01:09:08 · Micky Malka
[01:09:08] S1: If I end up being labeled as first, I hate labels. And second, I will be very depressed. Because that's not the label. I want no labels. All I want in my tombstone is to say, he was a rebel. That's all I want to be said there. And that will say everything about me. The way I raise my kids, the way my relationship with my wife, the way I treat my friends, the way I make business decisions, the way I change my mind, I'm willing to change my mind if I learn something that is different, that's a Revol mindset. Everything that is the opposite is a mindset that I know too well, my kids are perfect, I'm the best at what I do, and I run away from any of those things. Actually, I I find that the rebel mindset is one that you are always asking questions. You're a rebel. You are nonstop asking questions. You wanna learn. You wanna keep... But you and I know a lot of people that get to a point in life when they stop to ask questions, and they start to preach. That's past the rebel time. And everybody has that breaking point somewhere in their lives. I want that to be the last day of my life. So I need to live by that principle on everything that I do, on every behavior. On on... Like, I'm reveling now against the traditional art world. I'm trying, you know, to allow artists to show art in a different way. We revel at Ribbit the way we design it. We were people were asking about what are you? Are you a venture guy? Are you an early stage guy? I'm like, yes. Are you a late stage guy? Yes. Are you a Fintech guy? Yes. But are you doing now defense or... Yes. Like, yes. What's wrong? Like, I'm not gonna let anyone allow that. That is the Revolut mindset.
01:10:50 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[01:10:50] S0: You are a founder, but you think so much like a founder. So, like, this decision in 2012 to start an investment firm, like, why? [01:10:57] S1: I don't think of it as an investment firm. Okay. [01:10:59] S0: You have to say more about this. [01:11:00] S1: To me, a startup. It's a company. And we build our own technology stack, and we have a small team, and we consider ourselves our rebels, our meetings are called Tatooine, and we have Jedis, and we we... [01:11:11] S0: I didn't know this. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so you're really into Star Wars? Completely. [01:11:16] S1: And and... [01:11:17] S0: Are you backing Jedis or you have Jedis?
01:11:17 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[01:11:17] S0: Are you backing Jedis or you have Jedis? [01:11:19] S1: We we back Jedis. Okay. And and we have Wookiees and we are Jedis. We we have the whole thematic truly alive in the way we think because it has to be authentic. And people that work with us, Ribbit, the whole team feels that ownership, that teamwork. There's... Investment firms are very siloed in many ways, and I don't love that. We wanna overcommunicate even internally. Like, right now, the entire team knows that we're sitting together. Everybody can see my calendar in my inbox. They can see my emails. And I can see anybody's emails. We share all the information so we can actually become better as a team. That mindset is very relevant in this environment, in how we make decisions. We don't make individual decisions, we make group decisions. And there's no like, somebody asks, who's the partner responsible for that company? It's like, what partner? And you ask the founder, they say, I don't know. I call Mickey for something, I call Nick for something, I call Justin for something. We are just a team that works together in very different ways. So that is the joy of going to the office every day. I love being there and spending time with the team because we just have fun together.
01:11:19 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[01:11:19] S1: We we back Jedis. Okay. And and we have Wookiees and we are Jedis. We we have the whole thematic truly alive in the way we think because it has to be authentic. And people that work with us, Ribbit, the whole team feels that ownership, that teamwork. There's... Investment firms are very siloed in many ways, and I don't love that. We wanna overcommunicate even internally. Like, right now, the entire team knows that we're sitting together. Everybody can see my calendar in my inbox. They can see my emails. And I can see anybody's emails. We share all the information so we can actually become better as a team. That mindset is very relevant in this environment, in how we make decisions. We don't make individual decisions, we make group decisions. And there's no like, somebody asks, who's the partner responsible for that company? It's like, what partner? And you ask the founder, they say, I don't know. I call Mickey for something, I call Nick for something, I call Justin for something. We are just a team that works together in very different ways. So that is the joy of going to the office every day. I love being there and spending time with the team because we just have fun together. [01:12:28] S0: What was the insight though that caused you to do this instead of... Because you started how many companies before this? This is your sixth company? Yes. Something like that? So like... Your sixth company looks vastly different from your first five, correct? Yes. So like what was the insight between five and six though?
01:12:28 · David Senra, Micky Malka
[01:12:28] S0: What was the insight though that caused you to do this instead of... Because you started how many companies before this? This is your sixth company? Yes. Something like that? So like... Your sixth company looks vastly different from your first five, correct? Yes. So like what was the insight between five and six though? [01:12:40] S1: I had to... In the infinite game, I had just had to learn how to do it right. And this time I did it right. Because I consider myself, even though they were successful and they created a lot of impact and changed a lot of people's lives around the world, I consider myself a failed entrepreneur. [01:12:56] S0: That's absurd. That's what you gotta say, like why? [01:13:00] S1: Because the best entrepreneurs never have to sell their company. [01:13:05] S0: Okay, another fist bump on that. There you go. [01:13:07] S1: And so I had to learn for twenty years how to get to the point to design the structure, the culture, the team, the knowledge, the aperture, the brand, compound all those values to a place where we can do something for forever. [01:13:28] S0: This is the infinite game. [01:13:29] S1: This is the infinite game.
01:13:29 · Micky Malka, David Senra
[01:13:29] S1: This is the infinite game. [01:13:30] S0: Nick Sleep has one of my favorite lines ever. And he goes, the best investors aren't investors, they're entrepreneurs who never sold. 100% agree. Yeah. So that's fascinating. Look at... Okay. The fact is I'm a failed entrepreneur because I had to exit. You had crazy successful exits too from my first five because I didn't find the vehicle in which I can do forever, which is again, when when... Again, like, I'm like new to being relatively known in like this community in the last like five years for podcasts. And I didn't understand because I sat in a room by myself for a decade and just talked into a microphone and read books. And I didn't think about the outside world at all. And then everything kind of came to me. And so now I have to, like, constantly vet everybody around me. And I get a lot of advice from, like, especially, like, older, more successful entrepreneurs who are like, man, you have to be so fucking careful with, like... Because there's... It goes back to Charlie Munger. It's like most people are rat poison. [01:14:20] S1: Yeah. [01:14:20] S0: Right? And it's just like and it's just like you have to, like, vet them in all different directions. But when I... And even people I wanna have dinner with or talk to, like you, you ask a bunch of people, and they're just like, he's obsessed with this infinite game. Yeah. This infinite game. He's like, they... He doesn't need more money, and he doesn't need to do another deal in his life, but he just can't stop.