00:36:22 · Dmitry Zlokazov, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:36:22] S0: So the way it's structured, my responsibility is product function. We also have a head of design function. It's also part of my team. But then all the other functions, they are separate, like engineering and data function. And all of them report directly into a CEO. [00:36:41] S1: Got it. Okay. So you... So out of a 100 things you choose, here's, like, the seven to 10 things I'm gonna go deep on. These are the things that matter most to the business that if they don't go well, it'll have the the most down... Downside. And then you just... You're... You basically said you sit next to the engineers. You you get really involved in every detail. [00:36:59] S0: Yeah. Correct. [00:37:00] S1: Awesome. Okay. That is definitely counterintuitive. We had Brian Chesky in the podcast, and the way he approached this problem is he just cut down how many things happen at Airbnb And because he wants to be involved in everything. And so I think it's cool to hear a different approach where, okay, we can still do a lot of stuff, but I'm gonna choose. I'm gonna go deep on the things that matter most.
00:37:20 · Dmitry Zlokazov, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:37:20] S0: No. I think we will never cut down since it's just the appetite for growth and also entrepreneurial approach in the company is so high that we will never allow ourselves to give up on some great opportunities. But also this this approach is way more scalable. So while leadership and obviously founders themselves keep everyone accountable, go deep into details, it doesn't mean that they micromanage everyone. That... That's actually that's actually a very important thing. So the ideal position for any product owner is to be fully autonomous. And, again, it doesn't mean that you will never be challenged. But if when you're challenged, you can show all the logic behind decisions you've made, behind the roadmap. And even if metrics are not yet there, like, you you you will still, like, let's say, have this credit of trust to keep building things the way you want to build them. Eventually, yeah, you will you will be presenting the outputs of your activity on these weekly product reviews. But, again, it's it's not a micromanagement either. It's more like a, let's say, a last line of control to make sure that what we're building is all all makes sense and adds value and is thoroughly thought in all details. [00:38:48] S1: And then you said still every screen that is shipped, the founders review at some point. So it's not like someone shipping stuff without the founders seeing it in some form.
00:38:56 · Dmitry Zlokazov
[00:38:56] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They have, like, full overview over everything. Mhmm. But also, the... It it actually... It allows us to build so many things because there is actually little micromanagement. Like, if there was... If founders had to be, like, involved into everything, they had to... They they they had to to cut the things down. Right? But by giving people autonomy, they actually boost company growth. And and as a result, I think Revolut is is a strong outlier in the industry in terms of how many products being shipped and how fast they shipped. Another thing here is what I've mentioned previously is us investing heavily into platform and so that every solution is scalable from the get go so that we don't have any custom solutions. And I don't... For example, take our credit team. They ship new products like loans or credit cards in the country literally every month. And it's just maybe 300 people. And I think that, you know, a credit division in a in a incumbent bank is maybe, like, two or 3,000 people building just credit products for a single country. And our team is building it for 50 countries. So... And, yeah, it's enabled through this approach with platforms, which we build on top of small lean teams, which are fully equipped with necessary functions and also have autonomy in defining what what they're building, and the flat hierarchy with everyone being accountable and founders having direct view over everyone and inter... Intervening if necessary.
00:41:06 · Lenny Rachitsky, Dmitry Zlokazov
[00:41:06] S1: I'm gonna give people a list of the things you guys do. We... I didn't do this at the beginning because it would take too long, but you talk about all the products you're building and all the things that's going on. So I have, like, a list here that it may... It's probably incomplete, but just to give people a sense. So you guys have credit cards, debit cards, savings accounts, multicurrency accounts, domestic international transfers, joint accounts, minors, accounts for, like, less than people... Less than 18 years old, stock trading, cryptocurrency purchasing, loans. Is there anything big I missed? [00:41:37] S0: I mean, it's... Some of those things are huge by itself. Let's say stock trading. Right? It's it's not just stocks. It's also ETFs, bonds, and we're we're working on tax efficient accounts in different countries. And crypto, it's... We also allow stake in crypto, for example. We have on ramp, off ramp products. We have acquiring products. On credit, we have loans. We have buy now, pay later product. Even launched mortgages. We launched first mortgages in And [00:42:17] S1: this is a... And then all of these across 50 different currencies and countries. [00:42:21] S0: Yeah. 50 different jurisdictions with each with its own regulation, with its own requirements. [00:42:28] S1: Oh, boy. This is a... It's a good example of... Paul Graham has this concept of schlep blindness or schlepping, where people wanna avoid hard problems, but that's where the big opportunities are, solving really gnarly, painful problems. And that's basically what you guys did.
00:42:28 · Lenny Rachitsky, Dmitry Zlokazov
[00:42:28] S1: Oh, boy. This is a... It's a good example of... Paul Graham has this concept of schlep blindness or schlepping, where people wanna avoid hard problems, but that's where the big opportunities are, solving really gnarly, painful problems. And that's basically what you guys did. [00:42:46] S0: Yeah. That... That's one of the things that excites me maybe the most, at Revolut. The market is so big, and there are still a lot of very inefficient players. And as a result, customers have a lot of problems that are unsolved. While we grow insanely, and I think we'll soon be... So when when I joined, we had maybe just slightly north to 20,000,000 customers. Now we are 50,000,000 customers. Soon, we'll be at 100,000,000 customers. The degree of you know, surrounding each customer with the ecosystem of our products extends a lot. So they become... More and more people start using Revolut as their main bank account. They they start receiving the... Their salary into Revolut, holding their savings into Revolut because they they love the product more. And so we can easily do another, I don't know, two, three x, four x in customer base growth. But we can also do another 10 x growth in how actively these people are using the product. So it's, let's say, what, 30, 40 x to current 45,000,000,000 valuation. Right? So it's a... It's like a a trillion dollar company
00:42:46 · Dmitry Zlokazov, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:42:46] S0: Yeah. That... That's one of the things that excites me maybe the most, at Revolut. The market is so big, and there are still a lot of very inefficient players. And as a result, customers have a lot of problems that are unsolved. While we grow insanely, and I think we'll soon be... So when when I joined, we had maybe just slightly north to 20,000,000 customers. Now we are 50,000,000 customers. Soon, we'll be at 100,000,000 customers. The degree of you know, surrounding each customer with the ecosystem of our products extends a lot. So they become... More and more people start using Revolut as their main bank account. They they start receiving the... Their salary into Revolut, holding their savings into Revolut because they they love the product more. And so we can easily do another, I don't know, two, three x, four x in customer base growth. But we can also do another 10 x growth in how actively these people are using the product. So it's, let's say, what, 30, 40 x to current 45,000,000,000 valuation. Right? So it's a... It's like a a trillion dollar company [00:44:12] S1: easily. And on that note, I know... What I'm hearing is it's still a good a great time to join. There's a massive upside. So I know you guys are hiring. We'll just note that real quick. There's a... You're hiring product owners in a bunch of other roles, I imagine.