20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product

22:14And most of the people really have not that much money, right? I'm not saying much in general. So the bank, you need to trust it. It's a very important part of your life. The payments go through it. Your balances are there. The way I like to think about it, imagine that you should be able to cross sell anything you want if you make a product. You should go to cross sell any product and be very proud of what you're selling. So now imagine in a banking scenario, you want to cross sell something to any user and some of these users, you say, mother with two kids and you know struggling to find a job.

22:42Will you cross sell all the things that some other competitors have, right? Will you cross sell meme coin stuff like that? I wouldn't. And if you put that bar of not failing to even one customer and doing something that is not in the best interest, I think that the bar or where the principal company is rises quite a bit. Do you not think that is arrogant to assume that you should be the arbiter of justice or what is in their best interest first is what is not There will be a single mother who won't say access to that meme coin and will make money from that meme coin correct And they will find the tools to that you will find some product out there that sells meme coins You would but the bar is higher right the bar of Where you're offering to people somebody has to hold about really high and what doesn't meet it some of the others will offer it You will find a lot of financial tools or toys that you can buy me icons all over the internet.

23:32But I think it's arrogant to not allow crypto but to allow stock investing. For the majority of people they don't know shit about stocks, they don't know shit about crypto. It's the same. It's a gamble. It's one way of looking at it. Does product change when you're building with trust as a power amount principle? And if you think about the different products you've worked on, which is amazing variety, It's like a just eat versus a monzo or even a rapid versus a monzo. As you said, trust at the center with monzo versus a rapid, not so much at the sector, is it? No, it's true. If each product is different, and there's ones that have a high emotional connection, a high level of trust, and that's the product itself.

24:12If you think about it, what is a bank? A bank manages risk. So the financial system of Europe or the UK has a regulator and has banks are a part of it. the money is with the banks, right? It's not anywhere else. So the whole idea of you manage risk, of course you manage risk in a very compelling and smart way. So that's what banks are in the end, right? And the monster was the first and only one, maybe that said what we're gonna do, that and be good for customers and have values and be trustworthy because all the other ones were not, which is amazing to think that that was innovation, but that was the innovation.

24:44It's a bank that is a win -win for the people, for the people, and it was such a novel concept, right? which is amazing to think about in the food that you've experienced space, which I've done before, you just want the food to get in there on time, be hot. And if there's a problem to get your money back, it's simpler, right? So because it's just food. But it has aspects of trust as well, right? You have to have folks with five good hygiene and all the things. So there's always a quality, but I think it's their levels, for sure. We mentioned the crypto and the stock and the on the new product site as a product leader today, when you think about what to build versus what not to build.

25:21How do you determine between attractive we should do it versus attractive but not at core? It's a distraction. Two things, first the mission. So to give you a couple of property finder, the mission is to make living great for the region. It's a beautiful mission. I think the missions are very important. There's a lot of things to think about a product. It has to be easy to use, easy to understand, it has to scale and then at the end it has to be sustainable financially, right? So it's all of the levels that you have to think about. The most important one is does it make sense if it works and might not work for the mission?

25:53As simple as that, that's how I think about it, at least. If it's truthfully worth pursuit to fulfill the mission, I would like to try it in small scale first, right? Because the scale comes later and profitability comes later, untried and just see what the users say. Is that meaningful for the users as we thought it would be? And if it is, then you scale it. So let the users make the decision. I tried to let the users make the decision as often as I can. And we're going to go with that. Let's say in areas that are less regulated for sure. And then you scale it up. And to make the first decision, just go after the mission.

26:27Just pursue the mission aggressively, because that's really the only reason the company exists. Before we actually do that testing and letting users guide us, I had Gustaf from Spotify on the show, and he said, talk is cheap, and so we should do more of it. When you think about internal discussion around new product build, How do you think about the effectiveness of dictatorship? No, we're not doing that. Versus the importance of having discussion. Well, that's a great point. I would agree more on the discussion bit. I think it's a false dichotomy, right? If you make a decision, what is the cost of having a conversation for three hours about it?

27:03Very low compared to building anything. So what I always like to tell people is, well, look, if anybody agrees, let's sit down. I'll talk to you in a total weekend. And they might convince me, in many cases, it happens. Or as a team, right? It's not me. It's a team. And more of the cases this works because people don't even listen to, right? And sometimes really the conversation is the value is like, you know, the intelligence you're creating throughout the conversation. I think the most amazing thing is the opposite. A lot of people make decisions that don't talk about it at all. So what is the point in that really?

27:31What is the quality of a decision if you don't like at least two opposing views to have a conversation? And what is the cost of speaking in a group for three hours for a new product, like zero? There's nothing. The developers will go and spend month building it. I like to think it's always a sports, right? A big fan of the old blacks and the famous rules of the old blacks. And I do think to me, the best way to run any company is really close to what the best sports teams does, right? All the rules that old blacks have, are empowering about being humble, but raising the bar and about treating everybody the same, but being decisive, they apply, right?

28:04So I think the dictatorship, somebody has to make a decision in the end, which is different than being in the dictatorship. You said let users guide you. How do you think about the Henry Ford? I build what people want. I build faster horses Versus I'm gonna tell you what you want because you don't see it yet When I say people guide you is not they telling you what to do is Putting them in front of them and let them try it Let's see if the impact in their life is as big as you thought it will be in the case I'm pretty sure at one moment Henry Ford gave the car to somebody and they loved it get somebody to drive the car as quickly as you can back then You need those visionaries because building a 40 assembly line and pressure was quite a investment.

28:45But for us, that now with AI, you can test it so quickly and so easily, just let them try it. And see, they will tell you they love it or not. How quickly do you know when a new product is a flop? I think it depends on the case. It's a mistake sometimes to drop it too early because iteration sometimes does make a difference. You know it's a flop when you deliver exactly what you wanted and just doesn't resonate. What's the most prominent flops that you've been a part of? There's a lot of prize we launched in Carview, or in Rappi that we thought were going to be amazing. And then what in Rappi did you think would be amazing?

29:18That wasn't the super app concept of we can do this and that and that. So awesome. And people are like, well, I can use the three different apps for it. And I'm fine. And I think we were losing the, we were missing the glue between them. And I still see a lot of super apps making that mistake. Again, most likely Rappi fixes right now. If you make three experiences and not connected, the fact that in the same app doesn't mean anything. So there has to be more to the experience that then just having the experiences in the same UX or the same customer support. What would you have done differently than knowing all the INO now?

29:51The way I think about it now is whatever experience you add should improve the retention of the whole. So let's say you're doing, I don't know, like Bolt or any of these guys, you're doing mainly Taxi. And then you're adding food, Karim does this as well, there are many others. and you keep adding stuff, right? Because you want to get really more output from that user's all created, more value, or whatever you want to say. The more things you add, the more you should retain that user, right? And frequency should go up. What that means is that each experience have to be good enough for the experience to be additive to the platform instead of subtracting.

30:24So you say, I use it for a taxi, and now I, all the grocery is, oh my God, why didn't I do this before? You know, I should have always done this before. It shouldn't be like, that's a big crap. No one gives you a prize because you do cars and groceries at the same time. There should be something special. You know the user better, the experience is better because you have drivers. You know what I mean? There is something that the user should discover. Oh, I should do it again with them. Loyalty because it's amazing. Sometimes you used to do things and look all the things we can do. Look at me. And the user is like, good for you, but doesn't really translate to their experience.

30:57What moment has been single biggest change for your product mindset from an experience? I think the beautiful thing about product is that it's a bit closer to the user with a lot of research and you kind of know It's hard to estimate is if you're in a niche or if you are in a big market and for me was it the opposite in the case of Monzo was when we did this one cent you know campaign at the end of the year Which is you know if you enroll you have one cent the first day two cents a second day three cents a third day and It's 600 pounds by the end of the year. It's an automated way of saving right and we have some extra things I thought, cool, that's going to do well, but I didn't think it was game -changing.

31:35And then the success it had, it was ridiculous. Why when you study it? Because I think in my opinion, that's my own assessment, is when you do something that has a few things together, one is something that the users feel is good for me. It's truthfully, it could have it to create, like go into the gym. And then you do something to help them break that kind of laziness they had to do it. So for example, they don't want to save because it's just too much time and effort. and you do an extra kind of lottery of the year or something, right? They can earn some money. You're kind of pushing them, helping them to do something that is good for them.

32:09So it's almost like you're doing both things. This is something good for you. And now I'm going to be your help you to actually do it. You know, like your trainer goes and says, do this exercise every day, and it's good for you. And then he gets you to do it and then you realize it's good for you. That's so much more impactful when they're combined. So to me, there was a huge realization of, Wow, it can be so much more impactful than whatever the number is predicted because of that emotional component. When you're seeing somebody that is truthfully helping you to be better, do you think about it?

32:37How do I bring emotion into product? Yeah, all the time. You do all the time. How do you do that? So I think about a lot in marketing and in social copy, obviously, I'm a market of VC's glorified marketers meet on steroids. I think about very much the words that I use and the tone that I use them in to convey emotion in marketing. How does that work in product? In product is similar, right? I think you want to have some sort of like the equivalent of the haptic feedback when somebody's good for you, right? Monso was a famous case of the things that pop up. All these kind of things that are telling you is a good thing for you.

33:12Like immediate feedback. One thing that I always notice with traditional feedback, so I don't know if you've seen it. I won't name them, but the classic, you get an email and you're afraid. I know it happens to you, but I get an email for traditional banks, or the rational credit cards. I feel literally anxious because it's a fraud, it's not fraud, it won't my money, what is it, right? And everything, the tonality of it is off, the messaging is off, it's for them not for me, you know what I mean, like they want me to something for them not for me. And of course, probably find you now and months or before, it's the opposite.

33:44Clearly, the motion is always working for you and the motion is always a positive one. Something bad happened, how are you gonna get back on track? That's where I love the health apps because your health goes up and down, but let's say you stopped training for a month I come back and say let's get back on the horse So it's always a positive feedback thing whoop again. That's a good job of that It doesn't teach you in the head. No, you haven't slept yesterday. I know right? I have four kids I haven't slept, but it's like oh if you do three hours today You're gonna be back on track and you know you're it's always that kind of emotional support to some extent because we're emotional beings in the end I think you mentioned fitness there several times.

34:22I think it's important is consistency. You mentioned weekly reviews earlier. How do you structure weekly reviews? They are the same time who comes, who sets the agenda, what do you want to get out of them, what makes a good one? I love the daughter's angle, which is a bit what took into wrapping a few years ago, right? What they took into wrapping. I learned a lot from them. And it's really a combination of transparency, data, and weekly rhythm. The basic concepts is, Imagine you have a startup, you say, there's one thing, you remember the classic startup, there's one thing we can do, and only one thing, it's classic.

34:55And the founder says it and everybody does it and you feel like a rockstar. And then you have a corporation and they manage my proxy. Right, okay, it's not a big fan of at all. It's a whole different conversation or any proxy you might like, you know, the business plans and the exels with prioritizations which I never do, and all these proxies. And because I don't know how to communicate it's more than one thing. WBR is what are the 10, 20 things that matter to media objectives. Who is a responsible, which is called the R .I., the direct responsible individual? And that's the actual person doing it.

35:26It's not the executive, you know, three levels up. It's the person who knows what they're talking about. And then they will write what's happening, why is it happening, what are we doing about it? And if one of the things is read, what is our job? Help them. It's not to hit them in the head, which is the other thing I dislike. The classic company corporations will spend years hitting the head somebody and then, oh, it's not good. Let's fire them and bring some money back and then 10 years passed and nobody's accountable. Everybody's accountable. Right? So if it's red, it's my fault. Is it CFO fault?

35:54Is it CFO fault? Is everybody's fault? Do you not want one person to feel more accountable? Well, they are obviously we're feeling more accountable, but it's not. It's always a company. It's like the old blacks, right? The old blacks lose their workup. And what do you say? What is the value of saying, hey, it was you, dude, it was you. It's not the black's lost. Argentina won their workup. France lost, right? It's just the team lost. I do not think it's important to feel pressure and It's like you're Nick from Ravallute. I love Nick, I think he's a great leader. There's different ways of leadership, by the way.

36:21Tia, I think he's a great, great leader in a different way. Do you not think fear and pressure are a great way to lead in terms of effectiveness? I think the truly superb people don't need fear and they put more pressure on themselves than anyone else. Do you think Nick is a truly great leader? I don't know Nick as well if I'm honest. I think what Revoluk has done, and what Bonso have done are both 0 .11 % on the set. People say Monzo is too nice a culture. That's a bad thing. If that's the worst thing to say about Monzo, then it's a very good thing. Intellectual and nice is comfy. No, I get, look, I work in investment banking in Goldman Sachs, so I get your point.

36:55I don't think that the best companies in the world require that. I think the best people are self -motivating and there are the harshest critics on themselves. I think the whole company should be held accountable to your point. I think the company should be held accountable to high standards and high goals and high ambition. I don't imagine Tony Nadal saying to Rafael Nadal like, too, I'm going to make you fear that you're going to lose the final for Angaroz. He didn't want to lose the final for Angaroz. Nobody had to tell him. The more people you get like that, they are the harshest critics. I do believe the company itself should put a high bar for the company, right?

37:30I just don't believe on the, you know, hitting on the head. I think that's more for average companies. What did you believe the in and along the belief? I used to think about individualism a bit more when I moved to the US in the 2000s. When I moved to the US, it's a very individualistic country, right? And you'll think, I can do whatever I want. It's just up to me. If I were hard enough, I'd study hard enough. And then Argentina is much more of a communal thing, right? It's always what we do, right? It's everybody together. So when I moved to the US, I felt, oh, no, they're right. It's not about me and what I can do.

38:00And then you realize that it's not true, right? It's both things. I have to be the best that I can be myself. going to the gym, study, work hard, so that I can contribute more to the team. And then the team output is higher. And if I happen to be in a great company, the company would be higher and I would take a benefit from that. I think that this idea that will lead in a vacuum is a bit naive. It's nice to feel it on their 20s because you feel like that. And early 30s, you would feel like that too. Like, you know, we all feel like we can save the world on our own, right? And then when you get older, you really ask that.

38:30You depend in many more factors and people and the government and the companies you are And what do product builders not see about leading products that they should see? I think for me is much more about the energy that you're bringing to the company. You should always graph what you're doing and try to raise it. Now if the company is doing 8x, you want to see what is the next level in the product, in the energy of the individuals and you, you feel this, you feel people that are, you know, motivated to energize and their head is going like crazy and they're self motivating and they're doing things on the weekend because they want to, not because you're forcing them.

39:08And you see it, right? And then magic happens a little bit. And we all been part of teams like that. The small team, you're like, it's something magic happening here. And everybody, the summation of all of us is higher than even what we thought it could be. So to me, product is always a bit of that, right? You have to be ensuring that everybody rises and the product rises with it well beyond it, what you can think on your own. When you have a product flop, what do you do to prevent really dejected teams? This beautiful phrase of no effort goes wasted. So if you work really hard and you work the love of the customers and you ship something and you don't work, you learned.

39:43And sometimes I tell you, well, let's say we do something and we realize it's not the answer. Well, it's not the answer for us. It's not the answer for the competitors either. Because it's not a thing. So great. Now we know that's not the answer. Let's go and find where the answer is. What was the product flop from months ago? What did you learn? Pretty much most of things with that month. So always been successful. really I can't think of one myself I have to invite somebody else to tell you but honestly I cannot think of one do you think you tried enough then should I ask that question look there is a process to it you could always always you can do more I still believe that Montso is the best new -ung experience in any country personally I'm biased of course but better than New -Vanguim Brazil and but not revolting the UK obviously it's just in one country now but when the world sees it I still believe is the best proposition out there personal Do you think Monzo will be a hundred billion all the time?

40:34I hope so. I don't think the reason why not to. But you know, time will tell too many variables to judge. Do you believe the future of banking in that case will be like very few neo banks that rule across continents? Or we continue to see regionalized awareness? I'm not a bank expert here, but there is a lot of steps to get to a level of Monzo or Revolute or new bank. It's not easy. It's not easy to get the scale. they're being so savvy with regulated regulators with the processes, capital, I don't think you have 100 like that. So I think over time there is a reason for them to expand. When you have real scale, you often have like slowness, apathy in some cases.

41:14How do product teams slow down? I don't know if product teams, but I think recap version is a real thing. What's that record version? No risk, risk, ah, risk version, risk conversion, right? Is it case where the more you have, the more you You have to lose. The start -ups, you have nothing. And you see this in big companies, 100 billion dollar company, a 40 billion dollar company, that is a lot to lose a lot of the sudden. So I think it's human nature. How do you remove that? It comes from the top, internal. He said, it's okay to fail. Let's go fucking back. Yeah. And you put the processes to ensure, you know, banks cannot fail, right?

41:45So it's a different definition of failure. But you have to draw the line to say that we need defining what the future is, right? And the future is not the same as now. You have to something different. So is there more of not being content to where you are? I'm always trying to be the one defining what's next. Does the world change a lot in product? When the quality of the customer experience and the output of your product is determined by a third party, and what I mean specifically by that is you mentioned it a lovable earlier, fantastic product, amazing outputs. The quality is determined by the quality of the model.

42:18When Claude Fawes released, it went significantly up. That is a fundamental change to product. Can you imagine if I said to you, hey, there's going to be some externality and for your monso product, it's going to get way better and it's got nothing to do with you. So good luck, but I'll tell you when it's released, sometime in Q3Q4. Does the world of product change in that way? Well, I think there always been platforms like LLMs now, or, and I think the difference is that LLMs are a bit more or a full stack than before. If you think about it, OpenAI can be both iOS and Google Cloud or Amazon services together.

42:54And I don't think we've seen how many years you have to go back to feel that way. A product depends on iOS, right? For the experience. If you use the face recognition, so there's always that platform angle that hopefully elevates everybody. And iOS did that, right? There's a lot of things you could do with iOS that you couldn't do on the web. And that's why everybody moved towards the native app experience. Remember, it was a big thing a few years ago, or 10 years ago. The same with the cloud. The cloud always initially was like, it's going to be cheaper and it wasn't cheaper, but it was faster, right?

43:22Much faster innovation by developers when they did it. Now, combine the two. And I'd be huge believer in OpenAI would be massive, personally, because I think it's full stack. You have B2C. It's a very, very powerful combination. And it will be both now, right? It will be iOS plus Amazon Web Services. So everybody will depend on that platform and it's the right thing to do because you couldn't do it on your own. You cannot build open AI or the LLM model on your own. So I don't think it's a dichotomy in that sense. I believe that the question will be can you add value enough that there is value on that layer versus what the most would do on their own.

43:56That would be the question for all these companies as they come along. What I will ask them and I don't know what are you actually doing? What are you actually doing? Is the user experience? Is the learning? Is the fine -tuning? Doesn't seem to be a thing anymore. So what is it? What is the secret sauce and why the users prefer love of all of those courses or all the new ones that will pop up? They will have to be something. You're hiring a product team, okay? It's fucking hard to hire product people. And most CEOs actually don't know how to hire product people. If I start with your advice to me, you're an angel in my company.

44:30Number one, what questions do I ask in a product interview? What do you want to know? I can feel it almost right away. What do you feel? I think the first thing I look at is I have to a little bit of light on the rise, ideally. There are some people that there's no light on the rise, like almost like no excitement not kind of, I do want to see some sort of creativity or the lights of excitement of what you can build for a good program. I mean, I think you need to have that. And then you want to, you know, again, the creative side, right? And then you want to check the analytical, very simple, which is, you know, just make sure that they're not just purely a crazy creative, right?

45:05All of you want some of them, but also can actually have to break down a problem, right? In steps that the way consulting has done it for many, many years. So can they kind of abstract, or abstract thinkers, can they think in abstractions and then quantify it and break it down? And say, okay, you do this, you do that. Now, I think with AI, maybe you wanna be more outlier based, like a crazy creative and then a mathematician make more sense because you can glue them together, more easily, right, with JBLT and all the things. So that could be an outcome. Do you need to be an amazing writer? Quite a few people have said on the show that you need to be a great writer to be a great product.

45:42PRDs, clarity of communication. I don't think I ever done a PR in myself, except the first few years in Microsoft, if I'm honest. But I do believe you need to be able to communicate your thoughts, right? And writing is always the best test. So if you cannot write a one -pager, which is what I get my folks to do, it says write a one some patient, why are you doing why and why is the plan? And if you cannot do that, and now just to be taken away for you, but you should be able to articulate your thoughts, ideally, right? Because you have to communicate to engineers and the designers. So I do believe that's important.

46:13We'll see if we continue to be as important as before, but it's a classic thing, right? The PM has to be able to synthesize a bit, what the customers needs are, what the hypotheses are for solving them and what the plan is to get there. It kind of makes me think if like great leaders are able to bring people along with them for a journey. Where are you not great as a leader? I'm already with four kids, so you know it's a long conversation. I'm not asking your wife, I'm asking you. It will be a whole day of podcast. I think personally being fully honest, I have, you know, ADHD very clearly myself, right?

46:47So like very, very clearly. I think I'm more accepting of it now, but you know, some people get mad because... How has your acceptance of it changed the treatment? I think it's good to say it because a lot of people used to get really pissed off with me. Hey, you see this person, you left the room two minutes before he finished and I have no recollection of myself doing that, right? Or you know somebody say hi and the answer hi back and I have no recollection of seeing that person or you know for getting something for example and What I noticed for the idea is people take it very personally because it's emotional and when you say I didn't remember it things bulge it.

47:21Because like if it was important, you will remember it. So it was really hard before because people don't understand, I think it's bullshit when you were telling that, no, I truly forgot. And so now I think you try to be more open because at the end, there is no value on hiding things, right? So you say, okay, forgot. And I left the meaning to it minutes before because in my mind, we were done. In my mind, I was done. And it wasn't having the awareness, the social awareness of people still in the meeting. At the end, the most honest you are the better. I have more confidence in myself now. You know, when you're younger, you're trying to kind of hide your flaws a bit more because you don't have to judge as you get older, have some success, you're like, whatever, this is me and the most honest, I am the better.

47:59I can't remember who you said it. I can't remember if it was Johnny I will steal jobs or one of the greats, but they said that focus is saying no to even really great opportunities. What really great opportunity did you say no to that you think about most? A lot. I think one of The one I thought a lot was Mercado Lever 14 years ago. Opportunity to join Mercado Lever 14 years ago, it was in a really good position. I get to Marcos and I thought this is an amazing team, the best team I ever seen, from Stanford, smart, driven, great culture, in Argentina. I'm like, my God, this is the best job ever.

48:34And just didn't work out because at that time, you know, I still wanted my family to be in the US or Europe. And I said no. and obviously then I thought it would be successful but I remember I bought 14 or 15 $50 ,000 or something or I know some number not small number and I kept it and it is 40 times until today so I'm like sure that was a great opportunity there are not many like that right 40X I also wish I was invested even more even though at that time I thought okay that's a big investment for this small company that's in America now I'm like my god should have invested a bit more What is a great product for a user that you think is a bad investment?

49:13So like Twitter, as a user, I think it's a great product. Yeah. Phenomenal. It's a shit investment that would not like to be in it as a business. That's a great point. I mean, everything that cannot be scaled or struggles to monetize, of course, right? You could argue it could be more aggressive monetizing, if you wish. So I think there's always, if a great product is there, I will argue it should be able to be a good investment unless the value is just for society. I struggle to think of one to be honest. Maybe something to niche, like, you know, I really hope these guys from nothing are successful, right?

49:44Because it's hard to make a phone at scale that is great and not expensive. So I don't know if it's gonna turn out or not, but it's definitely a great product. How important is time to value? You have a new use of property, but how important is it that they're here within 30 seconds they get value versus, no, no, no, no. We will get a questionnaire, we'll understand them, We will create a curation experience for them, but we need to understand them first. I think it's super important time to about you. I think it's important because people are quite lazy. Not in a bad way. I'm saying we have to say about our products.

50:20Whatever you have to say about your company, I have to say about RAP, I'm also a property finder. I think about it all the time. Users have a purpose, a reason to use it. They're not thinking about your product all the time. So the time you have to make an impression is very little. You can miss it. It's a huge cost to miss it. I believe that you want to have value very quickly and then build from that. Right? I think the mistake is not, is to not build from it. You know what I mean? When I have your attention and I show you value very quickly and now you know who I am, have I invested enough over time to take it to the next level.

50:55I think that's where the problem is. I think it's very obvious that you don't have that many chances to make a first impression with the products and you better deliver value as soon as you can. I think time to value is a good litmus test for the need of customer. What I mean by that is you know, noom and if you know noom, the weight loss management app, which is one of the most successful weight loss apps, it provides connected diets and fitness plans and everything between. They literally have 50 questions that you have to answer before you can even sign up. The time to value is appalling. The investment required is shit, but it's a conviction and let them as tasks for the consumer aid.

51:34It pays off and obviously what they will have is a funnel which might more drop off the very engaged users, right? So it might actually work. I think I think whoop is similar in the sense to use the same example. Like take seven days to see any any result, right? Take seven days to build the advice, let's say the baseline, but they do a really good job getting you there and to your point, you know, you're feeling that, okay, it's worth the wait. people don't like work for the reliability. Yeah, look, I'm not trying to solve whoop here, but I I, but whoops are really interesting one because it brings up a fantastic product principle that's very difficult to understand, which is how do I create a product for super users?

52:11Amazing athletes that Christiana and Aloe. Yeah. But also my mom and me and and just normal people. It's a great product and you have to again give the Christiana of each one of us, right? So what is it that relates to you that will make you do that investment? My question is how do you create a product for power uses? There can also be for more normal uses. There's two opposite things. First you said, if you have 50 questions and you deliver the answer, I think that clearly you're going through a segment, right? A people that will put down an effort. And the actually is they're going through, they like the depth of what you're going through.

52:47And it's similar to, I don't know if you're ever going to a doctor or something, and it's one that comes very causally. I said, oh, you're fine and they leave and you're like, they didn't even know what I had. And other ones that take the time to really ask you questions about your life, your private life. Now, you read well to the latter because for you is very, very important. So you're looking for that actually. So the product, to some extent, is the questionnaire. So the fact that they're taking the time to ask you 50 questions is kind of the product. Because it's the same time when you meet a great mentor and that you can see the invest time on you and you really care about it.

53:19you really like the fact that they're asking deep questions. So I think it's part of the product itself to go 50 questions. Sure, but how do you create, forgetting the question on board, and how do you create products that amazing, amazing product lovers will love as well as everyone? That will be property finder, and there will be people who have 50 properties. I don't know everything about property buying, and you need to create a great product for them. And me moving to Dubai for the first time, and buying my first house in Dubai, It's a very difficult problem to solve, right? And what I think people confuse sometimes is there's the argument, sometimes you fulfill the needs of the hardcore customer and you don't really have to do much more.

54:00They're already there. And then when you go to what is called the adjacent customer, you make it a bit easier for that person to even go through that journey. And the way I think about it is, let's say you are deep in property management. It's part of your personality. Your personality. What do you do? Oh, you know, I have 10 properties and I manage them. And you feel really good about yourself. So if you have a person that just wanted to do one, you still have to get them in that journey. And you see the great products do this. You buy one, hey, you did, you know, Dwellingo does this, right? The person that first stars at rank number, whatever, and you still don't know anything about the language, but they make you feel like you're in that journey, right?

54:34To be the person that can say, I speak five languages. You can visualize yourself, oh, I want to speak two languages now. If I only continue to do a link of what I next to know is one year or two years. So I think that journey applies to both. The error is to give the experience a super complex to the person that's just getting started, right? So it's progressive, right? There's a concept of progressive onboarding or progressive. So I think the progressive experience is an important one. And as you want to shut them down, which is, I don't care about the casual person that goes to the buy, just really want the 50 property.

55:06And then you'll be very opinionated about that, which is a bit your example before. just don't want the cash flow user. There's no way the cash flow user would put the effort of somebody who manages 50 properties. But if I want to get into a journey, I need to give it a taste of what that feels like. Justy has obviously been outplayed, hasn't moved with the times. What's a lesson from that from a product perspective, or from a business perspective? Well, I've been out of just it for many, many years. Sure. But working in Rappi as well, which kind of the next generation provider in many respects.

55:37Well, I think the ambition of Rappi was always bigger, which is a bit of what I noticed in Latin America versus Europe, if you tell me now, right? Like if you pick somebody in Rappi or I food or Mercado Livre, the energy and the passion of those people is in my experience to 3x. So it's no more of what I see in in the average here in Europe, right? Wow. And you see it. And it's not just a culture because the resilience are more, you know, happier people. But I think it's a mix of being proud and humble and appreciated more the opportunity. You know what I mean? Like in La Dermagra you don't have that many opportunities to be in a company like that.

56:15So you see that the people that are there that have a t -shirt on. You can see it. They're so proud of that company. And what you don't realize is the effort companies decay or products decay because they interest the winds from within. You know the passion to do the effort, the really difficult things to fix it. There's nobody cares anymore. If nobody's looking at your performance management, you cannot replace that with passion. And then you see that our team, they're like passionate and they want to be the best and they're proud of what they do. And they know that they're so grateful of the opportunity to be in Mercawaliere or I -Food or Rappi.

56:48That is a different motivator. They know they love it. They are there and they're proud of what they're doing. They're not like, well, it's a job. And my career, I hate when people talk about titles. I found it a lot in Europe or in the UK. Like, what is my title? How many people you manage? You know, that's clearly the wrong proxy. Because the passion of what you're doing is, okay, I have a title and I jump in the career, I get a bit of more of a salary and, you know, to Europeans, what do you do? You've seen Latin, you've seen Dubai now, you've seen it in trouble. You can generalize, right? There are people here that were like crazy and amazing companies and so forth.

57:23In average, obviously, the joke a little bit is, you know, it's a beautiful continent, Spain, South of France, and, you know, people like to enjoy it. And I think it's been a bit wealthier. The difference between America has been thorough for many, many years and there are not many opportunities in those countries. I think there's still more here. And you're also a poorer. I was quite afraid of being poorer when I was in Argentina. There's no safety net. There's no safety net in Brazil. If you don't have money, you're really in a bad place. If you don't have a good job. Truthfully. And you see that.

57:51What does that actually mean? It means whether it's education, all the sorts of education or healthcare or what you live is much more dangerous, right? So you're left to your own devices much more and you get exposed to things that obviously are not great. So you will see more energy for people to get out of that situation. I think Europeans, it's a bit more, the delta is not so strong, right? It's always like, oh, I'm doing well. If I put much more effort, what is the return, right? And it's still doing fairly okay. You don't have that in Latin America. There's a safety net here. There's a safety net and I think the historical wealth that the probably people don't realize that I think that's in last forever.

58:30Argentina was very wealthy 100 years ago and you know it went away. So the rapid raised too much to see. I think skip the dishes which is a company we have in we bought in Just Eat. It's great founders which are now in Neo Financial. They were so good because they did in your money tova in Canada. I remember we bought the company because nobody was able to travel there from anywhere else because nobody got to the plane that was a turbo prop to Manitoba. So nobody bothered to even go and meet them. And we did. We just did. We, and we David. And they were amazing. And they never raised money. So they were so efficient.

59:04And they have fought every single little cranny of the onboarding experience for partners and drivers that are the, at the time, and I think it's true. It was the best way I've ever seen, including in my opinion, everyone else. And it was really because, you know, the need is what drives innovation, right? You don't have the money. You need, you better come up with an idea on how to do Anyways, I think money always creates a little more laziness, right? Because there is always a way to buy something. Obviously, the problem is when you have the... When people give you money, you most likely take it.

59:34But I'm not so sure that a lot of money is a good thing. I haven't seen it myself. When you look at Dubai in 10 years, is it a financial technology center as they plan? Is it a Miami, which is a fleeting place for taxes? What is Dubai that I can tell you? Okay, only being there for two months, so you know, big caveat. But I don't I think it's much more than in Miami. I think the energy the way that how progressive the government is in the plans for the future to meet like a city that is or a country There is a startup right the customer are the people that want to leave there I think I mentioned before like you go to get your license is a happiness center I don't know anybody in any other country you go to get a license and feels like a happiness experience And I love it because I one of the people that thinks everything is a product, what all users of the product.

1:00:23And I think pretty much everything is a product with few exceptions. Country is a product, if you think about it. Particularly if you think up in their case that immigration is free, right? So you can choose to go there and get a visa, it's a product, right? So what is the value proposition of the country? And they seem incredibly self -aware of that, and treating you as a customer, and make sure that the experience is truthfully delightful. And they're always thinking for again two months in, What is ahead? What is the future? And you can see again that kind of excitement of the future when you talk to the people anywhere.

1:00:53It's always the future is better than the past which to me is Mainly the only reason to be alive, right? It's like and you don't see it everywhere like futures gonna be better and we're gonna do all these amazing things and we have all these ideas So to me is like a startup and a city startup and I personally very bullish about where it goes from what I've seen Dude, I want to ask you a quick find. So I say a short statement, you give me your thoughts. That sound okay. Yeah. Who, which product most recently was like a wow consumer moment for you? For me, Juelingo, the beauty of the haptics for them and how they integrate that and the vibrations with new levels.

1:01:29There's something about the kids, right? Because these two products, like Dueling or my daughter is a fanatic of it. And she learns Spanish much better than I could ever tot her and I know Spanish. My son is a fanatic of nothing, right? And then you think, oh, why are the kids react so well to this? And there has to be something about the less bias towards the past. More open to true innovation. I remember my daughter bugs me to give her the phone for the walingo to know Mrs. Strick. Like, she's like, that animes Mrs. My Strick. I'm number three. My friend is number five and she's number seven.

1:01:59And she drives me crazy until I get her the phone and do it. And my son drove me crazy to get him the phone. I believe that they're less biased and that they can experience amazing products sooner than us. because we are still stuck on, you know, I learned Spanish the all the way and I use a traditional phone. You've been at property find for a couple of months. Monzo, Rappi, Justi, which one's the best CEO? I think all successful companies have amazing CEOs right in my experience and you can compare them truthfully. You can't. They're so different. If you can invest in one, I think Simone is one of a kind for sure.

1:02:33Is in Latin America, there are not many people like him. What's your biggest parenting advice? my brother just had a new baby, his first baby. What would you advise him having his first? I can already talk about this one. First one is to enjoy it, particularly when they're young, because it goes really quickly. And the second one is that you cannot predict how the kids are going to come out or how they're going to behave or their personality or whatever you do that will choose their own path. You should not have a vision of who you want them to be, but rather just help them along the way because each one, even if you teach them the same things, will deviate quite a bit and chart their own path very quickly.

1:03:10What would you say to someone graduating in universities day, entering the workforce? Take advantage of the first few years, right? When you're, you know, I'm hiding a lot of grads now, I'm a part of Defender, they're not expensive, they don't need the money really so they should live within their means and learn and just learn and they three, four, three, four years. Does the value of a CS degree go up or down? I think physics to me always goes up. Physics. Yeah, always felt that way, even for CS. I always felt that physics and math are the cornerstone of computer science. Like JavaScript is great, but you know, I don't feel that I think that's an implementation of something, whether physics and math, I think change your brain quite a bit.

1:03:50So I would still suggest people to learn as much as they can, either the creative side or physics and math. Would you encourage your children to get the university? No. Why? I think that by then I encourage them to learn and if university happens to be the way great and if it's not there might be new ways of doing it that traditional universities that are very stuck on the past, you know, don't don't provide final one What do you believe that most around you most them and it disagree with? I think what I said before right that the value is in growing through the Difficulty there's not a success or it's not all the things you thought were important you forget very very quickly If I think my career path, when I first went to Microsoft, I thought, oh my God, I made it.

1:04:31No, I cared after that. But taking care of myself, health -wise, or my friendships, or my family, with my mom, is much more important because you literally never know what's going to happen. And I think we are all too much in the milestone game. And only when you get older, you realize that doesn't make sense. It's one of those things. It's very useful. You're never going to do it when you're younger and when you're older, it doesn't matter. So I don't know if people will follow that or not. Dude, I so appreciate you joining me. I loved the way this show didn't actually have an intro. I don't know if you noticed, but there was a moment at the beginning where I was like, this is too good.

1:05:08I'm just going to keep rolling. So thank you so much for joining me, man. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. My word, I so enjoyed that. One of my favorite things about doing the show is just the very natural conversations that unfold without the schedule, without planning. It makes it so much more special. Fernando was incredible there. Just love having him on and you can find that episode on Spotify if you leave a review or a 5 -star rating and makes a huge difference and we'd so appreciate that. But before we leave you today, are you struggling to beat model benchmarks or implement Gen AI in your product?

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1:07:07Businesses love the control, engineers love the freedom. Everyone wins! Start for free today at pendo .io -4 -slash -20 -product. As always, I so appreciate all your support and stay tuned for an incredible episode So with Martin Casado, one of the best AI infrastructure investors from Andreson coming on Monday.