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Fuse's CEO says Revolut-style urgency beat UK energy incumbents

Fuse Energy grew from 2m to 200m in revenue in three years by applying the Revolut operating style of speed, ownership and long hours. Chang argues the UK is already in an energy crisis caused by regulation and subsidies, which leaves room for a fast, demanding company to outwork slow incumbents.

Takeaways

• Speed and ownership drove Fuse's tenfold growth. Fuse grew revenue from 2m to 20m to 200m in three years. Chang credits Revolut habits such as urgency, no excuses and weekend work, and says Fuse faces giant incumbents, so work ethic is its only edge.
• Chang says the UK is already in energy crisis. UK energy use per head fell 25% over 25 years while China's rose sevenfold. UK power costs 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour, against 10 to 15 in the US and about 8 in China. Chang links energy use to quality of life.
• Deregulation and no subsidies would fix energy. Chang would deregulate building anything physical and delete all subsidies. He says overregulation makes infrastructure hard to build, 100% renewable claims rest on bought certificates, and most batteries discharge in under two hours. He calls China the model to follow.
• Small accountable teams beat balance and heavy KPIs. Chang wants small independent teams with clear goals, replaced if they fail, and rejects work-life balance for generational companies. He disagrees with Storonsky on KPIs, since a recruiter's hires-per-month bonus pushes the talent bar down.
• Revolut won on ambition, not product roadmap. Chang says Revolut's roadmap matched Monzo and N26, but it pulled ahead on ambition and execution speed, with Storonsky aiming to beat JPMorgan. Diversification also helped, since trading income rose in COVID as interchange revenue fell.
• Fuse started lean and now needs engineers. Fuse began with about a million dollars, a wind turbine, a licence and a former Ofgem chief executive as advisor. It now exceeds 400m annualised revenue and plans around 5x growth. Chang says hiring quality engineers, not capital, limits the path to a billion.

How Fuse hires and pays

• Candidates are graded on coding, system design, problem solving and culture fit. Pay follows grade with no bands, so straight-B candidates get much lower offers than straight-A ones.
• Back-end developers are hired regardless of Python experience, using a coding challenge in their chosen language.
• Fuse uses no formal performance improvement plans. Verbal and final warnings are enough.
• Chang once overvalued IQ and now weighs deep caring more. He rejects the idea that hiring is a game of luck.