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Alex Bouaziz

42 statements across 4 episodes · 11 bullish · 9 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Feb 1, 2023 by Alex Bouaziz · said 40 times in 15 episodes since 2020 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Alex Bouaziz's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (26), Anish Acharya (7), David George (5), Miles Clements (1)

tap a year for its mentions
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0482020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0034682020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 17 mentions in 3 episodes 6 per episode
2025 19 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Alex Bouaziz, oldest first

Feb 1, 2023
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Alex Bouaziz personally interviewed Deel's first 400+ employees
“I actually interviewed the first, I think north of 405 101st people at deal.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 14:56 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Insight
Bouaziz: Distributed companies must grant full trust to employees from day one
“For the distributed company, no choice. We have to start with full trust, and it's here to be lost.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 10:36 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023 negative
Insight
Bouaziz: Founders should not take secondaries at Series A
“Taking secondary at like the series A, I don't think it's super smart. Taking it a bit later kind of, I think makes a bit more sense. I mean, we have taken a little bit at our series B and then a little bit more at our series D.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 44:23 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Insight
Hiring hard workers over smart people is always the right choice
“I would hire someone that works really hard over someone that's really smart any day of the week, right?”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 11:26 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Disclosure
Alex Bouaziz: Deel's board deck was leaked to competitors by investors
“I see everything you send is forwarded and read by all your competitors, and that's number one. Number two, I mean, even my board deck somehow ended up into competitors' hands, so.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 46:56 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Disclosure
Alex Bouaziz took $10M in secondary liquidity to buy an apartment
“On my side, around 10, mainly to buy, like, an apartment and a few different things I wanted to do, like buying some of Presence from my father and my parents. But the cool part is that when we did that Sho and I, we actually allowed all our early employees to…”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 42:15 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023 neutral
Disclosure
Bouaziz: Deel raised most funding rounds without meeting investors in person
“We raised most of our rounds actually, like without even meeting most of our investors, right?”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 29:23 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023 neutral
Disclosure
Deel's CFO is Alex Bouaziz's father, a former public company CEO
“Luckily for us, my CFO, who actually is also my father, that makes it quite interesting dynamic wise. Actually his first company who we took public as a CEO did about 50 plus M&A's to grow.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 40:05 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz: Deel is likely the largest fully distributed private company
“I think we might be like one of the biggest, if not the biggest private company that's fully distributed, by the way.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 26:23 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Disclosure
Alex Bouaziz: Deel employs 2,000 people across 100 countries
“It's always hard to hire specifically at our scale, right, with 2000 people across a hundred countries, but hiring globally gives you a bigger pool of people to hire great talent.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 9:26 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Insight
Early-stage startup success can be predicted by the quality of investor updates
“I think I can tell whether a company is going to be successful by the investor updates. I'm getting very early on.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 46:18 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023
Disclosure
Deel stopped monthly investor updates because investors were no longer helping
“I sent investor updates every month until September of this year. I realized most people weren't helping anymore. So I just stopped sending them and I'm just sending quarterly now, which is just, it's less about help.”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 48:09 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 1, 2023 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz: HR and payroll space will yield one dominant generational winner
“I think there can be a lot of great companies in this space. I think, like, every space there's, like, one clear winner that's gonna come out of this. Right. And that's going to be significantly larger than others. That's how I kind of word it. Will you have, …”
Alex Bouaziz Feb 1, 2023 ▶ 30:35 Alex Bouaziz: How We Became a $12B HR Company with 2,000 Remote Employees | 20VC #973 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Bouaziz argues investors should earn pro-rata rights rather than receive them automatically
“No, I think pro rata should be earned.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 22:14 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Prediction Held up
Bouaziz: Deel raised $300M partly to acquire out-of-favor non-AI companies
“Yes, of course. And I think this fundraise is definitely going to be helping on, on that front and doing more acquisitions. That was one of the reasons we also raised the capital.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 49:20 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz: Kry and Voi Founders Will Build Massive Businesses
“Those are two of the people that I've met that I'm, I know are gonna either take those companies to huge numbers or build new businesses that are gonna be just significant.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:09:50 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Insight
Bouaziz: Organizational flaws inevitably emerge once headcount exceeds 50
“I think every company had more than 50, a hundred people start having flaws in their designs, in their org, in terms of response time, in terms of how things are happening. And if you are 10,000 feet above, kind of looking looking down at, like, the organizati…”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 12:46 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Alex Bouaziz: Deel is profitable with 7,000 employees worldwide
“We are, right, like, billions in our profitable business, acquisitions, you know, 7000 people around the world today”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 13:23 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Alex Bouaziz manages over 20 direct reports at Deel
“I have like 20 or a little over 20.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 13:45 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Insight
Bouaziz: Internal reluctance to integrate indicates a bad acquisition
“If there's reluctance from many parts of the business to integrate, it probably means that it was a bad acquisition.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 57:45 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Assertion Supported
Bouaziz denies fleeing to Dubai, stating he lives in Tel Aviv
“I'm very happy living in Tel Aviv, and I've been living here for the last five years.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 9:15 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Insight
Bouaziz: Profitable founders must still educate prospective IPO investors
“And I think there is value into actually spending time educating investors that may be your investors of tomorrow, especially if you go public eventually as well, right?”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 7:13 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Disclosure
Bouaziz never conducts scheduled one-on-ones or formal performance reviews
“I've never had one-on-ones with them. I've never truly had performance reviews with them.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 13:51 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 positive
Opinion
Bouaziz names Revolut's Nik Storonsky as his favorite founder
“By the way, Nick is my favorite founder, probably the person I look up to the most in many different ways.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 29:00 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Bouaziz: Hofi acquisition package was equity-heavy to retain key founders
“For example, going back to Huffy, when we acquired Huffy, like, I was not going to run the IT, right? Like, it's so far out of my scope in terms of, like, truly understanding the business, the buyer, the profile, what we need to build, et cetera, that, like, i…”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 51:06 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Disclosure
Bouaziz considers himself to be operating in constant wartime
“I think I'm in constant wartime, sadly.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:07:17 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Disclosure
Bouaziz: Deel bought every available secondary share on the market
“We've been buying every single secondary on the market every single time they could.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 6:22 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Bouaziz regrets being inconsiderate to investors during Deel's hot fundraising rounds
“I think there is a moment where you're like, hot shit, everybody wants to invest, you're getting term shits left and right, where you start being, ah, inconsiderate. But I actually kind of like have gone through enough cycles now, although it's not been exactl…”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 18:55 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Bouaziz: Highest valuation does not always equal best startup outcome
“But I do think that there is some optimization where you need to think about the future of the company and highest valuation does not always mean best outcome for the business and the people.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 22:57 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Bouaziz believes high-growth tech companies should hire engineers as CMOs
“But in his mind, most chief marketing officers are not good. The truth is I actually agree with him. And for a while I was looking for a CMO with this experience, that experience, and what I've realized is, like, the best CMOs I've encountered over the last fe…”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 26:19 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Disclosure
Alex Bouaziz: Hiding company numbers from prospective investors is pointless
“I share high-level numbers? Why not? Like, the thing is, most of your numbers are available if someone really wants to figure them out, right? Like, it doesn't truly matter. Like, I don't believe in, like, hiding numbers.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 24:42 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 positive
What-if
Bouaziz claims Deel turned down a higher valuation to pick ideal investors
“We could have raised even more and at a higher price too.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 58:03 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Insight
Bouaziz: Companies Need 4-5 Clean Executive Quarters Before IPO
“My take is you want to have like four or five clean quarters with your exec team before you go public as well.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:02:21 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Disclosure
Bouaziz: Took minimal secondary liquidity despite Deel's high valuation
“I've done less secondaries than you think actually.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 16:12 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bouaziz intends to remain Deel CEO through public transition
“I think that as long as I'm the best person to run this business, no matter whether it's public or private, I would like to be the one running it.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:02:50 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Opinion
Bouaziz claims Rippling engaged in three years of poor competitive behavior
“Well, I think you should read our lawsuit in Delaware. You know, three years of poor way of competing in the market.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 1:08:05 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025
Insight
Bouaziz: Distance from operations as a startup scales is a fatal mistake
“I think the worst mistake you can make as the company's scale is to be too far away from the business to really know what the problems really are.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 12:10 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Bouaziz: 996 work schedules do not work at scale
“I think I work a little harder than that personally, and I think most of my leadership does too, but I just don't think it works at scale really, right?”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 15:10 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 negative
Opinion
Bouaziz claims rival Rippling tries to compete through media headlines
“I think it's unfortunate that the way they're trying to compete is through media and through headlines and things like that.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 3:56 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Oct 2027
Bouaziz predicts Deel will acquire 5 to 10 companies over 24 months
“Probably in the next 24 months, between five to 10, most likely.”
Alex Bouaziz Oct 20, 2025 ▶ 59:00 Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 2, 2026 negative
Disclosure
Stebbings passed on Deel's seed round
“You know, I turned down deal at the seed round, because I was like, payroll? Really? Paychecks? ADP? Come on, this is ridiculous. With this kid, Alex, who's now a friend, he won't mind that.”
Harry Stebbings Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 18:48 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 9, 2026 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stebbings: Deel Co-Founder Alex Bouaziz Handled $1,000 Deal Lead Personally
“I pinged Alex on a Sunday morning seven a.m., Saying, hey, they want an intro to a sales rapper on your team. Who's the best person? He's like, intro to me, please. I'm like, dude, it's like a thousand dollar deal. He's not worth your time. He's like, no, no, …”
Harry Stebbings Feb 9, 2026 ▶ 1:06:04 a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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