00:37:27 · Micky Malka
[00:37:27] S1: You gotta understand Nick for how he grew up and who he is, to understand who he was. Funny enough, I was in London a few weeks ago because they finally got their bank license approved. And there was a chancellor there and some public officials speaking, and Nick was there with Vlad, the cofounder. And I I was looking at my phone, I was remembering when was the first time that we had we had handshake our Series A. Mhmm. And it was literally that same day ten years before. Oh, wow. And so I I went to them and I showed them the phone and said, ten years ago we were drinking vodka shots because were in the rush to do the RRA round. And what was it about him from day one? First, the name Revolut stand for who he was. He wanted to truly create a revolution in in money. Like, there was nothing in the middle about it. He had come to London. He had left Moscow. He was a trader. He was frustrated with how complex it was to move money, how difficult and how expensive and how unfair it was for everybody in the system. And he says, fuck it. I gotta change this. So that core DNA was there from day one. And then it went... He lived it every single day. He he will wake up every day and go swimming. He will work in the office. We were the first one to arrive, the last one to leave, and the first one to arrive the next day again. And he will swim and stay fit and just relentlessly focus on getting this mission moving forward. And people just either competed with him at that level because it was a performance that I have... A level that I execution that it was just a machine. There was nonstop. I just have this mission, I have to do it in my lifetime.
00:39:24 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:39:24] S0: I'm glad you said the machine because I think that's what Neil described. He's like, he's like a fucking Terminator. [00:39:29] S1: But that was that was Nick in his late twenties. That was who he was then in late twenties. Now, the Nick of today, ten years later, he's he's gotten better. He's gotten better because now he can lead. He can lead by example. He can lead by mission. He's a missionary also now. He can lead by taste. He has very strong opinions on how things need to go. He still has 20 people that report to him. And he will work seven days a week. And then every number of weeks, take two weeks off. Like, you can see that his behavior of work is fine tuned to who he is now compared to who he was before. So consistency, what what what I like to do is when we back these teams, we try to understand the DNA of the founder. And we try to understand what drives them and how do they work. But more importantly, we wanna see if that DNA reflects in the offices, in the team, in the people, in the way they talk, in the way they they they move. And you still go to the Revolut offices, is like in now in, I don't know, 15, 20 countries. And I've been to the the one in The Middle East, in Barcelona, in London in the last year and a half, you still breathe that DNA still there. So that's what keeps it going. It's a very special way that you gotta understand the founder really well to know, because each org is very different. [00:40:53] S0: So when you say you wanna understand the founder's DNA, how do you go about understanding that?
00:40:53 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:40:53] S0: So when you say you wanna understand the founder's DNA, how do you go about understanding that? [00:40:57] S1: You gotta spend time with them. And you gotta ask them all the questions and you gotta build a level of trust where, honestly, you don't have to talk about business that much. What kind of level of trust you gotta... How do you build that trust to talk to them in a way where they feel that they can trust you back? That they can call you when they cannot sleep at night? Those are the things that you gotta... I spend most of my time and the team at Ribbit spend most of the time doing, which is building that level of understanding and relationship, so we know how they behave. Once you know how people behave, then everything's fine, because you will see consistency or they will break it. [00:41:35] S0: Explain why it's important to you to be the person that they call when they have problems. Like, you just used an example of like when they can't sleep at night.
00:41:35 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:41:35] S0: Explain why it's important to you to be the person that they call when they have problems. Like, you just used an example of like when they can't sleep at night. [00:41:43] S1: Because all of us have something that wakes us up at night from time to time. And that that particular mind problem that you're trying to solve, it's the biggest thing that you have to get unlocked to keep being the best version of yourself. And when you're there, sometimes it's really hard to trust if it's a vulnerable question. Sometimes it's really deep and has a lot of strategic consequences, and you wanna be really... You're you're going through your mind a lot. And if we get that phone call, it means that we did a 100 things right to deserve the right to be there to help this person think through it. Never answer the question. Just help him or her answer the question. And that meant that you were able to talk about life and family. You were able to talk about society and politics. And you were able to talk about everything because that's the only way you're gonna get to really help this person answer the question. [00:42:42] S0: So you have all, in many cases, decade plus relationships with a lot of the founders that you back. How does, like, can you compare Nick to the other ones? Like, what are what are the traits that you think they share among the people that you spend the most time with?
00:42:42 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[00:42:42] S0: So you have all, in many cases, decade plus relationships with a lot of the founders that you back. How does, like, can you compare Nick to the other ones? Like, what are what are the traits that you think they share among the people that you spend the most time with? [00:42:56] S1: Well, they all want to win in their own way of being. They care about... If they are true to themselves, they still... The mission that they wrote on the first day is still present today. And when you find that authenticity, they win. So the ones that are authentic are the ones that you can keep seeing. The ones that faked it to make it, and then they change, and then they move, and then they... Those are the ones that over time, you just don't have the appetite to spend time with. [00:43:25] S0: Is it reflected in the performance of their company too? [00:43:28] S1: Sometimes you And [00:43:29] S0: you have people that fake it and then they build massively successful companies? Yes. [00:43:32] S1: They are, for sure. But sometimes, somewhere, somehow down the line, authenticity matters. And as long as you're authentic to yourself and you keep your values authentic and you remember yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and you can wake up every day with that energy, you'll be fine.
00:43:32 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[00:43:32] S1: They are, for sure. But sometimes, somewhere, somehow down the line, authenticity matters. And as long as you're authentic to yourself and you keep your values authentic and you remember yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and you can wake up every day with that energy, you'll be fine. [00:43:51] S0: So if we go back to that idea that Rick Rubin has like these four... Handful of ideas. Could be four, could be five, could be six ideas that he just used for the... Over multiple decades. What would like be the list of traits that you would... If I said, hey, list out the four or five things that you want the founders, that you wanna build long term relationships with and partner with over long term and have, what would those... What would your answer be? [00:44:12] S1: We have this thing called the aisle aisle of the tiger. It's our way of thinking about the people that we wanna back and how we wanna partner with them. And as everything as I told you before, it needs to fill in a napkin. So if we brought it in napkin, means that we thought about it long enough that we have it. Right? And it's basically the energy of a scientist, the conviction of a missionary, the heart of a partner, the dreams of an athlete, the obsession of an owner. When we meet them and we spend time with them, we want to make sure those things are present. And if they are, that's the kind of people that we wanna partner with. [00:44:48] S0: How long did it take you to develop? Like, many... Is this over several years where you guys figured out these reoccurring traits?