In short
Podcast Summary: The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy
Episode Overview
- Title: 20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win
- Host: Harry Stebbings
- Guest: Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy
- Description: Alan discusses his rapid success in scaling Fuse Energy from $2M in its first year to $400M by the third year, drawing parallels with his experience at Revolut, where he was instrumental in achieving a valuation over $75 billion.
Key Discussions
Foundation of Success
- Rapid Growth:
- Fuse Energy's revenue growth:
- Year 1: $2M
- Year 2: $20M
- Year 3: $400M
- The ambition to beat incumbents in the energy sector, similar to Revolut's approach in banking.
Lessons from Revolut
- Key Moments:
- The importance of a strong work ethic and urgency in the team.
- The pivotal moment when Alan realized Revolut would become a massive success: working late hours and weekends set them apart from competitors.
- Speed and Execution:
- Emphasizes small, independent teams with clear goals to generate speed in execution.
- The importance of hiring top performers and maintaining high standards within the team.
Work-Life Balance
- Ambition vs. Balance:
- Alan advocates against the notion of work-life balance for ambitious founders, stating it requires immense dedication and hard work.
- He challenges the cultural push for a balanced lifestyle, claiming that generational companies are built through relentless effort.
Ownership and Accountability
- Company Culture:
- Strong focus on accountability: if you succeed, you receive praise; if you fail, you bear the blame regardless of circumstances.
- Emphasizes a "no excuses" approach, inspired by his experiences at Revolut.
Energy Market Insights
- Critique of Green Movements:
- Argues that current narratives around energy conservation are misleading and that increased energy use correlates with improved quality of life.
- Suggests that the UK is facing an energy crisis due to overregulation and inefficiencies within the energy sector.
Regulatory Environment
- Comparative Analysis:
- Discusses the regulatory challenges in the UK versus more adaptable systems in places like China, which are pivotal for the development of energy infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
- Urgency and Ambition:
- To succeed in a competitive landscape, founders must foster a culture of speed and urgency within their organizations.
- Accountability and Results:
- Leaders must prioritize outcomes over excuses, instilling a sense of ownership among team members.
- Challenges in Energy Sectors:
- Current practices in energy regulation and environmental politics may hinder the potential for companies to innovate and grow.
- Navigating the Future:
- Alan expresses optimism about the future of energy, envisioning a world where energy is abundant and accessible, fueling innovation and economic growth.
Conclusion
- In this episode, Alan Chang provides candid insights into the struggles and successes of building a rapidly growing startup in the energy sector, outlining the importance of ambition, a hardworking culture, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. He also critiques the current state of environmental narratives and regulatory frameworks in the energy market.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Importance of Work Ethic in Success
0:00 to 0:45
Explore the necessity of a strong work ethic for building successful companies.
“If you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more?”
Revenue Growth and Company Milestones
0:45 to 1:31
Learn about the impressive revenue growth of Fuse Energy and its milestones.
“Alan is the co-founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, where, check this out, every single year, he has scaled revenue 10x.”
Alan's Journey with Revolut
4:53 to 11:12
Hear about Alan's transformative moments during his time at Revolut.
“Alan, dude, I am so looking forward to this.”
Product Diversification Lessons from Revolut
11:12 to 14:01
Understand the importance of product diversification and its impact.
“There's nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance.”
The Importance of Product Diversification
14:01 to 16:40
Learn how product diversification can enhance revenue resilience in startups.
“were being run internally at the same time.”
Regulatory Challenges and Incumbent Awareness
16:41 to 19:50
Explore the issues startups face with regulators and the awareness of incumbents.
“So you had politicians that said you should drive less to work, you should turn heating on less often, You should fly less.”
The Energy Crisis: Perspectives and Misconceptions
19:51 to 23:40
Understand the current energy crisis and common misconceptions about energy sources.
“The problem is it's very, very hard to build.”
Deregulation and Energy Policy Recommendations
23:41 to 26:10
Discuss proposed changes to deregulate the energy sector for better infrastructure.
“If you look at what the Brits and Europeans pay in terms of cost per kilowatt, it's roughly$25 to$30.”
Talent Assessment in Hiring Processes
26:11 to 28:00
Learn key signals to look for in candidates during the hiring process.
“I think what's key is the next government, because ultimately, I think deregulation is you just need a will, like a very, very strong will to do it.”
Hiring Process Insights
28:00 to 28:50
Learn how to optimize your hiring process for better outcomes.
“Like, okay, you're hiring a marketing manager.”
Show all 23 chapters
Evaluating Candidates
28:50 to 30:00
Discover how to assess technical skills and compensation effectively.
“How do you structure it What would be your biggest advice to me on how I should optimize mine?”
Understanding Performance Metrics
30:00 to 31:50
Understand how to set performance thresholds for hiring decisions.
“It's system design, which is about how you architect the whole system.”
Caring vs. Intelligence in Hiring
31:50 to 33:40
Explore the importance of empathy over IQ in hiring decisions.
“When you look back, when you made a mishire, what did you not see that you should have seen?”
Addressing Failures and Accountability
33:40 to 35:00
Learn how to handle failures and accountability in leadership roles.
“Or is it a, no, no, no, come in and earn the right.”
Creating a Culture of Feedback
35:00 to 37:00
Understand the significance of establishing a culture of truth-seeking.
“So can you just help me understand what the takeaway from that is?”
Ambition in Founders
37:00 to 38:20
Discuss why ambition is crucial for founders in a competitive landscape.
“Is there anything that you shouldn't say because it ultimately doesn't make them better?”
Choosing Office Locations
38:20 to 40:00
Examine the rationale behind choosing strategic office locations for startups.
“excellent experience and focus focus focus there's so many shiny objects you can't pursue them all that advice is completely counter that.”
Building an MVP with Limited Resources
40:00 to 42:01
Learn about the steps to build an MVP with minimal funding and resources.
“Shoreditch kind of most famous Silicon Roundabout.”
Building a Startup with Minimal Capital
42:01 to 44:48
Discover how to start a venture without significant funding and the lessons learned from early funding rounds.
“With just equity and no cash, my co-founder Charles became a qualified trader and electrician.”
Revenue Growth and Future Projections
44:49 to 47:25
Learn about the revenue growth of Fuse Energy and projections for future success.
“Why is that a good round for the company?”
The Importance of Timing in Business
47:26 to 49:18
Understand why timing, talent, and luck are crucial for startup success and how they impact business strategies.
“Like, so you don't have to do, waste a lot of time doing a lot of chores, travel.”
Reflections on Leadership and Transition
49:19 to 51:28
Explore the challenges and reflections of leadership changes and the decision to leave a successful company.
“For example, I don't think Fuse could have been built 10 years ago.”
Future Visions for Energy and Technology
51:29 to 53:17
Discuss the future potential of energy solutions and the role of technology in powering economies.
“I would love to go much deeper on engineering, on hardware, like go into very low level details.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00If you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. There's nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance. But I think the only way to build a generational company is like very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it. Excuses don't matter. If you're a leader of an area in the company, excuses don't matter. If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed. We increase our revenue 10x every year since inception. The first year was 2 million pounds.
0:31Second year was£20. And then this year, we're going to end at over£200. Simply put, I have interviewed a thousand of the best entrepreneurs over the last decade. And two stand out above all others. Nick Staronsky, founder at Revolut. And then our guest today, Alan Chang. Alan is the co-founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, where, check this out, every single year, he has scaled revenue 10x. The first year, 2 million. the second year,$20 million, and the third year,$200 million. So like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy, I think three of the most important categories that technology can own.
1:19Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut, where he played a crucial role, alongside Nick, in scaling the company to an over$75 billion valuation. But before we dive into the show today, as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work. Tools that don't just save time, but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what AlphaSense does. With the acquisition of Tegus, AlphaSense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust fast. I've used Tegus before for company deep dives right here on the podcast.
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4:36Do security and compliance right. My listeners can get$1 ,000 off Vanta by going to Vanta.com forward slash 20VC. That's Vanta.com forward slash 20VC for$1 ,000 off Vanta. You have now arrived at your destination. Alan, dude, I am so looking forward to this. So I have you to thank for hiring my chief of staff because we were sitting in a cocktail bar in London and you were helping me hire. And I was like then, holy shit, this guy is brilliant. and I need to do a show with him. That was three years ago. So thank you so much for doing this with me. Yeah, thanks for having me. I think a really interesting one to start with is you're a freaking machine.
5:21And I just want to understand, when we look at transformative moments, one of the most transformative early moments to you was getting the job with Nick and with Revolut. Can you just take me to that? And Saka actually said I had to ask this one. He was like, you've got to start with how he actually got the job. How did you get the job with Nick? And what did that look like? At the time I just graduated and I was just perusing on the Facebook group, like it was called London Startups. And I saw this job post, Revolut. I was like, okay, I have no idea what this company does. But I was looking for fresh guys.
5:52I was like, okay, I applied. And Nick replied within five minutes. I was like, oh, wow, that's very quick. And then he asked me to come for a face-to-face interview the next day. So I came for an interview and he asked me a bunch of physics questions. I didn't realize I was applying for a physics job. and they offered me a role in a right after the interview. I said yes and that was it. That was like the fastest interview process I've ever had. What was the position and what size and scale was Revolut then? Yeah, so at the time, in terms of full-time, it was Nick, Vlad and two other full-time engineers and that was it.
6:27So it was just hot desking. The job was just, it was called operations analyst but effectively the first three months was doing customer support. When did you realize that this was going to be a massive$100 billion company? So at the time, Revolut was in a co-working space called Level39. Yeah, I remember this. Yeah. And so Level39 is, yeah, for those who don't know, it's basically a giant startup co-working space with maybe over 200 startups. And Revolut was the only team that worked past 7 p.m. on the weekday. So after 7 p.m., the whole floor is dead. It was also the only team that worked on the weekends.
7:04So when I realized that, you know, I knew there was something special. The second moment was I asked Nick, like, what's your ambition? Like, what keeps you motivated? And at the time he's, you know, worth quite a bit of money already. So, you know, what drives him, right? And he told me he wants to beat JP Morgan. So that's the second moment I realized this is going to be a massive company. What do you think you guys did really right, really early on, that led to such success early? So at the time when we got started, there were basically three players. There was Revolut, Monzo, and N26. And for the first two years, at least from the outside, it feels like neck to neck.
7:42It wasn't clear who the winner was. But for me, it was crystal clear. It was crystal clear who's going to win. And the reason why is because it's just the team's ambition and execution. Because ultimately, if you ask the same teams at the time, basically the product roadmap, almost everyone would tell you basically the same. There wasn't any differentiation in product roadmap. But what differentiated between us and everyone else was basically the ambition and the speed of execution. I think that was it. How do you move so fast? What is your biggest lessons on how to create speed of execution within teams?
8:16I want this internally. You've met my team here. You see it. How do I encourage this urgency and speed of execution internally? And how do you do it? Yeah, so I think have small teams operating in the independent units and give them very clear goals. Let them execute. And what you should do is monitor those teams. If they do well, let them be. If they don't do well, replace the team. What did you learn from Nick about managing people and people performance? It's all about results. I think Nick's made this analogy before. There are three types of people in the world. There are people who can self-identify the target and shoot and hit the goal.
8:52Then there are people who can't identify targets, but if you point, they shoot and they hit the goal. And then the third type of people, which is neither, right? You want to maximize the first and second group of people. And you want ideally the first and second type of people leading teams. And basically the throughput of your company is basically some of the number of people in the first and second bucket. When you bring those people together and you grow very fast, what was the most significant breaking moment in the early Revolut days? And what did you learn and take from it? I'll say the get shit done culture, the best way to build something great very, very fast.
9:30And it's something I took on board, but I even amped it up even more. How do you amp it up more? Putting even more intensity, right? Just driving a lot of urgency within the company. Always keep people on their toes. How do you always keep people on their toes? Is it like pushing them in terms of their goals? Is it pushing them in terms of the hours and the work and the intensity? What is it? Oh, in terms of results, right, or lack thereof. I always emphasize like we're not moving fast enough. We could be doing more, but we're not. You know, for example, I told the team last year execution was maybe 4 out of 10, right?
10:02And we need to get a 10 out of 10 and we're not passing. What was the problem there and how did you fix it? The problem was speed of execution. We were too slow. we wanted to ship a bunch of things, and we didn't, right? Things were delayed. When were you off target in execution with Revolut? And what did you learn from that? I think we're off execution maybe every year. I think the mindset should be, I think you need to be best versions of yourself. So you always need to review, okay, in the past week, in the past month, what could I have done better? Maybe a more extreme analogy, right? Like I used to ask my team, right, at Rev, if you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more?
10:39If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. There will be people who say, I also have a family. I also have other parts of my life. And I get this a lot. I'm sure you've probably seen because you're socially aware, but like 996, I've been chastised for, actually, including by some of your investors at Baldurton. Interesting. Who would say it's not work-life balance. And I could always say, yes, I could have done more, but I have other parts of my life. How do you respond to them? Don't join Fuse. That's okay. Like I have total respect for people who want, you know, like a nine to five job, right?
11:12There's nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance. But I think the only way to build a generational company is like very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it. When you look back now, Revolut is known for its intense culture as well. That's where I think you've learned a lot of this. Where was the Revolut culture amazing that you've really taken from it? and where was it? Actually, I'm glad that we left that behind and it wasn't helpful. Yeah, I think Revel's culture of Never Settle, like in terms of speed and quality is something I took over. Like Revel had a lot of cultural values and to be honest, like I think it was a bit too many for me.
11:49I always forget all of them. How many does it have? From memory, it's six. How many should you have? I think one. What's your one cultural value? So Never Settle. It's the one that resonated with me the most. Do you apply that to all parts of life? and what I mean by that is you know one of the heads of a firm recently said to me and it's one of the biggest firms in the world but I do want to keep this one private because always they'll fucking kill me they said how you do anything is how you do everything like if we have mistakes in a memo that says that we're not thinking clearly and we're not putting the work in and I actually didn't really agree with that I think you have to pick your battles and choose where to be all in how do you think about that never settle because sometimes it's okay to settle on 80 percent for a junior account manager in whatever.
12:33Do you know what I mean? I agree with that, yeah. I think you have to pick your battles for sure. Ultimately, you need to identify the most important roles in the company and never settle on those roles. But the roles that matter less, I think it's perfectly okay to settle. When you're building Revolut with Nick and the team, what was your biggest disagreement with Nick and how did that play out? I'll say the overuse of KPIs. Because ultimately, there are things you should measure, you know, which tells you the health of that team, how well they're doing, and you should hunt and do that. But then once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it.
13:05Nick is a super numbers-driven guy, right? And I think that worked very well in a large part. But I would say not everything should be the KPI. What shouldn't be a KPI and what should and how do you determine that? Like when you start incentivizing a metric, you need to think about, okay, what are the second order consequences, right? Let's take a very simple example. Let's say, let's take a recruiter. If you give a KPI to a recruiter, let's say on hires per month. What they might start to do, because the bonus depends on it, is trying to convince hiring managers to lower the talent bar. And I've seen that happen before.
13:37That's actually not what the company wants, right? What the company wants is actually keep the talent bar high. So instead they try, you know, some recruiters that really want to chase their bonuses, they try and negotiate with hiring managers, try and convince them, this is the best you're going to find, you're going to find someone better, et cetera, et cetera. When we look at outcomes, I think so much of Revolut's success has come from product diversification and the testing that you guys did internally. When I interviewed Nick, the thing that struck me was he said about the 26 product experiments were being run internally at the same time.
14:06That was a really interesting way to approach company building to me that no one had ever talked to me about before. What did you learn from that? What are your takeaways from seeing that you've applied to Fuse? Yeah, I think product diversification is so important. I mean, let me give you like one example of why that was so important. So during the COVID lockdowns, the interchange revenue, so, you know, revenue from people spending on cards, especially abroad, went basically near zero. However, there was a lot of stimulus checks, right, from the COVID times, and the stock market was booming, and the crypto market was booming.
14:36So whilst the interchange revenue went down, the trading revenue went up. So it kind of offset each other. So that's a great example where diversification actually helped make the company's revenues much more resilient. Do you think you should have gone for the banking license earlier? Nick's publicly said that he thinks he should have done. But when you look there, I think your product diversification was enabled by your not having the banking license earlier where Monzo did. Actually, I think the product diversification could have happened even if Revlo got the banking license earlier. I think Nick is totally right.
15:07The issue is like the bigger you get, the, I guess, more scared the regulators are of you. Because if you succeed, they have no upside. They don't get a bigger bonus. But if you fail, like they might lose their jobs. So they're incentivized to be risk adverse as opposed to risk neutral, right? Whereas what's best for the economy is actually risk-neutral regulators. When was the first time that you really felt incumbents and regulators were aware of how successful you were becoming? I still don't think they realize. I still don't think the incumbents have woken up yet. Oh, dude, they have. They have?
15:39They have. I'm sorry, I spoke at one of the incumbents' events recently. And pretty much the only thing that was discussed at their away day is Revolut. What have they done about it? Well, the trouble is they can't. and that's why you bet long on Revolut. And I am trying to buy every fucking Revolut share I can at a good price because honestly, the structures, the comp bands that they have, the policies that they have means that they can't do it. It's almost like they know the challenge, but they are unable to fight against it. And no one has ownership. It's a 100-year-old bank. It's a hired CEO who's been paid$5 million a year for five years.
16:15Honestly, if he bounces, he'll go back to Marbella to the family home and he'll be fine. Yeah, maybe. Talking about it and doing something about it is very different. Do you think it's important to have an enemy in a startup? Whether it's Revolut and banks, whether it's Fuse and traditional incumbents, is that important? I think it's important to have a common goal. For example, at Fuse, our common goal is no trade-offs. Looking back the last 20 years, this green movement, basically telling people to use less. So you had politicians that said you should drive less to work, you should turn heating on less often, You should fly less.
16:51You should do less of everything in order to save the environment. And then you have energy prices slowly creeping up over the last 20 years as well. It's basically trade-offs. And I think that's totally wrong. It's actually moving in the complete opposite direction, right? We should be using more energy. There's actually a very strong correlation between how much energy you use per capita and quality of life, right? And if you look at the Americans, right? The Americans use almost eight times more energy than Europeans and look at the quality of life. But you're saying the American quality of life is better than ours.
17:22For sure. Think about the average American home, right? They have a large detached house, big driveway, several cars, big backyard, maybe a swimming pool, maybe a sauna, and maybe a jacuzzi. And that's like, you know, middle class. Like we're not talking about ultra wealthy Americans. Even if you look at like the wealthy Brits living in London. But I mean, that's bluntly built on an infrastructure of credit and borrowing that they are unable to afford, which you see in bluntly debt and borrowing levels in the US on the consumer side being harder than they've ever been. Whilst at the same time, respectfully, dude, their food supply chain is completely fucked unless you're on either coast, and the quality of their food is shit and manufactured.
18:00That's also true. But if you look at the average cost of an American home, it's relatively affordable. So what do we take away from that? I think the takeaway is you can have it all three ways. You can have low-cost energy, you can have more energy, and you can have lower carbon energy at the same time. People often talk about the energy crisis that we're in today, and energy is now one of the hottest topics. When people say it's a quarter to midnight, it's a minute to midnight, how close are we to an energy crisis? Is it a minute to midnight? Are we far away? What does that look like? I think we're in an energy crisis already.
18:34In the whole developed economies, the UK is in the deepest trouble. So if you look at energy consumption per capita in the last 25 years, the UK has dropped 25%. In the US, it's been flat. In China, in the same period of time, it's gone up by seven times. Seven times in the same period of time. And energy prices have gone up. Price volatility has gone up. Everything is trending in the wrong direction. And what's the cause of that? Can you just help me on that? You know, I was talking to one of the biggest kind of data infrastructure providers the other day. and they were like, listen, the reason we're not in the UK is because as a percentage of revenue, energy is 16 % of our revenues in the UK, whereas comparatively elsewhere, it's 3 % to 4%.
19:11Why is that? Why are we so bad? Two reasons. The first reason is over-regulation. It's very hard to build anything in the UK, like physical otherwise. Let me give you an example, right? So we're trying to build a power plant in the UK. And one of the things the council have complete discretion over is planning, especially around environmental impact. So we had to do wintering bird surveys over several winters. So how that works is you hire a guy with a clipboard and they count number of birds in the winter. And until that survey is done, you can't build. So that's one example where it's so hard to build something physical in Britain.
19:46Right now, I can tell you, if you speak to any of the infra capital providers, they want to deploy a lot of capital to building infrastructure. So the problem is not capital. The problem is it's very, very hard to build. So that's the first reason. The second reason I would say is the quality of companies operating this space is not very sophisticated. Like a lot of these existing energy companies, they are not technology driven at all. They're very old school, still pen and paper, spreadsheet based companies that are incredibly inefficient. Now, there's not much I can do about regulation, but I think we can for sure build the best version of, you know, best energy company using the latest technology.
20:24Who is in charge of the regulation? Is this Ed Miliband and the energy? Yeah, it's Ofgem, it's Desnes. And when we compare that to the US, do they not have the same regulatory compliance issues that, say, California does, which is why they failed so woefully on their expansion of the railway systems that they wanted to build out? Yeah, I think, to be clear, I think US also share a lot of similar problems to the UK, to a lesser extent. And it also depends on what state you're talking about. For example, in the state of Texas, like where, you know, a lot of people say it's a home of energy, it's much easier to build compared to the UK.
20:58When you think about energy, the energy crisis today, what does no one know that everyone should know? I'm very naive on energy. It's not my business. It's not where we invest traditionally. So first of all, there's no such thing as harm's and renewable. Just think about when the sun is shining, solar is generating. And obviously, sun is not shining all the time. For wind, it's the same, right? When wind is blowing, you get wind energy, right? Wind power. However, they are extremely correlated to each other. What that means is even if you overbuild solar and wind, it's never possible to cover a harm's end of the time to be harm's end of the time, because they're highly correlated.
21:35So in certain hours, you get abundant of solar and wind energy, but certain hours, you basically get near zero energy, even if you overbuild. Now you can argue, okay, you can put storage in, but right now, most batteries are sub two hours. So they're actually, batteries are still way too expensive for us to use to store days or even weeks without soil and wind energy. So any energy company that's claiming their harm's end renewable is a complete lie. They're simply buying renewable certificates to claim their harm's end renewable, and it's completely false. Let me give you a proof point of why this is completely false.
22:09When Russia invaded Ukraine, the gas prices shot up, but the energy companies that are offering harm's end renewable energy tariffs also went up. How is that possible if it's harm's end renewable, right? I think that's the first thing. Second thing most people don't understand is power is not fungible across time and space. You have a lot of power, for example, wind power in north of Scotland that are being told to turn off because the power is not getting to where it needs to be. People are not using energy when a wind is blowing and is also not going to where it needs to be, which is the big demand centers like London because the grid is not set up to do that.
22:46So yeah, these are two biggest misconceptions in energy, I would say. If you were in charge of the UK's energy policy program, what would you do differently that we're not doing today? I would deregulate building anything physical. I would make it so easy for anyone to build. Number two is I would delete all subsidies of any kind. Why? Because the goal for energy should be as low cost as possible. A subsidy basically means it's actually not profitable to build this project. but because the subsidy is now profitable. Think about who takes that burden of that higher energy cost. It's ultimately the rate payers, right?
23:23It's you and I, it's everyone. So it actually doesn't make sense. So I'll delete all subsidies and let the free market do its thing. If it's profitable to build it, people will build it. If it's not, don't. When we look at energy regulations, infrastructure, policy, which country do you think stands out as an exemplary that we should follow? China. Why is that? Just look at the energy price. If you look at what the Brits and Europeans pay in terms of cost per kilowatt, it's roughly$25 to$30. In the US, it's$10 to$15. In China, it's$8. If you look at energy per capita, the US hasn't grown in the last 25 years.
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24:02It's been flat. In China, it's gone up by seven times. And if you look at the build-out in China, right, they have truly vertically integrated energy companies run by the state, from generation to the grid and distribution. and whilst in the West, there are people debating, oh, is renewables better? Is oil and gas better? Then it's becoming a very political thing. In China, they build everything. In China, they deploy more solar than all Western economies combined. In China, they deployed more gas, more coal, more grid. They've laid more cables of grid than all Western economies combined. So they're just building everything.
24:38Clearly, they understand the importance of energy costs and they're just building everything. I think that's a model economy we should follow for energy policy. Do you stand by the belief that we're all in the same WhatsApp groups and everyone says, ah, but the level of talent coming out of Imperial and Cambridge and Oxford, absolutely we can parallel the US. Do you stand by that on talent levels in the UK? I think talent levels in the UK is good. Ultimately, higher education. I personally receive higher education in the UK. I think it's world class. and ultimately this is the key ingredient to build anything successful.
25:13Although short term I'm bearish in the UK, but long term I'm bullish. What makes you bearish right now in the UK? Current government is heading in the wrong direction. We need deep deregulation so it's easier to build and there's a lot of talk about growth, but it's just talk and no action. Respectfully, I don't know how you can be bearish in the short term and bullish in the long term. When you look at the cyclical structural decline that we're heading into. That is multi-decade, actually, and it's very difficult to reverse out of. So with respect, I don't know how you can be long-term bullish, but short-term bearish.
25:46I think a lot of people with common sense are realizing we're in a bad situation. What makes me optimistic is because when I speak to people, there is some common sense. Hopefully, those people with common sense will elect a more sensible government in the future that will do the right thing. With respect, do you think that's actually a fair assessment, though? I mean, right now, it looks like Nigel Farage and reform will be that government. And actually, when you look at populace and the UK populace, transparently, it's not the intellectual Matt Clifford that is the average person on the street.
26:17I think what's key is the next government, because ultimately, I think deregulation is you just need a will, like a very, very strong will to do it. As long as, you know, the following governments can attract a top team around them, and being advised the rights regulations to look at and the delete or reform i think we could do it do you feel you have a political party home today i feel kind of politically lost if i'm honest which is like it used to be a kind of conservative now i don't feel any particular allegiance to conservatives under can be to be honest but i don't feel particularly strong belief in nigel farage and reform i think labor's terrible but i don't feel like i have a political home like i used to I want to make sure there are people who are competent to lead the country, right?
27:04I want to make sure the most competent individuals are leading the country, regardless of party. Who would you most like to see? Matt Clifford is a pretty good choice. I'm probably in the same camp as you for now. We said about talent in the UK. One thing that's always very hard with talent is detecting it. And part of that is the interview process. And you helped me, again, hire my chief of staff even. when you look at green flags in interview processes that excite you what are some of the best signals that one can give in an interview process basically when i when i explain to the candidate you know about what we're trying to build a fuse ambitions how we want to be a number one energy company in the world the hard work that requires to build it like what i usually see is like the body language right as well as a facial expression like are they leaning in or they're leaning out and you want to be hiring people who are leaning in i don't like bouncers either you You know when you look at someone's CV and it's like one year, one year, one year, one year.
27:57Yeah, that's also not great. Anything else where you're like, eh, not great? Fluffy CVs for me. Like, okay, you're hiring a marketing manager. I want to see, I increased MQLs by 38%. I did that through these three core channels. I learned this about Facebook advertising, but then it saturated when we hit expand. I'm like, ooh, very detailed. Like clear attribution led data. I would say very long CVs is bad. I think it should be maximum page. Like if Elon Musk can fill, put a CV in one page, So could you. Yeah, it reminds me of like, you know, like your first ever CV, right? And you're trying to fill the page and you couldn't think of anything to put.
28:31And you're like, put you in the like special skills like Microsoft Word. It's got that type of vibe, right? Professional tiddlywinks player, other hobbies, skiing, art. I fucking hate art. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. Okay, so we have that. How do you structure your hiring process? I'm always looking to be better at hiring. How do you structure it What would be your biggest advice to me on how I should optimize mine? Yeah, I think first define the skill sets you need, right? So for example, for a software engineer, it could be coding skills, system design, problem solving, and as well as culture fit.
29:06So we basically find, okay, who is the best coder in the company? Who is the best assistant design? And then we assign those people to assess those skills individually. And then at the end of the process, they kind of get a grade, right, for every single step. if they above a certain threshold, then we offer. And that's also how we decide on how much we offer, right? So as a company, we don't actually use any comp bands. We simply look at the grades, and the higher the grade, the higher our bid, because ultimately we're buying skills. Wow, sorry, this is really interesting. So you will essentially say, okay, we are looking for a software engineer, and we need, I don't know, you choose your language, whatever we're going for.
29:45We need X language, and then you will rank them out of 10 on that one core skill, and then you will assign them a salary as a result of that. Actually, we don't even look at language. So although our whole backend is in Python, we will hire any backend developer even if they know nothing about Python. So it's a coding challenge in the language of their choice. It's system design, which is about how you architect the whole system. Problem solving, which is, have they successfully solved the problem in the past, whatever that is, as well as culture fit, right? And basically, if they get, let's say, straight A's in every single one, we bid a very, very high offer.
30:19okay, they are a seven out of 10. Should you just not hire them? Should it not be like an all in, we should give them the top whack or don't hire them at all? Yeah, so our threshold is we will hire anything above a B. If you get straight Bs, you'll still get an offer, but the offer will be much lower and it could be below what you're making today. If you have a better offer elsewhere, like good luck to you. Why would you do that? That feels like to me, like in venture, we'd say that's like a nah deal. Well, ultimately, to be clear, B is still pretty good. A is exceptional. So B is like this is where the bar is.
30:56And I'll say you can still be a very solid performer if you're B. The difference between a straight B candidate and a straight A candidate is simply compensation. And for a straight A candidate, we have made offers that are much higher than what they make today. And even if we know that, that's okay. Because we want to make sure we're a no-brainer for you, such that you will never think about leaving. How fast do you know when someone's not very good? A month, two months. Do you pull the cord that quick? We always give them a verbal warning first. When you give a pip, does it ever actually get better?
31:30Well, we don't really have formal pips. I don't believe in pips. Why? I think it's a waste of time. Like, just give them a warning. Because most people we hire, they're already self-aware, right, of where they fall short. Even before we have the verbal warning, they kind of know they're falling short already. And yeah, basically the formal warning is simply, look, we're giving you one more chance. If you don't improve, you're out. When you look back, when you made a mishire, what did you not see that you should have seen? I used to overvalue IQ, didn't put enough weighting on deeply caring. Can you explain that?
32:04Yeah. So what you want to do is hire someone who really deeply cares about the company and about the mission, right? Someone who would stay up late to fix this bug. or stay over the weekend to get this new feature shipped. Even if you hire someone very, very intelligent where they just don't care, it's also not going to work out. Is that not a game of luck in some ways? When you hire someone, you've never met them before, they're young, you have very little data on them, you don't actually know if they're going to give it a deal and work through Christmas to get that deal done, to get that project off the line.
32:39Is it not a game of luck? It's certainly not a game of luck. There are questions you can ask. So I usually pitch them at a company telling, okay, like we want to be a number one engine company, blah, blah, blah, right? I explain to them, look, you have many, many choices, right? You're obviously very, very talented engineer. You have many choices. You can work at any startup you want, any tech company you want. Are you really sure this is what you want to do, right? It's going to be very tough. There'll be tough times. You know, you have to constantly balance between shipping new features, fixing bugs, improving scalability of the platform.
33:11Like, why do you want to do this to yourself? Like, why are you sure you want to do this? And if they say, oh, I'm not sure, depends on the pay, blah, blah, blah, that means they're not up for it. If they lean in and they tell you, okay, I've been so bored at my corporate job, this is something I've been looking for, you know, for a very long time. Like, I'm in, then you know, right? Now, obviously, they can lie, right? But most, I would say, from my experience, they don't. Any big red flags around people and their title expectations? I want to come in, but I want to be a head of product. Is that okay?
33:41Or is it a, no, no, no, come in and earn the right. Any lessons around title and how they feel about title? Yeah, we've never given a head of position to anyone we've hired. We've only given to it based on performance. In terms of internal promotion? Yes. Any on salary where it's like, hey, listen, I'm being paid X at my current job. I need that to make this worth my time. Actually, for us, their expectations don't really matter. It's about their performance. either interview performance or performance in the company. And we will pay you top of market if you perform very well. What non-obvious behavior do you not tolerate, even if they're really high performers?
34:21So I remember backwards when I was at Revolut, I was explaining to Nick, I actually forgot what it was, but I failed at something. And I was trying to explain to him why I failed. Then Nick sent me this article, it was about jobs, explaining the difference between a janitor and a VP. So the story goes, if the janitor fails to collect the trash because the locks in the office was changed, Jobs would say, okay, that's irritating, but that's acceptable because you're the janitor. Somewhere between a janitor and a VP, reasons stop mattering. So every single time when one of the leaders at Fuse explains to me why they failed and they couldn't hit a certain goal, I sent him this article.
35:01So can you just help me understand what the takeaway from that is? It's like, you know what? It doesn't fucking matter why you failed. The point is you failed in the expansion. What do you take from that? Excuses don't matter. Excuses don't matter. If you're a leader of an area in the company, excuses don't matter. If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed. Do you worry that you're ever too harsh on people? I get told I am. I don't care about your excuses. I care about outcomes. And people say that I'm too harsh, I'm too direct.
35:31Do you worry? I don't care what they think. and you don't worry about them leaving. Because for my best performers, for your use, where Nick at Revolut is saying that to you, Nick should be terrified that you leave. You're a core part of that business. I want to protect you and look after you. And when you say, dude, there's a lot of reasons why, I don't know, Poland didn't work in the expansion, and da-da-da-da-da. Okay, Alan, you're my guy. I'm here for you, and thank you for explaining that to me. I want to protect my best performers. Well, I would say I don't think that's protecting. That's just hiding information from your best performers.
36:06Ultimately, your best performers, they're smart, they're hardworking, they're not dumb. And initially, I took that feedback to heart and I was resisting at first. I thought it was unfair, but then I thought more about it and it made me a better person. So I thank him for sending me the article. What I found is usually top performers internalizes negative feedback very well. They take negative feedback to heart and they find ways to improve. If there are people who don't take negative feedback well, I don't think they're top performers. What was the bit of feedback that you found most hard to take?
36:38You have to assume the person giving you negative feedback have the best intentions for you. And once you realize that, and it's nothing personal, you can take all negative feedback. Even if it's very harsh. Was there a bit of feedback that you found the hardest to give? No. It's very important you create a culture of truth-seeking. And the truth is very ugly, might hurt someone's feelings. You should still say it. because it'll make that person better. Is there anything that you shouldn't say because it ultimately doesn't make them better? Well, if I keep giving negative feedback to a person that they haven't improved, then I just stop bothering.
37:11They can leave the company. Do you think there's a bit of a culture of fear around you? Like if you look, again, I love Nick, and I think he's a phenomenal leader and one of the greatest founders I've ever interviewed ever, and I've done 1 ,000 founder interviews. But I mean, that's not, I don't know, whatever the right term, let's not shy away from it. People are scared of him. is it bad to have a fear-based leadership? What matters is people need to feel like they can speak the truth. And you do with Nick? Yes. I tell him if I think it's a bad idea, I tell Nick. Now, he can disagree with me, and sometimes I change his mind, sometimes I don't.
37:45But I do tell him the truth. What specific decision on product or strategy do you think moves the needle most with Revolut? Was there one, like, we have to go into crypto, we have to go into stock trading, we have to do x country we have to invest in x no because the answer is we need to do everything yeah i think as we build a company realize there's so many opportunities and we just need to pursue all of them that advice is completely counter what every founder is being told that you need to focus you need to create a product for a very specific customer base and you need to deliver that excellent experience and focus focus focus there's so many shiny objects you can't pursue them all that advice is completely counter that.
38:27What would you say to them listening who are now confused? I actually think there are not enough ambitious founders out there. Because ultimately, the throughput of the company, like how many parallel work streams you can take at a given time is dictated by a number of great leaders you have in the company. And the zero sum mindset will be, okay, I only have that many leaders in the company. But in some cases, it could just be the founders themselves. Therefore, I'm just going to pursue these things. The expansionist mindset would be, I need to hire more leaders in my company so I can pursue more, right?
38:58So I'll argue we're in the business of expanding things. So rather than you try to play the zero-sum game, you should try and figure out ways to, you know, hire more leaders so you can pursue more. What does your direct report structure look like? Jensen has popularized having, you know, 50 and being so involved in the minutiae of a large amount of the business in terms of surface area. To what extent do you agree with that versus the delegate to fantastic leadership like you kind of mentioned there in terms of increasing surface area? So I would say, yeah, I think I have many direct reports. I don't know how many.
39:31I would probably lean towards what Jensen is doing because ultimately I don't even think of them as direct reports. I think of them as, you know, going back to self-guiding missile analogy, right? You don't need to manage those people. Like you discuss and you debate about the target, right? But once you both agree on a target, then that's it, right? You don't really have to manage them. You just monitor and make things that are okay, but that's about it. Talking about monitoring and management, your offices are in Canary Wharf, not the obvious place for startups in London, Shoreditch kind of most famous Silicon Roundabout.
40:04Why are you in Canary Wharf? So first of all, it's probably the only place in London where you can keep expanding offices, right? So you can keep upgrading office without incurring a big penalty in your lease. second reason it's it's far away from the party you know there if you if you if you work around here it's uh there's this thing going on this bar right or this this club right um i think there's too much going on in west london too many distractions or it's can't care of that there's nothing going on it's just work and nothing else so do you not think that like i live here but i'm fucking disciplined i don't go to parties i don't drink i don't do anything but work and gym is that not the secret to being a great entrepreneur discipline i think so but i'm talking about other people in the team.
40:46You know, it's like, if you see a full bar downstairs, I think you're tempted, right? You might, oh, I'm gonna, you know, pop down for a pint, right? Do you expect people to work weekends? Yeah, I'd say like, as I said before, like this is very hard, like this only way to do it, like we're going against big, big, big energy companies with like huge balance sheets, you know, billions in revenue. Only way to win is with much more balance sheets, much less cash, much less resources is work ethic. And work ethic gets you a long way. In the early days, you built the MVP with just a million bucks, right?
41:22Before any outside funding. Can you just talk to me about that? And what you advise founders on MVPs and going to V1 with minimal resources having done that? Yeah, so at the time, we wanted to build a full stack energy company. And we're a million bucks. So what we need for full stack energy company, we need power generation, We need a license. We need someone to help us guide through regulation. We need a qualified trader. So you need to be qualified to trade energy. And we also need a qualified electrician. So we found a single wind turbine in north of Scotland that the seller is willing to sell for 750k.
41:58We found a license for 75k. We convinced the former CEO of Gem to become an advisor with With just equity and no cash, my co-founder Charles became a qualified trader and electrician. So we acquired all the skills and assets we need to build a MVP for SAC Energy company. So my advice is I don't think you need a lot of capital. You don't need a huge seed round to get started. If you can, why don't you? There's so much venture money to do, dude. If you can, why don't you? I think you could. If you could, you should. But you could. Anyone would have written you. You could say, I'm doing a file app.
42:35I'll give you 10 million bucks. The disgraceful thing about you, Alan, is I would have given you money for almost anything. But, and this is like my biggest lesson in the state. I listen to you and I just die inside, honestly. I do also remember, dude, you have the token element, which just, it was hard to digest. We chatted about when you were racing your first round and one of your investors said that I had to ask you, no, it wasn't, it was actually Antoine, who said, is it true that you rocked up to Balderton with your Ferrari parked outside and then strolled in and said, I'm going to raise a$60 million seed round?
43:12Yeah, there's some truth to that, yeah. How did it go down? I think it went pretty well. You raised 78 in the first round. Yeah, I think they really, really like the concept. And I think what they realized is a pretty good strategy. And I realized after a lot of their investments, because they made so much money from the Revell investment, They just keep investing in extra level teams. Is there anything that you would do differently about the early rounds of funding with the benefit of hindsight that you have today? Yeah, I think raise at too low price. Could you have raised it higher? Could have.
43:45Why didn't you? So we had a price in mind. What was the price? It was roughly where we were at, about 140 actually. We had an oral agreement with Bolton, we'll take the time sheet. But we haven't signed the time sheet yet. And then later there was another investor that came and said, I will offer you a higher term sheet. We said no, because we already agreed with Bolton, we'll take the term sheet. And you regret that? No, like I would say, I regret saying yes. It's too early because we could have raised a better terms. So what would you advise founders on the back of that? Like ultimately, I would say the, I underestimated the value of the company at the time because I didn't realize, you know, investors put such a high price on it.
44:25I'll say wait for a bit longer. At the time, it was like effectively the second term sheet we had. By the same time, I believe if you say you're going to do something, you should do it. And that's why we took Bollaton's term sheet, even though we could have received a better one. You raised a recent round,$75 billion. Yeah. That's often what's referred to as a suicide round, which is a very high price with not actually that much money going into the business. Why is that a good round for the company? Yeah, so the company is doing over 400 million revenue, annualized revenue. 400 million? Yeah.
45:03When was day one revenue? What's that slope? So in terms of financial year, we increase our revenue 10x every year since inception. The first year was 2 million pounds, so about three, just start for$3 million. Second year was 20 pounds, so roughly 25, 26. And then this year we're going to end at over 200 pounds. So yeah, roughly 260. You can't 10x again. We'll try. Where do you think you will land? If me and you have a bet, okay, and we'll sit here next. I mean, our business plan is much less than 10x, right, for next year. Is it 5x? Something around there, but we'll still shoot for 10. What would be the biggest barrier to you hitting a billion?
45:47There's one reason. What is it? I think it's speed of hiring quality engineering. That's the biggest barrier. There's no capital. It's quality engineering. Why do you like hiring Eastern European engineers? Because culturally, I think they favor technical education, and they have very strong work ethic. With the success that you've had, dude, what have been your biggest reflections on how you think about your relationship to money? For me, obviously money is great, but beyond levels of personal consumption, and I personally don't spend that much money. I think it becomes a means to an end. Can I be blunt and ask you, what is that level?
46:23And this is for me. I'm not sure what that is. I don't want to be on the hedonic treadmill, but I do think about that. Honestly, I think anything, I'd say number is probably like five. Five, I think is enough. Do you remember when you made your first real money? I do remember, yeah. How did it feel? First real. My Revolute account went from no money and 1 ,000x overnight. Did you sell much of your Revolute? No, only for personal consumption. I'm still very bullish on the company. How big can Revolut be? I often say publicly it's like easily a$250 billion business without the US. With the US, it's a$500 billion business.
47:02I think of a trillion dollar company. Do you think he'll be able to crack the US? If someone's going to do it, it's Nikola. At what price would you start to sell? Trillion. What does no one know about having money that people should know about having money? I think it buys you time. Actually, it buys you quite a bit of time back. Where do you spend to save time? I think having an assistant helps you save a lot of time. Like, so you don't have to do, waste a lot of time doing a lot of chores, travel. I think flying a coach just kills your, I think it just wastes two days. I think it's worth flying business.
47:38You know, you can work in a plane and not feel terrible, you know, the day after, right? You know, traveling better, eating better, and not wasting time on things outside the business. You can buy a lot of time back. Does it change your relationship? personal relationships? Maybe for the better, right? So you stop thinking about price tags, which is good, right? You just go wherever you want, eat wherever you want. So I think it does help in a positive way. But yeah, but also then you need to think like who your friends truly are, right? Have you ever had that question? Luckily, all my existing friends have not changed how they treat me after some success.
48:15But I have had a lot of long time from, you know, people went to school with dude i want to ask a quick fire answer i say a short statement you give me your immediate thoughts so what investor do you not have that you would most like to have one person you do you know what's really hard about what i do yeah is that i'm friends with the greatest founders yeah and in a lot of cases like you've invested in project europe and i have the joys of like knowing you and it really is a joy yeah and it's like what the why am i not invested in these companies i have this with like matty at 11 labs i'm just like oh it almost happened too early for me does that make sense it's like i became friends with these people and had the chance to invest when i was a kid yeah and i didn't know what i was doing yeah and had i had that now it would have been very different but it is like rank knees in order of importance luck talent and timing i think timing talent luck why timing first i think if you get the timing wrong even if you're the best team in the world, you're not going to make it.
49:20For example, I don't think Fuse could have been built 10 years ago. I think Fuse is only possible because the requirements have changed, right? Because the renewable penetration in the grid is so high, and the skills you need to, the ability to manage renewables is so different to how we used to generate and consume power. If you look at Revolut, Revolut is only possible because of the EMI license. And the EMI license was created just a couple of years before Revolute was founded. I don't think Revolute would be impossible 10 years before 2014. So I do think timing matters. And then the second thing is talent.
49:55I think these are two prerequisites. So if you have good timing, if you have good talent, I think luck will also come. What's been the hardest decision you've made in your career? Probably leaving Revolute. Did you want to stay to IPO? I do, I do. Ultimately, it's... Do you remember telling, Nick? I remember. Can you just tell me that? It was a very, very hard moment. And he asked me, are you sure, three times. And I said, I'm sure, three times. Where were you? What time of day was it? I think it was a Friday afternoon. It was actually the same meeting when you did a podcast with Nick. Wow. Yeah, it was that room.
50:33What did he say? Because respectfully, a lot of people have come and gone from Revolut. Yeah. But you were his guy. Was he visibly shocked? I don't know. He has this emotionless reaction. Yeah, just ask me, are you sure? Did he invest in Fuse? Yes, in the most recent round. In the most recent round? Yeah. Is it still open? I can't believe it. I said this to Massey the other day. I said, I can't believe we're still not invested. I'm just paying any price. I'm just pissed off. That's amazing. You said downstairs, being a CEO is not all it's cracked up to be. Why is it not always cracked up to be being CEO?
51:13I mean, I think there are pros and cons. I think there are pros, like at Revolut, I can basically get to pick the role I wanted, the problems I wanted to solve. But now I give that opportunity to other leaders within the company. That means by definition, I don't get to choose the things I do. What are you not doing today that you would most like to be doing? I would love to go much deeper on engineering, on hardware, like go into very low level details. How big is the biggest incumbent in this space? So you have the power incumbents, then you have the big oil majors, incumbents. If you look at big oil majors like Shell, they make a billion revenue a day, approximately.
51:53How big can Fuse be? I think we could be bigger than Shell. How much is Shell worth? I think it's worth just north of$300 billion. They're listed on the London Stock Exchange, so there's a discount. How the fuck does that make? Sorry, they do a billion in revenue a day, Yeah. And they're worth less than their annual revenue then? Yeah. I think if they were listed in the US, they'd probably be worth more. Would you list in the US? If we ever list, I think it would be the US, yeah. Would you list? I personally don't see a need to. There's a lot of liquidity in the private markets. And obviously there's additional overhead being a listed company.
52:26Like the only reason I see listing as a real need is if the liquidity dries up in the private markets. Do you let team members sell? Yeah. Yeah. Revolut was very tight on any secondary sales. It was like an incredibly guarded subject. Are you the same or are you a little bit looser? Well, I'd say like we do want to create liquidity opportunities for employee stockholders. And, you know, sometimes people need to buy a house, they need to buy a car, they need to, yeah, some liquidity is helpful. Final one for you, dude. I'd like to end on a tone of positivity and optimism. What excites you most in the next 10 years?
53:00We love to build a world where power is so cheap and abundant that any builder, AI or otherwise, don't even think about power anymore. And they can just build more and economies start growing again as a result. That would be great. Alan, I so appreciate you. I think you're one of the great entrepreneurs in the UK. I'm going to pass to you about investing. And I so appreciate our friendship. So thank you so much for doing this with me, dude. Thanks for having me. but before we leave you today as an investor i'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how i work tools that don't just save time but fundamentally change how i uncover insights that's exactly what alpha sense does with the acquisition of tagus alpha sense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust fast i've used before for company deep dives right here on the podcast it's been an incredible resource for expert insights.
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From the publisher
I have interviewed 1,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years. Nik Storonsky and our guest today are the two best that I have interviewed.
Joining the show today; Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy. Alan has scaled Fuse Energy from $2M in revenue in the first year, to $20M the second year to now $400M in the third year. Like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nik (Founder) in scaling the company to over $75BN valuation.
AGENDA:
00:04:00 — The interview process that led to the $150M pay packet
00:05:05 — The moment I knew Revolut was going to be a $TRN company
00:06:10 — How Revolut drove speed and urgency in their teams
00:07:35 — Biggest lesson from Nik Storonsky @ Revolut
00:09:40 — If you want to build a generational company, you cannot have work-life balance
00:11:40 — What I disagreed with Nik @ Revolut on most
00:13:35 — Is Nik right that Revolut should have got a banking licence earlier?
00:15:05 — The green movement and the idea of "using less" is BS
00:22:55 — Why China is the shining light for regulation to follow
00:33:00 — What Nik at Revolut taught me about ownership and excuses
00:34:50 — The signs of truly top performing people in a team
00:36:55 — We do not have enough ambitious founders — we need to do more, not focus
00:39:55 — You need to work weekends to win
00:43:50 — Every single year we 10x revenue — now at ~$400M
00:44:35 — Why Eastern European engineers are the best
Items Mentioned in Today's Show:
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