Micky Malka, Founder of Ribbit Capital

Key Takeaway

Reject labels to preserve infinite possibilities. Mickey Malka refuses to be defined as 'entrepreneur' or 'investor,' calling himself 'an entrepreneur at heart, an investor by design.' This fluidity allows him to adapt daily—some days building, some days investing, some days doing both. Labels create invisible constraints that limit how you see opportunities and make decisions. By staying unlabeled, you remain open to changing the rules when you're ahead and innovating when you're behind.

Episode Overview

Mickey Malka, founder of Ribbit Capital, discusses his philosophy of rejecting labels, the discipline of writing investment theses that take over a year to develop, and why today's 20-somethings are the fastest-learning generation in history. He shares insights from Warren Buffett's letters and his mentorship with Dee Hock, founder of Visa, while explaining his vision of companies as 'token factories' in an AI-driven future.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Micky Malka, Founder of Ribbit Capital from David Senra. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Thanks for doing this, Mickey. David, it's a pleasure to be here with you. you. you. There's so many times in our previous conversations where I'm listening to you speak and I'm like, "Shit, Mickey really does think and act a lot uh very similar to like a lot of history's greatest entrepreneurs that I read all these biographies about for Founder's Podcast." And one thing that I think you have in common with them and that you said before to me is that you hate being labeled. Can you say more about that?

I think it's a way of always growing up in Venezuela and in all my life you never had people being labeled. I never learned what what what that was about. And every time somebody tried to put me on a label, I fought really hard to get out of it. From, "Hey, are you tall? So you must be play good at basketball." And my first answer is, "No, I suck at basketball." Just trying to get all my myself out of any particular label all the way to, "Are you an investor?

Are you an entrepreneur?" And I said, "What about if I'm both? What about if I'm not any? Why do I need a label?" a label?" a label?" And the more you walk through life allowing things to have label, the more difficult life is because then you cannot see through it. You just see what you've been told to see. So I think it's part of my rebel cause to never accept labels. Yeah, I think if you're labeled, it means you're kind of conforming to like an existing mold.

And I think the great founders, they're inherently non-conformists. non-conformists. non-conformists. Yes, and you have to be non-conformist because the world can always be better. So why accept whatever is there today? So when you just said, "Hey, are you an entrepreneur? Are you an investor? Maybe I'm both, maybe I'm neither." Like today, how do you view today, how do you view yourself? yourself? yourself? So I describe myself as an entrepreneur at heart, an investor by design. Such a general line that allows me to do anything, right?

Some days I can wake up and be an entrepreneur, some days I can be an investor, some days I can be both, some days I can be something completely different. But at heart means that it comes from a place from inside that if I change my heart, I can just change it. And by design means that if I learn, I keep learning how to do something, I can only get better at it. So, I just allow myself to keep learning. So, there's really no like you're completely fluid.

You don't really I put it like a label on yourself. Correct. I don't. I try and I avoid it. The only label I I want to get The only label I I want to get in life is that people say I'm a great friend, I'm a great partner, and I'm a good father. And if I can get that label, that label I would love to have. All of the other ones, I don't care. Yeah, I'm always interested in how people think about like their own perception of their work because I just had this great conversation with Rick Rubin.

And I had to like interrupt him one time cuz he's like, "Yeah, I kind of think of myself as a researcher." And I'm like, "What?" Cuz you know, the people think music producer and now he's a podcaster and you know, he's a consigliere to like some of the top artists in the world. He's just like, "I'm all day I'm just like finding what I'm intensely curious about and just researching that as far as I can." And I think that's what it takes. And that's what entrepreneurs do every day, and that's what a great investor does every day.

But you don't get a label like that, but yes, I will agree with you. you. you. Question. I went to your website. I've read a bunch of these like What do you call them? They're not even manifestos. What do you Are they essays? They're essays. They're essays. They're essays. Okay. So, I'm very curious. You've only done a handful. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh I'm very curious like how your writing shapes you not only your thinking, but also what you want to build through Ribbit. Writing is everything.

Because we can sit here and talk about ideas for hours, but if you're not willing to put them in writing, you will never learn what truly they they are, how deep they are. And what I find is typically those essays that you that that you read, uh they start by being probably 20 pages long, long, long, but I can actually get a napkin and explain to you each one in a napkin. And if I can do that, if anybody can explain anything complex to you in a napkin, it means that they have studied enough that they know how to articulate it.

it. it. So, what we do there is we start by writing our essays. And our essays, what they are allowing us to do is to not conform to what the world thinks today. It's to allow us to conform to what the world looks like in 10 years, 15 years. Just imagine and let it let it flow. Let it go. Let let that energy get out there. Let that energy be taken from from from our brains and our Q&A's and our diligence and our calls. Just put it out there and see what happens.

Why do you think that's that's beneficial? beneficial? beneficial? Because it gives you conviction. If you cannot have conviction, then you're going to be going in mood swings with the markets. Up and down. If something changes, you got to be able The only way to really have a joyful investment life or life in general is to try to play this very long infinite game. game. game. And the only way to do that well is to have to you need conviction in whatever you do. You got to be willing to be wrong for a long time.

But if I write it and we put it in writing and we share it with the world and we get feedback, it allows us to make sure that the compass is in the right direction. How long did they take to write? Some of them can take us a year. Some of them can take us four, five months. But the whole process to get a thesis that we like, sit down, think about it, about it, about it, articulate it, test it, share it, come back, work it, probably like a year, year and a half.

I know you're a fan of Buffett. You've been a shareholder for All my life. Yeah, like more than 20 13. 13. 13. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. You know. You know. You know. I saw one of your tweets. I think it was from like 2015 and he was like I think you were holding for like 25 years or something like that at that point. So, even more now. And I know you write all his shareholder letters, which I'm a huge fan of. Did that influence your decision to start writing these essays?

essays? essays? Completely. So, Completely. So, Completely. So, I bought my first share of Berkshire when I was 13 years old in Venezuela. It was November of 1987. How? How? How? It was my Why would a 13-year-old be interested in in Berkshire? in Berkshire? in Berkshire? I don't know. I had read a few articles uh in Fortune magazine about him, about about American Express, about Coca-Cola, about a certain brands, and I loved the brands he he had in his portfolio. I didn't know anything about float or insurance.

I was not very familiar with that line of the business. I would hope not at 13. And and back then, what he you what what uh he used to say was buy it and get it shipped mailed to you in physical form. Don't leave it in a broker house so people cannot margin against it. And there I was. I was 13. I had had my Bar Mitzvah in November of '87. Uh the crash had happened a month before, the October '87 crash. Stock went down a lot, and I didn't collect enough money to buy one share, so I had to ask my grandfather for a loan.

Asked for a loan, which he charged me interest as a way to teach me. And bought one share and had it mailed in the mail. It showed up in Venezuela. Uh luckily, I don't know how I didn't lose it. And and so since then, every year I got the annual letters by by by mail. mail. mail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I would read them, and I would highlight them, and then I would go and learn that maybe you have to buy the little book from The Wall Street Journal called Understanding Money and Markets because you uh there were terms I didn't understand in the letter.

And my self-learning came from doing all of that since I was 13. Imagine what a 13-year-old kid could do now with AI. Like if he wanted to he or she wanted to go through Buffett's letters and then I was just this like thought partner and companion compared to you having to buy a book and and look into the definition of a word. Like I I I was thinking about it, and I was saying if I were to do it again at 13 now 13 now 13 now with all of these, I would go to AI and tell them write do me take those letters, find me the Buffett Partnership letters from before, which are very hard to find, but you can find them.

Read them, analyze them, come back to me, give me the like it will be insane what you can do. Now, I think you will lose a little bit of the nuance because part of it, if you read them carefully enough, and you you've done it, you know that there's the pattern repeats, and what you learn from it is not the decisions he makes, it's how in any environment he repeats the same pattern of decision-making process. And that's the most important thing that you get from reading it.

I don't know if AI can give you that. say more about that. So, it doesn't matter if you were in the 1970s when there was a little bit of inflation or high inflation in America compared to standards, and he talked there about how he treated float and how float of insurance worked, or in the era of zero interest rates on on on on and then how he talked about float and the cost of float. It didn't matter what was the microeconomic conditions of the world or the microeconomic conditions of the interest rate.

He used the same pattern every single time to define how to think about money. Why do you think that's so special that he used the same pattern? Because I think it's the discipline that he built. He just defined was amazing at taking all the noise away, canceling noise, and focusing on the three things that matter the most. And that only you can do if you study enough. enough. enough. What I learned, and I went to the annual meetings for a number of years, and I got to meet him and hang out with him afterwards and all of that for a number of years, of years, of years, to me, going there was not learning anything new, it was just seeing how he applied those principles to the new economic conditions that every year were around.

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That is ramp.com. ramp.com. ramp.com. This is really special to me right now because have you spent any time with Daniel Ek in person? No. No. No. Okay. He's one of like the wisest people I know, and I I just did the right like a couple days after I filmed that episode with Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin. Who again like I've been making episodes with Rick Rubin forever. Like I grew up loving hip-hop. So, he found a Def Jam in his dorm room, which is one of the most iconic most iconic most iconic hip-hop record labels.

And so like, you know, for probably a decade and a half I was a fan of Rick Rubin from afar before I got to meet him. And then I had like probably I don't know a couple days, maybe a week later I was having a drink with Daniel. And he goes, "Well, how was the your how was it hanging out with Rick?" And I was just like, "What's What was fascinating to me is just like the aura is still there, but if you actually analyze Rick and his career, Rick Rubin and his career, it's just like he had like basically when he was 19 when he started Def Jam, and now I think he's 63.

He had like four ideas. And these ideas are not [ __ ] complicated. It's like the adherence to the love of simplicity, reduction instead of production, always working with the very best people you possibly can, building the product for yourself first. He's just making literally he is the patient zero. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just building stuff that I want to see. And I was like, yeah, that's it. And I was like I it's it's you know, remarkable that those are like the components of that. And I was like, it it seem that special because they're just so so simple ideas.

Like, yeah, but who adheres to the same four ideas for 40 years? 40 years? 40 years? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, [ __ ] that is what's special. It's very so much what you just said about that. what's special. what's special. what's special. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why they're writing it special for us. Okay. Okay. Okay. to adhere to that. So, do you want to talk about I the one that you you wrote you wrote recently on tokens? So, I love I love what you just said.

Like, I can you read it, it's very long and there's charts and everything else, but you're like, I can distill it down into a napkin. I think compression is understanding. Let's start with like the the napkin version of the token essay and then you can expand on it from there. there. there. The concept is very simple. The word token means something different to everybody. If we sat with with Ryan from Visa, the word he defines token is different than the word that Sundar has for token at at Google or the different word that OpenAI has for token or on topic.

They're all different, but they all mean the same. It's machine readable information. So, if you think about the companies, we call them token factories because just think about the industrial revolution example in this token revolution era revolution era revolution era where every company needs a supply of tokens, of information, money and knowledge, and then they do something and they deliver something new. And you need basically three components to deliver any service, any promise, or any product. You're going to need to understand identity. You're going to need to understand value.

value. value. And you need to understand the intelligence that goes into it. And right now, we're in the early innings where we're starting to see first is the frontier labs being the token factories. They're taking all information from the web, from videos, from the world, and they're finding a way to ingest it and create a different set of tokens that somebody else can consume. So, they are the raw materials providers to these factories. Now, in the next few years, we're going to see that evolution go deeper and deeper and deeper, and it will be much more personalized and it will be much more complete to verticals that we haven't even touched.

Like today, today, today, token factory has untouched money that much. much. much. Money has been outside of AI and we're on year four or five. It's funny because money is supposed to be one of the first most fungible things that should be playing the game and it's not. Why do you think it should be one of the the first things that play in the game? Because it it's it's one of the things that flows the most in the world. Everything flows to money. Like my my my whole life the thing about what keeps my learning going is I follow flows.

I believe that nothing static, right? Money is never static. Money is like gravity. It always falls it always moves. It always always going somewhere. It's like water. It's it's never stuck. Energy Energy Energy is flowing everywhere. From the lights that we're in here, but also our own energies. Right now we're creating all energies and we're we're sharing that energy. And And so I find that um um um for something that is as as dynamic as money, it is not attached to AI yet on anything. So, how does it get attached?

I think it's going to be that intersection between probably what blockchains will do and AI will do because you will need to have intelligent smart contracts that will do stuff on your behalf. And you can start to see great entrepreneurs and great founders working on it. You can we can talk about Patrick at Stripe and and how they're building all this. The literally when you were saying that, I just heard John Collison talked about this and basically he said that that's the only thing he's working on.

It's like a gen tech payments for agents. Yeah. And And that's the future and you can talk to anybody in that space or Vlad at Robinhood doing the same for for equities and you can see how they're tokenizing assets and we're in the early innings, but we're behind compared to knowledge. Knowledge went much faster. Money's it's behind. Which is fine. So, explain cuz I don't know anything about this and you you study this night and day. So, explain what you think is going to happen with this and like the next like year or two.

I don't know the next year or two. It's hard to know because with the speed of AI, what happens in the next 12 months? months? months? Or yeah, next few months, whatever. But what what I will say is that what we should start seeing very soon is agents that are designed for specific functions that will take care of your financial life in ways that you have never been taken care of. And some of the best founders have articulated this really well. David from Nubank, David Velez said, you know, mobile was the way to put a bank in your pocket.

pocket. pocket. Uh Uh Uh now AI is going to be the way to get you the banker the banker the banker in your pocket. So, what I expect to see very very soon is an AI agent that can go and do all kinds of investment decisions recommendations. He can go do all kinds of commerce decisions and recommendations and he can serve to do any kind of payment decisions and recommendations on your behalf. And you are going to start to see how that's going to free time and ideas that you don't have today.

We're just starting. The signals that this is going the right way signals, prediction markets. Prediction markets, it's it's an interesting market. People are calling Some people call it the gambling. Some people call it a place where you can bet on anything 24/7. But here's the thing, it's 24/7. it's 24/7. it's 24/7. And what agents need is a 24/7 rails. So, all of this is building the rails to allow all of this to happen. And what we expect is that we're going to see a bunch of new companies or incumbents that are going to be shipping these features in ways that we have not experienced before.

That was going to be my next question to you. Who do you think actually wins this? Cuz you just named, you know, three pretty big, well-established companies. You have Stripe, Robinhood, Nubank. You think it comes from them or you think it comes from a startup? I think it comes from them. Uh Uh, because first, they're still founder-led or Revolut also, they're still founder-led. Those founders are pushing the boundaries of all of this. They are at an age and they are at a place and if you talk to them, they're still as hungry as they were on day one.

They're still in that day one mentality and they're just going faster than the incumbents. For a while, I thought the incumbents were going to catch up. In 2021, 22, 23, I thought they were fair enough. There was not much difference between a financial product offer from an incumbent and from a one of these neo brands. That's different today. Uh, again, AI has just become a rocket, uh, nitro rocket for the for this breed of technology companies to just accelerate even faster and separate themselves again, which is a beauty of the infinite game.

In the beauty of the infinite game, you never get to win and you never get to lose. You're simply ahead or behind. And they were ahead for a long, long time and then they were the other ones were catching up, but the rules changed. What happens? What happens? What happens? You're ahead again or you and the other ones fall behind, but the the game never ends. That's the way I live my life. That's the way I think about everything I do. That's the way I make decisions.

I don't think about winning or losing ever, ever, ever, uh, on anything I do. I just think about will this put me ahead or put me behind in the game and then just keep playing the game. the game. the game. So, I know you you play the infinite game. You want to play forever, but are you do you consider yourself a competitive person though? Define com- competitor. I guess the way I think about it is just like I'm in a very positive some industry. If you listen to my podcast today and another podcast tomorrow, I don't lose on that, but I still wake up every day trying to like do the best job I possibly can.

Yes. So, if that's a competitor, yes. I try to do the best I can. not relative to other people. No. I don't look at other people. I don't I Each one is playing their own game. I have I try really hard to not have fear of missing out. I try really hard to just make sure that I'm playing the best game I can to play this game until the last day I I am alive. Doesn't matter if I win or lose because you will that's not the game.

You won't You fall behind. Actually, I will tell you that I've learned about myself, I rather be behind. I'm a much better person being behind or when I'm ahead. When I'm ahead, it means oh, you guys are doing well. This is going right direction. You were right. This happened with this This played out. And immediately immediately my spider senses get all activated and say, "Okay, that means that whatever the I got to change the rules because it's not good to be ahead. You want to be ahead for a while, but you want the rules to change to fall behind so you can innovate again." again." again." Yeah, this is why I said that you did so many times when we're talking like god damn it, Mickey sounds just like the people I read books about.

Uh I just met James Dyson who was like a personal hero of mine. And he said the exact same thing on his podcast. He's just like losing is so much more interesting. He's like you just learn so much. He likes being behind. being behind. being behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he just has that chip on his shoulder. Well, really just desire to constantly improve. He just feels you're going to improve a lot more when you're like losing or you're behind. 100%. I'm much better when I'm behind.

I learn more. I'm I everything everything about it is just gives you much more energy. I want to go back cuz I interrupted you. I want to go back to the your idea of like every company is becoming a token factory. The only token factories that you see right now are the the labs? No, so you're starting to see application layers that are starting to show up that are building token factories. Think about on the voice AI. Think about Eleven Labs or Decagon or Sierra. They're all companies that are understanding how to how to They're creating their token factories.

They're creating a service that did not exist before in a way that was not possible. We're going to a world where every single piece of information needs to be read over by a machine. And that's how the world will go to the next generation. next generation. next generation. So, you finish writing the letter. What do you do next? We share with our um founders, people that we work with closely, and we allow them to uh and our LPs, our investors. Why? Because we want them to hold us accountable.

accountable. accountable. This is this is our thinking. You have a chance, you can walk out, or you can keep believing in our in our in our thesis. So, we we we we put it out there, there, there, and then we we go out, and we start talking about it with the founders that we met while we wrote it. And what happens you've not yet invested in? Most of them are founders that we have not yet invested in. Because as we write a thesis, we have not invested into them yet.

We're learning from them. Maybe along the way we make an investment or two, maybe. two, maybe. two, maybe. But most of the time we don't, and then after that and what happens is some of the best founders will read it and said, and said, and said, "Oh, wow. "Oh, wow. "Oh, wow. You guys really understand it. This is deep. Let's talk about it." And that's how we build those relationships that take a long time to build. So, I know you spend a lot of time with people in their early 20s.

Do you feel that this is the way they're talking they're thinking in about building companies? companies? companies? Good question. I think some of them are. I think some of some others are not, like any other generation. What I What I believe the people in their 20s have right now is that they are the smartest, smartest, smartest, fastest learner generation we've ever had in history. They learn the fastest. And it's because they get used to listen to podcasts at 1 and 1/2 2x. They They don't have to wait for the mail to arrive with the annual letter a month later, they can read it in real time, right?

So, their ability to process information is so much faster than our brains ever had been trained for. So, you can see it in the way they can process. process. process. What I think the best ones can do also is that they can articulate a vision and a story and and bring people to follow them, but not all of them have those skills yet. They haven't developed them. Because that generation, as much as they're super smart learning, they're also were not trained to be great communicators on the other side.

So, the few that are great communicators, I think they have it in embedded in them. How do you think they view company building differently than somebody that's say 10 years older than them? them? them? I think they look at all charts very differently. differently. differently. I think they look at functions very differently. They don't think the the all chart structure that we inherited and that we grew up with, I don't think it applies anymore. In the same way they did. Humans are key center and they will be for as long as we're alive in in in our genera- in our lifetime.

lifetime. lifetime. But, all charts and the way they organize people organize people organize people completely different and you can see it. They are self-organizing and I I I love starting this because one of my mentors is Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, and I spent with him almost almost almost 10 or 12 years visiting him and and talking to him. And he's he's he's he's the creator of the chaotic organization. He is the believer that you should never organize the best expression of humans are in the intersection between chaos and order.

If you're too orderly, you don't innovate. If you're too chaotic, you don't communicate and you break. So, chaotic is the right place to be. They are actually doing this kids are doing a great job by pure nature of how they've were trained and wired with this era of technology to be in the epicenter of chaotic. So, that's how they're working and that's what's different about them. What else did you learn from Dee? Um, the fascinating a couple people have asked me before cuz I've done like two or three episodes on Dee Hock.

He wrote this this great autobiography, which is you know, tells the story of Visa. But, then when he was a much older man, he also has these two books of maxims called the autobiography of a restless mind volume one and volume two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, somebody can compress the language and and give you a lot of ideas in like, you know, a sentence or two. A lot of people have asked me it's like, why do you think you know, Visa is one of the most successful companies of all time?

They're one of the most profitable per employee companies in history. And yet, not a lot of people talk about it. And somebody asked me one time, or a few people have actually asked me this, like, why do you think that is? It's like, cuz it's still very confusing on how he actually built it. I've read his book two times and I still don't really understand. So, like, what else do you think you learned from D. Hawk? Did he influence the way you built Ribbit at all?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, I want to hear And not only Ribbit, my my my previous startups, too. startups, too. startups, too. Because he he he told me so much about how to how to get people to be the best version of themselves in in the kind of organizations that you have to have. Even my go-to question on interviews is a question he taught me on on how to ask. So, I've learned so much from him. What is that question? I give people six words and I tell them to organize them in a certain order.

And and then the way they walk through that order says a lot about about the person. And it was a letter that D wrote to his team in 1972, I think, where he articulates all of this. So, I I learned that from him. So, spending time with D, what what you get is that he understood human psychology better than anybody in that era in that particular space. He understood that to get bankers who, by their sheer DNA, are people that are tend to be risk adverse and people that care too much about their reputation, he found a way through this model of association.

His biggest success was the legal model he used. No one had ever done a company in that structure. An association model allow everybody to save face, but at the same time take the credit. And that's how he won. Because it doesn't matter who you were, which bank competed with the other one, it didn't even care because each one can compete by themselves while at the same time winning the brand one. That was the beauty of the when you spend time with him, he would say, "It was the model and people don't get it." So, I I find that his res- restless mind was alive even in his early 90s because I would have sworn that he could have been Sat- Satoshi Nakamoto if he had if he been 40 years younger.

He had explained to me blockchain and what for him Visa was a failure if you if you talk to him because he only got to release release release the simple version of it, which was payments. He wanted to do a lot more which looked a lot like blockchains and and smart contracts are today. But, he was probably 60 years ahead of his time. his time. his time. Deel is how the best founders turn the world into their talent pool. I've been studying how history's greatest founders operate for a decade and one thing they all have in common is they understand that recruiting and hiring the very best talent is your most important priority.

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From what sense? I think the founders are moving forward like obviously going to be way more capital efficient. capital efficient. capital efficient. Uh I think they're going to own lar- larger percentages of their companies because they're going to need to to um to raise less money. I think you used the analogy of one time if you go back and look at like some of the robber barons who like Henry Ford owned 100% of his company. And some of them would go public and they own 70 or 80% of the company.

Yeah, I'm just very curious like like like how you think they're going to be building companies. Again, a 21 or 22-year-old compared to even like a 35-year-old. 35-year-old. 35-year-old. So, the the first thing about these generations uh generations uh generations uh they understand that if they play by the rules of the game, they will not win. The rules [snorts] of society right now. They will be stuck in student debt. They will be stuck in up in a bunch of problems that problems that problems that they've been watching this through YouTube.

They've been reading about it on on social media. They've been seeing that we have spawned an era of of Elon's of innovation of Edison people mindsets that are it's allowing the mind to really flow. And And And surprisingly, capital is right now historically levels of almost unlimited capital access. capital access. capital access. Especially if you're younger, there's even more capital than before. It's a perfect scenario for this generation to really create and take risks in ways that that you cannot imagine. Funny enough, when you talk to them the most, you will find that a lot of them feel that working on software alone is boring.

boring. boring. It's not fun. It's not challenging enough. enough. enough. They want to build physical objects. They want to they want to touch um They want to get their hands dirty in building building building uh um uh um uh um stuff that will actually matter and get to our hands one way or the other. Which is super interesting because that was not the generation of the last 15-20 years. Everybody was trying to go capital light. capital light. capital light. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Everybody was trying to build software only and try to go to the cycles as fast as you can.

This generation is not afraid of getting their hands dirty. So, it's super interesting to see the behaviors. What's the difference? Why? I don't know. Like maybe they just find that they grew up with a phone, they grew up with a tablet, they grew up with a computer, so it's not interesting enough to limit the world to just bits and bytes. Mhm. But, the more time I spend with them, the the biggest thing and the biggest question that I find asking them is because the oldest of this generation are probably 25-26, the younger are 18, you ask them, "What were you doing during COVID?" during COVID?" during COVID?" And the that is the most fascinating question.

question. question. The most successful ones right now were the ones that during COVID were learning and were on YouTube sucking information about anything and learning about everything in life. So, when they go and and build companies, they find that first, they're naive, so they anything is possible. Second, technology is there, so anything is possible. is possible. is possible. Third, if you're older, you get knowledge and you get wisdom, but you may not have the motivation. So, he they need to find out how to bring that from people.

And so, what what you're starting to see is that the best ones are attracting some of the best older people to come join them because they feel that magnet. And So, the younger people are recruiting the older ones. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um and they're and they're and they're making them work in little uh hubs of two or three Mhm. with two young ones. They're pairing them. Two 22-year-old kids 22-year-old kids 22-year-old kids with somebody uh much later working in teams together and there and that's where they're journeying between their knowledge of the new ways of operating systems with the knowledge that you need from 20 years of experience.

If you play this out over the next like 5-10 years, don't they aren't they going to have like a massive technical advantage, too? Cuz it's like me and you you you say a lot, but not we have other stuff going on in our lives where like they can live and breathe it 24/7. Yes, and they will. And we just got what this year high school class uh sorry, college class is the first one that actually went to college and had AI the four years. We just started.

The The The senior class, the rising senior of of college, it's the first class ever that probably used ChatGPT to write an essay to get to college. I keep asking questions about these these the young people that you hang out with because I've had founders like literally in their mid-30s and they're the technical leaders of their these really successful companies like I don't know if I can do this anymore, I'm too old. Like what do you mean you're too old? You're 35 years old. You're like, yeah, I think I'm going to get smoked by a 24-year-old.

a 24-year-old. a 24-year-old. I don't think they're too old, to be honest. And I don't feel old and I can I feel I can I can I can still play the game. But you got to understand that you got to play a different game. You cannot keep playing the same game that you were playing in your 20s or in your 30s. You got to understand that the way these dynamics work and what you can bring to them is very different. What can you bring to them?

Wisdom. Knowledge. Knowledge. Knowledge. Give them experiences, stuff that they don't understand. By the way, the best ones, they still lack and they they have to refine is taste. They got to be able to articulate how to build something beautiful. That's not easy. And if something that we've lost in society is ability to build beautiful stuff. Silicon Valley has lost that ability a long time ago. And we have to bring it back. I'm hoping this generation is the one that spends time thinking how to deliver beautiful experiences.

beautiful experiences. beautiful experiences. Say more about Silicon Valley losing the ability to build beautiful things. So, you if you if you think about the last um um um [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] 15 years, 15 years, 15 years, the incentive systems and every material success was wired on scale, grow, go bigger, uh have a more nuance, more what but it was it was kind of about building beautiful products. We we have we have we have When was the last time you bought something some technology product that you loved?

That you were like, "Wow, this is beautiful." beautiful." beautiful." I don't even want to tell you, it's embarrassing the answer. It was a Dyson vacuum cleaner. vacuum cleaner. vacuum cleaner. That's great. That's great. That's great. But and and by the way, Dyson comes up a lot when I ask this question. Uh also the the the the Air wrap yeah. If you have a daughter, she or any women in the house like Yes. Yes. Yes. They're obsessed with Dyson's products. And somebody in your team here was showing us they they still carry the iPhone SE.

iPhone SE. iPhone SE. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why? The small iPhone. Why? Because it's beautiful. It was one of the first ones designed a different way. So, we have lost that ability. And because we have given a price and a reward for um efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, algorithm, uh algorithm, uh algorithm, uh compounding of those things and we have put aside put aside put aside how it makes you feel. In this world where technology is taking over a lot of of our lives in the way we're going, going, going, more than any time in history, we're going to need that feeling back again.

How it makes you feel. And it's not just the brand with a TV commercial, that's the point I'm less worried about. It's more about what's authentic, what's beautifully designed, and what does it make you feel when you are around it. around it. around it. It's the perfect time that you're bringing this up because right now, literally a few hours this morning uh in the last few days I've been rereading this biography of Jony Ive. I think it's called like Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's greatest products or something like that.

All he talks about was feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling. He didn't think computers were for him. He thought they were ugly and tacky. He starts using a Mac. This is years before he was even working at Apple. And he's just like, "Oh, there's a human behind this. You can tell there's a actual human that cares behind this." And he All he talks about He's talking about this redesigning hairbrushes and about how it makes him feel. To your point. And I think that if we don't bring that back, the founders that will do that will win.

will win. will win. And the founders that don't have that ability, ability, ability, they don't have a chance. Right before you came over, I was on the phone with my our mutual friend Neil Mehta, and he keeps telling me about Nick from Revolut, right? And we were talking about some unrelated stuff, and I go, "Oh, I'm about to see Mickey Malkin." He's like, "You got to ask him the conversation we had if he if he remembers, because he he said you invested way before he did.

I think he's done now the last like two or three rounds. But I think he remembers calling you and passing on Nick." Can you tell Like, why do I keep hearing about Nick? And like, what do you think makes him so special? special? special? You got to understand Nick, um um um for for for how he grew up and who he is to understand who he was. Uh funny enough, I was in London a few weeks ago because they finally got their bank license approved. And there was a chancellor there and some public officials speaking, and Nick was there with Vlad, the co-founder.

And I was looking at my phone, and I was remembering when was the first time that we had we had handshaked our seed say. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And it was literally that same day 10 years before. years before. years before. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And so I I went to them and I showed them the phone and said, "Listen, 10 years ago we were drinking vodka shots because we were rushed to do our A round." And what was it about him from day one?

First, First, First, the name Revolut stood for who he was. He wanted to truly create a revolution in in money. Like there was nothing in the middle about it. He had come to London. He had left Moscow. He was a trader. He was frustrated with how complex it was to move money, how difficult and how expensive and how unfair it was for everyone in the system. And he says, "Fuck it. I got to change this." So, that core DNA was there from day one. Uh and then when he lifted every single day.

He He will wake up every day and go swimming. He will He will He will work in the office. He was the first one to arrive, the last one to leave, and the first one to arrive the next day again. And he will swim and stay fit and just just just relentlessly focus on getting this mission moving forward. And people just either competed with him at that level because it was a performance at a a level that an execution that he was just a machine. It was non-stop.

I just have this mission and I have to do it in my lifetime. I'm glad you said the machine cuz I think that's what Neil described me. He's like, "He's like a [ __ ] Terminator." Terminator." Terminator." But that was that was Nick in his late 20s. That was who he was then in late 20s. Now, the Nick of today, uh 10 years later, uh uh uh he's he's he's he's getting better. He's getting better because now he can lead. He can lead by example. He can lead by mission.

He's a missionary also now. He can lead by taste. He has very strong opinions on how things needs to go. He still has 20 people direct report to him. to him. to him. And he will work 7 days a week. And then every number of weeks they take 2 weeks off. Like you can see the his behavior of work. He's fine-tuned to who he is now compared to who he was before. So, consistency what what what I'd like to do is when we back these teams, we try to understand the DNA of the founder, and we try to understand what drives them, and how do they work?

But more importantly, we want to see if that DNA reflects in the offices, in the team, in the people, in the way they talk, in the way they they they move. And you still go to the Revolut offices, which is like in now in I don't know, 15, 20 countries, and I've been to the the one in the Middle East, in Barcelona, in London in the last year and a half, you still you still you still breathe the that DNA still there. So, that's what keeps it going.

Uh it's it's a very special way that you got to understand the founder really well to know because each org is very different. different. different. So, when you say you want to understand the founder's DNA, how do you go about understanding that? understanding that? understanding that? You got to spend time with them. And you got to ask them all the questions, and you got to build a level of trust where honestly, you don't have to talk about business that much. What kind of level of trust you got to you get How do you build that trust to talk to them in a way where they feel that they can trust you back?

That they can call you when they cannot sleep at night. Those are the things that you got to I spend most of my time in the team at Revolut spend most of the time doing, which is building that level of understanding and relationship, so we know how they behave. Once you know how how people behave, then everything's fine because you will see consistency or they will break it. Explain why it's important to you to be the person that they call and when they have problems. Like you just use the example of like when they can't sleep at night.

night. night. Because all of us have something that wakes us up at night from time to time. And that that particular mind problem that you're trying to solve it's the biggest thing that you have to get unlocked to keep being the best version of of yourself. And when you're there, sometimes it's really hard to trust if it's a vulnerable question. Sometimes it's really uh deep and has a lot of strategic consequences, and you want to be really you're you're going to your mind a lot, and and and if we get that phone call, it means that we did a hundred things right right right to deserve the right to be there to help this person think through it.

Never answer the question. Just help him or her answer the question. question. question. And that means that you were able to talk about life and family. You were able to talk about society and politics, and you were able to talk about everything because that's the only way you're going to get to the really help this person answer the question. So, you have all in many cases, you know, decade-plus relationships with a lot of the founders that you back. How does like Can you compare like Nick to the other ones?

Like what are What are the traits that you think they share among the people that you spend the most time with? time with? time with? Well, they all want to win in their own well-being. They care about if they're true to themselves, they still the mission that they wrote on the first day is still present today. And when you find that authenticity, they win. So, the ones that are authentic are the ones that you can keep seeing. The ones that fake it till they make it, and then they change, and then they move, and then they Those are the ones that over time you just just just don't have the appetite to spend time with.

It's not worth reflected in the performance of the company, too? company, too? company, too? Sometimes you Sometimes you Sometimes you You have people that fake it, and then they build massively successful companies. companies. companies. Yes. Yes. Yes. They They are, for sure. But sometimes, somewhere, somehow down the line, the line, the line, authenticity matters. authenticity matters. authenticity matters. And as long as you're authentic to yourself, and you keep your values authentic, and you remember yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and you can wake up every day with that energy, you'll you'll you'll you'll be fine.

So, if we go back to that idea that Rick Rubin has like these four handful of ideas. Could be four, could be five, could be six ideas that he just used for the over multiple decades. What would like be the list of traits that you would If I said, "Hey, list out the four or five things that you want the founders that you want to build long-term relationships with and partner with over long term have. What would those What would your answer to that be? We have this thing called the eye eye of the tiger.

It's our way of thinking about the people that we want to back and how we want to partner with them. And as everything as I told you before, it needs to fit in a napkin. So, if you we wrote it in a napkin, it means that we thought about it long enough that we have it, right? And it's basically the energy of a scientist, the conviction of a missionary, a missionary, a missionary, the heart of a partner, the dreams of an athlete, the obsession of an owner.

When we meet them and we spend time with them, we want to make sure those things are present. And if they are, that's the kind of people that we want to partner with. How long did it take you to develop like how many It's over several years where you guys figured out these like these recurring traits? recurring traits? recurring traits? This is several years. This is probably a decade. To actually we probably put it into a napkin uh 5 years ago. So, yeah, it took us almost 10 years.

Do you consider yourself a patient person? person? person? Yes. Yes. Yes. Several of the questions I've actually said is like, "Oh, yeah, that took a couple years. That took a couple years." You started your first company when you were what? Like 17? 17. 17. 17. And you didn't found you founded most companies, but you founded Ribbit 20 years later? More or less? I founded Ribbit uh much later. I founded Ribbit founded Ribbit founded Ribbit uh almost uh almost uh almost uh 20 Yeah, 20 years later.

Yes. Yes. Yes. 21 years later. You've been doing it for almost 14 years now. 14 years. 14 years. 14 years. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I heard you say before it's like, "Well, everyone's like, 'Well, you have had this fantastic record. You've done all this.'" You're like, "Yeah, but it's like super early." We got a long way to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh we found amazing people to partner. We got great ideas. Um we're still building. Um I mean, we built a company with Walmart. I mean, think about it.

It's just It's the first time ever that that has happened. has happened. has happened. Okay, I just heard about this. Our We have a mutual friend Sebastian, founder of former fabric founder of Rappi. And he's like tell ask him about the deal he did with Walmart." It just speaks to a little bit of of this value system of ours. David, uh we had a chance to meet uh I've been a fan of Sam Walton all my life, right? Same. Same. Same. And I I had read every book.

I had never been to Bentonville until a few a few years ago. years ago. years ago. But I had read everything about him and I had followed and I remember Buffett owned the stock for a particular period of time until he sold it. And that was when I first learned about Walmart back in the day. And uh in 2019, through Sarah Friar, who's now OpenAI, but she was uh she was in the board She's on the board of Walmart. She organized a dinner where I had a chance to meet Doug McMillon, the CEO at the time.

time. time. And we had a lovely dinner in San Francisco a few months before COVID. And Doug says So then he says, "Listen, if you ever find yourself in Bentonville, come visit me." And I'm like, "I don't know what I'm going to do in Bentonville, but uh uh uh so so so I left the dinner. I was so impressed by by Doug, his way of speaking, his understanding about micro, the world, the values of Walmart. Everything was so present in in him at that dinner. Uh it was a small dinner, so it could have been something different, but it was authentic to him.

That uh we went as a team to a couple of Walmart stores. We tried every financial product we can buy we could. We did remittances, prepaid card, bill, and we found bugs, and we found all these things that looked like 1990s fintech. fintech. fintech. Were they selling them them So there's like vendors like vendors like vendors They had vendors, and they had partners, and they had their own Walmart card, it was a whatever card. So I wrote him in January before COVID. I said, "Listen, if you're in Bentonville, I'd love to go see you." And And And lo and behold, he said, "Yes." Showed up.

up. up. Sat down with with Doug, and he introduced me to John Furner, who's now the CEO of Walmart. Who's a long time with Doug. They were there for almost 30 years at Walmart, both of them since they since they were 17. And John is my age, so we're we started at the same time in two different continents, and we were sitting in the same room talking about this. And I said, "Listen, you guys can build something much better with financial services here. This is not your priority number one, two, or three.

It is for us. Let's figure it out." And they did something that never they had never done. They created a JV, a company that we both co-own, and we went together and built a rockstar team rockstar team rockstar team with a new brand. We bought two companies and companies and companies and to build the infrastructure run by Omar Ismail today, and it's called OnePay, and it's one of the biggest financial brands that you've never heard of. Operating out of all the Walmarts? You will see it online, on every shopping card experience on Walmart.

You will see it in the retails everywhere. If you want to pay with your phone today, the only way to pay at Walmart is with OnePay. If you want to have a debit card, it's the only way. You want a loan from Klarna, it goes through OnePay. If you want an installment loan, you want a credit card, it goes through OnePay. Every single financial product to millions and millions and millions of American consumers. American consumers. American consumers. And the beauty of that is that with John being And this is the beauty of the Walmart culture.

John had been in China for a number of years. They he had learned how learned how learned how uh WeChat Pay worked and how Alipay did business. They were investors in India and Flipkart and PhonePe. So, then they saw what what could happen with mobile money. They have been the greatest partners to have. And so, together between the founder team, Ribbit, and Walmart, we have built this amazing journey together that is quite unique for a big corporation like that. I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One.

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Tell me if I'm I'm connecting things that are unrelated or not, but I don't think I am. What was the business that it was either you or your partner built? It was like this bank this branchless bank in convenience stores or some [ __ ] like that in South America in Brazil. Okay. What was the name of that? It was called Lemon Bank. Okay. Lemon Bank. Yes. Yes. Yes. Is Is Is It sounds like you almost took like an idea that worked in Lemon because you guys You were the founder of that or Yes.

Yes. Yes. Okay. And then you Well, explain what Lemon Bank is. But then you sell it to the biggest bank in Brazil, right? Is this not the same idea but kind of with Walmart? with Walmart? with Walmart? Yes. Yes. Yes. This speaks to why keep I'll ask you if you're patient. I'll ask you what are the traits that like that you you notice in the greatest founders because I noticed them in you. So, like patience, long-term thinking, uh reputation, which I want to get to in a minute, which is how me and you actually met cuz you helped me like I had a big decision to make in my career and like your reputation preceded you and I was like I actually need to meet this guy cuz I have some some questions for him.

So, this is what I mean. It's like you you you talked about in the infinite game earlier. It's like I'm going to do this till I die, which you just said, which I [ __ ] love, by the way. And you're I'm hearing you talk, and I knew the rough shape of the Walmart thing. I didn't know what it was called. I'm like, wait a minute. This sounds like Lemon Bank. Lemon Bank. Lemon Bank. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, so explain the connection between the two. the two. the two.

That's the infinite game right there. You just You just said it yourself really well. When you're playing this life [snorts] game, and it's infinite, being ahead or behind in 2003 when we started our business in Brazil, and I lived there for 3 years, and grinded, few times almost died trying this business, and we almost killed the business twice along the way, almost lost all the money I have ever made. How would you get a pause there? We'll get to where it goes. How did you almost lose all the money you ever made?

Because when I When we we had sold our first dot-com company, and then uh we used all the proceeds to start this bank in Brazil. I moved with with my wife to Brazil. We were living there. no investors? no investors? no investors? No, we had no investors. It was just my business partner Wences Casares and myself, and myself, and myself, and my goal my goal my goal all your chips back on the table. We were 25, 26. So, and almost lost everything because the economy didn't take off.

No matter what we did, we just couldn't which is how you learn that micro matters, and I learned that growing up in Venezuela with hyperinflation and devaluation. But then another thing is to live it also when all your money's on the table. the table. the table. So, wait. You're a 25-year-old kid wanting to build essentially like a branchless bank. Is that how you describe it? describe it? describe it? And your idea at the time is to set these little like kiosks? What are What are they even called?

were There were There were three models. We had We had inside existing stores at checkout. We had kiosks inside stores, which was a hybrid model. And we had franchisee little stores that only did our our payment systems. Because this is before the smartphone, right? But it was mobile uh or a lot of but so we had to it was a hybrid of 2003 to 2007 Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. era. So, we had to build all of this and run all of this. We had at peak we had 7,000 of these physical spaces all over Brazil.

We were serving 15 million customers. Half of Brazil back then was unbanked. unbanked. unbanked. Unbanked? Unbanked? Unbanked? Unbanked. Unbanked. Unbanked. So, that was the opportunity That was the opportunity to bank them. We were the first to bank them to 15 million people. million people. million people. So, essentially you did like the legwork for the the largest bank where it's like now we we've attacked this customer segment that you haven't like succeeded with. We succeeded. You essentially, you know, rounded up a bunch of now customers for them.

They want to buy you, right? So, you sell in what year? 2008. 2008. 2008. So, 2008 that insight then comes into play play play what is that 12 years later? You're starting to talk to Walmart in 2020. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's the long game. That's the infinite game. And and by the way, you can tie every single one of our decisions in that we've made like were big decisions like that in in the real life to something that happened to me 20 years before. years before.

years before. This is really important for especially for young entrepreneurs because you said earlier like there were there's just something wrong about, you know, like we're optimizing for just like start scale sell, right? Correct. Correct. Correct. Where it's like, you know, some of your partners you've been partners with for 20 years. 20 years. 20 years. Yes. Yes. Yes. Some of the people you've backed you met Vlad at Robinhood when I don't even think they had a product yet. There was not a an app, right? No, there was they they were public facing app.

It was It was It was You No, no customers. So, your relationship with them was for like 15 years. Yes. Yes. Yes. Which is like I always say it's like when I when I've read, you know, all these biographies for the the podcast I have it's like just stay in the game long enough to get lucky. It's like so much of this stuff is not predictable. And I think that maximum is so just staying the game long enough to get lucky. So, you built a massive business 12 12 years after you built, you know, a very successful business but in South America.

Now, think about the scale of Walmart. This is like not comparable to anything else. anything else. anything else. And that's the power of compounding. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's compounded relationships and ethics and work and principles and love and passion and time and just don't care about the winning or losing. Just let it be because the power of compounding is the most important equation on in in society. society. society. And everything on friendships, on family. Just be consistent, work every day and be there. is like a very Buffett-Munger kind of thing.

Like thing. Like thing. Like Munger has a that line where he's like, you know, you need to learn the big the few big ideas in each discipline they carry most of the freight, I think is the way he describes that. And through all this reading I was like, my version of this like oh, time carries most of the weight. Like if you're in a good business, like just stay there and time will actually carry most of the weight to where you want to do. And so that leads if you're going to play the infinite game then and you want to do things over the long term, you have to protect your reputation, which is another thing that Buffett would repeat in the shareholder letters.

Like hey, we can lose money. We can lose a lot of money, actually. We can't lose a shred of reputation. I want to know how you think about reputation and then I want to know and then I'll talk about why it's so important and how it led me to you. you. you. I started to go to the Berkshire Hathaway meetings when I was 18. was 18. was 18. And back then they were much smaller than what a Friday afternoon at a Holiday Inn, couple hundred people.

And as soon as I moved to the to the bigger convention center a few years later, they had this movie clip playing in in the beginning of the annual meeting with a bunch of TV commercials or or Buffett interviews over the years. And every time since I was a kid young that age, they were playing the Buffett getting deposed when he was the chairman of Solomon Brothers saying that line that you just said. It got stuck in my in my brain. So wait, they replayed it every annual meeting?

meeting. It was there that deposition that was that he said that line on a deposition deposition deposition at Congress for something that Solomon Brothers was doing with the Treasuries arbitraging in or taking advantage of the treasury issuing market. Yeah. And they played it every single year. And I remember it every single year. And And And part of the reasons why I I wanted to leave that life is because it it was natural to me. It was the way you wanted to live life. So yes, reputation matters more than anything.

There's a handful of people that I really trust and admire. And then the people I trust and admire I wanted to know who they trust and admire. And I had a decision I had to make and I wasn't sure how to make it. Um it was there was a lot of uncertainty. I didn't have the information I needed. And realized that you were actually in possession of this information. We won't talk about like what the details of this. And I actually never almost ever asked to meet people.

And I asked two separate people. I was like, "Do you mind making this like introduction for me?" And then the first time we met, we actually wanted up talking for like several hours. several hours. several hours. And then we like became like fast friends. Yeah. friends. Yeah. friends. Yeah. But I made a big decision in my career based on how fantastic your reputation was. And so therefore almost like uh Charlie Munger has a great line where like trust is one of the greatest economic forces in the world.

And it's like the level of trust that you have built up over excessive long time with people I trust made me be able to build a relationship and trust your judgment really fast that I could make a decision based on your reputation. And I think this is super important. It's also something that comes up over and over again. Like um I I did this episode on Jensen. There's this book called The Nvidia Way, which is kind of like half biography of Jensen, half company history. And it talks about he pitched Don Valentine.

Don Valentine is still alive, still making investment decisions at Sequoia. And Don's like, "That was the shittiest pitch I've ever heard. I'm still going to give you money because your reputation precedes you and it's so excellent. So valuable." It is the most valuable asset. It's the only asset we have. It's a reputation. Everything else can come and go, but that's the one thing that we have that it will always stick to us even when we're dead. You know who also shaped my thinking on this? It's like Have you ever heard Palmer Lucky talk about reputation?

Have you? you? you? No, I haven't heard him talk about So, he says the exact same thing. He's like, "Anytime he thinks this idea where like if people try to destroy reputation, reputation, reputation, uh like you should just, you know, rise above the fray." He's like, "No, this is [ __ ] because you have to fight back because the problem is it forecloses opportunities. If this person's damaging your reputation and it's not true, it's going to foreclose future opportunities." And it's not like if somebody And his whole point is like, "This is invisible." And I thought it was really interesting insight.

He's like, "If so if somebody I let somebody destroy my reputation in in unfairly and 2 years later I ask for a meeting with the guy who took that story and believes it, he's not going to tell me I'm not taking the meeting cuz your reputation sucks." sucks." sucks." Yep. Yep. Yep. He's going to make up some other story. So, he's like, "You have to protect it and then fight against it." I thought it was interesting. It's very like a Ben Franklin kind of idea because Franklin would nurture and then also protect and fight back against his reputation 250 years ago.

It's very fascinating. I love it. I didn't know that about Ben Franklin. I'm going to read more about that. that. that. So, I told you right before we started recording that I got the art piece that I ordered at Node. I was I don't even know how to describe the fact like I could spend about an hour there with you. Can you just describe what the hell Node is and why you're doing it? Yes. So, I think it's in the spirit of being a rebel. Um so, my wife and I we love art.

We find that art is beautiful and when you find stuff that speaks to you, it has an immense value. It's been around all of us since the caves, right? It's it's always been there. there. there. And 5 years ago we stumbled upon digital art for the first time. I was on Twitter scrolling and I saw an art piece that looked something very similar to a physical art piece we had from the '70s. And then And then And then we got into it and started to find other artists in digital art that were doing beautiful stuff that matched something beautiful in history.

So, we started to pair them together. And that journey took us like any journey, to get to know the artists. Because what's the difference of these artists? They're alive. And and they're all here, and they're all using the all study computer science one way or the other, and they just decided to be artists and tell a story in a different way. Once you start to meet them, they were rebels in the in the in the complete expression of the word, the same way we were describing some of the rebels in in companies.

Like think about right now we're running a show on people. people. people. That's the one I saw. That's the one you saw. So, think about people. people. people. Think about an entrepreneur who decided for 5,000 days to do an art piece every single day, posted online so he can only get better. His goal was he read a book that said, "If you do something every day, you will only get better at it." And he started in 2007 sketching. sketching. sketching. 2011 started to use Photoshop. 2014 Cinema 4D.

And so the software evolved. And every single day posted of image online that no one bought. People paid attention and just made fun of it or congratulated him or or jumped against it until in '21 he sells the first 5,000 days. What is that? 14 years? years? years? For 69 million dollars. And suddenly, it's like an IPO moment. No one pays attention for a long time. You sell it. What does an a real rebel do? do? do? He said, "Fuck it. We're going to double down.

I'm going to build a studio. I'm going to start building a lot more stuff that I couldn't do before." And now he's one of the most prolific artists alive. artists alive. artists alive. All he does his work is digital. And he's not the only one. People see CryptoPunks and they see a a a Actually, I see a movement. I see a cultural artifact. The first art on chain ever created and it happens to be portraits. portraits. portraits. Guess what? Every single art movement in history starts with portraits.

They always evolve the portrait. So, the story is we went to the museums and we said, "This art should be seen." Because at home, we post we get we put it up on our house and all my kids when they were teenagers and brother friends, guess where they their attention went. Not art you have it hanging on the walls. walls. walls. It went to this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 15, 20 minutes in front of it, talking to it, interacting, asking questions they wanted to understand. We go to the museums and they said, "Yes, we can do this 2028, 5 years from now, 4 years from now and we'll have to find a curator who's going to curate what the artist wants to do." And my wife and I look at each other and said, "No [ __ ] way.

This needs to happen today." So, Node is the first digital art studio designed for digital artists. It is a space where the artist is his own curator own curator own curator because that's what rebels do. You you decide how you want to show your art. You don't let somebody else tell you how you're going to put your art. And it's a place where you come and you get get get your hands-on your hands-on your hands-on with the art that speaks to the future. And we put this place in downtown Palo Alto for a particular reason.

Because Silicon Valley needs creativity. We need to bring it back. So, our contribution to society is putting it in a place where people can actually walk in and see it. And we've opened it 5 months ago. We had close to 60,000 people show up already. already. already. Every weekend we're breaking records. It's free. It's open. And people are interacting and the most beautiful things, beautiful things, beautiful things, kids are bringing their parents. So, you tell me the last time you went to a museum where the kids are telling "Dad, let's go in." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, that is the difference. So, I think we need it going back to beauty, to taste, to creating authentic stuff. And these artists are the most authentic people right now using digital tools. So, let's So, let's So, let's show them, let people interact with them, and let that be the driver for entrepreneurs to use it in their own practices. But this is what I meant about like you're way more entrepreneur than you are investor because you just like like when you when you start a bank for the unbanked in Brazil, you're like, "Well, I'm not going to open up branches.

I'm going like, "What opportunity? What's the white space that these incumbents are not I'm a rebel. What is the white space that these incumbents are not attacking?" Well, you just said like the museums are like they they don't even have the infrastructure to to display digital art. And like me I went to Node with you. Like the walls are like customizable. The next How the people's in there for what? Like 2 months? Something like that? Yeah, and then the next one comes in. The infrastructure is still there.

But now the artist gets to essentially use the infrastructure as a canvas for his for his his or her art. We think the world will have a lot of these places. Museums will change. They will evolve. It will take a while. The location that you picked speaks to again the the like you're kind of just identifying what's the way they did it and like what's the way I should do it now. We're like you can walk into it. It's like in a very like small downtown area.

It's not it's not like a destination in and of itself. It's something you could just it's like part of the neighborhood if that makes any sense. sense. sense. If you read history which is part of the beauty of beauty of beauty of playing infinite games where you have to live in the future but also understand the past, the past, the past, this is not very different than what happened in Paris in the in with the rebels in in their art movement when they were not accepted in the museums.

And this is how the impressionism came to be. And all the art that was a revolution that changed the way we look at art in the last 100 years. We're living through that same moment. Funny enough, it's not in Paris. Maybe it started in Palo Alto. And so you look at the the first node in Palo Alto almost like a prototype. Yes, because the name node is meant to be a node in the network. So, we will we will be learning here for the next year to to to perfection perfection perfection uh our technology, improve our our UIs.

There's a bunch of engineers working at this foundation with engineers. Like think of how different it is to traditional art and then expand it and open in many many more other places. Another thing that I want to talk to you about, about, about, what's with your fascination with rebels? It's all over your website. People who know you talk about this all the time. the time. the time. Well, first, I must start with generation, right? And uh I grew up with Star Wars. I'm a big fan of Star Wars.

And to me, growing up in Venezuela, you the only way to survive in that environment is you have to be a rebel. The system, the the dark side was all over, the chaos was present. Uh you had to raise above above that. And the rebel mindset is one where you know authentically and genuinely that something can be better. And you're willing to give your life for it. To me, being a rebel is just a way of being. It's a way of looking at the world. And when you when you see something, you can always look at it and accept how do you make it better?

How do you make it more beautiful? How can What what's missing? Like just that mindset of always being willing to know that better means it can still be better. be better. be better. I mean, just a 17-year-old starting a company. company. company. Yes. Yes. Yes. That That That would lead me to believe that you had this like rebel you know, you were essentially a born rebel. Yes. Yes. Yes. How did you apply that? Cuz people people people reference you as like one of the greatest like venture capitalists.

I'm like, that's not how I think of Mickey. I don't think of him as like a venture capitalist. So like, when you're building Ribbit, building Ribbit, building Ribbit, how did you apply like your rebel like your inherent rebel nature to your essentially almost like you're almost like an artist in the sense of like this is the canvas that I'm building. This is how you think I should do it, but this is how I'm going to do it. How did you think about it when you started it?

Before I end up being labeled as a particular but first I hate labels and second I will be very depressed because that's not the label I want no labels. All I want in my tombstone is to say he was a rebel. That's all I want to be said there. And that will say everything about me. The way I raise my kids, the way my relationship with my wife, the way I I treat my friends, the way I make business decisions, the way I change my mind.

I'm willing to change my mind if I learn something that is different. That's a rebel mindset. Everything that is the opposite is a mindset that I know too well. My kids are perfect. I'm the best at what I do and I run away from any of those things. Actually, I I find that the rebel mindset is one that you are always asking questions. You're a rebel. You are non-stop asking questions. You want to learn and you want to keep but you and I know a lot of people that get to a point in life when they stop to ask questions and they start to preach.

That's past the rebel time. And everybody has that breaking point somewhere in their lives. I want that to be the last day of my life. life. life. So I need to live by that principle on everything that I do. On every behavior on on like I'm rebelling now against the traditional art world. I'm trying, you know, to allow artists to show art in a different way. Uh we rebel and rivet the way we design it. We were People were asking about what are you? Are you a venture guy?

Are you an early stage guy? I'm like, yes. Are you a late stage guy? Yes. Are you a fintech guy? Yes, but are you doing now uh defense or yes? Like yes, what's wrong? Like I'm not going to let anyone allow that. That's is the rebel mindset. You are a founder but you think so much like a founder. So like this decision in 2012 to start an investment firm, like why? why? why? I don't think of it as an investment firm. firm. firm. Okay, you have to tell you have to say more about this.

To me it's a startup, it's a company. And we build our own technology stack, and we have a small team, and we consider ourselves our rebels, and our meetings are called Tatooine, and we have Jedis, and we we have I didn't know this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so you're really into Star Wars. Oh, yes, completely. And and Are you backing Jedis? Do you have Jedis? Jedis? Jedis? We we back Jedis. Okay. Okay. Okay. And and we have Wookiees, and we have Jedis. We have the whole thematic truly alive in the way we think because it has to be authentic.

And people that work with us, and really the whole team, feels that ownership, that teamwork. There's investment firms are very siloed in many ways, and I don't love that. We want to over-communicate even internally. Like, right now the entire team knows that we're sitting together. Everybody can see my calendar and my inbox. They can see my emails, and I can see anybody's emails. emails. emails. We share all information so we can actually become better as a team. That mindset is very rebel in this environment. And and and how we make decisions.

We don't make individual decisions, we make group decisions. And there's no like, somebody asked, "Who's the partner responsible for that company?" It's like, "What partner?" And you ask the founders, they say, "I don't know. I call Mickey for something, I call Nick for something, I call Justin for something. We are just a team that works together in in in very different ways. So, that is the joy of going to the office every day. I love being there and spending time with the team because we just have fun together.

What was the insight though that caused you to do this instead of because you started how many companies before this? This is your sixth company? Yes. Yes. Yes. Something like that. So, like, but your sixth company looks vastly different from your first five, correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. So, like, what was the insight between five and six though? I had to in the infinite game, I had just had to learn how to do it right. And this time I do it right because I consider myself, even though they were successful and they created a lot of impact and changed a lot people's life around the world, I consider myself a failed entrepreneur.

That's absurd. That's absurd. That's absurd. But that's why you got to say like why? Because the the best entrepreneurs never have to sell their company. Okay, not a fish button on that. There you go. you go. you go. And uh so I had to learn for 20 years how to get to the point to design the structure, the culture, the team, the knowledge, the the aperture or the the brand compound all those values to a place where we can do something for forever. for forever. for forever.

This is the infinite game. Nick Sleep uh has one of my favorite lines ever. And he goes, "The best investors aren't investors, they're entrepreneurs who never sold." 100% [snorts] agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's fascinating. Look at Okay, the fact is I'm a failed entrepreneur cuz I had to exit. You had crazy successful exits, too. exits, too. exits, too. For my first five because I didn't find the vehicle in which I can do forever. Which is again, when when again like um I'm like new to being relatively known in like this community in the last like 5 years for a podcast.

And I didn't understand cuz I sat in a room by myself for a decade and just talked into a microphone and read books. I didn't think about the outside world at all. And then everything kind of came to me. And so now I have to like constantly vet everybody around me. And I get a lot of advice from like especially like older more successful entrepreneurs who are like, "Man, you have to be so [ __ ] careful with like cuz there's goes back to Charlie Munger's like most people are wrapped up in their own world." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Right? And so it's like and it's just like you have to like vet them in all different uh directions. But when I and even people I want to have dinner with or talk to you, like you. you. you. You ask a bunch of people. And they're just like, "He's obsessed with this infinite game." infinite game." infinite game." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This infinite game. He's like they don't He doesn't need more money. And he doesn't need to do another deal in his life. But he just can't stop.

But it's it's this joy. It's this thing that every day you get better. And you just are improving. And uh you know, I sat with Charlie Munger once in one of after another meeting at the Happy Hollow Golf Club where Warren had this thing afterwards. And I saw myself and I only had one stock of Berkshire. I was probably 24 years old and 25. And I sit next to him. Well, he sits next to me. I'm sitting he says he says take him. I said, "No, come on sit here, Charlie." And we started to talk and and that room was everybody.

Bill Gates was there. All these big CEOs of all these companies and I was like the youngest guy by an order of magnitude. And he looks at me and says, "You must be very wealthy to be here." And I said, "Actually, no. I only own one share." He says, "You don't get it. You are the wealthiest guy in the room." And I said, "You're wrong, Charlie." "No, no, you are." "Why?" "You have the power of time. All of us here are in our last chapter. You're just starting your time.

You will compound for the next 70 years of your life. life. life. So, never forget the rule that I'm about to tell you. You only need to get rich once. And then that was it. He says, "And now I'm going to eat." And he just sat down and ate. I love that. Yeah, time is the only true currency you have. I appreciate you spending your time giving it to us today. This is awesome. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review.

And make sure you listen to my other podcast Founders. For almost a decade, I have obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.