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you would have had a lot of stock in in Stripe.
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How how much did you walk away from essentially >> or three four billion dollars >> and you feel good about it still? >> Yeah.
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I think my key thing is is not really the pursuit of valuation.
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It's really pursuing happiness and I wanted to find something I truly happy about.
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We didn't have a company registered at the time.
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I think by Monday midday a million US wired into my personal bank account without anything signed.
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>> And how much is that million dollars worth today or how much would it have been?
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>> Probably half a billion dollars.
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Do you think it's possible to build a like a truly global finance platform these days with the world as it is geopolitically?
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>> I think it's it's challenging but it's 100% possible that that's exactly what we building now.
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>> Today on the podcast we have Jack Zang, CEO of Airwallet, one of the world's fastest growing fintexs.
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Jack has a remarkable life story.
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Uh he moved to Australia from China at 15.
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Worked in restaurants, factories, had a real estate business all before going on to found Air Wallet which is now valued at 11 billion.
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and his mission is to fundamentally change how money moves around the world.
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So Jack, welcome to Giant Ideas.
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>> Thanks Cam and uh thanks Tommy. I'm glad to join.
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>> Today we're going to talk about your journey which I think is one of the most extraordinary journeys not just of an entrepreneur but of any leader that that I've heard about kind of listening to it and reading about it.
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We ask all of our guests to talk about kind of three photographs or snapshots that would help listeners get to the bottom of your life so far, your journey so far.
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So if I had to ask you that that tricky question, what would the kind of three photographs be that would define the journey so far?
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>> I grew up in a countryside uh in northeast China.
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So I would say that's probably the first phase of my life and then that is how I grew up and um I've seen the probably the biggest economic advancement in the world.
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Um you know I was born in 1985 so between 85 to year 2000 right?
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So when I was 15 then I moved to um so I was like actually in Canada for a short period of time and then I was in then I was in I moved to Melbourne was 15 and uh so from 15 to um I would say uh 20 um you know I uh I lost you know financial support from my parents and uh unfortunately in you know when I was 16 and I had to work a lot of uh random uh difficult jobs.
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Um, >> what kind of thing were you doing? >> Sort of.
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Um, you know, I initially started washing dishes in the restaurant after high school.
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Uh, you know, finish at 4:00 and then start go to the restaurant working.
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Uh, then I later on upgraded my job to a bartender.
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>> Uh, you know, doing, you know, 400 p. m. to 11:30 p. m. shift in Western Hotel.
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Then, uh, then I do midnight shift in a petrol station from midnight to 8:00 a. m. >> Wow.
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Uh, so like you know working 16 hours a day and finding spare time to to study.
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>> So you'd work in a bar in the evening, then do a night shift in a petrol station and then go to high school in the morning.
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>> No, no, the go to college. That was go to college.
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>> That was like high school was more of a dishwasher job like kitchen.
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Uh well I mean you sleep three hours you know like during the day I mean also I don't work every day so you know I probably work four five hours a week and uh so >> um and not all sort of shift are >> uh that bad and you know you can have some sleep with nobody come to the federal station.
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So uh it is uh >> this is in Melbourne.
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Yeah, this is in Melbourne.
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And and that is like a pretty tough period of time that >> really kind of taught me a lot of um things about life, right?
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How resilient um you know what is uh what is hard work uh look like?
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Uh what does survival look like?
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Uh then like I mean I would say uh then after I graduated uh then I would summarize that journey as just um you know I call the I call it the pursuit of happiness. >> Okay.
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>> Uh or you know or just try to figure out things in life. Right.
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So I got a decent job out of the investment bank and I was algo trader and I write code to uh do FX market making or fixed income and other sort of algo trading stuff.
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Um I'm making decent money and on the side I probably tried 10 different businesses uh whether it's in real estate development, architecture, burger, coffee, uh importing, exporting.
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So a lot of random businesses and I was even selling phone cases >> online, right?
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So I made made a phone case um you know with with my friends.
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So all these random businesses are just me experimenting what makes me happy.
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Um >> but I heard the import export business was quite successful.
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was quite successful. I mean like all these businesses made money and and but um you know especially the real estate one was was quite successful but uh >> I wouldn't really feel happy that I feel like I really wanted to building something that uh that can scale um something I can use my uh sort of expertise in technology and engineering right so that >> um you know I was basically finally able to found airwalls and and that will be I
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would say the later chapter of entrepreneurial journey and and you know I think finding something like everyone is quite blessing because I can see myself building for another 10 20 years on this on this business and >> and not worry about getting stay old
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because the market is so big and I just keep can keep creating component value uh billions of enterprise if not multi- if tens of billions of enterprise enterprise value every year. >> Amazing. So, let's go back to that first >> Amazing.
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So, let's go back to that first chapter then of of arriving in Australia and basically having to kind of fund yourself through through your studies and working in pretty tough jobs. Am I right?
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I think you worked in a in a lemon factory at one point.
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>> Yeah, that was a holiday job here for about 4 months.
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>> What were you doing in the lemon factory?
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>> Um, so you know there's uh different size of lemon, you know.
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So there's as a lemon factory you have all sort of uh machines and to try to figure out the size of the lemon and they try to group the similar size into one uh one tray and then uh or to they wash the lemon, wax it and then get any of the the the chain and um some girls that put a label on it, put in a box.
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I'm the one that taking care of all sids of lemon from you know put in a box and put in the sort of 3 meter 3 m pillar and and then just sort of doing that for 12 hours a day. >> Wow.
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>> Uh so there's only two guy in the 11 factory me and the son of the boss and the son of the boss not doing anything was really just me.
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So when you have people now in in London or wherever your offices around the world tech workers kind of complaining about burnout do you just laugh and think this is like you don't know the meaning of hard work.
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I just um you know I think I think like you know mental issues are real and then people have strengths and weaknesses but when you're on surviving mode you are so focused on surviving you don't really have mental issues >> because of course clarifies it >> because you you you you just have one single mission is to leave >> and and when you have that simple mindset you have no anxiety.
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Anxiety is more for complicated lifestyles, right?
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You know, when you have so many desires in life, you have so many uh luxury, then then you start having anxiety.
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This is really really funny. >> Yeah.
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>> Uh so the more >> um sort of uh almost like the more wealth you have, the more likely you're going to have anxiety.
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>> And as as your life has changed and your situations have changed, have you found anxiety creeping in or you just >> Oh, yeah. 100%.
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My anxiety level went through the roof now.
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um you know compared to um you know 20 years ago I was working way harder. >> Yeah.
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>> Uh but was very simple. >> Yeah.
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Cuz you had focused there was >> you don't really have room to think about anything else.
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Just don't even think about it right cuz it's not possible.
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possible. I think that second phase is really interesting for you Jack of like you know you you you made it through that first phase really really tough and then you're starting to build these businesses and and as Cam alluded to some of them from what we understand were pretty successful right like making millions of dollars a year importing exporting olive oil and things like that um I think it's interesting that like
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you get brilliant entrepreneurs around the world who are very good at what they do and might get an olive oil business to like 5 million of revenue a year or something but just never during that aiming phase to say I'm going to stop and I'm going to build something which if I put all my hard work into it and my skill into it, it can be a $10 billion $50 billion company like Airwex rather than kind of limiting themselves. It's
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It's interesting that you kind of went through a bunch of these small >> I didn't know how big was going to be by the way.
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I was, you know, I remember I thought I was going to be pretty happy if it's $100 million business, you know. >> Yeah.
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So, I think I think my key thing is is not really the pursuit of valuation.
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It's really pursue of happiness.
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And I wanted to find something I truly happy about.
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And you know like I was doing real estate and I almost doing nothing >> and I was making multiple million a year and I'm not really using any my intelligence and I'm not solving any hard problems and I mean what I okay I could build a few buildings here and there.
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I mean it's not to discriminate people doing real estate.
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I'm just like not just not for me and I don't feel I made a real impact to the world. I was doing trading.
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I saw you know 20 30 minute P&Ls and on a daily basis but like you know I don't feel anything.
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I'm not really impacting people's life.
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I'm not making anything better in this world. >> Yeah.
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>> Um >> I just feel I'm irrelevant.
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I'm I'm just like I leave I eat I you know I travel around maybe I have a family but then what do I leave to this world? Nothing. Right.
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>> So is it is it a drive for relevance?
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>> I wouldn't say it's relevance.
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>> I wouldn't say it's relevance. I think it's more like just I wanted to make my own stamp in the world that I wanted to see you know the day I died I said I have >> achieved so many things I made >> you know people's life better
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>> um I've impact x many millions of lives right so I think that is something um I always feel that um something I'm I'm fascinated about >> that's a nice segue into the stripe story where you uh famously rejected a offer from the Collinsson brothers to buy your company for 1.2 billion. I 2 billion.
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I think at that moment you had 2 million in revenue or something like some >> for the past 12 months I had 2 million.
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>> Okay, but that was 2 million in revenue.
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>> Well, there's forward is a bit better.
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>> Um, you know, you would have, you know, made an awful lot of money in that process.
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But I guess did you go through a similar kind of uh framework at that moment like that wasn't a happiness maximizing decision.
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You wanted to continue working on hard problems, you know, walk us through that.
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That's a that's a pretty big moment.
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Yeah, I think the first one is essentially not come down to financial decisions right come down to okay, it's a fiveyear lock up.
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I'll be 39 by the time I finish um the the the lockup period and uh if I've survived the five years and um and and then you know like what I'm going to do at age of 39, how can I build another compounding business?
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business? you know the business growled 100x um in that year in terms of volume not revenue but it's a massive um sort of acceleration of growth and I can kind of see at that time we already kind of you know the mission has already evolved
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from just a money movement company to uh you know building a new generation of a global bank to basically competing with HSBC or city bank right so I think they are so out of date and I feel that modern businesses deserve better uh deserve a better global bank to help
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them to to grow and operate with efficiency and you know it take 10 years to get on the starting line to build a global bank right so um obviously I didn't think it's going to take that long at that time and I was na a little naive and thinking about you know I
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didn't know it's going to take us seven years to get a license in Japan for example I didn't know how complicated is to go live in Mexico in in Korea in Brazil all these uh emerging markets as well so and There's so many regulatory challenges all around the world. I think
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I think I thought as we growing growing things going to get easier over time, but it's went the opposite direction.
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It's actually getting harder and harder. >> Yeah.
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If you said yes to that today, Stripe's obviously a lot bigger today.
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You would have had a lot of stock in in Stripe.
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How how much did you walk away from essentially?
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>> Or 34 billion >> and you feel good about it still? >> Yeah.
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I mean, it >> was a good decision.
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what I'm going to what I'm going to do with extra two $3 billion.
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>> You since then you've grown your business massively as well. >> Yeah.
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So I mean also I would say this is in still very early days of of the race, right?
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So I wouldn't call them a finish line.
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>> Tell us the story about your first angel investor.
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>> Yeah, that was very interesting story.
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So um you know we had a coffee business and Max my co-founder from Airwall was running a coffee shop at the time.
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Um, and one day I finished work Friday afternoon and I went to to the coffee shop.
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Uh, then I met Lucy there, who is a friend of Max, uh, who just, um, uh, sort of finished her her work and just resigned from her work in in Hong Kong and went back to Australia.
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Uh, at that time he was thinking about getting married and have kids.
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And at the same time, he's like, "Hey, do you want some investment for your coffee business and looks like you guys doing pretty well?" I was like, "No, no, no.
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I mean, we we're not we we we're not going to keep doing this cover, but we actually have some new ideas and >> uh we we're going to think about a do and it was just a random coffee chat and he kind of got interested.
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He say why don't we just have dinner?
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Um so we we had dinner and we talked about it over dinner and he's like how much money you raising for this global money movement business and uh we said we're probably going to raise a million dollar.
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Um, and he she basically dropped the bomb on the spot.
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He's like, "Hey, how about if I give you two?"
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>> She offered you $2 million on the spot.
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That's the first meeting.
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That's the first time I met her.
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>> And how old is she at this point? >> She's like mid20s.
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>> So, she's mid20s, left her job in banking. >> Yeah.
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So, she has dollars that uh that she was going to buy a house uh to to get married.
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There's some rumors like her family is like super wealthy and all that type of stuff.
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It's kind of And >> you know I you know her family is wealthy but not like >> in a sense that people kind of imagine right her dad is not a billionaire or anything like that anywhere anywhere close to that right. You know what I mean?
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>> So there's not enough money there to make it a sensible decision to offer someone you've just met $2 million. >> Yeah.
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So then uh and we were pretty shocked and we were like this can't be true.
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Uh you know and and you know and then she said why don't we just keep talking about it tomorrow uh in the law school.
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So we all went to University of Melbourne together.
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So when we went back early 8:30 in the morning went to law school there's a library then you know we can still walk in and um and uh then we talk about it uh you know her husband was there strongly against the idea of doing this over >> ruled >> um and uh and she ended the day she said well um that's okay I mean if you don't want to invest I'm just going to invest my family's money and so and then she said I also want to join you guys as well. >> Wow.
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Um so um and we were like yeah I mean we feel kind of bad if we lose all your money so you might just join the company if we you know lose your money at least you know that we spend 200% our effort in and try to make us successful >> but she she's obviously got a great eye but what did you say in that meeting?
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You must have been incredibly convincing.
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I think it just happened that she always she also just wanted to do something. Yeah.
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And you know like sometime you raising money it's not about how great the founder is that the VCs already have >> some ideas and and just somebody showed up at the right spot the right time.
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I feel like I'm kind of the guy that just show up at the exact right moment that >> she feel itchy of doing something.
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>> So wait what happened?
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So then you you hang out at law school.
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She's like no I really do want to invest. And then what happened?
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We got a term agreed um by 11:30 a. m. >> Yeah.
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Um >> $1 million for how much?
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>> $1 million for 20% of company, a $5 million post.
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>> Um we didn't have a company registered at the time.
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>> Um then I think by Monday midday, a million US wired into my personal bank account without anything signed.
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>> She just wired a million dollars into your personal account with nothing signed. >> Yeah, >> that's wild.
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>> Well, I mean obviously she knows Max.
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Max completely strangers.
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>> And how much is that million dollars worth today?
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Or how much would it have been?
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>> Probably half a billion dollars. >> Half.
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So she turned a million dollars into half a billion dollars as an angel investor. >> Yeah.
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And then she sold a bunch over the years, right? So >> unbelievable.
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And then you've also had >> she probably still have half a billion stock. >> Still half a billion. Wow.
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So So maybe into a billion.
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And and and so you've also >> I think it's going to be a lot more than that. >> A lot more.
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So that's probably one of the best angel investments in the history of investing.
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But you've also had, I would say, some of the worst uh decisions ever by venture investors.
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Inevitably, venture investors have to pass on a bunch of stuff which becomes successful.
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But you had a term sheet pulled. Is that right?
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From a venture investor really early that could have >> turned we have multiple terms she pulled in our >> That's your journey. Huh? >> That's quite unusual. You don't hear that. >> I don't know.
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Yeah, we kind of maybe a bad luck and then we had we had this a few times >> including early on.
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So people who >> and early on and even when we have become very successful. >> Yeah. Wow.
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And many of them then came back after pulling term sheets and tried to invest and did invest later on. I also heard. >> Yeah.
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I mean like you know I I think a couple VC in Australia and when I said I wanted to do something crossber payment in Australia is more of a software market right.
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So >> you have the like canva culture and safety culture the bunch of software companies.
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So VCs are more familiar with software >> and it's like somebody wanted to build a fintech company in Australia highly regulated.
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>> Um it would just never such thing just never succeeded in in in the VC history in Australia. Right.
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So this quite >> weird and out of the three biggest VCs only one believed me and obviously doing quite well.
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>> Do you hold a grudge for the port term sheets or business is business?
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>> I probably hold a little bit of that uh with the individual not so much with the font. >> Right.
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>> Right. Uh I feel there's a bit of integrity issue here but you know >> for context for listeners not not deeply immersed in kind of venture world it's not the done thing to to sign a term sheet saying you're going to invest >> and especially if you kind of doing >> that's your word >> multiple of this to many different companies of course which in the case to us is the same person keep doing this
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>> last one on on venture investors um because I think it's kind of interesting is that during your some of your growth rounds some of your investors were not really actually backing numbers you you you still hadn't really nailed the business, but people like Yuri Milner at DST, as I understand it, really backed, you know, you they went deep on you and your amazing life story. They about your They about your vision. Yeah.
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I don't know how Yuri investing, uh, it's kind of interesting to me.
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I wouldn't do that myself.
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I mean, I wouldn't able to through a two-hour conversation and essentially like I met Yuri and Tom Stafford and John Lingo together.
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um with you know during a 2-hour conversation the first hour is John and Tom asked me about the business uh Yuri didn't speak a word and then Yuri spend the next 30 minutes just asking me how I grew up all the stuff I did what I just told you about you know how I actually lost the financial support so Paul how do so many businesses uh on the back of that she just offer me to invest um at at 1.
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1 billion um invest 100 million Amazing.
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>> Um, >> so you kind of get through all of this, you you've come through this unbelievable life journey, you've raised money, company almost dies multiple times, you start really scaling the business now, like very very big revenue.
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Um, but the kind of drama is not over because you're a Silicon Valley outsider.
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There's some really wellunded Silicon Valley insiders competing with you and they've got venture capital investors who don't want to see you succeed.
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And so those guys, you know, have started slinging, you know, accusations against the company that like, you know, it's giving us comp uh US uh data to to to the Chinese Communist Party and all this kind of stuff.
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That must have been like a very intense thing to go through of having all of those accusations thrown at you.
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Was it like personally as a leader?
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>> I'm not sure intense is the right word.
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Um, I think it's like more like kind of angry that um, you know, people just like completely making stuff up, right?
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I mean we run our China Hong Kong business almost like a separate company and there's um data security in place and you know our US data is in uh is in the US data center and um they you know the folks in China even have a different slack different Google uh you know uh workspace and um they can't access our US data center at all.
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They can't even access any of our data center outside of China Hong Kong.
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So the it's not a factual anymore right?
20:59
So you know the Apple airport, Tesla, um all these businesses uh PayPal, Visa, Mastercard all have employee in China.
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City Bank, JP Morgan, you know there's nothing wrong with employee in China have a business there.
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We do in global business.
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>> I mean you have to have a a presence in China because it's even you know despite how bad the geopolitic is between US and China.
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There's a lot of transactions happen between US and China, right?
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China is still the largest supply chain in the world, right?
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in the world, right? So um so I think um you know I think we focus on the fact um where anything when you kind of talk about factual we're doing pretty well and obviously um on the other side they um use my aity to kind of pay me um this
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sort of Chinese spy thing and and I thought it's pretty funny initially I sure white people believe in they they actually think I live in Hong Kong or something or I live in >> I don't know I can't remember they they I think Lucy also live in China and then all this stuff. I mean like I live in
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I mean like I live in Holland Park. Thank you. >> Park, West London. Right.
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>> So I mean I think um anything China is just become sort of um a interesting topic in the US, right?
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So you get lot of um uh uptake on that and and I think the uh they they saw the opportunity to attack me because I'm not from Silicon Valley.
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you know, as I said, the the market is 10 times in terms of addressable market and um the competition is is getting worse.
22:30
You know, if you're looking at there's a bunch of the other areas, right, in the coding agent area, uh you know, factory and and cognition and you know, replaying a deal.
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So, all these sort of drama start happening in in the last couple years and uh sort of competition >> have a new definition in in comic now.
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And I just hope that people can continue on part um and uh rather than you know >> doing this weird racist thing.
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>> You're trying to build a global financial platform.
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You've kind of moved into a period of geopolitical fragmentation.
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Do you think it's possible to build a like a truly global finance platform these days with the world as it is geopolitically? >> I I think so.
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>> I I think so. I mean if if you kind of thinking about what the the the kind of future look like um you know the every single entrepreneur that building on AI are global first they have customers everywhere they have um uh they have employees everywhere so that these sort of paradigm shift they're driven by technology the like the like
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of internet the like of mobile the cloud the AI these are things that nonstopable right it's ineverable by um geopolitics I mean because the the the adoption of technology on mobile on cloud on um AI is it just it's just so fast right it's just kind of have this and then the cycle of of this paradigm shift is actually become shorter and shorter
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right >> um and the government and try to react by this sort of technology shift and innovations and um as a as a platform that we need to kind of basically make sure that we solve all these you know geopolitics challenges or or data sovereignty challenges or uh financial infrastructure challenges so that we give that kind of seamless
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um you know global banking and payments platform for for our customers so they don't have to worry about all that and I think I think it's it's challenging but it's 100% possible that that's exactly what we're building now we have such a small sort of domestic market and we have to build a global platform to able to build a a viable business. I mean
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I mean fintech is is a high risk low margin business.
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So so like if you can't get scale that you just die right disappear.
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So uh you know for us it's really important to think about what the long-term look like.
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long-term look like. So we basically have to build this infrastructure-driven uh multi-part multi-reion go to market approach which is extremely complicated and it takes you know it takes us six years to get to the first $100 million
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AR then took us 3 years to get to a billion then now we approaching two billion by end of the year socredible >> you know within 12 months right so I think it is just continue to see that kind of exponential growth because of the the things we build start compounding Yeah. >> Uh and also like you know the very
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>> Uh and also like you know the very simple decisions we made a decade ago become some of the best advantages we have which is what are some of those >> infrastructure first API first >> right so that that makes you know the entire organization is is infrastructure first API first and all these rails that we built uh become a core vantage in agenic world right so now it's very easy
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for us to deploy agent OS essentially a bunch of um you know MC MCPS and command lines to allow uh engineers or just people uh vibe code on top of our platform that you know beyond just like a a simple uh you know web interface or a mobile interface now it's kind of becoming the default to have uh agent to consume your product uh and then the banks are just not even anywhere close to where we are. So they
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anywhere close to where we are. So they they so far behind in the in the in the APR world um and they so far behind on the infrastructure because they did you know all this global bank did many acquisitions and they have disjointed experiences and systems in place right u
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and the data is all in different places it's just impossible for them to build uh the the go system for agent to use um and that just give us huge amount of advantage to essentially defining >> uh the next sort of era of a global banking which is we call agentic banking
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>> and what do you believe about that future of agentic finance agentic banking that very few people understand cuz it's you know you're you're right front and center and I think it's coming very very fast but like what paint a picture for our listeners of what that looks like and what they might not
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understand about that future yet >> so I think the um in the off sort of typical sort of office of the CFO that you would have um a dozen sort of verticals right and each of these vertical have a software provider um that uh been around uh for for for for a long time or decades, right? So you have
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So you have FPNA, you have account receivable, revenue recognition, you have um uh uh sort of account payable, expense management, reimbursement, uh you have general ledger.
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Um you just have so many of these verticals um that does different things where the nature of of of agenic finance or genic banking that is is horizontal, right?
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because all these agents sort of have the contacts have the data and they can work together uh to creating outcome.
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You don't really need this vertical disciplines anymore.
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So everything emerging to this horizontal operating system uh for the company essentially sort of become in the intelligence layer but also the action layer to not only to you know understand the data uh understand the contact then creating action but eventually move the money and complete the task. Right?
28:12
the task. Right? So if you can only do first part of that and not able to actually in creating the instrument of financial services then that is the agent is not able to create an outcome and they can't verify the outcome and and that is like very inefficient way of thinking about uh using agents and and sort of the way airwallers build it from
28:33
the infrastructure layer first and all the way up uh with API first approach and now sort of agent first approach that just give infinite possibilities for the companies and entrepreneurs and finance team to creating this horizontal operating system layer to essentially automating as much as you can uh and and creating this deterministic layer that to uh essentially creating company outcome. >> So I have a spicy question. I mean
28:57
>> So I have a spicy question.
28:57
I mean revolute stripe airwalls uh ramp all kind of started in different spots you know with different initial go to markets but that version of the future you describe it seems like everyone's going to end up competing for a similar prize.
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So if you took airwalls out of the picture, which of those companies do you think is is going to be the do the dominating force?
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>> If you think of how many global banks out there, right?
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So there's um almost every single GDP uh fintech or banks or insurance company are kind of the majority of the top 50 companies in that economy, right?
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companies in that economy, right? Um and then we have tens of thousands of banks and this this sort of traditional financial services company uh around the world and um how many are going to be left in 10 15 20 years right so I think
29:53
you will see the like of the revol you know etc or us and we're going to continue to scale so the next decade is really for the hyper scalers in fintech you know I just mentioned um the the fintech is is a hybrid low margin business and the only way to build a big
30:11
big big business is scale and but the benefit of fintech is once you have scale there it's such big tan >> and you can just keep compounding and growing for 10 20 30 years right the cycle innovation is getting shorter and shorter the time you know like 50 years ago
30:29
the the incumbent have 10 20 years react on certain strategies but now you like AI within three years to become a global phenomenal right they still try to figure it about you moving everything to cloud and they try to still figure out what is the API strategy. None of the
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None of the bank have APIs right and how they going to figure out what to do with AI because AI is on top of uh you know the data strategies on top of these API strategies on top of the infrastructure.
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So if you kind of laid on all this stuff before AI then AI just only make it 10 times worse worse for you. >> Yeah.
31:01
And you said and you said fintech a high volume low margin high-risisk business.
31:05
I mean presumably with stable coins the margins will continue to go down.
31:10
Um how do you how do you see that affecting your business?
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affecting your business? Is it good for it because it lowers kind of the friction of moving money or ultimately is that going to eat into the margins of everyone's >> I think people looking at >> okay fear financial system stable coin they look at it's like okay there's two different things actually not I mean if
31:26
you think about cash right it's cash still like we have still have a lot of cash in in in the society >> uh and it takes like 30 40 50 years for cash to gradually disappearing um you know stable coin is going to be a very similar sort of story I mean is you know just by first principle does it sense for financial services to be 24 by7. Yes. Right. So um and so a lot of the Yes. Right.
31:45
So um and so a lot of the settlement um uh infrastructure that should be uh you know leveraging stable coin whether it's stock trading or commodity trading or FX trading or money market fund tokenized assets.
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market fund tokenized assets. all these traditional financial services that possibly uh you know moving on chain maybe should and then and kind of having this uh you know 24 by7 real-time payments uh sort of settlement system
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but the water doesn't it's not binary so that when when you're trading when you trade like a million dollar FX where okay so I have like $400 $400,000 on stable and then $600,000 that you know I couldn't find liquidity on stable so what I do with $600,000 Right? So somebody need to build a
32:28
So somebody need to build a unified infrastructure that cross both fiat and stable.
32:33
Essentially what I'm trying to say is stable just a payment rails. Right?
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So whether you know the payment rails you know there's a wallet there's bankto bank um you know stable there's many sort of payment rails out there and these payment rails are going to continue to evolve over the next decade.
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And so for a platform like us, we basically need to build this unified infrastructure to catering for all these different rails and then facilitating all this sort of transaction.
32:57
On the other side uh and me and um another uh friend of mine from Melbourne that we actually co-ounded a stable coin infrastructure company recently.
33:06
You did >> um is to essentially uh moving a lot of the settlement layer uh in in FIA to to to 24x7 on chain and we built our own layer one.
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Um so we we're going to we're going to make announcement um very soon.
33:21
So you know again I mean these just you know doesn't matter how the rails evolving uh globally.
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The most important thing is what the customer need uh the customer need a seamless experience of growing that business globally with efficiency.
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Uh they wanted to you know sell the product in all these sort of 200 countries around the world.
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They want to hire anybody around the world.
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They wanted to operating with efficiency.
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They want to have agent to pay the taxes and look at the P&Ls and tell them what they should where they can save money where they should spending more because that's more efficiency in certain markets from a go to market point of view.
33:57
All this data sitting in the company right now in a dozen different systems that they not able to unleash the true power of the product, right?
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and and that is what airwalls are here to do is to really build uh the infrastructure to allow them to run that business autonomously.
34:17
Jack in brief where where is airwall today in terms of scale and valuation and revenue and then this next kind of giant idea of a gent banking how big do you think you'll be in in 10 years?
34:28
>> I think we um with a 1.
34:28
5 billion in ARR and um I think last quarter we still growing 76% yearonear. Wow.
34:37
>> Um and um so we we we we're going to be approaching 2 billion probably by end of the year. >> Incredible.
34:43
>> Um and I think um if you kind of think about it, right?
34:47
So I said there's a lot of vertical uh discipline in the office of CFO and the finance team um and all these discipline are collapsing.
34:54
So there used to be um hundreds of billion dollars in these sort of companies uh and then probably a few trillion dollar of revenue pool out there.
35:02
Uh but now um the TAM actually went 10 time because the knowledge workers become addressable, right?
35:11
So you know I have customers that like a message bird in in Netherland and they had >> um 40 plus people in uh finance team and after they got rid of um all the dozen banks.
35:24
So the you have bank in Australia, they have a bank in Singapore, they have a bank in the US and bank in Europe and bank in UK.
35:28
They got rid of all the banks and moved everything onto airwalls and uh they automated everything from AR to AP from FPNA uh and payments and expense management reimbursement.
35:41
reimbursement. So once they got everything onto and onto our platform they essentially able to automating using agent to automating most of the work in the corporate finance team and now they have less than 10 people in in
35:53
a finance team right so these are the things all kind of addressable right so um you know how we pricing that that is a different story but then essentially you see a collapsing of the traditional uh vertical SAS market in in in in a
36:08
sort of office of CFO and and then you can see the 10 10 times Because all the knowledge workers are going to be changing the job sort of function as in like instead of doing the manual reconcilation or manual analytics or or manual uh adjustment uh in a general
36:26
ledger the agent is going to do all that they're going to focus on what's the most important thing which is uh you know make financial decisions and recommending to the CEOs on what they should invest and where they should pull back. your status as an outsider from
36:37
your status as an outsider from Silicon Valley, seeing these crossber payments with a coffee shop in in Australia gave you a real edge in in terms of seeing something before other people saw it.
36:47
Do do you feel like you have gained an edge consistently as being an outsider?
36:55
>> I think um I I mean as entrepreneur I still believe in fact and truth, right?
37:01
I mean that's how why I started a company.
37:02
I want to I want to make sure um you know what I what I you know what I able to to build on pawn is something I believe in.
37:11
Um I think every also every crisis or risk is is opportunity to um take advantage of right.
37:18
to um take advantage of right. So I think if there's anything he's definitely made us a lot more famous in the US and >> um you know provided you know you know and and also like all this factual stuff is on our side and everything sticks he's going to be look like a joke in a
37:33
couple years time as we continue to building a bigger and bigger business right as we continue to having more and more uh you know venture-driven companies that build on top of us right you know 11 labs is a big customer and you know you have all sort of AI companies around the world using
37:49
airwalks as a sort of core for global bank uh and lot of the bigger businesses especially have multiple entities uh globally that using us for spend management which you know ramp don't have any global capabilities right so I think all these things um are the are the fact and uh it's going to be pretty
38:06
hard to to change or catch up on because it takes us a decade to build the infrastructure and uh as we kind of keep componing in the next couple years I think you know you've be looking backwards and it's going to be look I think they're going to look pretty stupid Yeah, I have a question. You
38:19
You you've um you've obviously described a pretty uh impressive work ethic.
38:23
You've also been described I think you described yourself and been described as a perfectionist.
38:28
We just talked about Yuri basically making a hund00 million investment decision based on your background and and your history and what you've gone through.
38:36
What do you look for in the people that you hire and how what kind of qualities are you trying to identify and what's really important to you and the people that you bring on to Airwalks on your mission?
38:46
>> Uh I think it's a couple things.
38:46
I would say three things.
38:48
probably the most important one.
38:49
Then the the first one is intellectual curiosity.
38:52
Uh that people are just generally curious about a problem and willing to go deeper on understanding a problem space.
39:00
>> Uh and I have ability to to solve it.
39:00
Um I think the second one is really >> uh sort of people want to win. Yeah.
39:09
>> Um that people that you know would work hard uh to change things uh to um not really just taking the status quo but actually wanted to to fix things and to challenging uh the existing um product or or problem space um and you know just just do great things about it.
39:34
I mean you you you don't have to be a great engineer.
39:36
great engineer. I mean you but you must have done something great in your life right whether it's a competition or it's uh it's sports or or it's mass or or you know it's build you build a business or or something that you you excellent in
39:50
and you have to have um achievement in life so we're really looking for that and I think the last thing is resilience um that um people I mean resilience and also optimistic I guess that um but if you have both and that I think you can you can really do great things in life. >> It's a lot of what we look for in
40:08
>> It's a lot of what we look for in founders.
40:09
So, it looks like you're really looking for kind of founder mentality. >> Yeah.
40:12
Like, you know, the the people that uh things always not always go, you know, go right, sorry, go wrong and and you know, it's it you always have problem, right?
40:23
So, things go wrong all the time and you're not going to get it right every single time.
40:26
And and how you kind of able to be resilient during that really >> that period and and keep building on that, you know, we our growth slowed down a bit.
40:35
um a few years ago and and we had to build it back up uh to continue to to to grow um at a a pretty high sort of AR.
40:44
Um and you know, every single new new market we launched, we failed the first time.
40:50
You know, we failed in the UK the first time we launched it.
40:53
We failed in in uh in in in in Hong Kong when we launched it.
40:56
We failed in uh the US the first time we launched it.
41:00
launched it. So even our home market in Australia the the first product launch we failed right so then we just keep building uh and then keep um fixing it and then eventually we successful and now we very rarely failed the go to market launch >> love it >> uh just we build this you know
41:18
resilience and then corporate um sort of strategy that we can easily launch the new market >> jacket is one of the most crazy up and down life stories forget about business stories that we've ever had on the show so thank you so so much for coming on and telling us about your journey and about your giant idea. Really appreciate Really appreciate it.
41:35
>> Yeah, thanks for sharing. >> Thanks. Thanks, guys. Awesome.
41:36
Glad to have this conversation.