00:24:25 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:24:25] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then... But, like, as you were studying software engineering, did you, like, know enough to go get a software engineering kind of job? [00:24:31] S1: Because I sort of worked so many random jobs outside of college and I didn't really spend enough time studying, So I actually wasn't very good at writing code. I only sort of start getting the... You know, like, a decent engineer or programmer after I started working because I just never had code enough and... [00:24:52] S0: And how did you know that coding was a good idea? [00:24:55] S1: When I was in the high... So the final year of high school, they had this, like, science calculator. You know, to get good academic result, I basically tried to program in a calculator for a bunch of formulas. And that kind of gave me really good result in the exam. And I was like, okay, that's kind of cool, and, you know, I kind of like coding. [00:25:13] S0: How did you code the calculator? Like, how did you even do [00:25:16] S1: that? That was just like a specific language that you used to code, like putting in formulas and stuff. [00:25:21] S0: And how did you find out how to use that language? Just just Google it. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So Google was already like a big... Which year is this? [00:25:28] S1: This is 2003. So [00:25:32] S0: Google... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's doing well. Yeah. And then... So... Okay. So you you finished college. And throughout college, how was personal life? Were... Did you have any time to go out with friends and do anything like that or no? Or just, like, working
00:25:32 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:25:32] S0: Google... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's doing well. Yeah. And then... So... Okay. So you you finished college. And throughout college, how was personal life? Were... Did you have any time to go out with friends and do anything like that or no? Or just, like, working [00:25:42] S1: with them? I I didn't really do much. My college life sucks. [00:25:46] S0: Yeah. There wasn't like a full college experience or going out to parties, like none of that. [00:25:50] S1: I was talking to my friend. I mean, if you, you know, asked me to kinda give up everything I have today and travel back in time to college and I just have a normal college life, I would just do it a no brainer. [00:26:01] S0: Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Tell me more about that. [00:26:04] S1: I just feel like there's just like a... There's like ten years of life gone missing between my... Sort of when I was 16 to 26. I didn't do anything fun. All I do is is work, work, work. [00:26:17] S0: And and it wasn't even like fun work. Right? Like, was [00:26:20] S1: Yeah. Like No. Nothing fun. [00:26:21] S0: It was [00:26:21] S1: like shit work. Surviving. [00:26:23] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that definitely built character. Right? [00:26:27] S1: Yeah. I think I I would definitely not do what I do today without going through that. It's kind of ten years of of struggle. [00:26:34] S0: Fine. So you got out of college. What did you do? What's your first thing? [00:26:38] S1: I interned at Goldman, then GFC happened. [00:26:42] S0: So you're able to get an internship at Goldman?
00:26:42 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:26:42] S0: So you're able to get an internship at Goldman? [00:26:44] S1: Yeah, but I didn't get a job after the GFC, right? So then I then went to London, worked for this insurance company called Veeva in investment side, basically building the investment strategies, investment platforms for the money that Veeva manages, which is about $500,000,000,000 [00:27:02] S0: Wow. And then what was the job exactly? Like, what did you do day to day? [00:27:06] S1: I brought code to allow, you know, the investment managers or the traders to trade assets, different assets, and pricing sort of work for the insurance premiums, basically as an engineer. Then later on, I become an algo trader in an investment bank. [00:27:25] S0: How do you think that your kind of, like, Chinese background and Australian background kind of, you know, went in your success or culture, you know, at this point? Like, you know, obviously, it seemed like there's, like, a hard work and focused concentration that you learned in China. What did you learn in Australia that you think like?
00:27:25 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:27:25] S0: How do you think that your kind of, like, Chinese background and Australian background kind of, you know, went in your success or culture, you know, at this point? Like, you know, obviously, it seemed like there's, like, a hard work and focused concentration that you learned in China. What did you learn in Australia that you think like? [00:27:40] S1: The the life I grew up is is, you know, academically, you know, very competitive, so you learn this very competitive personality, so you always wanna win. I think that's a very strong character. And then you see people working so hard, and including my parents, you know, my mom, and, know, retiring from a full time job and just to, you know, start building a business when she's, like, 40 something, right? So you just learn a lot of grit from that. And, you know, Australia, people are very kind of curious and, you know, always ask the question, And you kind of get a lot of this curiosity in mindset. And also in Australia, there's a lot of space to do stuff, and the study was not that intense. Then you have a lot of time to kind of think. I And don't know, I mean, actually, was very focused on building relationships when I was in college, even though I was very busy at this work. And I think I was always hanging out with the best student in a college and, you know, mostly, like, you know, a couple of them become cofounders in AirWallet, so I think that's super helpful. [00:28:42] S0: Okay. So you went to this insurance company to write software, then you became a trader, and then what did you do after that?
00:28:42 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:28:42] S0: Okay. So you went to this insurance company to write software, then you became a trader, and then what did you do after that? [00:28:51] S1: I... On the side, I was starting starting businesses. I think I was in Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong for a bit sort of... [00:28:57] S0: So that was after the insurance company? [00:28:59] S1: Yeah. After the insurance company, I went to Hong Kong. [00:29:02] S0: So you went back... You know, Hong Kong is not exactly China, but, you know, kind of. [00:29:06] S1: I've never been to Hong Kong at that [00:29:07] S0: time. Okay. [00:29:08] S1: Just like... But they... Tax is low, make a lot of money. [00:29:13] S0: So you just went because you found a job there and not because of anything else? [00:29:16] S1: Yeah. And started as sort of, yeah, in in front office, essentially, like, doing market risk and trading at the same time. [00:29:25] S0: Got it.
00:29:25 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:29:25] S0: Got it. [00:29:26] S1: And I built, like, a software called Currency Overlay in my job that we made a bunch of money for the bank. And I basically thought I will be able to lead that business because I created a product with another guys on trading desk. But they then later on, like, moved someone from, like, New York to lead that business, and I was pretty pissed. So I was like, okay, I'm going to resign and start a company doing that. And I think I didn't know why people were buying the product, I think mostly because the brand of the bank instead of the product itself. And when I build the product, I try to sell product myself to those mutual funds and hedge funds, and I just couldn't sell the product. And I realized people are buying the product not because of the product itself, it's because it's Morgan Stanley. And then I thought maybe entrepreneur is not my thing. I went back to Australia and then just like found a job in one of the big four banks in Australia and become, like, this front office algorithmic trader and engineers. [00:30:32] S0: And were you making good money at this point? [00:30:35] S1: Not a lot. I was making, like, 250 sort of thousand dollars. It's, you know, it's not a lot. But then How old are you? I was 25. [00:30:44] S0: I mean, 250 k. In Australia, at 25, like, that was... Seemed like a lot, I imagine, right, when you're going through it compared to, like, what you had before. [00:30:52] S1: Yeah. I guess it's not bad. [00:30:56] S0: How many other kids your age you knew that were making?