00:00:00 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang, Cameron McLain
[00:00:00] S0: You would have had a lot of stock in in Stripe. How how much did you walk away from essentially? Or three, four billion dollars. And you feel good about it still? [00:00:06] S1: Yeah. I think my key thing is is not really the pursuit of evaluation, it's really pursuing happiness. And I wanted to find something I'm truly happy about. We didn't have a company registered at the time. I think by Monday, midday, a million US dollars walked into my personal bank account without anything signed. [00:00:23] S0: And how much is that million dollars worth today? Or how much would it have been? [00:00:26] S2: Probably half a billion dollars. Do you think it's possible to build a like a truly global finance platform these days with the world as it is geopolitically? [00:00:33] S1: I think it's it's challenging, but it's 100% possible that that's exactly what we're building now. [00:00:38] S2: Today on the podcast, we have Jack Zhang, CEO of Airwallet, one of the world's fastest-growing fintechs. Jack has a remarkable life story. Uh, he moved to Australia from China at 15, worked in restaurants, factories, had a real estate business, all before going on to found Airwallet's, which is now valued at 11 billion. And his mission is to fundamentally change how money moves around the world. So, Jack, welcome to Giant Ideas. Thanks, Cam, and uh thanks, Tommy. [00:01:03] S1: I'm glad to join.
00:01:03 · Jack Zhang, Tommy Stadlen
[00:01:03] S1: I'm glad to join. [00:01:04] S0: Today we're going to talk about your journey, which I think is one of the most extraordinary journeys, not just of an entrepreneur, but of any leader that I've heard about, kind of listening to it and reading about it. We ask all of our guests to talk about kind of three photographs or snapshots that would help listeners get to the bottom of your life so far, your journey so far. So if I had to ask you that that tricky question, what would the kind of three photographs be that would define the journey so far? [00:01:31] S1: I grew up in a countryside uh in Northeast China. So I would say that's probably the first phase of my life, and then that is how I grew up. And um I was seeing the probably the biggest sort of economic advancement in the world. Um, I was born in 1985, so between 85 to year 2000, right? So when I was 15, then I moved to um so I was like actually in Canada for a short period of time, and then I was in I was in I moved to Melbourne, I was 15, and uh so from 15 to um I would say uh 20, um you know, I uh I lost uh you know financial support from my parents and uh unfortunately in you know when I was 16 and had to work a lot of uh random uh difficult jobs. [00:02:20] S0: Um what kind of thing were you doing?
00:02:20 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang
[00:02:20] S0: Um what kind of thing were you doing? [00:02:22] S1: Sort of um you know, I got uh initially started washing dishes in the restaurant after high school, uh, you know, finished at four and then start go to the restaurant working. Uh then I later on upgraded my job to a bartender, uh, you know, doing you know 4 p.m. to 11 30 p.m. shift in the Westing Hotel, then uh then I do midnight shift in a petrol station from midnight to 8 a.m. Wow. Uh so like you know, working 16 hours a day and finding spare time to study. [00:02:51] S0: So you'd work in a bar in the evening, then do a night shift in a petrol station, and then go to high school in the morning?
00:02:56 · Jack Zhang
[00:02:56] S1: No, no, the go-to college. That was that was like high school was more of a dishwasher job, like kitchen hand dishwasher. Uh well, I mean, you sleep three hours, you know, like uh during the day. I mean, also I don't work every day, so you know, I'll probably work four or five hours a week. And uh so um and not all sort of shifts are uh that bad, and you know, you can have some sleep if nobody comes to the petrol station. So uh it is uh This is in Melbourne, yeah. This is in Melbourne, and and that is like a pretty tough period of time that really kind of taught me a lot of um things about life, right? How resilient, um, you know, what is uh what does hot work uh look like, uh what does survival look like? Uh then like I mean I would say uh then uh after I graduated, uh then I would summarize that journey as just um you know, I call the I call it the pursuit of happiness, okay. Uh or you know, or just try to figure out things in life, right? So I got a decent job out of the investment bank and I was algo trader and I write code to uh do FX market making or fixed income and other sort of algo trading stuff. Um I'm making decent money, and on the side, I probably tried 10 different businesses, uh, whether it's in real estate development, architecture, burger, coffee, uh importing, exporting. So a lot of random businesses. And I was even selling phone cases online, right? So I made made a phone case um, you know, with with my friends. So a lot all these random businesses are just me experimenting what makes me happy.
00:04:36 · Cameron McLain, Jack Zhang, Tommy Stadlen
[00:04:36] S2: Um the import export business was quite successful. [00:04:40] S1: I mean, like all these businesses made money, and and but um, you know, especially the real estate one was was quite successful. But uh I wouldn't really feel happy that I feel like I really wanted to build in something that uh that can scale, um, something I can use my uh sort of expertise in technology and engineering, right? So that um, you know, I was basically finally able to find Airwalllocks, and and that will be, I would say, the later chapter of my entrepreneurial journey. And and you know, I think finding something like airwalls is quite a blessing because I can see myself building for another 10, 20 years on this on this business and and not worry about getting staled because the market is so big and I just keep can keep creating component value, uh, billions of enterprise, if not multi, if tens of billions of enterprise value every year. [00:05:31] S0: Amazing. So let's go back to that first chapter then of arriving in Australia and basically having to kind of fund yourself through through your studies and working in pretty tough jobs. More right, I think you worked in a in a lemon factory at one point.
00:05:31 · Tommy Stadlen, Jack Zhang
[00:05:31] S0: Amazing. So let's go back to that first chapter then of arriving in Australia and basically having to kind of fund yourself through through your studies and working in pretty tough jobs. More right, I think you worked in a in a lemon factory at one point. [00:05:45] S1: Yeah, that was a holiday job worth here for about four months. What were you doing in the lemon factory? Um, so you know, there's um different sizes of lemon. You know, so there's uh it's a lemon factory, you have all sorts of uh machines and to try to figure out the size of the lemon, and they try to group the similar size into one uh one train and then uh to they wash the lemon, wax it, and then get ended the the the chain and um uh some girls that put a label on it, put in a box. I'm the one that taking care of all size of lemon from you know, put in a box and put in the sort of three-meter by three-meter pillar and then just sort of doing that for 12 hours a day. [00:06:30] S0: Wow. [00:06:30] S1: Uh so the only two guys in the lemon factories, me and the son of the boss. And the son of the boss not doing anything is really just me. [00:06:37] S0: So when you have people now in in London or wherever your office is around the world, tech workers kind of complaining about burnout, do you just laugh? And think this is like you don't know the meaning of the hard words.