Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars: Tom BlomField

your heart drops is this it is this the. moment the company dies. tom bloomfield entrepreneur investor and. founder of monzo. i've never actually talked about this. before after six months i just thought i. can't work with this person i just. really it's. really damaging to me and my mental. health and so i resigned and the. response to that resignation. she called nor house meeting and fired. the entire company. if i knew then what i knew now i would. never have done it really if i knew what. the amount of pain and heartache. that would be involved i would never. have started but i didn't know that i. cry quite a lot.

you know i'm not ashamed of that for. about three or four seconds. i'd forgotten what my life was i was. calm and then. three or four seconds later all the. memories came back it was just like this. crushing weight. that really was the moment i sort of. knew this is this is no life. there were no other emotions in my life. really apart from just anxiety. i mean it was serious by the end we. would detect criminals and shut their. accounts down customs would turn up. sometimes with weapons. and they threatened to turn up with you. know a bottle of acid and throw it in. someone's face. that was tough. [Music].

tom bloomfield what a remarkable. entrepreneur. one of the uk's recent real success. stories and he. and his team managed to disrupt the. archaic. incumbent banking system at a time when. nobody thought it could be disrupted. but man his story is crazy. absolutely crazy and the reason why i. started the diary of a ceo.

is demonstrated perfectly. in this podcast it has it all. controversy. drama business wars depression. anxiety resilience success. and failure and today you're going to. hear a particular business story. one that's never been heard before but. tom felt that today. and here was the place to share it if. you're an aspiring entrepreneur. and you want to get to the point in your.

life where you're running a hundred. million or a billion pound company. today might be your warning because as. tom is going to tell. you all that glitters is in gold. and the true cost of entrepreneurship. the cost that nobody seems to talk about. is sometimes greater than the reward on. offer. this is one of the most emotional raw. honest vulnerable. brilliant gripping conversations i've. ever had on this podcast. and i can't thank tom enough for opening.

up his diary. and allowing us to look inside. without further ado i'm stephen bartlett. and this is the dire ceo. i hope nobody's listening but if you are. then please keep this to yourself. tom why why entrepreneurship. i made a very bad employee. i've never been promoted and i've been.

fired i would guess two or three times. depending on how you count. why were you fired so often um. my first ever job was a consulting firm. in london. i actually wasn't fired from this one i. was um but i wasn't promoted. and they said i was uh highly disruptive. and not in a good way. not in a sort of you know tech found. disrupts industry more in sort of. you know annoying junior analysts can't. follow instructions. so i think i'm much i'm much better. founder than i am an employee. what was it about you that was. disruptive though i want some specifics.

um whenever i'm i see a problem i think. that this is in common with anyone who. starts a business i look at. the way something's done and immediately. start thinking of better ways to do it. rather than just doing what i'm told i. sort of scratch my head and think no. it just doesn't make sense to me why are. we doing it this way that we could do. this other way which is ten times faster. i mean i one of my first ever jobs was. to. uh with another analyst go and count all. of the jewelry. items on a like a massive jewelry. website it must be a thousand to do a. tally chart of the price range.

and this guy i started doing by hand so. i scratched my head and wrote a little. excel script to script basically scrape. the website and just tally them up and. go. there's your results and but they didn't. want that because they were billing by. the hour and. that'd only taken an hour of my time. rather than 20 hours and so they could. only bill. me out for an hour like no no go back. and do it by hand so it. that kind of stuff just drove me crazy. and i was always just looking for. ways to automate ways to do things. better um i guess that's what led me. into entrepreneurship. have you heard about this idea of first. principle thinking absolutely yeah.

my co-founder jonas at monzo was just i. think he would say first principal. thinking at least once a day. because that's that sounds to me like. first principle thinking you're looking. at. conventions way of doing things and. thinking well no this is there's a much. easier yeah absolutely you sort of start. from physics and build build up from. there really. how's that how's that voted for you in. your in your personal life though so. because life is personal life is full of. convention marriage school. follow this path do you know what i mean. yeah and i you know i. i'm not married but certainly when i was. younger i followed that conventional.

path i i went to a grammar school i did. my exams i got a place at oxford. um i even did a master's at oxford so i. sort of i was following that. conventional path towards becoming a. lawyer i guess but. somewhere along the way i started. realizing it probably wasn't for me but. definitely. in the early years that was my path you. built this hyper fast growing business. which was you know funny that you used. the word disrupter which was known as. one of the uk's great disrupters. and still is known as one of the uk.

great disruptors um. can you tell me why like because i when. i. when i speak to shaq do you know shaq. shaquille khan about. daniel eck and when i think about your. story. you both made the decision to take on. just. what what many entrepreneurs would. consider to be an immovable object you. took on the banking system. um danielek took on the in this massive. music industry that was seemed to be. immune to change i was talking to shaq. about this last week oh really he texted. me last night about um.

about harry's new fund so he i think. that's why he's fresh of mine. what gave you the conviction and the. confidence that you could. take on such a mammoth industry with. monzo. um i mean arrogance for naivety and. arrogance i think in no small part. um i i'd already built a company called. gocardless which is a payment processor. so that sort of. taught me that you know three young guys. could get access to the payment system.

and actually move money around. um and banking was a step up from there. it was it was more regulated more. complicated. but i had the background in payments and. i was an early natwest user. or rather when i was young and they were. very old i was a network user and i was. deeply deeply disappointed. and i think like any founder really a. huge. sort of dose of naivety you know you. look at a problem and think it's. probably. i think if i knew now what i knew if i. knew then what i knew now. i would never have done it really if i. knew what the amount of pain and. heartache. that would be involved i would never.

have started but i didn't know that and. so i had a huge amount of. self-confidence huge amount of naivety. and just assumed that i could figure it. out and i think we got a really really. long way and i mean. the company's still doing fabulously so. i'm incredibly proud of. of what we built i find that point about. naivety so interesting. because it almost feels like founders. like yourself need to be. deluded on one end in terms of their own. confidence. yep right because if you look at the. stats and all the odds. they're clearly against you so founders.

like yourself seem to be. i deleted sounds like a negative word. but it's like for me i'm saying in a. positive way. almost like deluded to the or naive to. the the stats and the probability of. this. success yeah totally but also self-aware. enough to. listen to feedback and to not be blinded. by. their hypotheses listen to some feedback. i mean a lot of the feedback i got in. the early days was this is impossible. you can never do it. you know go back to your day job um so i. think you do have to be incredibly. optimistic as well. but a little bit like investing i'm.

doing a little bit of investing now. i think you if you have a lot of. experience the downside is you've seen. these ideas fail again and again and. again. and it's really hard to then leave that. baggage behind. and look at a company um i looked at one. yesterday it's like i i've seen that. model. fail four times not my you know i wasn't. running it others were running it but. to um have a fresh enough mind to think. okay maybe the timing's different maybe. the founding team's different maybe the. technology's changed.

this can now work so i think actually. the benefit of being naive and. even being quite young in your career is. you don't have that baggage of knowing. how it failed the five times before. um which i i find super interesting when. you're looking at founders in your. investments now. from your own experience of being a. founder yeah what are the attributes. you're looking for. i mean the really simple one is being. technical being able to write code i. think is just a huge huge. leg up and all of the founders who. aren't technical and there are many. great ones. um i think the biggest problem the early. stage is finding a technical co-founder.

so that's just a. an immediate benefit and if if i could. talk to my. um if i could talk to people in a sort. of if age 12 to 18 i would basically. just go and say. learn to code you're going to have a. really well paying career. for the rest of your life and it'll it's. a great step into entrepreneurship. are you technical yeah i learned to code. when i was 12 or 13. bit websites um i mean i was never. i studied law not computer science but i. can i can code i there's still code i. wrote probably in the monza code base.

somewhere. i think it puts the emojis into the the. push notifications but um. yeah so being technical i think is just. the easy answer um. more fundamentally i think just being. really really determined and resilient. seeing as you said an immovable object. and either finding a way. sort of round it or over or under it or. just straight through it it is some. that um being indifferential basically i. think is. is the single biggest predictor of. success you um. you strike me as someone that has great. confidence and i imagine that's come. from. as you kind of alluded to with go.

cardless you've built evidence over time. that you could do things so i i i. sometimes think of confidence as like a. self-reinforcing. cycle either upwards or downwards um i. think i was more confident when i was 28. than i am now for sure and i think that. comes with. experience um i think you. you take enough knocks that you start to. and you realize you don't know i think. at 27 28 i thought i knew everything and. now i realize. i you know i like to think i know a lot. about a lot of things but.

i realize i don't um and so my i'm still. a confident person i'd guess but if you. put me in front of my 27 year old self. i think you would see two different. people. maybe less naivety maybe that would be. yeah exactly yeah i've seen the failures. a few times now. because i i was saying that because. there's a lot of um a lot of young. people in my. in my dms that are dreaming big dreams. like yours but they would just never. have the. confidence or conviction to pursue them. so i was wondering is that i'm trying to. get to i guess the crux of what made.

you so starkly different from every all. of the young people that have. at least verbalized equally big dreams. i think i'm also just really impulsive. so i. i think quite self-confident but i was. um i've taken quite big life decisions. without very much reflection. um and that's worked out really well i'm. you know i'm hugely privileged i. um i've grown up in the uk which i think. is enormous privilege compared to a lot. you know. people in my position but growing up in.

in rural africa are not going to have. the same opportunity i have great. education i had parents who supported me. and i knew i could take risk because if. that risk didn't pay off. i've have i have that safety net and so. um yes i was confident. i think yes i was impulsive but i that. was enabled from a place of huge. privilege because i could. take the risk and i actually think. people. in this country um with great supportive. families don't take enough risk in. general. i think people go into pretty safe. careers in.

law or consulting or whatever and i. think they could. do more interesting things have more. impact make more money if that's what. drives you by taking more risk i just. don't think they do you know. i think i put myself on the risk-loving. end of the spectrum um and so i've quit. jobs and moved countries. you know with like hours notice um i. started go cardless. with matt hiroki because i quit my. consulting job to go to a bigger. consultancy and in that gardening leave. i just got bored i had three months off. and they said let's.

start a website and i said yes and then. my combination said come out and. interview and we did and we got the. offer to do y combinator and their. investment about. three days before my mckinsey start date. so i just sort of said ah this sounds. fun i'll i'll do the startup thing. instead. you launched gocardless you take that to. i think a nine figure valuation. uh it's 970 million dollars at their. last round. i believe that's what was reported so. not quite a billion. um okay 10 figures.

i mean that is a that is an achievement. that most people in their lifetimes. would. you know would never go near um in of. itself you you then. depart go cardless i left early um i we. were 35 people you know it was a. the valuation was in the region of 30 or. 40 million at the time. hiroki my co-founder at time um. i took on the ceo role and it's done. just a phenomenal job. i'm just ten and a half years old now. it's and it's but it's been. that was not an overnight success story. that was ten and a half years of really.

really hard work. and huge credit to him and matt also who. who stuck around a lot longer than me i. was there for the first three years i. think. i put something of myself into it but it. was i was there for. the beginning not the uh not the middle. and certainly not the end why did you. leave. i wasn't really pat i think it's a great. company but i wasn't really passionate. about. b2b direct debit software right it helps. you know um. lots of different uh suppliers collect. money from their customers. um in a sort of back-office way it. didn't have a big consumer brand it.

wasn't. direct to consumer really and i didn't. b2b sales i found uh really difficult. and frustrating and not something i was. good at. and the tech kind of was built um and. that had been my role. so i sort of i went from there to join a. dating site which is like the polar. opposite. you know uh all about brand direct to. consumer. um really fun every day uh terrible. business model. that was one of the ones i got fired. from um i was head of growth that we. stopped growing.

um it was bad you were head of growth. and you stopped. and the company stopped growing very. self-aware and honest for you to admit. that. um and in fact i saw the charts and it. looked like a rocket ship when i was. sort of interviewing there. for crazy 48 hour interview process i. flew out to new york they showed me some. of their growth charts really. sort of hockey stick metrics um and then. it all just started to plateau and i. kind of ignored that yeah i said okay. that's my job to come in it had. flattened out and i joined to kind of. reignite. and i didn't i wasn't able to reignite.

it we sort of plateaued along for. about 10 months and then it fell off a. cliff revenue declined 70. um within about two to four weeks. without any kind of macroeconomic. this wasn't covered or something this. was back in 2014. the world was going. well. the dating site just was no longer cool. i think um so we rode this wave of. popularity and sort of zeitgeist um it. was called grouper it was it was. incredibly. sort of cool novel idea back in 2013-14.

um and then people just got bored of it. i think. so the idea was um it was six of you. three three guys and three girls or. three guys and three guys if that's your. your preference um or three girls and. three girls. um but six of you you and two friends. would go and meet three other people. so you knew your friends and they knew. each other and it would put the group. together you need to kind of. go and have a wild night out um rather. than traditional dating. apps sort of one-on-one this was sort of. a group social experience. uh really really fun but um not a great. business model.

you got fired uh yeah most the company. got laid off actually. yeah and then you took how long off. before you swung back into the next. thing. um so i uh. about two months but only. about two months um because it was the. u.s i. was on a weird visa this is not. interesting but basically i couldn't. take another job and i couldn't. as soon as i crossed the us border my. visa expired yes i've yeah. but whilst i was there i could stay. there for actually two years or. something. um so i just spent a summer in new york.

chilling out and then came back to the. uk and i think. about 48 hours after arriving in the uk. i met up with. ann bowdan at starling and agreed to be. their cto within about. again 24 hours um and there's a lot. written about. how i mean how your relationship with. and transpired and your relationship. with. stalin more broadly transpired what's. what are what are the key highlights. from that from that journey. choose your co-founder really carefully. yeah uh i mean there were 14 of us at. starling.

and 13 of us started monso it was that. stuck. wait say that again 14 people at. starling and 13 of you started monzo. 13 of those 14 started 13 of those 14. started monday. okay including the chairman of the board. um the entire management team the office. manager everyone. so one one would say well you know tom. must have ripped them all away. [Laughter]. no no i just didn't want to work with.

anne. like really i've never actually talked. about this before and there was there. has been a book i haven't read the book. uh the brief version is after six months. i got fired twice. in six months um i was never paid i. invested my own money which is i lost. um there was never any paperwork which. is my fault um. and after six months i just thought i. can't work with this person i just. really it's. really damaging to me and my mental. health and so i resigned. and the response to that resignation she. called an all hands meeting. and fired the entire company.

because you resigned yep so i didn't i. didn't pull anyone away she fired the. entire company. that's not true two people happened to. not be in the office so they weren't at. the meeting where they got fired. so they had to work two weeks notice. because they weren't technically fired. but everyone else was fired so we all. went to this gin bar to kind of. it was called ask for janus on. smithfield market it's a great buy you. should go there. um we all went there to basically. commiserate just think this is crazy. what's just happened and literally it's.

i think we were there for two days. basically in this gin bar playing we we. all played speed chess it was this very. nerdy kind of. four players we're playing lots and lots. of bhs uh just trying to figure out what. we're gonna do and eventually like we. can. um we think we can do this ourselves um. so. it wasn't a case of like you know me. leading a coo me pulling the company. away i quit. i was just like good luck to you i'm. just i'm going to sit on a beach for a. while. and in response she fired the entire. company which is just. i think a reflection of the way she she.

operates. i can't quite wrap my head around the. idea of one person. resigning and then firing everybody as a. show of. i don't even know no it's not something. i would do. where did that leave starling though if. they only if they'd lost pretty much. everybody other than the two people that. didn't manage to make it into work that. day and they also resigned the day after. yeah to come and work with us. um she hired another management team. another oh really.

okay and it turned out that we weren't. the first team there'd been a previous. team as well. oh wow that she'd fired wow. and then off so that's that's crazy so. you started essentially monzo was. founded in that gin bar yep yep asked. for janice. and it's still there we go back for some. of our reunions really. yeah yeah yeah and how did you feel so. you're fired. you know from starling you all convene. in this gin bar you spend a couple of. days there you end up. um deciding that you're gonna go again.

together yep and. i guess you feel pretty fired up and. charged up to. not only disrupt the industry but also. to compete with starling though. um it was unavoidable that feeling of. [ __ ] them kind of but. we didn't i didn't really know that that. she you know and was going to rehire a. bunch of people. it was over right and there was a big. feeling of like we put quite a lot of. work into this actually and like we've. had to leave everything behind so we. came to. you know rewrite the code base redo all. our regulatory submissions really from.

scratch which was kind of like a. oh i wish we didn't have to do this but. we did um. [Music]. but in a way it actually led us we'd. made the mistakes once the first time so. actually that sort of rebuilding process. was nice because it was on fresh ground. but yeah it felt like a i mean initially. we tried to negotiate with that and say. why did you know. why did you step down why do like how. can we we don't want to throw away this. side. for some people they've been there 12. months why are we throwing away 12. months of work.

and that was a sort of very convoluted. week or two um where we almost had a. deal a couple of times and it just. similar thing happened you know huge. blow up and we just walked away. um but no we never i think at monza we. never really thought about the. competition actually. it wasn't a you know we weren't looking. over our shoulder at revolut or styling. it was. uh if anything we were looking at the. big banks thinking how can we take. market share off them. co-founders when you started monzo you. started with was was paul. ripping your only co-founder no uh there. were f uh.

and it was a it was sort of weird. actually because of 13 of us. like how do you pick which ones are you. all they were all literally there on day. one. um so in a sense that was the founding. team and they all got stock like not. options. actually full you know stock um but the. for. arbitrary reasons which i can't really. remember there were five of us so myself. paul um became deputy ceo and was the. chief risk officer. he became deputy ceo because the bank of. england looked at me and i think i was. 29 or 30 or something i said you. have you ever worked in a bank no it's.

like and you're applying to be ceo of. our newest bank. yes and they sort of scratch your head. for a bit and said how about this. sort of very experienced guy next to you. this co-founder of yours. how about they didn't say that they said. we'd like you to find a deputy ceo who's. actually run a bank before please. and i you know i said paul has won. several banks so he became deputy. a ceo gary was cfo um he'd been at. abn amro and mizuho bank i think. uh there's a guy called jason who is. sort of more customer marketing.

and then jonas who is the only one left. now. was a cto really really talented. developer um. so he stepped into the cta how important. is that you talked. earlier about the importance of business. partners and that being one of your. big regrets but how critically important. is because you know. definitely one of the biggest mistakes i. made in my career was when i was very. young just hired anybody. because i thought you know like oh you. like i remember being in selfridges one. day. there was a guy selling prada bags so. like you can be a director you know what. i mean. because you don't know what you don't.

know. i didn't do that i did i was thinking i. was like 18. so um but i. in hindsight i i know it's the most well. for me. that core team is the most important. thing yeah it's probably the single. biggest determining factor of successful. failure in my view. yeah so how important what was it for. you to assemble. um that skilled co-founding. team i mean it was it was luck at monzo.

because that was the. group that was uh starting and it was. sort of like how do we keep this team. together and it really was. sort of it felt like everyone's going to. disappear into the wind um. there was a you know it really was a. debate are we going to. really try and do this again or you know. is this it we just go back to whatever. we were doing before and so. to keep everyone together i think it. wasn't a and so. i think we were really fortunate we had. such a great um different set of skills. um but it wasn't hugely uh sort of. planned.

no i have a another example of this i. started a company. when i was at university through young. enterprise. and on day one they were like 14. co-found co-founders of this business. which is just a ridiculous way to start. a company and within about two. we had meetings meetings nothing ever. got done so within three months or so. three of us basically said look you 11. you can have. right on your seat that's what you want. but you know you're not really. here to run a business the three of. actually are gonna like work all summer. um one of them uh quit his job to do.

he just left to work at deutsche bank. and then three hours are actually going. to try and run a startup here. and so figuring out that core team i. think is is really really important to. get right and having a group of. 14 is not the way to do it really when. you when you started monzo from that. i say from the gym but it wasn't really. from the gym bar but you see what i mean. that was the kind of. i guess the inception moment um what was. the driving force for you. to go on that journey was it money was. it. the chance of you know moving an.

industry what was it. oh gosh uh insecurity i think for me it. was i was. much of the reason i started my business. was probably based on deep. childhood insecurities about wanting to. be rich and. yeah like all of that i think tied up. into a bunch of weird sort of. deep-rooted psychological problems um. wanting to prove myself wanting to win. or. wanting to be seen to be successful i. think. um that money played a part in it not. the driving part but certainly there was.

a factor there. um a deep hatred for natwest bank. um why they're just incredibly. frustrating to use. just every everyone who came to work at. monto had. one of these horror stories about their. banks you know. matt one of our early developers went. 10p overdrawn with a. a different bank and paid the 10p in. um and then closed it counts like i'm. done with this but. he'd incurred the chart he didn't know. they applied the charge at the end of. month so it's like a.

five pound overdraft fee that month. which then the month after a month after. a month after should have rolled and. rolled and rolled and rolled and two up. you know two years later they came after. him for several thousand pounds. because he'd been 10p overdrawn for a. day um just. everyone's got those kind of stories and. so a big part of it was a frustration. that banking worked like that. and a sort of feeling that it didn't. have to be like that because we looked. at apps like spotify or. or uber and they felt magical you know. the i. the people who've grown up with that. technology it's sort of normal now but i.

remember you know i downloaded nap stuff. for the first time i remember showing my. dad and my uncle. you know think of any song you want in. the world yeah type it in. and it starts playing and that's that is. magical. um but now it's so commonplace and. banking for years has just been. you want to change change your address. down i've downloaded a form filled in. the form assigned and had to post it off. this is for an online bank. um so we really just felt quite deeply. that it could be. the experience could be much much better.

do you want to come in and watch this. podcast live from behind the scenes if. you do. all you have to do is hit the subscribe. button and now that the world has opened. up. you'll be behind the scenes as many of. our subscribers have been i can't wait. to meet you. and one of the other reasons you gave. there as a driving force was wanting to. be seen to win. yeah or can you explain that one. not to win i think that's probably the. wrong i i use that phrase but i. to be seen to be a success i think like. validation yeah kind of yeah you know. that's to my family and my friends and.

my school. and teachers and um. you've already been a success though. with gocardless did you. yeah i had a bit but go kardas. circa 2014 2015 was. still relatively unknown it was doing. well but not it wasn't a breakout. success yet in the way it is today i. think um just on that feeling of. wanting that validation from friends. because we can all relate to that like. i'm i'm. playing devil's advocate but i know.

exactly what you mean you're on a tv. show. exactly exactly and i'm doing a podcast. 17 cameras right now. um but uh but just drilling down into. that in hindsight. was that a feeling that you think could. have ever. been attained um was it a mirage. i think i have attained it yeah oh. i know i don't mean i'm the world's big. success that's not what i mean i mean. that like. i've tasted what that feels like that's. mixing my metaphors there i felt what. that feel you know i've experienced.

that thing that's sort of like being in. the newspapers and that sort of. um people using in monzo card and that. stuff. and it's. somewhat rewarding but it's not like i. and i don't feel anymore. i think what i'm trying to say is sort. of that need to prove myself has sort of. disappeared. actually um and so either i've realized. it was a stupid goal to start with or. like. i got far enough along that i sort of. like take that off the list and sort of. thought you know that sort of it was fun.

but it's not my overriding purpose now. um and i'm not i'm your next question. what is your purpose. i'm not sure i have one it's sort of. more like living day to day and enjoying. life and i. i was never good at that i've really. really driven from a very very young age. so i. worked incredibly hard for my exams and. my you know. through oxford and starting companies um. and. very rarely paused to enjoy the journey. or the you know the. cliche the small things in life the you. know the. choose your cliche right like how your.

coffee tastes in the morning or the sort. of. the tweeting of the birds in the in the. trees. and that stuff now i'm am spending more. time kind of being more i guess mindful. and kind of. living in the moment do you have to like. reprogram yourself to get there though. because i feel like society well for me. anyway. is um kind of conditions you to to. chase climb promote move up strive. and and you're kind of deferring your. happiness to towards some future. achievement accomplishment yeah so how. did you get to the point where you just.

enjoy it what it you know life for what. it is in the moment. was it reprogramming yeah i guess like. you know like you. i i left my company i didn't um and that. was. really really hard and that was not a. that was. um you know deep deep anxiety and. bordering on depression and. uh like i i i wouldn't use the words. rock bottom. but like it was not a happy time and so. then recovering from that. uh and i took a year off and you know.

travel around europe went kite surfing. and learned the language and all this. kind of you know cliches. um and that experience now. leads me uh whenever i i still get these. like urges like. sort of um they my local mp passed away. a few months ago and there was a. by-election i was like why did i why did. i stand for that seat and i could be. an mp and then maybe i could you know. maybe it could be the prime minister. and then i'm like but then what. crap yeah exactly and.

you know i think like i could start a. company. and then you know what if it goes well. and then i end up running a big company. again. so uh yeah just like a couple of sort of. those brain cycles and i'm like. no what am i what am i thinking um i. quite quickly come back to like i'm. really enjoying my life at the moment. i'm lucky enough that i'm financially. sort of independent now i have a great. group of friends like. why um why do i want to go and make. myself miserable again. um where does that narrative that voice. come from so many people have that way.

because. it's funny because you're saying right. i'm i'm a i'm at a stage of peace now. i wasn't before but you still have that. yearning or that voice that comes and. goes come on tom do it. um it's that it's that sort of i guess. disruptive kind of. um i see something that's not working. and it's incredibly frustrating and i. go i could i could make that work better. i'm um. i'm uh. reluctant i've talked about this before. i'm working in the in the i'm. volunteering the vaccination program and. it sounds like a sort of.

i'm proud of doing it and it's like a. great feeling kind of being part of. a team that's uh. hopefully helping kind of the country. get out of this lockdown rubbish. but even there there are so many things. that just drive me absolutely nuts. um and i think that's probably nhs sort. of more broadly i think the smart use of. technology could really really improve. the way we deliver care to. everyone really medical care and so i. keep thinking i just want to like just. give me. you know experience um i just yeah why.

can't i just come in and fix it for a. you know it's incredibly. you know i've struggled with a company. of 2000 people the nhs employees i think. a million and a half people or something. so. um probably not for me but there's. always that like. your question you know what what is that. drive it's the. looking at something that's like clearly. broken at least to my naive eyes. um and that feeling that i feel like. along with a. small group of smart people i could make. it better okay quick one.

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times at monzo the times you look back. most fondly. small team so sub 100. [Music]. being able to um. go from a kind of an idea or a customer. insight or something like a conversation. with a customer. about a problem to figuring out a kind. of product feature to. very quickly prototyping and building. that and launching it and then seeing. people. use it um and then tell their friends. about it that very quick iterative. product development cycle i love.

um and a lot of the brand and marketing. stuff. uh i when i was at gocardless i didn't. believe in brand. uh which is a ridiculous thing to say um. and i you know. you has a marketing background that's. almost offensive i guess but. it's like no this is you know this. doesn't this doesn't exist really people. um and then the day when i worked at the. dating site that really opened my eyes. to the kind of. power of human psychology and brand and. and mission and values. and we really took a lot of that into. monsoon and that it it was just.

astonishing. so we started out even before we had a. product talking a lot about our mission. and some of our values like transparency. and kind of community orientation. and that worked so incredibly well um. so yeah it was working with a small team. to build the brand build the product. get into users hands really quickly and. then see them enjoy it i've talked about. this a lot before that feeling of. um standing in line at a coffee shop and. seeing the person at the counter paying. with a the hot coral monzo card.

and then having the bartender or the the. server say you know i've got one of. those as well. and then listening to that conversation. as sort of an anonymous bystander. that's just incredibly rewarding feeling. that you've had a hand in. in creating something that's that people. are enjoying so much. let's dig into the point about brand. then marketing because monzo really was. a uk stand-up brand i think everybody. knew it. um even if they didn't use it because of. its. disruptive values because of it it felt. unconventional in everything it did i.

mean even the card. was completely unconventional. intentionally yeah tell me. tell me what the secret was to monzo's. branding success. um for authenticity i think. um it was. we had a couple of early marketing hires. who who didn't work out. um and they were very senior people from. very very big companies who came in. and they were a lot older and cayman is. sort of like you know. how the kids going to think about this. and we were like we are the kids.

um so we had a very early community. manager called tristan thomas who was. there from almost. in the first few months uh he just very. recently left to start his own company. and he's now he was a vp of of um. marketing running a massive team with a. massive budget by the end. but he was a 23 year old when he started. you know 23 24 year old. um and i worked on it a lot hugo our. head of design worked on a lot and it. was. um it was just an authentic. representation of i think.

who we were and what we believed more. than anything and we we did want to. be different from the big banks we. intentionally positioned ourselves as a. part. so the hot roll card every other bank. was you know blue or purple or. kind of a shade of black basically so. like how far come from that can we get. and the big banks were very impersonal. you know you you never felt like you. were talking to a human and so we. everything we did was human and. transparent. um we we shared a lot of internal. information that everyone you know we. published our product roadmap. this is what we're going to be working.

on for the next two years which people. thought were with bonkers but it. that was a way of building trust and. humanity in opposition to these big sort. of faceless banks. um these all sound like first principles. yeah. i mean none of tristan had never worked. in marketing before. his previous job was at a refugee camp. in in the middle east. i'd never really worked in marketing i'd. spent nine months at a dating site but. we. yeah we um we came up we thought about. these principles. and it felt like the kind of company we. wanted to run and so.

um we did and it worked really well um. yeah with without any experience it goes. to show the risk of reading marketing. books. no genuinely i've always thought this. because i've never studied marketing or. did any degree. you know our business was did really. well in in the marketing industry but i. think it did well because we hadn't. read those books and we hadn't been sort. of diluted or polluted by conventions. idea of how. yeah i think this today when i go when i. work and go into these family offices. and i'm. working on the marketing plan that the.

ceo often. will want to hire someone who's done. marketing in that industry for 20 years. and you immediately feel that that's the. fastest route to not standing out at all. and not having any point of difference. yeah yeah it depends what you want to. achieve if you are a family office or if. you're managing the wealth of. you know generational rich families then. perhaps you do want to. look trustworthy in like everyone else. if you're a challenger bank appealing to. 21 to 25 year olds maybe you want a. different approach i don't think there's.

a right. answer but i think authenticity gets you. a really really long way. whoever your target demographic is i am. one of the things so we talked a little. bit there about the your best times at. monzo and i wasn't. surprised to hear that it was when the. company was small um because i've. heard that before but i also understand. the feeling um and your worst times. um least enjoyable times least enjoyable. uh i never liked fundraising we did that. a lot. i mean i and i had to i think monzo's.

raised something like 600 million and. i probably did 400 of that um that was. always tough. uh and you only hear about the really. quick round though you know the ad. funding. yeah we hit a billion the round where we. hit a billion valuation was very very. fast. um and very competitive so it was that. easy but all the other rounds were real. slog so fundraising was never fun. we had a weird time with the press where. they spent the first three or four years. almost not idolizing us but certainly. building us up you know the new kind of.

uh the the sort of next great hope. almost um. and we could almost do nothing wrong. which is not healthy and then we got big. enough and it flipped overnight and just. everything we did was we'd get like. vitriol for in a way that i i mean i can. understand it because it drives. readership right and it's um there's a. point in time where. the telegraph would put monzo in the. headline. at least every day even if it was a. story about one of our competitors it. would be. monzo competitor blah doing just like.

what. why and i i eventually sort of called. out the journalists on this and. took him for a beer and it's like look. come on tell me what's going on and he's. like look. every time i put your name in the. headline or rather he's like look it's. my subs who do i. i write the article they choose the. headline um or my editor. but every time they do that we just get. way more subscribers. it's like you know sorry um but it. it was really the entire from the bbc to. the telegraph to everyone. it felt like a pile on in a way that. didn't seem.

fair uh really and it's i'm not to say. that we never did anything wrong we. absolutely did but even the good stuff. we did. got um got negative headlines um and i. think that's a peculiarity of the. british press in particular sort of. building something up until it's like. big enough to tear down. and that was just so confusing um. yeah that was tough at one point we had. a bbc camera crew. outside our office um and this was when. we. we'd grown big enough we had um a small.

a small minority. of people using monzo for financial. crime basically with money laundering. for. scams um and we'd have to freeze their. account and we. weren't allowed to tell them why we'd. froze in their account we'd sort of send. the money back to where. where wherever it had come from was a. very frustrating experience really and. it's. quite strict in the law that you have to. shut the account you can't tell a person. so it's. it's a really bad customer experience um. but watchdog were running. a program about this you know monzo. freezes accounts. and they brought us a series of accounts.

that we'd frozen. um over a series of several weeks saying. you know this is. we've got you and we sort of brought the. editor of the program and said look here. is the. here's the criminal background of the. person whose account we've frozen. are you you're really going to run a. program about about this. it's like oh no okay okay okay this. happened 12 times. and every every one of the times we. showed we the evidence and like okay. you know and on the it was the 13th or. 14th like. that was a 50 50. you know we block the. account we stand by it but.

we don't have cast iron proofing like. great we've got you so bbc camera crew. turns up. and they'd commissioned a block of ice. an enormous ice sculpture with a frozen. monzo card in the ice that they dumped. outside our office. and put a camera crew there for the day. uh to see if they could find anyone. walking past it or. you know to watch the thing melting. which was like. what's going on you know i was like i. started this company to try and sort of. build a better bank and somehow. the bbc is camped outside my office.

trying to like. i don't know i don't know what they're. trying to do um drive. drive viewership um but that was deeply. annoying. this whole press thing is i've heard. this a million times and it terrifies. the [ __ ] out of me because. you know joining dragonstone you join i. was like oh my god amazing. and then someone told me i think it. might be one of the other dragons that's. been there for nearly two decades said. here's what's here's what here's what's. gonna happen is they're going to build. you up. to a point where you're interesting. enough to tear down again and. hearing you say the same thing terrifies.

the life out of me and it happens in. everything tech startups um facebook. uh yeah i mean facebook's a great. example of it but it happens to sports. stars it happens to politicians it. happens to. you know singers yeah yeah what advice. would you give. someone that's don't read the good stuff. or the you know. just ignore it all basically i think. it's all yeah just ignore it all. the hype and yeah because when they're. good when they're writing good stuff. that's. that's overblown as well that's not real.

life the bad stuff's also not true so. just. i just ignore it all and did that have. an impact on your mental health the. worst parts of the press coverage. it didn't help and i stopped reading it. you know i genuinely stopped reading it. and i'd have friends. sort of come and say it you know on a. saturday or sunday they'd read the. weekend papers and it's like are you all. right it's like i'm fine. what have i done that's the worst. because then you've got to justify to. people you care about. yeah and make them not care like i'm.

fine. like okay just don't read the times this. weekend it's like yeah never read the. times. um that was annoying but i don't know. so yeah the um the press was not fun. um investment's not fun regulation got. really really tough. by the end because we were a bank and. ultimately if we fail. the government has to step in and refund. everyone their money so the rules there. were very very strict and because we got. so big. so early and weren't profitable that. that got quite tough. um and i'm going to go through a list of.

the bad things now the f. i will stop on the final one which was. um just organizational politics when you. get to we were almost 2 000 people. and when you're 100 or 200 people you. can know everyone and you can. you develop a really close culture. really a sense of team spirit you know. everyone you can know everyone's names. um you get to 2000 people and you don't. and it. um you get subcultures so teams develop. their own sort of internal. narrative as to why they exist and what. they're for and. sometimes like we're saving the company.

from this other team over there and it's. you know becomes. um really not collaborative actually and. you get. uh especially with some sort of quite. senior people. start building their little fifedems. and you get this just weird politics and. rivalries going on that. i'd never worked in the company for it's. like total it was totally uh. new to me um especially when you're this. is unfair not everyone. but sometimes when you hire people from. big banks they've grown up with that um.

uh culture toxic culture frankly. um and they bring it to a place like. monzo and everyone's. like what that what's weird what's going. on here. but it definitely changed um and that. was. having to deal with that was was tricky. you talked about not being profitable. i've heard you talk about you know that. being one of the um. probably in hindsight one of the things. you should have thought about more in. the early days which was like the. commercial model or the business model. of the bank yep is that.

fair yeah absolutely yeah um and we. thought about it for sure. i think what we didn't do was make the. hard decisions to. uh to turn the corner earlier like we. thought about it and it was this was not. it's not like we um blindly ran into. unprofitability we took a series of. actions we knew they were. loss making but we um did that in order. to. to acquire users without paying so. basically we. swapped marketing spec we had no. marketing spend but instead we ran.

um uh like like operational losses. so we'd give away features to customers. that would cost us money to get more. customers. because it meant our marketing budget. was zero and we grew to five or six. million people. with we probably spent less than 10. million on marketing total. that's an average cost per customer of. one pound 50. great. right so um but that that's. that hides operational losses that's our. real marketing budget was giving away. things like. html withdrawals for free for example.

and we just didn't take the hard. decisions to turn some of those things. off when we. um we got to a certain size and it cost. us way too much. free cards yeah expensive. with that it's like the long tail it's. you know it's the um. the very small number of people who are. ordering 20 or 30 cards a year. most people they order zero to one. that's fine but. some people just lose their card every. weekend and they get struggled no. problem just order another one it'll be. here tomorrow morning. uh and that's just annoying and costly. the other thing though.

um so we should have paid more attention. to reducing costs and. taking a hard decision to drive revenues. earlier uh we consciously didn't. but part of it was avoiding those hard. decisions the other half of it though. is weird um. i've thought about it a lot it's. basically how you get. almost self-reinforcement from your. investors so you run a business a. certain way. you get to a certain scale and you. present it to a set of investors.

and the ones who are more or less the. ones who agree with what you've done and. think it's the right approach we'll. invest. and the ones who think you're bonkers. will not invest and they'll go to. someone else. the problem is that becomes. self-reinforcing because they like what. you did before so like yeah just do more. of that. and it can become um a bit of an echo. chamber where you just get the group of. investors around the table who are all. big supporters who all really believe in. the model. and there's not really anyone being like. uh you know you're running. um you should really think about this.

other stuff. and a really a really smart thing i've. heard. which i didn't do and i i hope i will. will have the humility to do in future. is to sort of. pick out the smartest investors you can. or smarter's advisors or other other. founders. and ask them why you think your business. will fail. and then really try to think deeply. about that rather than. i think the natural tendency is just. like ah you know whatever they don't. know what they're talking about i'll. just. the people who think i'm brilliant i'll. listen to them um.

but that can become i don't think you. grow as much from that so. really finding the doubters even the not. so much the haters but the doubt is. certainly. and interrogating them about your. business and really trying to think. through how you can. solve those problems i think that would. have helped us a lot. hindsight's a wonderful thing yeah now. you have those. some of those answers in hindsight and. what were. what are those answers in hindsight that. you wish you'd um. you'd known sooner so one of them's.

obviously you know getting to a. profitable business model sooner making. those transitions. profitable business model um cutting. costs driving revenue by taking hard. decisions to sort of limit some of the. free features and charges some of the. things we gave for free i think she'd. done that way way earlier. um that's the biggest any cultural. decisions i knew there was a. merging of the startup guys and the uh. banking. people which i guess that's necessary. right yeah. i struggled to get the banking license. without that and you've seen you can see. that at revolut. you look at all their recent senior.

highs over the last year or two and it's. big wigs from the big banks because. they're trying to get a banking licence. so. i think that's sort of inevitable um and. you pay a cost for that you pay the. price. um customer service is always. one of big one of our uh investors who. shall name. remain nameless um was a bit of. contrarians basically said. the quality of your customer service is. too high. and it's costing you too much and it's. going to be the you know it's going to. be the weight around your neck for the.

next. whatever 10 years until you can slash. and i'm not sure if he was right or not. actually. um that's when i still debate um i've. noticed revel. revolute's uh customer service has. declined. month almost month over month for the. last two years i've been a customer. there on. monday but revolut they've made a real. significant. it feels like effort to either cut back. on customer service costs or. just because they've got more users. they're struggling yeah but i've from. when i joined revolu it was just. amazing yep and two years almost three.

years on. it's just awful yeah and i think monzo's. hopefully it's not awful but i think it. was amazing. at the start and i think it's now. variable. i think sometimes it's really really. great but sometimes you end up waiting a. little too long. sometimes it's a little too hard to talk. to a customer service agent arguably. i think i still think it's pretty good. but in the early days it was spectacular. it was the number one thing our. customers talked about was the service. by far you'd look on social media.

whatever it was just. and if we'd have the revenue to support. that i think we could have continued. it's not. it's not very expensive it cost us about. 12 or 13 pounds per customer per year to. provide that. and i think the benchmark that. everyone's aiming for is less than that. clearly. and so the drive is always to automate. more to put you know. chatbots in to do whatever there comes a. point in your journey with monzo where. you realize that. you're no longer enjoying it for me in. my business. it was kind of like a there wasn't a.

point it wasn't a day when i woke up it. was kind of a. compounding of several issues that. slowly wore me down. yes uh uh yes it was that plus covered. and covered it was like knockout punch. but yeah it was. four or five four five six issues that. meant for the last. year or two i wasn't having a good time. really and i talked to my board about it. i talked to investors about i think. hiring really good senior leaders. was part of the potential solution and. we.

didn't do that fast enough um we've got. some great great senior leaders in now. um and i sort of wonder what would have. happened if we could have got those. people in a year or two earlier. um possibly they wouldn't we wouldn't. pay them enough they wouldn't have. joined. um i did talk about this a ts our new. ceos like. if you'd have come five years ago i. would have joined five years ago i was. like. go back in time um uh but yeah it was. four five six issues and then covered. and that was just. i mean for so many people in the world. that was horrific for us our revenue.

declined at least 50 percent. within about a week or so uh the cost. base was the same revenue goes down 50. we were already lost making so now it's. sort of. we had a funding we had 100 million. funding round lined up. to close on the monday and on friday. before london went to lockdown and all. the terms she's got pulled. so again retrospects uh hindsight is. 2020. um everything has bounced back. even like the in the investment market.

private investment and public. investments. are stronger than it was pre-covet and. so people just take these really. short-term decisions in a. kind of in a shock in a crisis destroy a. ton of value for themselves. um and you know six nine 12 months later. everything's bounced back even harder i. just don't understand it. um but anyway covid was definitely the. straw that broke the camel's back. and about six weeks into that six to. eight weeks which is like i'm. i'm working seven days a week i'm not. sleeping here this is just.

you know i need sort of throw the towel. in almost you know i need to i need to. be subbed out. had you been thinking about that. conversation for some time before you. got to the point where you. you approached the board with the. decisiveness that this has been done. i'm not even thinking about i've been. talking to them about it for a year or. two yeah. not the whole board but yeah two members. our chairman and uh. one of our lead investors absolutely. we'd we'd had multiple conversations. about. me not enjoying the role as it was then. configured and the answer was like okay. let's reconfigure a role let's. bring people around you let's because.

because we're growing so quickly and the. way that senior hiring works. by the time you realize you've got a gap. it's 12 to 18 months. before you can actually fill that gap. and you know muggins here ends up. doing to be fair all of my senior team. were doing. more than one job trying to fill the. gaps but um. that was the biggest problem for me that. we didn't have. the right senior leadership in place so. i was working several jobs. uh and so the conversation was always.

okay well we'll fill these roles we'll. fill these roles. but by the time you filled that role. this other role over there the person. who's doing really well at 200. you're now 2000 people and the person's. burnt out or. you know not doing well and you have to. replace them and so. it was like whack-a-mole. [Music]. and i think that was the biggest. contributing factor but those are. conversations i very regularly had with. um board members and investors do you. think those conversations were treated. with. with urgency no from from. either yourself or the board no.

absolutely not. it was always like oh yeah oh yeah we'll. just hire you know we'll hire the person. it'll. be fine or i'll just stick it out for. another couple of years. and it'll all be fine and eventually. it's like no i've got a couple of weeks. yeah i think a lot of them did. a huge amount i mean eileen the one of. our investors from passion. personally put in so much time to. support the company and support me and. i'm. really really grateful for that.

but ultimately um yeah we just didn't. hire. see great senior people fast enough that. if i can find one root cause it was that. do you think if you'd gone to the board. with more urgency and decisiveness. yourself. though you would have been taken more. seriously. if you said listen i'm going to go next. week. if these issues aren't fixed because i. i'm asking these questions. from same reasons as uh i said before i. went through the same thing where i.

approached the board i said i've got. some problems here. these are the issues can we fix them and. it was probably a little bit of lip. service. yeah until the day that i resigned yeah. i don't know i think a lot of people put. a lot of effort into fixing it. ultimately was like on me to fix. no one else is going to come in and hire. a really top senior team for me it's. that's sort of. my job um. [Music]. so i don't know i also i do wonder. whether you really could have got those. great senior people in at a. earlier stage the analogy's sort of like.

a football team you're starting in the. i don't know what the fourth division. now is cool but you know you're there. and you get promoted. and you want to hire someone for the. third division but everyone's like oh go. and hire ronald it's like ronaldo is not. coming to play. for a third division team you know so. it's a constant process of upgra like. gradually upgrading until you get into. premiership. um and even then you know you're you're. charleston athletic or something. uh so i just think it's tough i don't i. don't. think there's a magic bullet actually a. quick one since leaving social chain a.

couple years ago as you probably know. i've kept my options open. i've worked in a series of companies as. a consultant as a creative director as. an advisor. as an investor but i've kept my options. open and that is about to change because. i'm about to embark on my next chapter. building my next company and i'm going. to tell you guys about it first but i. wanted to talk about something related. to that. when i'm building this new company as i. have been over the last three months. we need everything from websites to. logos to. editing work done to some sort of admin. stuff done. and it's crazy that even me even though.

i have. a lot of financial resources i still. turn to fiverr.comfiveerr.com. to help me with freelance services for. me it is a godsend. if you're scaling your business if. you're looking to start a project or. you're developing yours. try fiverr.com if you go to f i v. e r r dot com slash ceo. pick a service try it and then send me a. message and let me know how you found it. i'm gonna be paying for five people to.

have their services done on fiverr.com. so go to that website now links in the. bio and let me know what you think. you said you weren't sleeping working. seven days a week talk me. through those moments when you when. things were. have you experienced that i've oh. definitely experienced. um anxiety and not sleeping well. and an issue usually like payroll or. some kind of investor issue. plaguing me for days and days and then. getting sick yeah and.

why have i got a cold i never get it. cold and then yeah oh of course because. there's no [ __ ] money in the bank or. something. yeah um similar things uh. we talked about a little earlier sort of. that depletion of emotional energy so. that you. have a you know there's a sort of a. problem there you need to make a. decision about maybe it's like one of. your senior teams not working out you. know you have to. fire them basically but like if i do. that that's going to cause a bunch of. other knock-on problems i don't want to. deal with yet because i'm i'm just. trying to close this like 100 million. pound funding round. so just let me focus on that and and the.

um. the realization was sort of when the. round closes when the money's in the. bank and that weight lifts. you then look at all these other. problems and they're very very easy. actually like you. re-energize quite quickly and able to. take those decisions but while there's. just too many things sort of resting on. your shoulders you. it piles up and piles up and piles up. and so for me yeah it was. um waking up at sort of four or five in. the morning. often with um often with problems in the. cold light of day are. relatively easy to solve but this the.

conscious part of your mind gets turned. off when you're sleeping it's a sort of. subconscious. like irrational part that blows the. thing into a. unsolvable problem and the next more you. can whatever you write it down you come. back to the next day and go that. that's ridiculous why am i even worrying. about that. um so it's not a rational thing it's a. much more of an emotional. um at least for me emotional response. but because you're tired you make worse. decisions and because you make worse. decisions. you end up creating more problems to.

yourself um. you know and the solution is easy to say. and hard to do which is. exercise more and you know stay off. alcohol. and get to bed early and don't have your. phone in your bedroom and like. turn off your computer at the weekends. all this sort of stuff you know you. should do. um but when each one gives way the next. one's harder you know. you haven't slept well so you don't want. to go to the gym in the morning and. because you look at the gym. you blah blah blah blah blah so you can. either get into i think really good.

reinforcing cycles or very destructive. kind of negatively reinforcing cycles. because you knew your mind was going to. do that when you fell asleep did you. upon getting in bed and laying down. presumably you knew that your mind was. then going to run off with all of the. thoughts and worries did that make that. process just before you fall asleep. quite unpleasant yes and you sort of. going to sleep. almost inevitably knowing you're going. to wake up at 4 am. is quite annoying to say the least.

and the. it's a very depressing thing to say but. sometimes when i did sleep a sort of. full night i'd wake up at 7 8 9 a.m. whatever. and for about three or four seconds. i'd forgotten what my life was like i'd. forgotten. what i was doing what my job was all the. pressures and i was like i was calm. and i was sort of you know not stressed.

not anxious and then. three or four seconds later all the. memories came back it was just like this. crushing weight. that that feeling was just terrible and. that. really was the moment i just sort of. knew this is this is no life you know i. want the. life three seconds ago where i can wake. up and not be worried and not be. stressed and not feel like. just anxious the whole time like there. would there were no other emotions in my. life really apart from just anxiety. that was a ten out of ten and every. other emotion felt like it's a the.

volume had been switched down to one out. of ten because like anxiety was just 10. out of 10. and that was no fun how long did that. last. a year and a half two years maybe [ __ ]. you know. god i can imagine two years not fun and. i split up with my girlfriend as a. result of it it's like mate you know. my life's [ __ ] what can i do about it. let's like one by one try and change. things. um and rather than changing the job. first i changed a girlfriend first. um and that was really tough um.

[Music]. i left monzo and within about a week or. so i was sleeping. perfectly through the night and it. really just all went away. yeah and now i you know i am. uh i hesitate to use the word happy but. yeah i happy like. content calm relaxed like i find things. to do. with my day that i find you know that i. enjoy. and and suddenly like the small those.

like emotions that were one out of ten. when they're not being crushed by a ten. out of ten anxiety like sort of start to. bloom back which is cool which um i like. this is life yeah yeah. the girlfriend topic i find compelling. because i. i've also struggled in that department. forever yeah um. how was it trying to hold down a. relationship whilst also. this business just being this crushing. force in your life. terrible uh and i really um.

uh we we're um good friends still. but she was a lovely kind considerate. person. and i was just not a nice person to be. around a lot of the time. just like really um short-tempered. like inconsiderate and like intolerant. basically intolerant. there's something that was like tiny. tiny things that a normal person would. just be like that's. just a cute quirk i feel like that's so. irritating you know.

um and so we just ended up not enjoying. spending time together. sadly um and i i think she was doing a. lot. to try and you know make our lives. together. wonderful and i was just a monster. because my. primarily because my work was so [ __ ] um. which i regret a lot. it's interesting so when um what i. noticed about myself is when i had a. girlfriend. at the height of my uh ceo [ __ ].

um i would make her feel incredibly. lonely. even if i sat next to her because i you. know i was selfish and self-absorbed and. i did wasn't interested in anything but. my own problems and. i also didn't particularly want to talk. to her about them because that was just. i felt like it would grow the problem if. i then went home and just. brain dumped on her yep um yeah. do you think it's possible for a ceo. that's in a high intensity situation to. have a successful early-stage.

relationship. i mean i never managed but i believe it. is possible i've seen other people do it. and then. i think um part of it is maturity. and um uh. detachment but not in a bad way and i. mean detachment from your job. being able to compartmentalize so paul. one of my co-founders a little bit older. um and i think he had a really great. ability to sort of. come to work and be fully present in. work and then to go home and just. totally switch it off. as soon as his head hit the pillow he.

was asleep he had. he and his wife run a lovely alpaca farm. in the north of england. and he was just really good at having. sort of of. compartmentalizing his life i think. similarly with ts the new um. the new ceo at monso he's an older guy. um i think he's in his 50s and has run. big banks before and is. you know finds it challenging and. exciting and a little stressful but i. think he's able to go back to his family. and sort of switch that part of his. brain off and i could never do that i. it was all-consuming uh sort of.

emotionally that. i would never even on holiday i could. never. switch off the nagging feeling about the. work. um so towards the end there was a little. bit more detachment and talking to jonas. my co-founder as well i think. he took everything so personally in the. early days and. sort of six seven years in you you. there's a bit of detachment. um and i think that's actually really. healthy to realize that your. entire person is not intrinsically. linked to this company and you can leave.

and the company will continue and. maybe the company fails and you'll still. survive and that's sort of um. by the way i think monzo's doing. incredibly well it's not going to fail. um. but just that emotional realization that. you're not like the same being. as your company uh would have been. helpful earlier on. i heard you had a red phone in your. bedroom or something is that true yes. why was it red um. it was more like a sort of um childish. pink color actually right. the red pho is probably a dramatization.

i think i described as a red phone it. was a pink it was an old nokia. um uh and why. so the reason why um is first of all. because. to help sleep i didn't keep my own. mobile in my bedroom. so i turned it off and i had it charging. out the hallway which i think is i. encourage everyone to do i think it's. great because you know. the first thing i used to do when i wake. up and sometimes i do it still it's like. you grab the phone and start. and that's just not healthy so not. having the phone. in your eye lasting at night not having. the first in the morning just charge it.

in another room. um that is a great step unfortunately. when. there are really significant problems at. three or four in the morning and. it doesn't happen often but you know it. happened occasionally you need to be. able to wake the senior management team. up and the ceo up. to make the hard calls um and so that. phone was like the back phone if. something went wrong. that would be the only one in my room. the only. no one had the number it was linked to. our automatic alerting system so if. at monzo if something went wrong you.

sort of click a button it would escalate. and if it got escalated far enough the. ceo gets woken up. but only that system had the phone. number this and so if it rang. it was because the bank was down um. and that happened a handful of times not. you know not every week but. every two or three months sometimes um. what an awful phone call yeah oh yeah. yeah. and it wasn't a person it was a you know. it's a robot saying like wake up. there's an incident you are required to. blah blah blah it's like ugh. yeah that it's horrible because you can.

see your hand gesture then. how it felt yeah the heart your heart. drops and you know it's going to be. the rest of your week if not your month. is going to be ruined and it's. you don't know if this is like the one. that's going to kill the company we had. a few like that it's like. you know it's is i think a lot of. founders have like those moments like. oh [ __ ] is you know is this it is this. the moment the company dies. um and there's often not a lot you can. do actually as a. you know your engineers running around. trying to fix a problem. and you getting stuck in is not going to.

help help things so you're sort of. almost like a helpless. sideline observer um 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 um. but yeah you're in a pretty helpless. situation. yes there was a red phone it was more. like a pink nokia okay but it sounds. better. it sounds way better in the movie it'll. definitely be a red phone yeah. um it'll be in like a box with like a. maybe a code on it. um i find that what you just said. they're really interesting so there's.

because i've been through that those key. moments where you're not sure if your. company is going to survive. and it feels like the answer or the. determinant factor. is actually outside of your control yep. so it's someone else's decision whether. your company. survives yep did you have many moments. like that where it felt like it was. someone else's decision if your company. was going to survive. an investor or yeah and not loads but a. handful. so early investment rounds um. it was binary if we don't raise the. money we we're folding. the later rounds are more like the.

money's going to come in at some. evaluation. um uh 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 it 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's going to be back and so. you know we had about 300 000 cars at. the time sort of like.

this could be two months like all the. cars could not work for two months now. or rather it would take us two months to. rebuild this thing. um and that yeah we're just sitting. there thinking this is. we it's our fault in the sense that we. picked the supplier but beyond that like. they've just [ __ ] up right then you. know i it. it was it was totally ridiculous what. had happened in retrospect. but um yeah that was uh real like. we can't do anything we literally yeah. 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. learn all this good stuff. but that was a sort of we don't know if. this is even gonna come back online. outside of the business and the chaos of. the business what was your life. at that point um. fairly normal. um we had a pretty good culture. around sort of work-life balance at. monzo um. you know 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. you know growing up mostly from my. secondary school actually. i lived with my girlfriend we live you. know we lived in a big house with. friends we cooked a lot. um i took up pottery i i exercised a. fair amount it was very very normal. not really nothing extraordinary but i. wasn't working 100 hours a week for sure. i was doing 45 50 55 hours.

um 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 and then boom. pandemic. yeah comes around term sheets get pulled. yeah you're sat there you've already you. know it's by the sounds of it you're. already on the verge of. well you already weren't happy with how. things were going and then that's the i. guess the straw that broke the camel's. back. for sure when you realized that you were. going to depart. and you knew there was a date you knew.

people were gonna know. you knew was going to come out in the. press what were the range of emotions. and were sadness one of them yeah. definitely. um 80 was just like i can breathe again. so it was overwhelmingly positive for me. i and i'm not afraid to say that um. 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 um. guilt that i'd recruited many of these. people and some of them had joined to. come and work with me. um and that i was leaving them to kind. of fix the mess. um yeah. guilt i think was more than sadness. were there tears shed um. i cry quite a lot. i cried as well when i i went through a. range of emotions my first one was i was.

angry a little bit because. as i said i'd been given a lot i felt. what felt like lip service yeah so i was. annoyed at first but then when i. realized that i was actually gonna send. the email. yeah it was like gratitude yeah and. some kind of like sad or happy tears yep. um i uh so i did an all hands i. announced it at a on a video call with. like 1500 people or something. and i definitely welled up at one or two. points there um. in a in a genuine way but um.

what i have learnt over the last few. years is that. um vulnerability is the best way to. inspire. is confidence trust sort of become a. leader. to show if it's genuine you know you. can't sort of. you know the 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 um and so what.

it doesn't i wasn't. i wasn't afraid of that or embarrassed. by you know i was sort of welling up on. a call with 1500 people. but it wasn't the first time i'd like. practically cried in front of the. company. um you know i'm not ashamed of that so. and then the uh the weightlifting. yeah great. no one can [ __ ] email you and you. know um it was great actually it wasn't. it was great but then we were in the. midst of a lockdown. and i was 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. it was pretty boring actually for quite. a while i think if you know if london. had been booming and i could kind of go. out and meet people have fun it would. have been a great experience but. actually. that's um especially uh if remember sort. of thinking back to april may. of last year when everything was really.

hard to lock down still. april may 2020 not a fun experience. really i think i am an. extrovert um i thought i thought about. this a lot i really i get energy from. being around people. and i was with four people just working. all the time and um in the middle of. rural devon. yeah not fun but i mean it's a lot to go. from. having such an intense overwhelming. purpose. and sense of mission every day to having. pretty much none yeah and waking up in. the morning and thinking.

what am i going to do today what happens. today it's weird because my time was. especially monday to friday was. scheduled from sort of nine. nine am till about seven or eight pm was. scheduled down to the. down to five minutes easily um and you'd. look at my diary they would. you wouldn't find more than five minutes. spare sort of in that block. so yes having nothing to do was uh kind. of weird and so i. you know i wrote a list of all the. things i wanted to do i actually had. this list for five or six years.

so i started looking down the list for. things i could do whilst in lockdown. um many of the things i couldn't yet do. so i started drawing. i spent two or three months drawing i. saw that um. hockney had started using his ipad so i. started drawing on my ipad. which i i only kept up for about a month. or two um. but learning a language was on the list. i bought some kite surfing gear and did. a load of coat surfing which was amazing. now um i'm training up to um. a big offshore sailing race so kind of a.

yacht race called fastnet. uh 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 um. which is very rewarding um so i'm busy. again but each of it is like. not inconsequential i think the. vaccination service is a great thing to. do but. if i wasn't there there would be someone. else there you know doing the jabbing. um so each one i could sort of walk away. from pretty easily.

so it's a it's busy but it's low low. pressure i guess yeah. and it seems like you're focusing on. things that give you like an. intrinsic joy yeah and learning i really. like learning. um any really anything so the process of. going from a. complete novice to someone you know. mediocre. uh i love and i'm angel investing that's. to keep a connection to the tech. community i'm. 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. or at least i'm going in to bother the. founders whether i'm helping or not i. don't know. [Music]. it feels like a job where you have to. pay to go to work you know. um but i like that a lot uh. me and my co-founder went on felt two. very different things when we departed. we departed at the same time pretty much. and um. he because he didn't have anything to do.

um upon departing i think he struggled. quite significantly. you kind of lose the orientation in your. life and yeah you're right when your. schedule you're so used to your schedule. running your life when there's nothing. there. you get out of bed a bit later and then. you you know you can. that's that sense of lacking purpose you. see it within olympic athletes like. michael phelps when he wins all the gold. medals and then. comes home they call it gold medal. depression and you don't have that. thing you're striving towards or for. that meaningful goal. life can seem to lose orientation a. little bit your schedule now is as busy.

now as it was. when you were working no no i mean the. dragon's done thing is as. and maybe maybe brought it close. because it's like 7am and i get home at. midnight yeah but um. dragons then aside no and i've also i. mean there's nothing. there isn't huge stakes so even the work. that i do do the things that are in my. schedule i can just cancel if i don't. want to do it whereas before it was huge. stakes i had to get on the flight yeah. or i had to be up at 4am so you know so. but but you know both you and me that.

there's still going to be that yearning. to. go back no. do you think you'll ever go back to. starting a company being the ceo. i don't know i have thought about this a. lot and people have asked me uh and i. don't know. um the thought process goes something. like um. i love the early stage so you get a few. of your mates together. people 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 on to his third thing the third. thing's flopped and like ah we all knew. he's an idiot so like okay that's. humiliating. or it's a success and you grow and. become a two thousand person company and. you're like. why have i done this to myself again i. hate running two thousand person. companies. um so the out i like the. journey bit but the outcome either end. don't lose lose yeah like it doesn't. seem there's much upside i mean. it it's financially like very.

remunerative if you do well but. um it doesn't make my life happier so. so in that sense no um with some caveats. one thing i've thought about doing which. i've. 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 a. management team and kind of. incubating it for properly incubating. for 12 months you know actually like. building the first version and doing the. marketing and but once it's at 12 or 18. months putting a full management team in.

sort of. letting it go you know so you retain a. minority equity stake but really it's. the. the ceo and the management team that's. that's owning and running it so you. you're able to 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 i thought about that a bit seems like. a lot of hard work um. so i haven't done it yet but i might do. that i think you'd probably end up. getting sucked into the same problems. 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's. not quite doing as well as i would have. liked and. you know either you think you should go. in or someone else thinks you should go. in and you're ultimately. you're running a 2000 company again and. that's the thing i'm trying to avoid. um because i know a guy that does that. how's that going. um yes but he hasn't avoided the. [ __ ] so he's what he's. he's a billionaire he's a. multi-billionaire um and he. says oh i'm not g he when when press.

asks him he goes oh yeah i'm just not. good at the operational bit i know what. he means is. because i've spoken to him privately he. doesn't want to do the operational bit. doesn't want to care about people's. birthdays that's what he says i don't. want to have to. think about people's birthdays right so. what he does is he comes he'll. have a passion in his life say. psychedelics yep. and he'll go and assemble a team a ceo. co-founding team he'll go and hire the. people and then he'll handle the. fundraising piece yep and he'll go off. you go. company but i still know that when [ __ ]. hits the fan. and they've got funding issues yeah.

because he is the. the big name in the piece he'll be front. and center of trying to solve those. problems. um i i i he lives a much better life. than i think the ceo would. yeah and i think that's fine like i. wouldn't i'm not looking for a zero. stress life. um but i think yeah a lot of the people. [ __ ] i don't like. um the fun fundraising isn't fun but i. i think i have done it enough now that i. could do it again in a relatively. stress-free way. but at 2000 people it's.

not even remembering people's birthdays. right right in the calendar like that's. not. you know i had a great assistant who. would help me with a lot of that stuff. like. it doesn't come naturally to me it's. more like. you 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 after dealing. with it but. maybe she was misbehaving this never. happened at monzo. but um for some reason it ends up on. your. on your desk like why am i dealing with. these miscreants.

like they're [ __ ] around like this is. not like on top of everything i'm doing. i'm having to sort out this hr issue. you have to because it i've been i was. thinking i was just thinking of one. incident at christmas party because you. said christmas party. i'm not going to me and my co-founder. stopped like we would go until 8pm. yeah and then leave you'll be like this. is not because it'd be too much alcohol. yeah and when you're 50 100 people you. know each other so well that like. people i don't know maybe we're just. lucky but people sort of respect.

boundaries and behave themselves. two thousand just law of averages like. there's you know one in a thousand. people is gonna do something stupid so. you have two of them. now at two thousand people doing. something stupid every every party it's. like. they're gonna get fired for i know one. incident. well many incidents but i mean the crazy. twists and turns of being the ceo and. finding these things out and we had. someone who had been on doing i think. silk road on the dark where. seven years ago got arrested they'd. worked for me for three and a half years.

i thought they were a great guy yeah. they got. sent to jail for seven years like the. nicest guy in the company and he'd done. it when he's a student. all kinds of things christmas parties. someone's pushed someone into the toilet. and kissed them and these are the things. that in fact you do have to make the. call on yep. even though it's such it seems like such. a pathetic thing but that is. sexual assault totally and and you can't. allow an incident like that to be. mis-mishandled right because that is. like that proposes an existential risk. against your company yeah. if that were to break in the press so. yeah and you know and it's.

and it's the right thing to do but uh it. should be the chief people off the. handle yeah right like. that's sort of my that was my problem. like there were periods of time when we. didn't have a chief people officer so it. just landed my desk and. 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. [ __ ] then it gets overwhelming so. yeah i think it always comes back you. have a. incredibly sort of um. successful talented senior team and the. stress becomes left because each.

you don't a ceo don't deal with that. your chief people officer says by the. way. this happened and i've dealt with it you. go great oh thank god yeah i love those. people in business. they deal with it and then tell they. come to you with it sometimes but they. tell you they've already dealt with it. yep no action required tom it's already. been solved but just so you're aware. i love these people and that's but. that's how a senior team should work. really um and. at its best it works like that it is. magical death threats. nice little transition though i'd never.

got death threats as the ceo of social. chain but i hear that you got a few. uh not loads but yes we and um and. several of our staff as well. um and we've got people turning up to. the office being we had security. full-time security at are office and. still do now. because customs would turn up sometimes. with weapons. um they threatened to turn up with you. know a bottle of acid and their acid in. someone's face. um yeah and yeah and come. you know 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. sort of probabilities if one in a. million is a bad egg you've got six bad. eggs um. because we were a bank we dealt with. people's money and because we had. obligations to. detect and prevent financial crime we. would. um we would detect criminals and shut. their accounts down. and the like the really pro criminals.

would just treat it as a cost of doing. business right like. fine we've got thousands of these things. it was like the amateur criminal. who like really thought we had a payday. it's like he scammed some old lady out. of. her retirement you know he's got 20. grand are you like no shutting it down. sorry sending it back and it. got crazy like this was my big payoff. i'm going to come and. [ __ ] you up um 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 it 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 but. still the law gets in the way you know. 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 customs 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 can't feel my baby. yeah yeah. um so yes it was never the professional. criminals. because they just choose a costume. business and by the way there were a ton. of those and we. and we caught way more than our fair. share we were using a lot of. um basic machine learning to track sort. of weird patterns and shutting their. accounts down. we worked very very closely with the. with law enforcement to. to shut a bunch of these things down i'm.

some of them were like. wild there was a big ring a couple of. years no probably three or four years. ago now where. um if you've got a fuel pump you can. um 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 try and then it. would calculate how much fuel you'd. actually spend and then then take the. payment. so people get a monzo card put one p on. it swipe it. and then go with a modified ford transit.

so it's not like a. 80 feet of petrol the whole thing was a. fuel tanker. so they'd put 10 grand of petrol into. their ford transit and then just drive. off. and the the payment on the card would. bounce and they'd go and use that. to like they'd sell it to whoever wants. petrol haul is. uh farmers whatever um but they're. basically scamming um. all of these petrol stations uh so we. spotted that pretty quickly. um and shut that down which i'm really. really proud of um. there were several people trafficking. rings where they would.

um bring in women from um often east. like east um eastern europe uh and then. traffic them for sex basically. um and you'd spot patterns of behavior. like. patterns of spend which suggests. basically someone is being driven around. in a in an uber or a taxi to um to be. pimped out. um we'd spot that and work with law. enforcement to actually like. um go and rescue people which is amazing. like that's an amazing amazing feeling. um but and those were mostly the pros.

who were like meh. you know you 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 scanned three or four. grand out of someone and. it sounds like a lot to think about tom. yeah there's all of this hidden stuff. you know you know you think of monzo and. it's like the hot cold card and some. great branding. i thought it was just a like nice. colored card oh my god. i mean it was serious by the end like. the running a bank is serious we were. processing.

i don't know 100 billion pounds a year. or something of payments like it. this is it's a lot of money it's. people's salaries it's. and you six million customers you see. their whole life you see the great. stuff and you see the terrible stuff um. were you ever scared or threatened. personally did you ever feel. threatened personally in terms of your. personal security. was there ever where you thought you. know actually i do feel about unsafe. here. um i had security and there was a we got.

a security firm to come and like look at. my online profile. look at my house and uh 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 i'm going to. throw it in someone's face. so that as you let as we left the office. there was a bit of you know a. little apprehension there certainly um. but. but no in general no it wasn't something.

i live with every single day. but um but it was on them 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. [ __ ]. but now you're enjoying the small things. in life yeah yeah maybe i should go back. to therapy now and like. you can make it even better yeah there's. small things in life that you're. enjoying. what are they yeah walking in the park i. heard. so uh my housemate's got a dog recently. that's quite fun.

um uh a lot of my friends have just had. children. so not me but you know my um i'm. godfather to a couple of young kids my. brother. has a young girl now um a. disproportionate amount of kids. you're you're getting same as me i am. the godfather to all of my friends kids. now. it's uh i'm not sure i have any friends. left really who are not. either parents or trying to become. parents we're you know i'm 35. so it's i'm trying to find new younger. friends now. avoid that stage of my life for another. few years um.

yeah i i love pottery i'm learning to. fly i'm sailing. i love to cycle i kite surf a lot of. active outdoorsy stuff. i'm growing plants on my roof my. courgettes have just come out. which is uh yeah they're great what. about. your relationships are you single. taken dating i am dating. uh i've always been um intrigued by. dating apps. i worked at one um i've written about 20. of a book on one wow but over like 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 um. yeah and i'm dating and sort of having. fun but i'm not. um. 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 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 don't know what it is it's 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. have you managed to analyze where you. think that might come from. like inability to be content this is. what i should go talk to a therapist. about no because i'm asking for myself. i like novelty i really like new things. new experiences and i get bored quite. easily um.

[Music]. so i don't know yeah probably i think. combining um uh psychedelics and therapy. to solve this problem. what's my next challenge have you ever. done psychedelics i haven't neither of. us i would love to. i really wish i could say i had i'm. trying to but it's just. finding the right place and time i think. yeah so what's um. so we look forward at the future of your. life. i guess a lot a lot of question marks. you're not really sure which direction. you're going because i think i think you. well i think you you kind of answered.

yourself at the start about your. your purpose in life now yeah what your. purpose is i don't have one and i'm. totally fine with that yeah um. i i think looking forward to sort of. when i'm. 60 65 um i think i would like a family. around. but i'm not sure i'm willing to make. sacrifices to. put in the hard work to actually make. that happen you know what i mean what. are those sacrifices. like giving up the fun single life like. the.

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 my total. lack of. like obligation um for that. future lots of people find raising. babies rewarding i've heard. oh my god um i do not. uh but that sort of future payoff of. having you know that kind of close. family it's. i can't imagine being 65 and not having. that but then i'm not sure i'm.

gonna like 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 um helping out other. startups is a. is a nice way to feel like i'm giving a. little bit back without. taking my life at the moment so for me. that's enough. what do you think about i was looking to. ask i'm glad i remembered what do you. think about bitcoin. and cryptocurrencies generally. terrifying um. i don't understand it i invested a.

little bit uh. 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. um it was too stressful. so there's a kind of two questions there. which 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 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. over hyped and i.

haven't really seen any cool. applications in reality yet that solve a. real human problem. that may change in future uh and then. the you know the. form a bit like the crazy speculation i. was you know checking the. price of ethereum every 15 minutes or. something it was that. that's just not healthy uh so i got out. and i'm again sleeping much better now. that i've. liquidated my crypto positions um. yeah what about you are you a believer i. i am so i did the whole 2017-2018 hype.

cycle. got burnt pretty bad there and then i'm. a believer in blockchain as a technology. um i don't actually invest in bitcoin at. all um. i i invest in ethereum because i'm. slightly involved in building. a company in silicon valley in around. which is based on ethereum. but but i'm also not i'm fortunate that. i'm not checking the price every day. i'm a very significant ethereum holder. one of the top 5000 in the world.

but i don't check the price because i. got burnt the first time. and i've just got this idea in my head. that um i'm holding for 10 years anyway. so irrespective of what happens i'd only. be checking the prices as if to inform a. decision. and i'm not going to make a decision if. it goes down 75. there's no decision if it goes up which. it did so yeah i think i have a healthy. relationship but i didn't the first time. yeah and also. the loss if i were to lose all the money. it wouldn't have a material impact on my. happiness or life i've heard smart. friends say. similar things which is basically take a.

you're basically hedging into the risk. that this is like the future of the. economy and so take. between five and ten percent of your. like net net assets put it in crypto and. really leave it for 10 years yes 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 1995 percent to sustain you. and i'm well diversified across various. different sort of asset classes so. if i genuinely lost all of my ethereum. holdings i don't think i'd lose a. night's sleep. do you know what i mean and that makes.

it easy not to. but when i when i was at social chain. when i was i hadn't had an exit or i. hadn't taken anyone off the table at all. and the price went down it was like oh i. was going up and down with. you know with the price so again it. comes back to that video game mindset. and i think the detachment point. um you know when i started this podcast. tom i i did it for. very much you know when i read your. story. i thought [ __ ] this is exactly why i. started this podcast because it's. literally called the diary of a ceo. and what i was trying to achieve there. was to give up give people a more honest.

view about what it takes to be a ceo. um and because i didn't necessarily i. think that it's been kind of you know. rock star like. jet ski you know whatever millionaires. loads of money private jet. um whereas there's a real as you've. explained cost. which people don't appreciate um of. being a ceo. and so when i when i read your story i. think in the papers and you were so. honest and open about the real nature of. being a ceo. the side of being a ceo that i can also. very much relate to. that's why i just needed you to come.

here and to have this conversation with. me. what is the upside of being a ceo. i mean i think it is amazing i don't. want to sit here and kind of complain. about my life. um i think for. smart ambitious talented people. it can be incredibly remunerative i mean. i i'm. financially independent now as are you. right and it's. i think it um you can. create a lot of value but also like.

capture some of that value personally. like and. make money like that's true you can be. um 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. um. choose 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. um being a. having created something out of nothing.

this thing would not exist if it weren't. for you and the team around you. and that i think that feeling is um is. amazing. and so i don't regret it at all um. 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. um and so yeah it's hard and it's. stressful but you know it's i wouldn't. change it for sure. i would do some things differently i'd. try to i'm not sure it would change the.

outcome. but i think today for smart ambitious. people i think becoming a founder. is probably one of the best choices they. could make if they're. if they are of that mindset it's not for. everyone for sure but. i think if you're ambitious and. confident and. and want to create something it's it's. unparalleled. and the the sort of the foundation of. all of this the most important thing i. guess. is to make sure that you're happy yeah.

and that i never thought about that i. mean that wasn't part of my upbringing. it was always secondary. yeah it was always like achieving or. accomplishing a goal of 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 um. [Music]. uh which i think was a mistake. um and i'm now quite consciously doing. that.

um yeah i think that's the probably the. downside. so many smart ambitious people are just. driven to kind of. jump over ever increasing hurdles um. without thinking about why. did you think happiness was the outcome. kind of yeah. i thought that was the end yeah sort of. like yeah. i didn't even really think about it. yeah it wasn't uh my family's always. been quite. um ambitious and driven and sort of.

uh setting goals for you know. i was as kids um and i i know other. families where that is not the case. and i think talking more explicitly. about like. 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. so you i don't i don't want to draw the. point because i don't want to sound like. your therapist and we're almost done.

here. but it really made me curious that what. you're saying about your family and. were your parents particularly goal. orientated yes. they were very hard on you or um. ambitious for us. certainly particularly my dad um. and i i'm a huge admirer of what he. started business. youngish i think he was he was 35 or 40. when he set up his business and he'd. retired by the time he's 45. um and 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 and my. parents were. around and sent me to good schools but. really pushed me you know it pushed me. to be. the top of the class and even when i was. top of the class they sort of pushed me. further and i'd sort of. say like come on well you know. i i did well in my exams to a point. where it's like. there is no more i can do in these. things like i've got all the top marks. um but they sort of didn't believe me.

like no you must be. hiding something where's the so there. was always like um. 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. so yeah they're driven very very driven. and sort of. um because they you know. i think their parents as well pushed. them and um. my dad always likes to claim he came. from like this really working class up. bringing up in rockstar in manchester. it's just like.

it's i had a mercedes like come on. and then you know with almost the same. breath he's like yeah we my mom had. horses. like what the [ __ ] are you talking about. this sort of. working-class upcoming um yeah but they. they always worked hard they moved to. asia very young to make a better life. for themselves and they they did work. hard and they. provided us as kids with great. opportunities um. and i think now later in life all of us. have sort of realized that. um thinking a little bit more about.

balance. and like happiness and relationships and. family. is more important as important certainly. and probably more important than um. sort of achievement and um and money. have you got to the crux of you what. makes you happy they're very not. foundational. for things um two or three things i know. definitely. learning um new skills whatever i really. really really love. that and um. sort of like my ex was really into.

not really that's unfair she um. is it the languages of love like the way. you sort of experience love. yeah yeah and so for me acts of service. i hate the whole thing but i do but i. see. i see that in myself like i love to cook. for people i love to get friends. together. i love to you know cook a meal make. cocktails whatever it is sort of. like get a house in the countryside and. invite all my best friends. that i 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. those things uh and i in time. raising kids maybe we will see um. that's more of an aspiration than a i. don't know. well listen tom thank you so much for um. coming and. doing this today i think what the thing. that um. you probably know but you might not. fully realize. um that i think is so incredibly. powerful is your willingness to be.

vulnerable and honest. and i just wish there were more. entrepreneurs. at all stages in their journey that were. willing to. be that vulnerable because of how um how. much of a. how much of them reality is so much more. comforting than the like. this kind of um phony um. untouchable narrative you get from a lot. of entrepreneurs reality is such. much more of a comforting um place to be. because i can relate to that. and that gives peace to my own struggles.

and hardships and those are an. unavoidable part of the human experience. and i think. entrepreneurs like yourself that have. been tremendously successful have. disrupted an industry and. achieved so much who are also willing to. be vulnerable. um are of a very special breed and we. need more of those people. so thank you so much and i appreciate. your time today thank you it's been a. lot of fun thank you.

[Music]. you.