YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Blomfield

lines on the record: 141
first: 2021-06-28
most recent: 2021-06-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Do the same as me. I see that in myself. Like, I love to cook for people. I love to get friends together. I love to cook a meal, make cocktails, whatever it is, sort of get a house in the countryside and invite all my best friends. That I really like being together with groups of people that are careful. So learning new stuff, being together with friends and kind of creating, like cooking, whatever, whatever it is. So those things. And in time raising kids maybe, we will see that's more of an aspiration than a, you know, I don't know.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Um, two or three things I know definitely make me learning New skills, whatever. I really, really, really love that. And sort of like. Ex was really into not really, that's unfair. Is it the languages of love, like the way you sort of express languages? Yeah, yeah. And so for me, acts of service. I hate the whole thing, but.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but they always worked hard. They moved to Asia very young to make a better life for themselves. And they did work hard and they provided us kids with great opportunities. And I think now, later in life, all of us have sort of realized that thinking a little bit more about balance than like happiness and relationships and family is as important certainly and probably more important than... Achievement”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, they're driven, very, very driven and sort of because they, you know. I think their parents as well pushed them and my dad always likes to claim he came from like this really working class upbringing up in Rochester in Manchester and it's just like his dad had a Mercedes like come on and you know with almost the same breath he's like yeah my mum had horses like”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I always from a very young age thought that sort of starting businesses was, I never thought about starting business, actually, I thought about running businesses. So I had a privileged upbringing. My parents were around and sent me to good schools, but really pushed me, you know, pushed me to be the top of the class. And even when I was top of the class, they'd sort of push me further. And I'd sort of say, like, come on, you know, I did well in my exams to the point where it's like, there is no more I can do in these things. I've got all the top marks, but they sort of didn't believe me. They're like, no, no, you must be hiding something. So there was always, I think my dad told me when I was 10, I should go to Oxford and study law because it was the hardest course in the world. So I went to Oxford and studied law, which I'm not sure is super healthy, actually.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm ambitious for us, certainly, particularly my dad. And I'm a huge admirer of what he started business young-ish. I think he was 35 or 40 when he set up his business and he'd retired by the time he was 45.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, sort of, like, yeah. I didn't even really think about it My family's always been quite Ambitious and driven and sort of setting goals for others as kids. And I know other families where that is not the case. I think talking more explicitly about happiness and contentment and love and relationships and those things and then having a balance. I've never done balance. I think it's probably healthier if you do have that, you know, the different inputs and you can choose what's right for you.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was always like achieving or accomplishing a goal or winning. And the thing that I think I personally, I don't know about anyone else, any other founders, but I never paid enough attention to whether I was happy. Which I think was a mistake. And I'm now quite consciously doing that. Yeah, I think that's probably the downside. So many smart ambitious people are just driven to kind of. Jump over ever increasing hurdles without thinking about why.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Having created something out of nothing, this thing would not exist if it weren't for you and the team around you. And I think that feeling is amazing. And so I don't regret it at all. I'm lucky now that I'm 35 and I don't have to work really unless I want to. And all of my other friends are. Successful in their own careers, but they're going to be working until they're 60 or 65. And so, yeah, it's hard and it's stressful, but I wouldn't change it for sure. I would do some things differently or try to. I'm not sure it would change the outcome. But I think. Her day for smart, ambitious people, I think becoming a founder is probably one of the best choices they could make. If they are of that mindset, it's not for everyone for sure, but I think if you're ambitious and confident and want to create something, it's unparalleled”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think it is amazing, and I don't want to sit here and kind of complain about my life. I think. For smart, ambitious, talented people, it can be incredibly remunerative. I mean, I'm financially independent now, as are you, right? And I think it You can create a lot of value, but also capture some of that value personally and make money. That's true. You can choose the people you work with, which I think is really, really, really important. So you can select the people around you and to. Who you spend your time with, and you get to create something if you're successful that random people in the street use and that feeling of a”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I heard smart friends say similar things, which is basically take a, you're basically hedging against the risk that this is like the future of the economy. And so take between 5 and 10% of your net assets, put it in crypto and really leave it for 10 years. And so if it is like the future of money, you have a significant enough proportion of that that you're like well set up. If it goes to zero, you've still got the other 90-95% to sustain you.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Long term, I don't know. I'm not. I can see how it's interesting, but I think it's at the moment massively overhyped. And I haven't really seen any cool applications in reality yet that solve a real human problem. That may change in future. And then the former bit, like the crazy speculation, checking the price of Ethereum every 15 minutes or something. That's just not healthy. So I got out and I'm again sleeping much better now that I've liquidated my crypto positions. Yeah, what about you? Are you a believer”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Terrifying I don't understand it. I invested a little bit. It went up a lot. I thought I was the smartest person in the world. It came down again. I sold before. I lost any money, really. Was too stressful. So there's a kind of two questions there. It's like, is crypto, what do you think of cryptocurrency long term and is it useful versus like what is your experience of riding the roller coaster over the last year?”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do not. But sort of future payoff of having that kind of close family, I can't imagine being 65 and not having that. But then I'm not sure make the sacrifices today to have that. That's sort of something I'm puzzling around in my head. Apart from that, just sort of enjoying life and helping out other startups is a nice way to feel like I'm giving a little bit back without taking over my life at the moment. For me, that's enough.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like giving up the fun single life, like bringing up a baby isn't, I've seen it secondhand. You know, I'm not doing it day in, day out, but it's hard, really. And I have huge respect for that. I'm just not sure I'm willing to sacrifice my freedom and my total lack of obligation for that future pay. Lots of people find raising babies rewarding. I've heard. Oh my God.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't have one, and I'm totally fine with that I think looking forward to sort of when I'm 60, 65, I think I would like a family round. But I'm not sure I'm willing to make the sacrifices to put in the hard work to actually make that happen, you know what I mean?”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like novelty. I really like new things. New experiences, and I get bored quite easily. I dunno. Yeah, probably, I think combining psychedelics and therapy to solve this problem might be my next challenge.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am dating. I've always been intrigued by dating apps. I worked at one. I've written about 20% of a book on one. But over the last 12 years, it's not going to get finished. So I've been intrigued by that sort of whole scene for a while. Yeah, and I'm dating and sort of having fun, but I'm not... Not good at settling down, I think. Or I don't know, maybe I've just not met the right person to settle down. I don't know. I really enjoy meeting new people. But after six months or a year or something, I'm sort of like, um, I didn't know what it is. Sort of like deciding to commit to each other and spend the rest of your life together. I really admire people who are able to do that because I have not yet been able to do that.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not sure I have any friends left really who are not either parents or trying to become parents. I'm 35. So I'm trying to find new younger friends now so avoid that stage of my life for another few years Yeah, I love pottery. I'm learning to fly. I'm sailing. I love to cycle. I like height surf. A lot of active outdoorsy stuff. I'm growing plants on my roof. My courgettes have just come out, which is, yeah, great.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, my housemate's got a dog recently. That's quite fun. A lot of my friends have just had children, so not me, but I'm godfather to a couple of young kids. My brother has a young girl now.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had security. We got a security firm to come and look at my online profile, look at my house and figure out how much of it I was in danger. And that was a bit unsettling. And there were times when, especially when we had customers saying, I'm, you know, we know where your office is and you don't know who I am, but I'm going to come with a bottle of acid and I'm going to throw it in someone's face so that as you left the office, there was a bit of little apprehension there, certainly, but no, in general, no, it wasn't something I live with every single day. But it was on your mind, certainly, in a way that I think most people at most companies thankfully don't have to deal with that kind of shit.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it was serious by the end. Like running a bank is serious. We were processing. I dunno, a hundred billion pounds a year or something of payments. It's a lot of money. It's people's salaries. And six million customers, you see their whole life. You see the great stuff and you see the terrible stuff.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And those were mostly the pros who were like, you know, you've got us this time, we've got these other rings, so like, whatever. But it was mostly the amateur ones who get really, really angry. You know, they'd scammed three or four grand out of someone.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whoever wants petrol at Hawley is, farmers, whatever. They're basically scamming all of these petrol stations. So we spotted that pretty quickly and shut that down, which I'm really, really proud of. There were several people trafficking rings where they would bring in women from off in Eastern Europe and then traffic them for sex, basically. And you'd spot patterns of behavior, like patterns of spend, which suggest basically someone is being driven around in an Uber or a taxi to be pimped out. And we'd spot that and work with law enforcement to actually go and rescue people, which is amazing. That's an amazing, amazing feeling.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, people get a monzo card, put one pee on it, swipe it, and then go with a modified Ford Transit. So it's not like an 80-bit of petrol. The whole thing was a fuel tanker. So they'd put 10 grand of petrol into their forward transit and then just drive off. The payment on the card would bounce, and they'd go and use that to like, they'd sell it to.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yes, it was never the professional criminals because they just treated it as a constitution business. And by the way, there are a ton of those. And we caught way more than our fair share. We were using a lot of basic machine learning to track sort of weird patterns and shutting their accounts down. We worked very, very closely with law enforcement to shut a bunch of these things down. Some of them were like wild. There was a big ring a couple of years, no, probably three or four years ago now where You got a fuel pump, you basically put your, you sort of pay at the pump. But what it would do is pre authorize a penny on your card. You'd pump your fuel and then it would calculate how much fuel you'd actually spend and then take the payment.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still, the law gets in the way. You have to report it to the National Crime Agency. You have to wait for them to get back to you. And it can take four weeks. And they just don't get back to you. So it's like, okay, we'll give them the four weeks and then we'll refund you. So there are rare cases where you're sitting on a legitimate customer's money for four weeks and they're going ballistic because they can't feed their kids or whatever. But a lot of the time it's scammer who's like, they would phone up and they would have a record of a baby playing in the background. So, you know, I can't view my baby. Yeah. Yeah.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we were a bank, we dealt with people's money, and because we had obligations to detect and prevent financial crime, we would detect criminals and shut their accounts down. And the really pro-criminals would just treat it as a cost of doing business, right? It's like, fine, we've got thousands of these things. It was like the amateur criminal who really thought he had a payday. It's like he scammed some old lady out of her retirement. You know, he's got 20 grand. You were like, no, shutting that down, sorry, sending it back. And it got crazy. Like this was my big payoff. I'm going to come and fuck you up. And clearly, there were times when we blocked accounting correctly. If you're blocking tens of thousands of accounts, you absolutely are going to get it wrong occasionally. And sometimes it takes too long to get money back. And we work really hard to get that time period really, really as quick as possible.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not loads, but yes, we and several of our staff as well. And we've got people turning up to the office. We had security full-time security at our office and we still do now because customs would turn up sometimes with weapons. They threatened to turn up with a bottle of acid and throw acid in someone's face. Yeah. And there were sort of groups on social media who sort of try to find our addresses and sort of hand them around because... I mean, with six million customers, again, your sort of probabilities if one in a million is a bad egg, you've got six bad eggs.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and it's the right thing to do, but it should be the chief people officer handling that, right? Like that's sort of my problem. There were periods of time when we didn't have a chief people officer. So it just landed on my desk. I'm fine dealing with a section of those, but when you're dealing with like four or five people's jobs worth of that shit, then it gets overwhelming. So yeah, I think it always comes back. You have an incredibly sort of successful, talented senior team and the stress becomes less because each, you don't as CEO don't deal with that. Your chief people officer says, by the way, this happened and I've dealt with it. And you go, great.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and when you're 50 or 100 people, you know each other so well that, like, I don't know. Maybe we're just lucky, but people sort of respect boundaries and behave themselves at 2000. Just law of averages. Like there's, you know, one in a thousand people is going to do something stupid. So you have two of them now at 2,000 people doing something stupid every party. It's like. They're going to get fired for.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know there's someone misbehaving like 2,000 people, someone's done something stupid at the Christmas party, and like it should be the chief people off the dealing with it, but maybe she was misbehaving this never happened at Monzo. But for some reason, it ends up on your desk. You're like, why am I dealing with these miscreants fucking around? This is not like on top of everything I'm doing, I'm having to sort out this HR issue.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's fine. Like, I wouldn't, I'm not looking for a zero stress life, but I think, yeah, a lot of the people bullshit I don't like. Fundraising isn't fun, but I think I have done it enough now that I could do it again at a relatively stress-free way. But at 2,000 people, I'm not even remembering people's birthdays writing a calendar. That's not, you know, I had a great assistant who would help me with a lot of that stuff. It doesn't come naturally to me. It's more like...”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I agree, because I think the power law distribution of startup success means that one, if you are successful, one of the ten will be incredibly successful. And then they'll be like, oh, you know, the CEO is not quite doing as well as I would have liked. And either you think you should go in or someone else thinks you should go in and you're ultimately running a 2,000 person company again. Thing I'm trying to avoid”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like it doesn't seem there's much upside. I mean, it's financially very remunerative if you do well, but it doesn't make my life happier. So, in that sense, no, with some caveats, one thing I've thought about doing, which I've not started yet really, is kind of run a studio. So you get four or five mates together with the aim of coming up with an idea, putting in a CEO or a founder or management team and kind of incubating it for properly incubating it for 12 months, actually like building the first version and doing the marketing. But once it's at 12 or 18 months, putting a full management team in and sort of letting it go. So you retain a minority equity stake, but really it's the CEO and the management team that's owning and running it. So you're able to do that first year, but then you're like hands off. And then doing that every year for five or six years. So you end up with a portfolio of, I don't know, six to ten companies. So thought about that a bit. Seems like a lot of hard work. I haven't done it yet, but I might do that.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know. I have thought about this a lot, and people have asked me, and I don't know, the thought process goes something like, I love the early stage. So you get a few of your mates together. You've always wanted to work with perhaps. And you start something. And one of two things happens. You fail and that, you know, now you're kind of relatively high profile founder who's onto his third thing, the third thing's flopped and like, oh, we all knew he was an idiot. So like, okay, that's humiliating, or it's a success and you grow and come to 2,000 person company and you're like, why have I done this to myself again? I hate running 2,000 person companies. So, the out, I like the journey bit, but the outcome either end don't look like.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tom's here again. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which I like. It feels like a job where you have to pay to go to work, you know? But I like that a lot.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and learning I really like learning, really anything. So the process of going from a complete novice to someone, you know, mediocre I love. And I'm angel investing. To keep a connection to the tech community, I've made seven or eight investments in the first half of 2021. I'll probably make another seven or eight towards the end of the year. And I'm helping out a few of the, or at least I'm going in to bother the founders, whether I'm helping or not, I don't know.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I'm busy again, but each of it is like. Not inconsequential. I think the vaccination site is a great thing to do. But if I wasn't there, there would be someone else there, you know, doing the jabbing. So each one I could sort of walk away from pretty easily. So it's busy, but it's low pressure, I guess.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of weird. And so I wrote a list of all the things I wanted to do. I've actually had this list five or six years. So I started looking down the list for things I could do whilst in lockdown. Many of the things I couldn't yet do. So I started drawing. I spent two or three months drawing. I saw that Hockney had started using his iPad. So I started drawing on my iPad, which I only kept up for about a month or two. But learning languages on the list. I bought some kite surfing gear and did a load of kite surfing, which was amazing. Now I'm training up to a big offshore sailing race, so kind of a yacht race called Fastnet. So that's in August. I'm learning to fly. So I have a list. So now my time is not as planned, but it's still, and I'm spending a couple of days a week vaccinating people, which is very rewarding.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's weird because my time was, especially Monday to Friday, was scheduled from sort of 9am till about 7 or 8 p.m. was scheduled down to five minutes easily. And you'd look at my diary. You wouldn't find more than five minutes spare sort of in that.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was pretty boring actually for quite a while. I think if London had been booming and I could kind of go out and meet people, have fun, it would have been a great experience with actually that some, especially, remember sort of thinking back to April, May of last year, when everything was really hard locked down still, April, May 2020. Not a fun experience. And I think I am an extrovert. I thought about this a lot. I get energy from being around people. And I was with four people who are just working all the time. in the middle of rural Devon. Yeah, not fun.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was great. Actually, it wasn't, but then we were in the midst of a lockdown. And my house was having building work done. So I had to get out of my house with four housemates. We went to a farmhouse in Devon, which was idyllic, but everyone else was working. I had no job. It was in the middle of nowhere.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I did an all hands meeting. I announced it on a video call with like 1,500 people or something. And I definitely welled up at one or two points there. In a genuine way What I have learnt over the last few years is that vulnerability is the best way to inspire confidence, trust become a leader, to show, if it's genuine, you know, you can't sort of fake tears, but genuinely like showing your emotion and showing your vulnerability and showing your... Screw ups is such a powerful way to inspire followership. And so I wasn't. I wasn't afraid of that or embarrassed by it. You know, I was sort of welling up on a call with 1,500 people, but it wasn't the first time I practically cried in front of the company. And I'm not ashamed of that.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. 80% was just like I can breathe again. So it was overwhelmingly positive for me and I'm not afraid to say that. And so I don't want to build it up and, you know, it's a sort of negative. Thing really, but there were 20% things like Sadness that I was leaving a team that I really, really liked overwhelmingly guilt that I'd recruited many of these people and some of them had joined to come and work with me and that I was leaving them to kind of fix the mess. Guilt, I think, was more than sadness.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fairly normal We had a pretty good culture around work-life balance at Monzo. Mostly I was working five days a week unless we were fundraising, I guess. And I traveled probably a week every month, mostly for fundraising. But I had a really close group of friends, mostly from growing up, mostly from my secondary school, actually. I live with my girlfriend. We lived in a big house with friends. We cooked a lot. I took up pottery. I exercise a fair amount. It was very, very normal. Really nothing extraordinary. But I wasn't working 100 hours a week for sure. I was doing 45, 50, 55 hours. Really not a, the time pressure was not the problem. It was the mental like. The mental load, the inability to switch off outside those hours.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can't do anything. We literally, you know, we're sitting there on customer support, the entire company we pulled in on a Sunday to respond to all the customers and to proactively alert and all this good stuff. But that was a sort of we don't know if this is even come back online.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or some early outages. We had a really very bad, we were still a prepaid card at the time, and one of our suppliers, which connected us to the Mastercard network, went down, really went down hard for about 10 or 11 hours. We didn't know it was going to be 10 or 11 hours. It just was down and we phoned them up and they were panicking and didn't have a, they didn't know when it was going to be back. And so we had about 300,000 cars at the time, sort of like. This could be two months, like all the cards could not work for two months now, or rather it would take us two months to rebuild this thing. And that, yeah, we're just sitting there thinking this is our fault in the sense that we pick the supplier, but beyond that, they've just fucked up. It was totally ridiculous what had happened in retrospect. But yeah, that was a real like.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And not loads, but a handful so early investment rounds. Was binary if we don't raise the money, we're folding. The later rounds were more like the money's going to come in at some valuation.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, your heart drops and you know it's going to be the rest of your week, if not your month, it's going to be ruined. And you don't know if this is like the one that's going to kill the company. We had a few like that that's like, you know, is, and I think a lot of founders have like those moments like, oh shit, is this it? Is this the moment the company dies? There's often not a lot you can do actually as a, you know, your engineer is running around trying to fix a problem. You getting stuck in is not going to help things. So you're sort of almost like a helpless sideline observer. You know, you have to make the phone call to the board and to the investors and sometimes to the regulators at four in the morning. But yeah, you're in a pretty helpless situation. Yes, there was a red phone. It was more like a pink Nokia.”
2021-06-28 · The Diary of a CEO · Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars - Tom Blomfield · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT