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David Velez

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2023-09-11
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2023-09-11
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  1. “Those tend to have much harder exit opportunity. But when you really get Brazil and Mexico, you'll find enough market cap to find liquidity.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “There is a fair of liquidity in the Vovespa in the Brazilian Stock Exchange. We were looking at this 2007-8. There were 45 different IPOs in just the Brazilian market. About 2018, 2019, you had a lot of different exits. So these are exits that are meaningful for companies in their market caps, let's say, between 300 to $1 billion of exit type of market cap businesses. So you have liquidity locally. If you go above the billion dollar market cap, then obviously New York, IPO becomes a real entry as an opportunity of liquidity. And then you have a very active M&A environment. There's recently a very big exit visa bot, this thing they call Pismo as a billion dollar plus exit one out of many. So I think there is fair amount of liquidity locally in Brazil. Mexico should have more Colombia, Peru, Chile. I think you run a little bit into more in the liquidity constraints when you see businesses just building for Chile or building just for Colombia.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Between what the entrepreneurs were doing versus where the market opportunities were. We were one of the first ones that said, hey, guess what? Like, financial services is the single biggest market cap in the region. There's got to be an opportunity there. Overall”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I think you're wrong now. I think things have changed a ton since 2012, 2013. I think from a very high level, and this is the analysis that's equated in 2012, like from a very macro perspective, this region has to be really important. Latin America as a region is the third largest GDP in the world. It's a region that has 650 million people. GDP per capita that is 3 to 5x India, already significant internet penetration, smartphone penetration, and a lot of really big problems that need to be solved where technology could move the needle. Now, when we went back to in 2012 and were looking around, I think the problem was entrepreneurs were not looking at solving the main issues. The entrepreneurs were looking at solving the California engineer issue. The California engineering issue is, I want somebody to bring the food to my house. That's not really the issue in Latin America. They're bigger issues. They're problems in financial services. People don't have access to healthcare. People don't have access to education. So there was a disconnect.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Was a great opportunity for me, but for me, this was the moment where I finally got to pursue what I had been trying to pursue for 15 years, which was starting a business. That was what I always wanted to do. I always wanted to start a business. And in a way, he made it very easy for me. This is it. This is the moment. Just go do and start it. And after some time thinking about it, I said, this is it. Let's go for it. Let's go start business.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Looking at a bunch of startup opportunities at entrepreneurs, and honestly, there was just not that much anything that got anybody excited. And it was a faraway place 16 hours away from San Francisco. Why would Sequoia, who had access to the best entrepreneurs in the world in Silicon Valley, spend time? At that point, obviously things have changed a lot in 10 years, but would spend time just going and investing in some of these businesses that in a way just wanted to be clones of Silicon Valley businesses. They weren't really shooting that high. They weren't really thinking that high. So after a bit of digestion, I understood it. I was so appreciative of dog of just give it to me straight. No, ah, let's think about it. Let's wait another month. Let's wait six months. I think most people would want to kind of like sugarcoat it by him. Just give it to me straight, made it very clear, crystal clear to me what I needed to do. I had to options. I could continue working for Sequoia, but I needed to go move to California. I was going to be an investing partner in the growth fund.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, it was a big shock. So I had been working for about almost two years setting up what would be the basis of Sequoia, Brazil, Sequoia Latin America. I had rented a small office, had started interviewing people for the team. And then I remember very specifically the day before my birthday in October 2012, I was preparing this big trip. Doug was coming to Brazil with a number of our partners of Sequoia. And Doug calls me and Doug, no BS, no time for chit-chat. He straight up said, we had a conversation and we had decided there won't be any office in Latin America. Straight up. It was a big bucket of ice water at that moment. And, you know, I say, okay, I understand, Doug, and he gave me a reasons. I told him, let me digest this a little bit and I hung up the phone and I thought a lot about it. And I understood completely, I understood the reason I agreed with the reason. It was unfortunate. We had spent 18 months.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And keep my mouth quiet. The second time I was informed I had read, I had done my homework and I had a point of view. And that level of treating me like partnership of having a seat on the table, I think was ultimately what pushed me to get a level of motivation that I hadn't felt anywhere else in any previous career that I had. That was an insight that I took to know back. That was a foundational insight around the culture that we have today where we want to treat everybody as a partner. Everybody needs to feel that they have a seat at the table. The youngest, the oldest, the person that has joined, the engineer, the data analyst, everybody will be asked, what do they think? And they have to have an improved point of view. It's important because then that means skinning the game and we want prepared people. And that ultimately means that motivates the right type of people. It's a lot of work, but there's just understanding of what partnership really means, even in a bigger organization was a great insight I got from Doug and from Sequoia as a whole.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “People that have very strong strengths in certain areas and also very strong weaknesses in certain areas. Valuing those type of people over the people that are simply just good at everything has been a really interesting insight and has been a combination of kind of that sequoi experience with new bank experience around how you build teams. I'd rather have the people that have this incredible strengths and the weaknesses than the people that are okay in just certain areas. Those tend to be if you manage them adequately, those are much more powerful type of hires. So that entire read about people and asking the right questions and valuing the right character was a great learning from Doug. I was an intern at Sequoia. And since the very beginning, as I mentioned the interview, I was treated as a partner. I was treated as an equal. I sat down in the investment committee of Sequoia next to Doug and Doug asked me, what do you think David of this investment? And the first time he caught me off guard. I didn't know that I needed to even speak. I was ready to listen in.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think the first thing was I don't think I have the people rater that Doug has. He has an uncanny ability to read people. I think that's his single biggest superpower. And if you think about it, that is one of the most valuable superpowers. For any type of business, either you're running a business, running a business about hiring and managing the right type of people. In the investing business, it is the ultimate superpower because ultimately you're, especially in the early stage, you're investing in people. I don't think I have quite a great radar as he does. He's a student of people, but working with him, I understood how important it is to develop that radar. And so I do as much as I can. My interviews today are not interviews about career experience. They own the interviews when I interview somebody that's Anubac. It's all about character traits. I don't really want to spend time asking you about what's cool that you go to. It's about what's really driving that person. There are certain type of people.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I remember just waking up almost like lost where I was, and I was find myself like flying to Brazil about landing in Sao Paulo, pinching myself like, what is going on here? What is this experience? I'm in business school. And then that Wednesday, meeting about seven firms, I remember specifically one trip where we signed three term sheets. We went and it was boom, boom, boom. We felt like Cowboys meeting all these companies, siding terms, flying back so that I could be on time thirsty at 8 a.m. back at Stanford. So the entire thing was just amazing and having me able to spend time with Dog and getting to know him so.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “For business school doesn't have classes on a Wednesday. So at about 3 p.m. on Tuesday Dog would pick me up at Business Call. I felt like a little bit like that was picking me up from school. We would drive to San Francisco Airport, get into dogs plane, and fly to Sao Paulo about fourteen hours.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Dark Spring was a bit crazy. I was in business school. I was about to start my two year vacation, as sometimes they call business school. About a month in, I gome and three months in, I find myself working again doing business school and working for Sequoia. Since I was looking at investing in opportunities in Brazil, I had to wake up at four in the morning to be in the office at 4.30, do prospecting calls to Brazil firms, Brazilis was four to six hours ahead on California working from Francoia from 4.5 a.m. to 8 a.m., then going to business school, then back in the office at 2 p.m. working until 7.8, then go home to do homework. So it was super intense. But it was incredibly stimulating because I was almost like leaving these two lives with really amazing people. And then there were this trip.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Which was about a minute. I turned on the car and I had already an inbooks from Mike Morritz asking me to go back and meet with him. So it took Doug about a minute to go talk to Mike. Mike to when I interview me to send me an email and to be ready to talk to me again. So that just tells you so much about the firm in so little details. That was just kind of the beginning of understanding how different Sequoia was as a culture firm, but all of those elements made it a very interesting interview and experience in hindsight makes a lot of sense to structure it that way.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Questions that nobody had ever asked me in any interview before, there was very little questions around your CV or your experience. There may be about five minutes of that. Everything else was about me is trying to get to know me as a person. And so a lot of questions around personality, character, questions like, tell me about your dad, what does he do? How is your mom? How's your relationship with your mother? Is she pretty strict? He's going to answer to, there's no way to game those questions, right? There's a way to game those answers. There's not a right answer. But somehow dog has developed an entire philosophy around what different answers to those questions actually mean and how those questions will lead you into the right kind of answer. I'll give you one final data point. I finish the interview with Doug and he tells me I would love for you to meet more people at Sekoia. I leave Sequoya and from the time that I went from living the office to getting to my”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Sure, yeah. It's a great question. I get introduced to Doug via mutual friend. I go to Skoa and meet Dog. And from that moment on, everything was different about that interview process. And given the interview process was different, just made me realize how different Sequoia is as a firm ultimately. But I'll just give you a couple of data points. So the first thing that came to mind was the first interview was with the head of the firm, not with the youngest analyst. In most firms, you start from the bottom and then you go up. Also, it's the opposite. You go from the top and then you go down. And so if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because that first impression of meeting the head of the firm from a candidate, it's like, hey, this is important. A lot of firms say that talent and people are important, but you spend a lot of time interviewing a lot of people that are just beginning to understand the firm. Speaking with the head of the firm made a lot of difference, then all of the questions that I had with Doug were very, very different questions.”

    2023-09-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source