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How to contribute to crypto/web3 without writing a single line of code, along with examples:
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Martin retweeted
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says their crypto business went from near zero to their largest revenue stream in a matter of quarters.
They launched crypto in January 2018, right at the start of a long crypto winter, and generated almost no revenue for years.
Then in Q3 2020 it Q4 it was already in the hundreds of millions, and by Q2 2021 crypto had become one of their biggest revenue lines, generating roughly $500–600 million in a single quarter.
They launched crypto in January 2018, right at the start of a long crypto winter, and generated almost no revenue for years.
Then in Q3 2020 it Q4 it was already in the hundreds of millions, and by Q2 2021 crypto had become one of their biggest revenue lines, generating roughly $500–600 million in a single quarter.
Vlad Tenev (@vladtenev) is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood.
In January 2021, in the middle of the meme stock frenzy, Robinhood's deposit requirement went from under $100 million to "something like $3 billion" almost overnight. The total capital the company had ever raised
His first call was to @mickymalka:
"He's like, 'How much do you need?' I said, 'I don't know, 250 million, 500 million. I'm not sure.' He's like, 'I've got it.'"
Back in March 2020, the two of them had put a term sheet in place so the money could be "wired in your account same day." Once Micky was in, everyone else followed: "We probably had $10 billion of demand at the first term."
"It was a consequence of too much success, which is quite rare."
Vlad came to America from Bulgaria at 5, not knowing a word of English. His grandparents stored their wealth in copper cookware during hyperinflation. His dad told him he'd give him his SAT score in dollars to invest. He went on to study math under Terence Tao, then took a leave from his $18,000-a-year math PhD to take a shot at starting his own company.
This was an awesome conversation:
0:00 Why Ribbit passed on Robinhood's seed round
2:19 "You're going to want me on your board"
5:35 The day-long trading outage of March 2020
9:22 A term sheet for a crisis that hadn't happened yet
15:00 Crypto goes from zero to a top revenue stream
16:27 The $3 billion deposit requirement
18:35 "Vlad, you have to call work right away"
21:34 The first call: Micky Malka
24:31 "Time kills all deals"
25:33 Number one app in the App Store, ahead of Instagram and TikTok
27:01 $10 billion of demand
29:33 Hyperinflation and copper cookware in Bulgaria
35:34 "Manhattan just seemed like science fiction"
47:15 His SAT score in dollars to invest
50:53 Studying under Terence Tao
1:00:22 "You want to be businessman, huh?"
1:03:48 The best parts of math without the bullshit
1:05:56 Would I be proud of this in 50 years?
Includes paid partnerships.
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Martin retweeted
This is how @BillAckman turns brutal market crashes into generational buying opportunities:
The research starts before the crash.
Even great companies can be a bad investments at the wrong price. Pershing Square studies the businesses it wants to own long before they get cheap. ff, the team already knows where to look.
"Typically, someone identifies an interesting idea. Hey, XYZ stock, a company we've followed for years is now available at a 40% discount. Let's update the file."
"We'll dig in again, update the work. So I'll read the annual reports, the proxy, the conference call transcripts, maybe some news articles."
"The team doing the deeper dive will speak to many industry experts."
They’re trying to answer one question: Has the business changed as much as the price?
If the business still looks strong and the price is right, the selloff is their opportunity to buy and let the business compound.
The research starts before the crash.
Even great companies can be a bad investments at the wrong price. Pershing Square studies the businesses it wants to own long before they get cheap. ff, the team already knows where to look.
"Typically, someone identifies an interesting idea. Hey, XYZ stock, a company we've followed for years is now available at a 40% discount. Let's update the file."
"We'll dig in again, update the work. So I'll read the annual reports, the proxy, the conference call transcripts, maybe some news articles."
"The team doing the deeper dive will speak to many industry experts."
They’re trying to answer one question: Has the business changed as much as the price?
If the business still looks strong and the price is right, the selloff is their opportunity to buy and let the business compound.
BREAKING: Nvidia, $NVDA, extends losses to its lowest level since March 31st as concerns mount around Jensen Huang’s future with the company.
The stock has now lost -$400 billion since Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy was reported.
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Martin retweeted
The idea for Neuralink began with Elon Musk’s frustration at how slowly we type on our phones.
Ex-Tesla President Jon McNeill recalls a conversation on a trip to China. Musk asked how fast McNeill could type with his thumbs.
They realized phone typing speed was a bottleneck for ing decisions.
Elon Musk: How fast can you type with your thumbs?
Jon McNeill: I have no idea. I’ve never timed it.
Elon Musk: The average human types about 18 words a minute. How fast can you type on a keyboard?
Jon McNeill: I think 60 or 70 words a minute—at least when I was in high school. Let’s call it 60.
Elon Musk: Exactly. You’re more than three times faster on a keyboard than on your phone. This device has slowed the input into the machine.
Jon McNeill: Yeah, it has—by three times.
Elon Musk: That’s a big deal, because you can’t get speed of answers and decision-making if you’re going three times slower. What if you could think into the machine?
Jon McNeill: That would remove the constraint. We wouldn’t have keyboards and thumbs in the way. You’d be thinking in real time into the machine.
Elon Musk: Exactly. That would remove the front-end constraint on computing for humans. That’s a big deal.
True to his focus on speed, Musk immediately asked his chief of staff, Sam Teller, to find leading brain-computer interface researchers and gather their papers.
He wanted to read them on the trip and meet the researchers the following week. As McNeill recalls, he moved from idea to action quickly.
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
Ex-Tesla President Jon McNeill recalls a conversation on a trip to China. Musk asked how fast McNeill could type with his thumbs.
They realized phone typing speed was a bottleneck for ing decisions.
Elon Musk: How fast can you type with your thumbs?
Jon McNeill: I have no idea. I’ve never timed it.
Elon Musk: The average human types about 18 words a minute. How fast can you type on a keyboard?
Jon McNeill: I think 60 or 70 words a minute—at least when I was in high school. Let’s call it 60.
Elon Musk: Exactly. You’re more than three times faster on a keyboard than on your phone. This device has slowed the input into the machine.
Jon McNeill: Yeah, it has—by three times.
Elon Musk: That’s a big deal, because you can’t get speed of answers and decision-making if you’re going three times slower. What if you could think into the machine?
Jon McNeill: That would remove the constraint. We wouldn’t have keyboards and thumbs in the way. You’d be thinking in real time into the machine.
Elon Musk: Exactly. That would remove the front-end constraint on computing for humans. That’s a big deal.
True to his focus on speed, Musk immediately asked his chief of staff, Sam Teller, to find leading brain-computer interface researchers and gather their papers.
He wanted to read them on the trip and meet the researchers the following week. As McNeill recalls, he moved from idea to action quickly.
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
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Martin retweeted
This framework is how Tesla and SpaceX achieve the impossible.
Former Tesla President Jon McNeill shares "The Algorithm" @elonmusk uses to build trillion dollar empires:
1. Question every requirement to see if it's actually necessary.
2. Delete steps in the process that aren't tomer.
3. Simplify or optimize the remaining process manually.
4. Apply speed to reveal failure points.
5. Automate only at the end once the process is working optimally.
"We had made mistakes like automating first, we'd made mistakes like not questioning requirements and ended up in like multiple month loops on problems that wouldn't go away."
"And so this whole framework allows you to not only solve problems but innovate because you're eliminating requirements that your competitors think exist"
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
Former Tesla President Jon McNeill shares "The Algorithm" @elonmusk uses to build trillion dollar empires:
1. Question every requirement to see if it's actually necessary.
2. Delete steps in the process that aren't tomer.
3. Simplify or optimize the remaining process manually.
4. Apply speed to reveal failure points.
5. Automate only at the end once the process is working optimally.
"We had made mistakes like automating first, we'd made mistakes like not questioning requirements and ended up in like multiple month loops on problems that wouldn't go away."
"And so this whole framework allows you to not only solve problems but innovate because you're eliminating requirements that your competitors think exist"
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
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Martin retweeted
Elon had two non-negotiables for communication at Tesla:
1. Be extremely concise
2. Deliver bad news immediately
Former Tesla President Jon McNeill reveals the system @elonmusk pushed:
Three-sentence emails.
1. Here’s the problem.
2. Here’s what I think the solution is.
3. d if I need resources or permission, ask here).
“It was really the key to communicating with him,” McNeill said, “because he likes that sort of concise, get-to-the-point style. Have you thoroughly thought about the problem? Have you really thought about the solution? And have you thought about the next steps?”
The second rule was just as strict:
“Don’t sit on bad news. Give me bad news as fast as you know about it,” Elon told people repeatedly.
“Because bad news only gets worse with time. The way you could get on his bad side was saving bad news.”
Those were the two keys: be concise, and be rapid with bad news.
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
1. Be extremely concise
2. Deliver bad news immediately
Former Tesla President Jon McNeill reveals the system @elonmusk pushed:
Three-sentence emails.
1. Here’s the problem.
2. Here’s what I think the solution is.
3. d if I need resources or permission, ask here).
“It was really the key to communicating with him,” McNeill said, “because he likes that sort of concise, get-to-the-point style. Have you thoroughly thought about the problem? Have you really thought about the solution? And have you thought about the next steps?”
The second rule was just as strict:
“Don’t sit on bad news. Give me bad news as fast as you know about it,” Elon told people repeatedly.
“Because bad news only gets worse with time. The way you could get on his bad side was saving bad news.”
Those were the two keys: be concise, and be rapid with bad news.
FT: @jonmcneill @shaneparrish @TKPPodcast
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Martin retweeted
You'd never understand the value of crypto if you live in established cities.
Binance co-founder and former CEO, @cz_binance says crypto’s utility is obvious where banking access is limited.
"Africa, Southeast Asia, you will feel that like Africa, only 11% of people have banks days to pay a bill. So when you kind of in those kind of situations, financial access is actually really important."
"And now with crypto, one village has a one smartphone. But the entire village can now pay their bills within three seconds. And they don't have to spend three days walking to a different part of the village to do this. So this actually there's some real use cases here which are not obvious to some of the established financial centers."
He goes on to add that for established nations, a strong use case is fighting inflation.
"Too much inflation involuntarily means that you're just getting poor very quickly. People should have the tools to protect themselves from that. And blockchain crypto, cryptocurrencies is a tool. I'm not saying all cryptocurrencies are good for that, but there are certain cryptocurrencies that are."
Binance co-founder and former CEO, @cz_binance says crypto’s utility is obvious where banking access is limited.
"Africa, Southeast Asia, you will feel that like Africa, only 11% of people have banks days to pay a bill. So when you kind of in those kind of situations, financial access is actually really important."
"And now with crypto, one village has a one smartphone. But the entire village can now pay their bills within three seconds. And they don't have to spend three days walking to a different part of the village to do this. So this actually there's some real use cases here which are not obvious to some of the established financial centers."
He goes on to add that for established nations, a strong use case is fighting inflation.
"Too much inflation involuntarily means that you're just getting poor very quickly. People should have the tools to protect themselves from that. And blockchain crypto, cryptocurrencies is a tool. I'm not saying all cryptocurrencies are good for that, but there are certain cryptocurrencies that are."
Honored to speak at the @OxfordUnion. Freedom of speech and freedom of money, two cornerstones of a healthy society.
Two (high quality) videos:
Fireside chat:
youtu.be/2WhyikBJmZ0?si…
Q&A:
youtu.be/t6vv9eaPR_A?si…
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Martin retweeted
Intel -25%, Google -13%, Amazon -7%.
@BillAckman explains why today’s market punishes earnings disappointments so brutally.
"It used to be that a really high-quality business that somehow disappointed the stock might drop 3-4%. Today's stock could drop 30-40% on a miss."
"I the increasing kind of indexation, which is reducing float, and the increasing amount of leveraged capital, short-term capital invested in markets that is creating a lot more volatility."
"And what that has done is it's made the occasional amazing high-growth durable company available at a discounted price for a period of time based on a short-term disappointment."
"So our portfolio today is filled with businesses where we have enormous respect for the people running them. They don't need much in the way of an activist. We're happy to be a you know a quiet owner that occasionally has an idea."
@BillAckman explains why today’s market punishes earnings disappointments so brutally.
"It used to be that a really high-quality business that somehow disappointed the stock might drop 3-4%. Today's stock could drop 30-40% on a miss."
"I the increasing kind of indexation, which is reducing float, and the increasing amount of leveraged capital, short-term capital invested in markets that is creating a lot more volatility."
"And what that has done is it's made the occasional amazing high-growth durable company available at a discounted price for a period of time based on a short-term disappointment."
"So our portfolio today is filled with businesses where we have enormous respect for the people running them. They don't need much in the way of an activist. We're happy to be a you know a quiet owner that occasionally has an idea."
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Binance readily having $6.34B to cover the hole is a huge flex.
Hypothetically, at ~$10B in cash, it would rank 56th among US-listed companies by cash, excluding banks. That puts it level with Exxon and PayPal.
At $15B, it would be 35th, alongside Cisco and Visa.
Hypothetically, at ~$10B in cash, it would rank 56th among US-listed companies by cash, excluding banks. That puts it level with Exxon and PayPal.
At $15B, it would be 35th, alongside Cisco and Visa.
Binance has begun recovering affected assets for users and continues to work with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace, freeze and recover additional funds.
The company has already publicly committed to cover losses through ior announcement.
Binance has already reserved over $6.34B of company funds to cover this incident. $5B of these funds are already held in the exact token assets that were impacted. We are completing the purchase of the remaining amount by buying token assets through market channels and OTC channels. We are doing this to match the format of the remaining token assets and address any asset shortfalls. This step can take longer because some tokens may have low liquidity and OTC settlement also takes time. We will share more progress as soon as we can.
These figures do not include frozen or protected assets, which remain subject to ongoing recovery and verification. Currently, $3bn has been frozen, with thanks to our industry partners. We are working with partners and law enforcement to recover the frozen assets.We will continue to use company resources to cover confirmed shortfall and will provide further verified updates as recovery efforts progress. Ultimately, all user funds will be verified publicly through our Proof of Reserves.
We will weather this storm. Thank you for the support.
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Martin retweeted
Bill Ackman on how he uses @X to make better investment decisions.
"I use X in kind of an interesting way. I try in every issue to find the most articulate, thoughtful person on one side of the issue and then the same on the other side of the issue. And I think it's very o I don't know that there's any media property where their intent is, let's just come out with the absolute truth. Usually, the owner has a political bias or agenda, which is why it's actually quite powerful to have an open playing field where you can select who you want to listen to."
"Now, most people, I think, psychologically like to hear from people who agree with them. I like to hear from people who agree with me. I also like to hear from people who disagree. So I've actually found it, from an investment perspective, it's been one of my best sources of ideas, understanding what's going on in the world."
"And then from just being a citizen of the world, understanding important issues and hearing different perspectives. So I like it, and I'm now part of the conversation."
@BillAckman @NicolaiTang1
"I use X in kind of an interesting way. I try in every issue to find the most articulate, thoughtful person on one side of the issue and then the same on the other side of the issue. And I think it's very o I don't know that there's any media property where their intent is, let's just come out with the absolute truth. Usually, the owner has a political bias or agenda, which is why it's actually quite powerful to have an open playing field where you can select who you want to listen to."
"Now, most people, I think, psychologically like to hear from people who agree with them. I like to hear from people who agree with me. I also like to hear from people who disagree. So I've actually found it, from an investment perspective, it's been one of my best sources of ideas, understanding what's going on in the world."
"And then from just being a citizen of the world, understanding important issues and hearing different perspectives. So I like it, and I'm now part of the conversation."
@BillAckman @NicolaiTang1
Bill Ackman wants an opposing argument button on @x
"I've encouraged Elon on Twitter a couple times, maybe I need to push him a little more privately. I do think there should be a button on every time you read a tweet, you should be able to push a button to find the best ho's the most followed person who's had the most articulate or maybe the most liked alternative argument for the same subject so that I think it's very helpful to people to hear people make the case for the other side."
@BillAckman @NicolaiTang1 @elonmusk
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Martin retweeted
Why haven't AI agents gone mainstream? Sam Altman says they aren't reliable and seamless enough, yet.
"What will be true of the winning personal agent? It's like intelligence, context, tools. I think no one has yet figured out the the thing that people like. People like these, ng that people are like, I cannot imagine my life without this thing."
"In a way that when people talk about coding agents or even ChatGPT, they do say. And someone soon is going to figure out what that looks like. I think this is like a small number of ideas away from a super mainstream thing."
"I think it'll look a lot like the current DOTS or user, Grokbot or whatever, but it'll just work. Like it'll just work. It'll be reliable. You'll just like give it more complex tasks and we'll do all of those things."
@collision @sama
"What will be true of the winning personal agent? It's like intelligence, context, tools. I think no one has yet figured out the the thing that people like. People like these, ng that people are like, I cannot imagine my life without this thing."
"In a way that when people talk about coding agents or even ChatGPT, they do say. And someone soon is going to figure out what that looks like. I think this is like a small number of ideas away from a super mainstream thing."
"I think it'll look a lot like the current DOTS or user, Grokbot or whatever, but it'll just work. Like it'll just work. It'll be reliable. You'll just like give it more complex tasks and we'll do all of those things."
@collision @sama
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Martin retweeted
Revolut co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky says a lack of a banking license keeps platforms like Cash App from becoming a large business.
"It's like there are pros and cons. To build a large business, it's a must. If you want to really compete with banks, you need to get trust ed to put salaries in. They need to put a lot of their wealth in their accounts. They need to start trading stocks with you, ETFs, and so on. They need to trust you, and in their minds, they trust banks."
“To build a very large business and capture large market share, it's just unavailable. In the US, a lot of companies started like Chime, Cash App, Simple, 10 or 12 years ago. They never went for a banking license. I think it's a big mistake. They could never become a large business.”
"They can target certain niche audiences, certain cohorts of customers, I don't know, low income and so on. But they can never go to the prime audience, and they can never become a primary bank account without the banking license.”
“Early adopters, 10 to 20% of the population, will try them. Maybe they move from early adopters to their friends, family, and another 2%, so 4% of the population. But you want 40, 50, 60, 70%. For example, in Ireland we have 80% market penetration."
FT @davidsenra @NStoronsky
"It's like there are pros and cons. To build a large business, it's a must. If you want to really compete with banks, you need to get trust ed to put salaries in. They need to put a lot of their wealth in their accounts. They need to start trading stocks with you, ETFs, and so on. They need to trust you, and in their minds, they trust banks."
“To build a very large business and capture large market share, it's just unavailable. In the US, a lot of companies started like Chime, Cash App, Simple, 10 or 12 years ago. They never went for a banking license. I think it's a big mistake. They could never become a large business.”
"They can target certain niche audiences, certain cohorts of customers, I don't know, low income and so on. But they can never go to the prime audience, and they can never become a primary bank account without the banking license.”
“Early adopters, 10 to 20% of the population, will try them. Maybe they move from early adopters to their friends, family, and another 2%, so 4% of the population. But you want 40, 50, 60, 70%. For example, in Ireland we have 80% market penetration."
FT @davidsenra @NStoronsky
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Martin retweeted
Sam Altman says a new model kept him up at night after he saw what it could do.
"There was one weekend when we got a new model. And in, I'm actually probably not supposed to say this, but I will, since we're drinking. And people were just throwing that at the hardest problems le just, like, didn't think the model was going to do these things. And we had this collective experience of people's, like, hardest research problems from their academic career. The model was just knocking down one after the other. Many different fields."
"It was incredible to watch. And kind of two nights in a row, I was up most of the night because I was so excited I couldn't go to bed."
"And it was like, it was many of those problems that we published. Many other things. And I was tremendously excited and happy."
"But I also had, like, much more sadness and melancholy and, like, a feeling of, like, something ending than I was expecting."
FT @collision @sama
"There was one weekend when we got a new model. And in, I'm actually probably not supposed to say this, but I will, since we're drinking. And people were just throwing that at the hardest problems le just, like, didn't think the model was going to do these things. And we had this collective experience of people's, like, hardest research problems from their academic career. The model was just knocking down one after the other. Many different fields."
"It was incredible to watch. And kind of two nights in a row, I was up most of the night because I was so excited I couldn't go to bed."
"And it was like, it was many of those problems that we published. Many other things. And I was tremendously excited and happy."
"But I also had, like, much more sadness and melancholy and, like, a feeling of, like, something ending than I was expecting."
FT @collision @sama
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Martin retweeted
Revolut co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky on why banks fail to innovate:
“They’re stuck in limbo of professional management who are extremely risk-averse. As a result, there’s zero intention to innovate.”
"And then all the resources are spent on protecting what they already can have a very old legacy third-party core banking system. Obviously, you need to change it to your own or to some new provider. But banking management will never do it because it introduces risk: you need to migrate customers, something might go wrong, and they never take a risk."
"Plus, a lot of them aren’t technical, so they don’t really understand how to do a lot of technical things. As a result, the default choice is to do nothing."
"Doing anything is risky in an industry where you lack certain technical skills. Banking isn’t only about regulation; it’s also about building tech. And I think all these people are very bad at building tech."
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
“They’re stuck in limbo of professional management who are extremely risk-averse. As a result, there’s zero intention to innovate.”
"And then all the resources are spent on protecting what they already can have a very old legacy third-party core banking system. Obviously, you need to change it to your own or to some new provider. But banking management will never do it because it introduces risk: you need to migrate customers, something might go wrong, and they never take a risk."
"Plus, a lot of them aren’t technical, so they don’t really understand how to do a lot of technical things. As a result, the default choice is to do nothing."
"Doing anything is risky in an industry where you lack certain technical skills. Banking isn’t only about regulation; it’s also about building tech. And I think all these people are very bad at building tech."
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
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VCs pissed off Revolut co-founder and CEO, Nik Storonsky so much that he started his own fund to compete:
“I had this fight and then I was extremely pissed off, and I thought I also need to compete with VCs in their business because they are so bad.”
“And out of my frustration, ell.”
“The idea was basically to invest not based on human judgment, but based on data science and machine learning models. Statistical investment is number one.”
“Number two, actually help founders with operational advice. Playbooks that we developed at Revolut: how to hire people, how to do performance management, how to do product expansions.”
“And then finally help them sell their product as well, because we are a large enterprise. We are buying from a lot of vendors. Having us as a client helps to sell into other enterprises, or potentially sell to our customers as well, our Revolut customers.”
“Plus my personal advice, obviously. So I thought overall the package was so much better compared to purely financial players, VCs.”
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
“I had this fight and then I was extremely pissed off, and I thought I also need to compete with VCs in their business because they are so bad.”
“And out of my frustration, ell.”
“The idea was basically to invest not based on human judgment, but based on data science and machine learning models. Statistical investment is number one.”
“Number two, actually help founders with operational advice. Playbooks that we developed at Revolut: how to hire people, how to do performance management, how to do product expansions.”
“And then finally help them sell their product as well, because we are a large enterprise. We are buying from a lot of vendors. Having us as a client helps to sell into other enterprises, or potentially sell to our customers as well, our Revolut customers.”
“Plus my personal advice, obviously. So I thought overall the package was so much better compared to purely financial players, VCs.”
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
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Full episode:
x.com/davidsenra/sta…
x.com/davidsenra/sta…
Nik Storonsky is one of the most hardcore and competitive founders I’ve ever talked to. He’s the founder of Revolut, a $115 billion company, and wants to be the number one bank in 100 countries.
When someone asked Nik if he was coming for Jamie Dimon's lunch, he said “I’m coming ant to dominate, otherwise what’s the point?”
He removed every VC from his board, and when one investor pushed him too far, he started his own fund to compete with them.
Nik has a lot of ideas on talent, product design, marketing, constraints, and what makes founder-led companies special.
This is a fascinating conversation about competition, speed, and building a machine-like company.
0:00 Coming for Jamie Dimon's dinner
2:04 Building the #1 bank in 100 countries
6:12 Why founders beat professional CEOs
8:45 Revolut's biggest mistake
12:47 Why legacy banks can't innovate
17:20 Running a company like a machine
20:28 Funding winners and cutting losers like a trader
23:31 How AI is changing Revolut's team structure
25:23 50 direct reports and spreading innovation fast
29:59 Hiring self-guided missiles
33:31 Too much money makes founders weaker
37:38 What Europe's constraints taught Revolut
41:08 Why VCs are like football cheerleaders
49:28 Starting a fund to compete with VCs
54:28 From zero marketing to buying Europe's airports
1:00:21 Funding moonshots like a global tech company
1:03:58 Building an unstoppable machine
Includes paid partnerships.
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Revolut co-founder and CEO Nik Storonsky on building a full-stack AI employee with today’s technology:
“I think we’re just in the beginning. We automated customer support, so 90% of all customer support team is automated now. Before, it used to be 5,000 people plus. Now it’s , engineering is automated as well. We increased speed of engineers by 30%. Translation, cross-selling as well, done by LLMs now. A lot of things.”
“I think the ultimate goal, or at least a bet for us now, is to be able to build a full-stack AI employee. I think it’s completely doable with current technology.”
“It’s not like a chat tool or another interface where you tell what to do and then it produces something.”
“No, it’s more like an AI employee which can join calls with you, which has email, which has a Slack account, which has access to all internal back-office systems and can do work.”
“I think that’s kind of the ultimate goal that, sooner or later, the majority of companies will come to.”
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
“I think we’re just in the beginning. We automated customer support, so 90% of all customer support team is automated now. Before, it used to be 5,000 people plus. Now it’s , engineering is automated as well. We increased speed of engineers by 30%. Translation, cross-selling as well, done by LLMs now. A lot of things.”
“I think the ultimate goal, or at least a bet for us now, is to be able to build a full-stack AI employee. I think it’s completely doable with current technology.”
“It’s not like a chat tool or another interface where you tell what to do and then it produces something.”
“No, it’s more like an AI employee which can join calls with you, which has email, which has a Slack account, which has access to all internal back-office systems and can do work.”
“I think that’s kind of the ultimate goal that, sooner or later, the majority of companies will come to.”
FT: @davidsenra @NStoronsky
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Full Ep: x.com/davidsenra/sta…
Nik Storonsky is one of the most hardcore and competitive founders I’ve ever talked to. He’s the founder of Revolut, a $115 billion company, and wants to be the number one bank in 100 countries.
When someone asked Nik if he was coming for Jamie Dimon's lunch, he said “I’m coming ant to dominate, otherwise what’s the point?”
He removed every VC from his board, and when one investor pushed him too far, he started his own fund to compete with them.
Nik has a lot of ideas on talent, product design, marketing, constraints, and what makes founder-led companies special.
This is a fascinating conversation about competition, speed, and building a machine-like company.
0:00 Coming for Jamie Dimon's dinner
2:04 Building the #1 bank in 100 countries
6:12 Why founders beat professional CEOs
8:45 Revolut's biggest mistake
12:47 Why legacy banks can't innovate
17:20 Running a company like a machine
20:28 Funding winners and cutting losers like a trader
23:31 How AI is changing Revolut's team structure
25:23 50 direct reports and spreading innovation fast
29:59 Hiring self-guided missiles
33:31 Too much money makes founders weaker
37:38 What Europe's constraints taught Revolut
41:08 Why VCs are like football cheerleaders
49:28 Starting a fund to compete with VCs
54:28 From zero marketing to buying Europe's airports
1:00:21 Funding moonshots like a global tech company
1:03:58 Building an unstoppable machine
Includes paid partnerships.
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