The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:07:29 · Vidit Agarwal, Jack Zhang
[00:07:29] S0: Oh, yes. Melbourne. Yeah. Yeah. I know that area. I know that area quite well. Interesting. And I spoke to a lot of people leading up to this, they all said you're very driven and very ambitious and that's playing out in AirWallEx. But when you were 18, because you've got these influences of China and Australia, what did you want to do with your life? Like what was success at 18? [00:07:49] S1: I think academically it was very strong when I was in China and also as a student leader. And I started some student magazines that went quite successful. I'm sort of famous in my high school because my English is really bad when I came to Australia and I basically went from somewhere like like very confident and reasonably respected in student community and to somebody like nobody recognized. And it's just in general, quite challenging in high school, like because of the lack of the English sort of skills and that kind of not helping with my communication and just making friends in general. And my high school is in the Western Suburb and there's only like a dozen Chinese sort of heritage students there. And most of them are from Macau and Hong Kong. And then generally they look down people from Mainland China. That kind of not a great experience either.
00:07:49 · Jack Zhang, Vidit Agarwal
[00:07:49] S1: I think academically it was very strong when I was in China and also as a student leader. And I started some student magazines that went quite successful. I'm sort of famous in my high school because my English is really bad when I came to Australia and I basically went from somewhere like like very confident and reasonably respected in student community and to somebody like nobody recognized. And it's just in general, quite challenging in high school, like because of the lack of the English sort of skills and that kind of not helping with my communication and just making friends in general. And my high school is in the Western Suburb and there's only like a dozen Chinese sort of heritage students there. And most of them are from Macau and Hong Kong. And then generally they look down people from Mainland China. That kind of not a great experience either. [00:08:46] S0: Right, that's so interesting. That's so interesting and that again would be really hard because I've seen that, I went to school in Melbourne as well and there was a divide between international and local students. We actually had an exchange program with Korea and the Korean students would come to our school every year and it was definitely challenging. So I appreciate you sharing that. Then what did you decide? I think at uni you did computer science, You did a Bachelor of Engineering, is that right? Yeah. How did you decide on that? What was the influence to do engineering and computer science?
00:08:46 · Vidit Agarwal, Jack Zhang
[00:08:46] S0: Right, that's so interesting. That's so interesting and that again would be really hard because I've seen that, I went to school in Melbourne as well and there was a divide between international and local students. We actually had an exchange program with Korea and the Korean students would come to our school every year and it was definitely challenging. So I appreciate you sharing that. Then what did you decide? I think at uni you did computer science, You did a Bachelor of Engineering, is that right? Yeah. How did you decide on that? What was the influence to do engineering and computer science? [00:09:20] S1: I thought it was pretty cool to make money in front of a computer without going out. I think I'm sort of an introvert person, but I can be very extrovert when when a job require me to. So I think most of the people thought I'm extrovert, but I think I'm borderline introvert as well. And I thought it's pretty cool to write code and and that's kind of smart people do. And that's how I how I got into engineering computer science. [00:09:48] S0: And would you say by the time you... Because I think it was 2004 when you got into the University of Melbourne, were you more adjusted to Australia? Like, did you feel more like a local?
00:09:48 · Vidit Agarwal, Jack Zhang
[00:09:48] S0: And would you say by the time you... Because I think it was 2004 when you got into the University of Melbourne, were you more adjusted to Australia? Like, did you feel more like a local? [00:09:58] S1: Not really. I think because my lack of the English skill set, I think I had a generally a tougher time to make friends with locals. And it took a while for me to get used to the life there. And then because of that, I mean, I didn't do super well academically in the uni as well. And I also had to work so many jobs just to continue to support my study financially. Spent very little time in a college. Just spending like sixteen hours working and also work on the weekends very hard to do that while I'm studying. [00:10:33] S0: Yeah. So what was your first job when you graduated from that degree? What did you, what was your first full time job? Is that job at Aviva, is that right? Yeah. So that was in London, right? Or did you work in Melbourne first? [00:10:45] S1: I work in Melbourne and I basically in a graduate programme that I'm able to like work in different part of the company. [00:10:54] S0: Yeah, because I did hear from a lot of people that I think between the age of 20 and 30, you started like 10 businesses, is that right?
00:10:54 · Vidit Agarwal, Jack Zhang
[00:10:54] S0: Yeah, because I did hear from a lot of people that I think between the age of 20 and 30, you started like 10 businesses, is that right? [00:11:02] S1: Sort of, mean, I started many businesses. Even I was in college, I was trading text iles, basically importing textiles from China, and then sell to retailers in Australia. I was exporting red wines and olive oils. And from Australia, I also have a real estate development company and managing projects and residential and commercial project. I started a burger shop. I started like a coffee, a specialty coffee place called Tuck and Co. And obviously we had a lot of issues of making payments from that business. That kind of inspired me to founded Airwallis. And this is all done on the side, apart from my full time job. So although I was making 10 times money outside of my full time job, because I always loved writing code and loved the engineering, especially in trading. I always keep my full time job, continue to write code and just do these side tussles and side projects with my friends. Generally, I'm able to convince a friend to do a full time. So I'm able to managing all this while I have a full time job. [00:12:07] S0: And did you tell your parents that you were doing all these side businesses or you just told them you had a full time job?
00:12:07 · Vidit Agarwal, Jack Zhang
[00:12:07] S0: And did you tell your parents that you were doing all these side businesses or you just told them you had a full time job? [00:12:12] S1: I think they sort of know I'm doing a lot of stuff, but they didn't know like the relevance of like how important it is or how significant it is. We were making a few million dollar profit a year in all these side businesses. It was quite profitable. So I never really interested in promotion in my full time job in NAB and A and Z because I was making 10 times the income of my managing director. [00:12:40] S0: Wow. Because you were, I think you were in corporate jobs with Aviva, NAB and then ANZ for almost eighty years, right? Yeah. So when did you... I'm always curious about this because I think you see it a lot now with side hustles, right? Was you started these side hustles in the early 2000s or mid 2000s. When did you know that you could leave that full time job and go full time? Was that when Airwallex started or did you do that before Airwallex?