00:09:46 · James Wise, Alan Chang
[00:09:46] S1: And so, Fuze and before Revolut, had you always thought that you'd end up working in startups? Had you always had that desire? Or were there times that you considered other kinds of industries or career paths? [00:10:00] S0: Yeah. So I I decided I I wanna do startups when I was 13. So I was... When I was a kid, I I read a lot of TechCrunch articles. Okay. Yeah. And I was obsessed with, like, yeah, tech tech companies at the time. So, yeah, I I always knew I wanted to do startups. [00:10:17] S1: Similarly, was a young TechCrunch addict. But, you know, when I started Inventure sort of thirteen, fourteen years ago now, even TechCrunch, you felt like the center of the world was San Francisco in California, but you were reading those articles and have subsequently stayed in The UK and in building businesses, obviously globally, but a lot of the engineering and talent that you've pulled together is in The UK. How have you felt... How do you feel about that balance? And, you know, was that something you were conscious of wanting to do?
00:10:17 · James Wise, Alan Chang
[00:10:17] S1: Similarly, was a young TechCrunch addict. But, you know, when I started Inventure sort of thirteen, fourteen years ago now, even TechCrunch, you felt like the center of the world was San Francisco in California, but you were reading those articles and have subsequently stayed in The UK and in building businesses, obviously globally, but a lot of the engineering and talent that you've pulled together is in The UK. How have you felt... How do you feel about that balance? And, you know, was that something you were conscious of wanting to do? [00:10:49] S0: So I... My parents sent me to boarding school here, and I decided to study university here. And it was basically mainly Revloot that convinced me to keep staying here, to be honest. And then what I realized is actually there is... In despite, you know, all the problems we have in The UK, it is probably one of the top countries to hire engineers from. Right? And not just, like, British engineers, but, like, you know, we have tons of, like, Eastern European engineers that want to move here. So, yeah, I I think it's it's it's... It remains to be a great place to build build a start up.
00:10:49 · Alan Chang, James Wise
[00:10:49] S0: So I... My parents sent me to boarding school here, and I decided to study university here. And it was basically mainly Revloot that convinced me to keep staying here, to be honest. And then what I realized is actually there is... In despite, you know, all the problems we have in The UK, it is probably one of the top countries to hire engineers from. Right? And not just, like, British engineers, but, like, you know, we have tons of, like, Eastern European engineers that want to move here. So, yeah, I I think it's it's it's... It remains to be a great place to build build a start up. [00:11:27] S1: I think you're a great advocate for it, but I I also think we need far more people to, like, talk about, yes, there's challenges in The UK, but our situation is much better in terms of the ability to hire and build, I think, than often the press or some some people in other industries give us credit for. Perhaps not because of the state, perhaps sometimes despite the state, but as you say, the talent and the levels of ambition here, I think are incredibly high. And, as you say, early on, you knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur. You went and worked at Revolut very early on. Were there principles you've taken from Revolut, or learnings, or experiences you've taken from Revolut that you've kept at Fuse Energy?
00:11:27 · James Wise, Alan Chang
[00:11:27] S1: I think you're a great advocate for it, but I I also think we need far more people to, like, talk about, yes, there's challenges in The UK, but our situation is much better in terms of the ability to hire and build, I think, than often the press or some some people in other industries give us credit for. Perhaps not because of the state, perhaps sometimes despite the state, but as you say, the talent and the levels of ambition here, I think are incredibly high. And, as you say, early on, you knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur. You went and worked at Revolut very early on. Were there principles you've taken from Revolut, or learnings, or experiences you've taken from Revolut that you've kept at Fuse Energy? [00:12:08] S0: I would say the key thing I've learned is, hiring the best talent is basically solving 80% of the problem. The other 20% is like a bunch of other things. And yeah, I think that's the key thing that I've taken away, right? I focus majority time trying to recruit the best designers, best engineers in the world. [00:12:30] S1: And can you talk a little bit about the kinds of people then, and org structure that you've had to create to build a business, as you say, which is vertically integrated, so does so many different things?
00:12:30 · James Wise, Alan Chang
[00:12:30] S1: And can you talk a little bit about the kinds of people then, and org structure that you've had to create to build a business, as you say, which is vertically integrated, so does so many different things? [00:12:43] S0: Something we've done differently this time is we have engineers that lead execution end to end. So we give ownership to engineers, and they actually lead a project or a product area. We don't really have a management structure, Right? We have no middle managers. We have no PMs. But just like engineers that can... That wants to do something... Build something end to end. [00:13:10] S1: And do you have to... I mean, it's an amazing amount of freedom that you give people, rightly so. Do you have to hire a different kind of person for that level of responsibility when you've got innovations in software, in hardware, you have supply chains and regulation? There's so many different aspects and challenges from different domains in what you're building. Have you therefore hired sort of people who have got lots of different experiences in industries, or people who are brilliant at one thing, and you help them grow into other areas over time?
00:13:10 · James Wise, Alan Chang
[00:13:10] S1: And do you have to... I mean, it's an amazing amount of freedom that you give people, rightly so. Do you have to hire a different kind of person for that level of responsibility when you've got innovations in software, in hardware, you have supply chains and regulation? There's so many different aspects and challenges from different domains in what you're building. Have you therefore hired sort of people who have got lots of different experiences in industries, or people who are brilliant at one thing, and you help them grow into other areas over time? [00:13:39] S0: Yeah, so, I'll say we value role, skill, and talent over experience in our business, right? So just to give you an idea, we rarely hire anyone from the energy industry, right? So for example, our project engineers, we've hired mainly from the Elon companies, like SpaceX and Tesla. Software engineers, hired from hedge funds, from big tech. And the quants will also hire from mainly also hedge funds. So we basically identify, Okay, what is the top skill? What is the skill we need? And then we identify, Okay, do the people with these skills mainly work in today and try to convince them to to come to us? And then they they learn about energy very, very quickly. [00:14:39] S1: And then, you know, you've spoken a little bit about Fuze's vertical integration. Can talk you to us a little bit about the kind of products that you're excited by that Fuze Energy customers could have access to that you think will be continue to be transformative to either the bills or the experience of a customer going forward?