00:34:46 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:34:46] S0: Like, how do you even, like, know who to import beans from? You know? Like, how do you find suppliers at that time and, like [00:34:53] S1: We just go to different coffee shop to ask, just make friends. [00:34:57] S0: Oh, really? So you just went to, like, different coffee shops and were like, yeah. Where do you get your beans? I wanna start a competitor? [00:35:03] S1: I mean, the the the barista working in a coffee shop is not the owner. Right? You just just be fans with the the barista, then you go to these competitions. You just make friends with the the most famous barista. So when we opened a coffee shop, our barista is actually a world champion. [00:35:19] S0: World champion? [00:35:20] S1: Of of of making coffee. Really? Yes. It's a competition. There's a whole kind of very big industry there. And I become friends with the most famous baristas in Melbourne, which is considered probably the best coffee in the world. Then, you know, we were importing bins and stuff and packages from China, we were making payments using Western Union and then banks that were charging us 4.5%, you know, a couple 100, like more than $500 for a $15,000 transaction. We're like, this is a rip off. And my co founder's name is Max Li, and then his name is on the OFAC blacklist, the same name. But because how the Swift works is it doesn't reduce the false positive because the middle bank doesn't have the name address and the date of birth and all that, so they can't [00:36:07] S0: really reduce false he's like a terrorist called Max Slayer
00:36:07 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:36:07] S0: really reduce false he's like a terrorist called Max Slayer [00:36:10] S1: Yes. Or something like And every time he's sending money to Brazil, it goes through multiple correspondent banks. His money just gone missing for a month and bounced back. And he kinda keep complaining to me. He's like, hey. You know, this is terrible. You know, you you work in a bank. Can you do something about it? [00:36:25] S0: That's And the whole time, you're still working at the bank? Yeah. But, like, it just didn't take a lot of time from you? You can do all these things. [00:36:31] S1: I didn't work very hard. [00:36:32] S0: Yeah. And you're making like... So okay. So you had a real estate development business, a coffee shop business, and then a burger business. [00:36:41] S1: I also have a trading business, trading wines and olive oil. [00:36:45] S0: Trading wines and olive oil? Yeah. And you just started all this on this. Did you have people working for you? Like, how do you have time to manage all these businesses? [00:36:52] S1: I just work harder. I work every day, fifteen hours a day. Like, I I basically worked more than fifteen hours a day from the age of 16 till last year. [00:37:02] S0: So how much how much money were were you making at that point in time? [00:37:06] S1: A couple million odds a year. A year? [00:37:08] S0: And then split it with your cofounder? Myself. [00:37:11] S1: I was making a few million dollars myself.
00:37:11 · Jack Zhang, Henrique Dubugras
[00:37:11] S1: I was making a few million dollars myself. [00:37:13] S0: Just yourself? Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. So... And and this is like what? Until... What... How old were you when you started Airwallex? I was 30. 30. So this is from '23 or something after college, 24 until 30. You're like 30 year old making a couple million dollars a year. Life is good. [00:37:30] S1: Yeah. Life is not bad. You know, eventually, we start building, you know, $50,000,000 Aussie project, which is considered decent, but I wanna build, you know, $5,000,000,000 projects. You know what I mean? I wanna build the hottest building in in Australia. Right? I was like, okay. This is my project. But I was like even think you [00:37:46] S0: could do that? Like, you know, do you have... Where did that ambition come from? Do you think it's like, wow. I... Yeah. I'm gonna be the guy that's gonna, like, build a $5,000,000,000 tower in Australia.
00:37:46 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:37:46] S0: could do that? Like, you know, do you have... Where did that ambition come from? Do you think it's like, wow. I... Yeah. I'm gonna be the guy that's gonna, like, build a $5,000,000,000 tower in Australia. [00:37:55] S1: I don't know where that come from. I remember when my my ex wife, her father wanted to build a hotel, like, know, went into the hotel business. And then he's like, oh, why don't we just buy a hotel? And I basically was like, hey, why do you want to buy a hotel? We can build one from scratch. And he sort of laughed at me. He's like, how do you know even how to build a hotel? I'm like, it's super simple. I mean, you can just figure out things. You know, just go to like 20 different hotels and try to understand how they operate and you can build a hotel. I don't know. I just have to... Always have this mentality. It's like nothing's that hard on me. You can always figure it out. [00:38:29] S0: Do know? I always learn stuff. [00:38:30] S1: Yeah. I built, like, a house myself by my own hand. I was a carpenter. I was a plaster. I was the the one who built the foundation of the house. When? This is... Well, I was working at a bank, so I wanna get into real estate, like getting serious about real estate. I was like, okay. I really need to understand how to build [00:38:48] S0: Real stuff.
00:38:48 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:38:48] S0: Real stuff. [00:38:48] S1: Build stuff and how to do construction. So I basically just started sort of demolishing my own house while living in there. I basically demolished 75% of the house and then kind of built it like I was contracting people to teach me how to do it. And I built my own house, like, over [00:39:03] S0: three years. Interesting. Okay. So you have all these businesses. And then when did Air... Walletx come along? So you were at 30? [00:39:12] S1: Yeah. So I I had my daughter back then. And I remember I I looked at her when she was born. I was like, oh, I wasn't really doing anything to make you proud. That's kind of the moment I realized even the life is comfortable, but I deeply feel unpleasant about my achievement. [00:39:34] S0: But what does that mean? Like, you're like, I'm not achieving enough? [00:39:37] S1: Yeah. I'm like... I look at my daughter. It's like, what did I do to make you proud? I mean [00:39:42] S0: And then you think that, like, being [00:39:43] S1: thirty years doing real estate development. I'm doing, like, burger stuff. I'm doing coffee shop. What what does that even mean? I mean, I'm not leveraging my core skill set, which is product engineering, is writing code. I'm not doing any scale of the business. I'm not impacting any people's lives. I'm not creating any scaled impact because, you know, real estate, it's not... I mean, building a coffee shop is not a skill set.
00:39:43 · Jack Zhang, Henrique Dubugras
[00:39:43] S1: thirty years doing real estate development. I'm doing, like, burger stuff. I'm doing coffee shop. What what does that even mean? I mean, I'm not leveraging my core skill set, which is product engineering, is writing code. I'm not doing any scale of the business. I'm not impacting any people's lives. I'm not creating any scaled impact because, you know, real estate, it's not... I mean, building a coffee shop is not a skill set. [00:40:05] S0: But did you have any role model that you were looking to even compare yourself? Because I imagine comparing yourself to, like, your college friends, you were doing great. [00:40:12] S1: Not really. No? So I lost peer pressure as well at that time. Interesting. There's, like, a very few Chinese student in my college, and everyone become entrepreneur. [00:40:20] S0: Oh, really? [00:40:21] S1: Yeah. There's a guy who we were close with and later on tried to, you know, steal my girlfriend, and we we... The relationship broke up. But he, you know, was an algorithmic trader as well. He built the first, Hartfordson trading house in China, made 120x in the first year. [00:40:38] S0: The first what? Sorry? [00:40:39] S1: Made 120x of the funds. So he started with $5,000,000 and made 120x of that 5,000,000 just doing, Hartfordson trading. [00:40:48] S0: Doing algorithmic trading? [00:40:49] S1: Yeah. High frequency trading, like, basically arbitrage. [00:40:52] S0: Oh, high frequency trading. Yeah. That's crazy.