?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's very critical.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one, it's how I'm built as a person, it's how I was raised and the education that my parents gave me.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so it's something that we want to carry forward, but specifically in a business like ours, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think every single company should care, customer obsession, whatever you want.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're dealing with people's payroll, people's livelihood, people's contract, it just got to be through the roof, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something that's very important to me beyond that, because as you build a larger company and as you scale, what typically happens within your organization is you start losing a little bit of the empathy, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like when a customer support person takes on their number 300 ticket of the week, maybe they don't have the same empathy that they have uh on the first one that they came.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to the customer themselves, again, with the trust that they're putting into your hands, that empathy and that care is something that you need to carry forward and always be looking uh at whenever you're dealing with them.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's super important.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then, you know, if you combine that with the fact that our customers, because it is so important, expect us to move really fast, hence the deal speed.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I would say those two principles are very much the guiding principle of what made us a business, really.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what one one other you know, we have a few other principles which I'm very proud of.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another one we have is default optimism.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we really live by that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're asking me about like mitigations, competitions, stuff like that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm uh I'm what we call like a default optimist.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um the initial way we had um carried ourselves there is we we wanted to convey that we want to hire happy people, which is like kind of a weird thing to write.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we decided default optimism made a little more sense.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what we mean by that is, you know, um work-life balance is very important.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is you spend more time talking and working with people that often you spend with your family themselves, right?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're gonna spend a lot of time with me and if you're gonna spend a lot of time with my team, might as well spend it with uh people that make you happy and are excited to be here.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's something that we try to carry forward into every single person we hire, the business and we bring into the company.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: No energy sappers.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, they don't usually last very long.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that the good thing about Dill is because of how we're built, uh it's very easy to know whether or not you're gonna be a fit into our culture.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, we ask every guest who comes on Giant Ideas to talk about three photographs, real or imagined, snapshots that kind of defined your life, the particularly the wisdom that you've learned along the way and have shaped you.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the stuff that I have in my head very early on at Dill, uh, we're going through YC.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: I told you we brought our whole team to San Francisco at the time.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, we're Silicon Valley Outsiders, which um is a huge advantage in many different ways, and also a disadvantage in others.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: But living through that YC experience and bringing my team over um was the most like iconic startup thing I ever had in my head, to be very honest with you.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the one image I have is you know, we're very small, we just had YC's money, and we wanted to be very frugal, so we all slept in the same tiny apartment.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I remember one of my engineers having a nice air mattress in the bathroom because that's the only place we had enough room to put them.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember that that very vividly, um, it being to me like the the most iconic, like, you know, you're building a startup type of vibe that most people are kind of looking for.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's one.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I won't lie to you, like the seeing deal on the sleeve of different people, to say it very differently, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh with that Arsenal partnership, when you're walking through the streets of London and like people are sending you pictures of people wearing your brand, like I know, I know there is like it just feels it just feels unique, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think I think it's probably the first time my parents were like, wow, okay, like I'm kind of proud of you too, which is like very cute.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody around us were very, very, very proud.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd say like we I did not expect it to feel that way, but it definitely felt um like an achievement for us.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And as I told you before, we we don't celebrate achievements very often.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that one definitely felt like a like a big one for us.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love that one.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a friend, a very good friend, who's a huge Arsenal fan, who's a venture capital investor, who shall remain nameless, and he passed on your seed round.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he Oh, I know who that is.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's painful, painful enough to him already, the deal story.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh, but seeing it kind of infiltrate his love of Arsenal is a daily reminder of his failure as an investor.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, we will be happy to invite him to watch a game at the Emirates whenever he wants.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So just pass him on that message.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, but like I mean, you know, it's it's it's very new for me.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, you know, when you make investments like this, you don't expect that outcome.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I don't know, it's it's it's a very unique feeling, it's very hard to describe, but she's very proud of it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, last one.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see if I can find something interesting for you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, so I have that story which is uh very defining for deal.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's like not the same definition as like what what you're looking for.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure if we were playing a little more, like you know, speaking of it together, I'll come up with 10 others.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that one very much embody my vision of why I think a lot of people my age from my generation can make remote work.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um remote work work.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the main reason is like I'm from the generation of people that used to watch their big cousins or their big brother play video games, and you used to be like kind of sitting next to them, see them play, because that's when like the Nintendo 64 and like the Sega were kind of starting to come out, and like multiplayers, Golden Knight, like you know, all of those different Nintendo games were starting to come out.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, my big cousin used to play, and you know, he used mostly gives you like either a fake remote control or one that doesn't work, and you're kind of watching him play.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually you kind of carried that into um gaming in general, where I used to game, I still game from time to time, but I used to you know play video games like a League of Legends or whatever, and like being able to like play with people I have never met in my life and still like win, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Or get to really good outcomes.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that really defined a lot of people in my generation where I can work with you, we can do amazing things, and if I never see you, it's fine.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because like in my culture of like how I grew up uh and how you know all my life I was kind of built up, like I can totally play with strangers on the internet and get to uh to freaking amazing outcomes.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, a very funny story on that is my very, very first uh uh employee or the the time freelancer because we were still very small, before even deal started, and he joined me into deal.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I met through Reddit, quite literally posted something on Reddit where I was like, I need someone who helped me with designs.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have this idea I want to put together.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually all I knew from him for like the better of two years was his Reddit username.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we're working together on like a daily basis and like doing you know fun stuff and things like that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I I think that truly is like one of the big generational shifts that you know, maybe my parents' generation versus me really have in terms of like why remote work may seem impossible for a lot of people, but why does it feel so tangibly um acceptable for me?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because like the same way I can win a League of Legends game with four strangers, I can build a great company with anyone.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a weird concept, but I actually ration this is how I rationalize it in my head, which is fun.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, last question.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned your parents there.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You you work with your dad, he was the CFO, big part of deal.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, working with family is is a big part of business in lots lots of parts of the world, not so much in the US.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do people react to that initially?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do US investors react to that?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but more importantly, how how has it been?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Has it been an amazing experience, I can imagine, building this juggernaut with with your dad?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been really fun.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm very lucky, I'm very blessed.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most people come to me, it's like, how are you doing it?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: How do you work with your dad?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would kill my dad if I worked with him.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, I'm just super lucky.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I get to spend time with him.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh, like, you know, not a lot of uh of kids really do, right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I get to learn from him from his experiences.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my dad had a pretty long and and prolific career, and the truth is he doesn't really need to work anymore.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of came out of retirement to build with me and to build with with uh with with Shua.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think it's such an amazing experience to be able to learn from everything he has done and kind of see him uh in his, I think in his prime, to be honest, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like being able to put forward like 40 years of experience on the table and help us drive a business in a way that, you know, having built in France, you couldn't do before, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just building an American company with venture capital and like all of those things, just a different type of beast, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been really fun.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, one of the fun characteristics is because he's got the experience, he knows um how to help us get to the to the right places.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's actually stepped down from the CFO role, he's now the CSO or chief trusty officer, and uh, we've brought on a new amazing CFO.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's always been very critical in terms of strategic thinkings through MAs or big partnerships and big decisions.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'd say you're right.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like the at first, a lot of people are like, hey, like, oh, you're working with your dad is kind of interesting.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I think a lot of great businesses were built uh on family relationships, like look at Stripe, right, or uh or other amazing businesses out there.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but as soon as they get to see us interact or start to see what value he brings to the company, then the narrative really switches and people understand how critical it's been to getting us to where we are as a company.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, it's very fair to say deal wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for him as much as me or Schwo.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm uh I'm I'm very thankful.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as he wants to uh to work with us, you know, we'll have him for as long as he wants.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I and I hope that's for a while.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he must be a very proud dad.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have built an absolute juggernaut of a business incredibly quickly, and so many lessons that you very kindly shared with us.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Alex, for sharing your giant idea.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.