Fintech Leaders
00:24:41 · Kamran Zaki
[00:24:41] S0: I think it goes back to trying to focus on the right long term aspects. Right? If if you're a founder, you started this company not with a goal in mind of going to an IPO. You started it because you got really passionate about some problem or some unmet need that you thought you were uniquely positioned to solve and would add value to your customers. And then of course, as a byproduct create a lot of value, right, for investors and employees. And I think that should still be the goal, right, of, hey, this is a milestone or a step in the process. Hopefully you're still very bullish about the future and the untapped growth that is still ahead. And how do you sort of work backwards from there and manage this process as, again, a step in time rather than an end all be all. I think absolutely, you know, the founders, the the team should be proud of getting to a milestone like this, but, ultimately, you always have to be looking for that long term because you're going to hopefully welcome a new set of investors. Right? Public market investors, consumers, and you should still want to paint that vision to them of why should they invest today because there's a lot of potential in the future and why you're the right team to keep running and growing this business and delivering value. I So think that would be my 2¢ of definitely important milestone, definitely something to be proud of, but also important not to get too caught up in it and lose sight of why you originally started things. Hopefully, have many ambitions for the coming years or decades as well.
00:26:22 · Miguel Armaza
[00:26:22] S1: Speaking of great leaders, I mean, you've worked with great CEOs like Peter from Adyen, but also just dozens of others around the industry that you have personally worked with, interacted with, you know very well. In your opinion, you know, what makes them special?
00:26:41 · Kamran Zaki
[00:26:41] S0: Yeah. It's interesting because like all human beings, everyone has their own unique personality. And and so it is often hard to sort of crystallize down to the handful of things. But I think it goes back to what we were just discussing. I think, typically, they get really excited about or irritated about a particular problem, And they become somewhat infatuated or maniacal about solving that. Right? And they're willing to break through many obstacles. Right? And many people telling them that it's not possible or not worth it and really have this sort of long term vision in mind, who I think they're able to inspire others with that vision, right, and bring other great leaders on board with them. Because in the end, I feel strongly that, you know, the companies that succeed, it's often, yes, there's a founder or a set of founders that started it, but the reason they get to sort of long lasting and critical success is because they were able to build a great team that truly worked together in a very complementary way. And over time, as you scale, it becomes less about one individual and becomes about sort of that complementary core. So those are sort of the two or three things that I've seen. Peter did really well and other great leaders do really well, but I should call this out. And by default, therefore, they are very humble. Right? They often talk about the team and how that's how they got to success. And some of them don't, but most of them are very humble and talk about the we and not the I. Right?
00:28:09 · Miguel Armaza
[00:28:09] S1: And Kamran, when it comes to company building, you were obviously a great compliment to Peter and to all the other CEOs that you work with. What do you say made you special? What was kind of your secret weapon?
00:28:25 · Kamran Zaki
[00:28:25] S0: It's a good question. And as I said, I think sometimes it comes down to how are you complementary as a team to each other. And so, obviously, it wasn't just Peter and I. There were a lot of great people there. Right? Ingo, who is now the co CEO, was the CFO at that point. Roelant is the chief commercial officer. Both of them were there at Adyen even longer than I was. It's definitely a team environment. But, you know, what I try and do, as I said, is be very pragmatic and take emotion out of it. And back to some of our examples of, hey. What's the problem we're trying to solve? How do we sort of prioritize the two or three tough things at a time, not 10, but keep this running list going? And then how do I make sure we're successful in these two or three? Because I think, you know, in Silicon Valley and many successful companies, there's this excitement about the shiny new object, and everyone wants to work on the next cool thing. But you usually have promised existing customers that you worked on something today. And if you sort of say, well, I launched it and move on, that doesn't add value to anyone. Right? So as part of my role as CEO, one of the things I was responsible for was product. And one of the things we talked about is to become a great product manager, you ideally have gone through every part of the life cycle. So you've launched some cool new thing, right? And you get it live after a few weeks, months, year, but then you have to get customers on it. And of course there'll be feedback and how do you iterate? And then, you you go on and then scale it. And then at some point, unfortunately, but I think a great product leader has sunset upon us because you also have to recognize if you adding new things and you never sunset anything, you're creating a lot of complexity and a lot of clutter. Right? Or analogy Peter used was if you keep putting things in your fridge and you never clean it, what do you think is gonna happen? Right? And so I don't think it's it's often fun to sunset a product. Right? To some customers on it, it's painful, you know, migrations, etcetera. But, you know, having somebody who's done every part of the spectrum is invaluable. And, that's what I would often try to do. Some parts of the job were less fun than others, but you always learn in doing it.
00:30:27 · Kamran Zaki, Miguel Armaza
And ultimately, it should be about adding value to your end customers. And, of course, having fun while you're doing it, where there's some more fun parts and there's some more must do parts. [00:30:37] S1: Yeah. On on the front of prioritization, an exercise that I I think is very good is you you get a team together and you ask everyone to write down their top 10 priorities and then ask them to kill the bottom five and then ask them to kill the next three and then ask them to kill the the remain... One of the remaining two and they're left with just one. And it's like, that's what you need to focus on because if you have temporaries, you have no priority.