00:11:16 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:11:16] S1: And why didn't you, at that point, just stay in China where it's like a little bit more familiar, your mom's there, your dad's there? [00:11:29] S0: Well, I I don't think I'm competitive anymore. Right? I used to be, you know, top 10 in the entire city from academic standpoint. I just... You know, after two years, honestly, I didn't study much at all in Canada and Australia. You know, like, it just feels like the the academic competitive level in in Australia is, like, not even close to where I was, and I can just get the best score without study. And, you know, just going back is not realistic. Like, I would go to, like, a tier two university. You know? I would never go to the the Stanford and and, you know, University [00:12:06] S1: of good university in Australia? [00:12:08] S0: I mean, it's the best one in in Australia. [00:12:10] S1: Yeah. [00:12:11] S0: I mean, like, it's not kind of Stanford or anything. Right? It's the University of Melbourne, but, you know, that's already the best in in Australia. [00:12:17] S1: Wow. That's fascinating. And how how long were you able to do the eight 8PM... 4PM to 8AM back to back shifts? [00:12:29] S0: I probably do, like, at least sort of three, four days a week throughout the entire college. Through all of college? Yeah. And I I was I was also working in the weekends in a computer repair store doing, like, p s three jailbreak and, you know, putting together servers and do some basic coding and stuff. Do you still have that in you today? I mean, what? Writing code?
00:12:29 · Jack Zhang, Joubin Mirzadegan
[00:12:29] S0: I probably do, like, at least sort of three, four days a week throughout the entire college. Through all of college? Yeah. And I I was I was also working in the weekends in a computer repair store doing, like, p s three jailbreak and, you know, putting together servers and do some basic coding and stuff. Do you still have that in you today? I mean, what? Writing code? [00:12:57] S1: No. Like working like that. Can you still work? [00:13:00] S0: I still work like fifteen hours a day in most of the days. And the last three weeks, I on average just sleep four hours a day. [00:13:09] S1: What's been going on the last three weeks? Just
00:13:13 · Jack Zhang
[00:13:13] S0: lots of stuff happening on AI, lot of kind of new initiative on international expansion, and also, you know, need to deal with regulatory audit in many markets. Right? So because the path we chose is very complicated. You know, we regulate it in 60 plus markets around the world, and every single market will have multiple licenses, and we're interfacing, you know, almost every single regulator in every single jurisdiction. And there's always some sort of audits and on-site and RFI going on that we kind of have to maintain, you know, the largest financial and regulatory infrastructure in the world, and that is lot of pressure. And maybe like fifteen seconds on what Airwallex does. Airwallex is a global financial and payments platform to empower modern businesses to operate and grow globally. Think of it as like the easiest way to think about it is like a RAN plus Stripe sort of together, but with sort of Citibank as the as the infrastructure. Right? So the, you know, the... Ultimately, Air Wallets wanted to to build the next generation of Citibank. But in a sense, like, the the the global bank, you know, is is different. Right? The future of global banking is not how you're looking at JPMorgan or Citibank today. It's a fully sort of vertical integrated financial and regulatory infrastructure layer, but with organic finance on top Mhmm. That to creating not only autonomous finance, but also able to executing on the on the infrastructure layer that to creating financial outcome or payments outcome. Right? So Mhmm. Imagine, like, what you do today. You you do a bunch of stuff in your, I don't know, finance software, a payroll software, or vendor spend management software. Then you download a bunch of stuff, a file you go to Citibank, you upload it, and then you process the payments. It's very kind of separate process, but with with AirWallet, it's all fully integrated that you're not only able to to operate in the financial operation with agent to help you, and when the agent wanted to confirm the actual payments or or actual money in money out, that our infrastructure were able to get instruction and get it done straight away. Mhmm. And and when the money out, that you're able to reconcile the cash and the actual ledger without any actual work.
00:15:34 · Joubin Mirzadegan
[00:15:34] S1: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So you're in Australia. If you're working at, you know, gas stations and computer stores, but you had already started a company when you were 14, company, whatever, a magazine that had made a bunch of money. Yeah. A bunch of money, some money. Why don't you try that path again instead of doing it this way? I was zero capital. Right? I was barely surviving. I think, you know,
00:16:00 · Jack Zhang, Joubin Mirzadegan
[00:16:00] S0: I was also, like, initially working on the lemon farm and then, you know, picking up lemons for twelve hours a day, and and, you know, the trend in and out took three and four hours. So you... When you're at a surviving mode, it's very hard. Right? That you you basically... You need to pay for the tuition, and you need to pay for your living expenses. You just have no bandwidth to think about what you can do. And even you wanna do it, you just have no capital to it. And and, you know, my my English wasn't wasn't great either at that time, and I was barely speak English. And also, like, I lost a lot of confidence as well. Right? Imagine that you you wealthy and you you academically one of the best in in the city, and and all of sudden, you kinda become this, like, in a foreign country, you don't speak the language very well. You know, people look down on you, and and you're just awkward. Right? And I also just feel... Wanted to hide somewhere and just just work and then go through this, you know, like, worst period of my life. And then, hopefully, by the time I graduate, I can find a job. I'm... I never thought about dropout, start a company, raise VC money as a thing. [00:17:12] S1: Right? There's no venture capital in Australia back then. Right? There's there's Still not much now.
00:17:12 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:17:12] S1: Right? There's no venture capital in Australia back then. Right? There's there's Still not much now. [00:17:17] S0: No. Yeah. I mean, like, we're the... Probably the the only unicorn in Melbourne, and it is... There's not many tech company at all. When I started the company, you know you know, if you start a company in Silicon Valley, you raise venture capital, you got a lot of founders surrounding you to give you tips, and the VC tell you, you know, certain things and how to recruit people, help you to close candidate. I've got none of that. And I made every single mistake the founder shouldn't make, which is... I've got no one to ask opinions and to get help. It it is a very different environment. It's very hard to imagine what I can do in in Silicon Valley, you know, versus... You know, like, it... It's just not a thing. The mentality was just not there. So did you drop out? No. I I finished my my degree. [00:18:07] S1: And you you you paid for your tuition through this work? [00:18:10] S0: Yeah. Finished. Yeah. Then what? Then I interned at Goldman. I... Then financial crisis happened in [00:18:19] S1: Where'd you in... Where? Where?