Jan 5, 2026 · 1h 6m · 20vc
Fuse CEO Alan Chang: The Revolut Playbook of Speed & Ownership, Why Founders Aren’t Ambitious Enough · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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In this high-energy episode of 20VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Alan Chang, co-founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, exploring how his experience at Revolut shaped his uncompromising philosophies on execution speed, talent, capital efficiency, and disrupting the global energy sector.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 30.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 3.5 Guest disagreement 2.0 Harry pushing back 2.3
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 23:10 Calling 100 percent renewable energy tariffs a complete lie
Alan forcefully attacks mainstream energy company marketing, bluntly stating that claiming 100 percent renewable energy is a 'complete lie' and proving it via gas price correlation.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 14:52 Harry refuting Alan's claim about bank incumbentsHarry directly rejects Alan's premise that incumbents haven't woken up, interrupting to cite his personal experience speaking at major bank offsites where Revolut was the sole topic.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 23:10 Educating on renewable grid correlation and power fungibilityAlan provides a deep technical explanation of energy market realities, demonstrating why overbuilding solar/wind cannot cover 100 percent of time and explaining spatial power curtailment in Scotland.
Harry holds his own ▶ 14:52 Harry citing insider industry knowledge on bank compensation and offsite discussionsHarry uses his direct access to banking CEOs and private offsite keynotes to demonstrate expert knowledge of why legacy banks cannot counter Revolut despite knowing the threat.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome and Chief of Staff Connection | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Harry introduces Alan warmly and asks a standard background question about how Alan got his job with Nikolai at Revolut. The tone is casual and collaborative with no pushback. | |
| Recognizing a Massive Opportunity at Level-39 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Alan describes recognizing Revolut's potential at Level-39 due to their intense work ethic compared to 200 other startups. Harry listens attentively and agrees. | |
| The Three Types of Workers | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Alan shares Nikolai's model of three worker types and explains his intensity culture. Harry asks probing follow-ups on how to drive urgency internally. | |
| Mindset of Continuous Improvement | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | Alan shares his extreme 'gun to head' framing for execution. Harry pushes back on behalf of work-life balance and mentions being chastised for promoting 996 culture. | |
| Choosing Where to Settle | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | Harry challenges the maxim 'how you do anything is how you do everything', arguing leaders must pick battles. Alan accepts the nuance, agreeing that core roles require non-negotiable standards. | |
| Product Diversification and Resilience | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Alan discusses product diversification using COVID card interchange vs crypto trading as an example. Harry references his interview with Nikolai and asks about banking licenses. | |
| Incumbents, Regulatory Fear, and the Ownership Gap | 5 | 4 | 4 | 6 | Harry forcefully pushes back when Alan claims incumbents haven't woken up, citing his own off-the-record keynotes at bank offsites. Harry also counters Alan's defense of American quality of life by raising debt levels and food quality. | |
| The Impending Energy Crisis | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Alan educates Harry on UK energy stats, pointing out a 25 percent drop in per capita energy use compared to China's sevenfold growth. He details planning hurdles like multi-year bird surveys. | |
| Regulatory Realities: UK vs. US Texas | 2 | 7 | 3 | 1 | Alan systematically dismantles the concept of 100 percent renewable tariffs, pointing out correlation issues and gas price spikes driving up green tariff costs. Harry listens quietly to the lesson. | |
| Deregulating and Free-Market Policy | 2 | 6 | 3 | 1 | Alan calls for complete deregulation and removing energy subsidies, citing China's aggressive infrastructure buildout across solar, coal, and grid as the model to follow. | |
| UK Talent vs. Short-Term Political Bearing | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | Harry challenges Alan's logical consistency in being short-term bearish but long-term bullish on the UK, arguing multi-decade structural decline is almost impossible to reverse. | |
| Seeking Competency Over Party Politics | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry and Alan bond over feeling politically homeless in the UK. They move into hiring dynamics where Alan outlines non-verbal green flags in interviews. | |
| The One-Page CV Standard | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Alan describes their strict grading system for technical skills that replaces standard comp bands. Harry asks details on how offers are determined. | |
| Sizing Up Compensation: A vs. B Candidates | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry challenges Alan's strategy of extending low-ball offers to B candidates rather than passing outright. Alan explains why solid performance at a lower price point still creates value. | |
| Testing for Dedication Under Pressure | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Alan shares how he aggressively stress-tests candidate dedication by painting a hard reality during interviews. Harry agrees on title and salary discipline. | |
| Steve Jobs' Janitor vs. VP Lesson | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | Alan shares Nikolai's Steve Jobs janitor vs VP story regarding accountability. Harry pushes back on whether this culture is overly harsh and alienates top talent. | |
| Ugly Truths and Banishment | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Harry notes that Alan's advice to run parallel product lines directly contradicts standard startup wisdom about focus. Alan defends his expansionist mindset, blaming lack of ambition. | |
| Managing Autonomous, Self-Guiding Reports | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Alan explains picking Canary Wharf to avoid party distractions for employees. Harry pushes back, arguing personal self-discipline is what matters regardless of office location. | |
| Competing on Pure Work Ethic | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Alan explains building the full-stack MVP on $1M. Harry asks why he didn't take more seed money given VC availability, leading Harry to express deep personal regret for not investing. | |
| The Legendary Balderton Pitch and raising $78M | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | Harry aggressively probes the structure of Fuse's $78M seed round, expressing frustration at the token split that prevented him from participating as a traditional VC. | |
| The "Suicide Round" and Rapid Revenue Growth | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Alan breaks down Fuse's rapid revenue trajectory from $2M to $200M+. Harry inquires about high-valuation 'suicide rounds' and key operational bottlenecks. | |
| Buying Back Time and the Impact of Wealth on Relationships | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Alan reflects on wealth buying back time and maintaining grounded relationships. He then ranks timing above talent and luck in the quickfire round. | |
| Leaving Revolut and the Emotionless Reaction | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Alan recount telling Nikolai he was leaving Revolut. The story is personal and introspective with both speakers aligned. | |
| Building a Business Bigger than Shell and the US Listing Strategy | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Alan outlines his massive ambition for Fuse to surpass Shell and explains why public listing in London is unappealing. Harry brings the podcast to a warm conclusion. |
Statements from this episode (71)
Chang: Employees are underperforming if a gun to the head yields more
“If 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.”
Chang: An extreme work ethic is required to build a generational company
“There's nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance, but I think the only way to build a generational company is very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it.”
Chang: Department leaders take full blame for failure regardless of excuses
“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 fail.”
Chang: Fuse Energy grew revenue from £2M to £200M in three years
“We increase our revenue with Tenex every year since inception. First year was two million pounds, second year was 20, and then this year we're gonna end at over 200 pounds.”
Storonsky replied to Alan Chang's job application within five minutes
“I applied and Nick replied within five minutes.”
Storonsky interviewed Alan Chang with physics questions and offered him a role immediately
“So I came for an interview, and he asked me a bunch of physics questions, like, you know, I didn't realize I was applying for a physics job. And he offered me a role, you know, right after the interview.”
Chang: Revolut was the only Level39 startup working past 7 PM
“Level-Thirty-Nine is, yeah, for those who don't know, it's basically a giant, yeah, a startup co-working space with maybe over 200 startups, and Revolut was the only team that worked past seven p.m. On the weekday. So after seven p.m., the whole floor is dead.…”
Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky Stated His Goal Was to Beat JPMorgan
“I asked Nick, like, what's, 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 gives us, what drives him, right? And he told me he wants to beat JP Morgan.”
Chang: Revolut outexecuted Monzo and N26 purely on speed and ambition
“There wasn't any differentiation in product roadmap. But what differentiated between, you know, us and everyone else was basically ambition and the speed of execution.”
Alan Chang: Fast execution requires small independent units and replacing underperforming teams
“Have small teams yeah, small teams operating in the independent units and give them very clear goals and let them execute. And, you know, what you should do is monitor those teams and if they do well, let them be. If they don't do well, replace the team.”
Chang gave Fuse Energy's past execution speed a four out of ten rating
“I told the team last year execution was maybe four out of 10.”
Chang: Never Settle on Critical Roles, but Settle on Less Impactful Ones
“I think you have to pick your battles for sure. Ultimately, like, 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 ok to settle.”
Alan Chang: Directly Incentivizing KPIs Causes Employees to Game Systems
“Once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it.”
Chang: Crypto and trading revenues offset Revolut's COVID interchange collapse
“During the COVID lockdowns the interchange revenue, so, you know, revenue from people spending on cards, especially abroad, went basically near zero, right? However there was a lot of stimulus checks, right? From the COVID times and the stock market was boomin…”
Chang: Regulators are incentivized to be risk-averse, harming economic growth
“The issue with, the issue is like the bigger you get, 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 it's ultimately like, you know,…”
Alan Chang: Legacy banking incumbents haven't woken up to challenger threat
“I still don't think they realize. I still don't think the incumbents have woken up yet.”
Chang: Energy consumption per capita correlates strongly with quality of life
“There's actually, A very strong correlation between how much energy you use per capita and quality of life.”
Chang: Americans consume almost eight times more energy than Europeans
“The Americans use, you know, almost eight times more energy than Europeans and look at the quality of life.”
Chang: Society can have low-cost, abundant, and low-carbon energy simultaneously
“You can have low cost energy, you can have more energy, and you can have lower carbon energy at the same time.”
Chang: Developed economies are in an energy crisis, with the UK worst off
“I think we're in energy crisis already. In, in the whole developed economies, UK is in the deepest trouble.”
Chang: UK energy consumption dropped 25% while China's grew 7x
“So if you look at energy consumption per capita in the last 25 years, 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.”
Fuse Energy required to conduct multi-year bird surveys for UK plant
“One of the, so we're trying to build a power plant in the UK and, you know, one of the things council have a complete discretion over, you know, planning, especially around environmental impact. So we had to do, you know, wintering bird surveys, right, over se…”
Alan Chang: Regulation, not capital, restricts UK infrastructure construction
“If you speak to any of the, you know, 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.”
Alan Chang: Legacy UK energy companies are unsophisticated and inefficient
“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. So pen and paper spreadsheet based companies they're incredibly inefficient.”
Chang: Energy companies claiming 100% renewable tariffs are lying
“So any energy company that's claiming their harm sent renewables is a complete lie. Right. They're simply buying renewable certificates, right, to claim the harm sent renewables, and it's completely false.”
Alan Chang: Power is not fungible across time and space
“Power is not fungible across time and space. So 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.”
Alan Chang: Physical infrastructure construction in the UK should be deregulated
“I would deregulate building anything physical. I would make it so easy for anyone to build.”
Chang: All energy subsidies should be deleted to lower consumer costs
“Number two is I would delete all subsidies of any kind. 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. And who, think about…”
Chang: Electricity costs 25-30 cents in Europe, 10-15 in US, 8 in China
“So, like, if you look at the, what the Brits and Europeans pay in terms of, you know, cost per kilowatt, it's roughly 25 to 30 dollar cents. And the US is 10 to 15 dollar cents. In China, it's eight dollar cents.”
Chang: China deploys more solar power than all Western economies combined
“In China, they deploy more solar than the all Western economies combined.”
Chang: China has laid more grid cables than all Western economies combined
“They've laid more cables of grid than all Western economies combined.”
Chang: Western nations should follow China's energy policy model
“I think that's a, yeah, model economy we should follow for energy policy.”
Alan Chang: Evaluate candidate body language when describing intense workloads
“Basically, when I explain to the candidate, you know, about what we're trying to build build a fuse, ambitions, how we want to be a number one energy company in the world, and the work, the hard work that requires to build it, you know, you want to, like, what…”
Chang: CVs should never exceed a single page
“Yeah, I think it should be maximum page. Like, if Elon Musk can fill, put his CV in one page, so could you.”
Fuse Energy eliminates compensation bands, setting offers by skill grade
“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.”
Fuse Energy hires backend developers with zero Python experience
“So although our whole backend is in Python we will hire any backend developer even if they know nothing about Python.”
Chang: Fuse hires B candidates but offers them below-market salaries
“Our threshold is we will hire anything above a beat. So 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.”
Chang: Fuse gives top candidates aggressive offers so they never leave
“And for straight A candidates, we have made offers that are, you know, 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.”
Chang: Performance improvement plans are a complete waste of time
“I don't believe in pips. I think it's a waste of time.”
Alan Chang: Prioritize Mission Care Over Pure Intelligence in Hiring
“So what you want to do is hire someone who really deeply cares about the company and about the mission, right? Someone who would, you know, stay up late, right? To fix this bug, right? Or stay over the weekend to get this new feature shipped. Even if you hire …”
Chang: Fuse Energy never hires external candidates into 'Head Of' roles
“Yeah, we've never given a head of position to anyone we've hired. We've only given to it based, based on performance.”
Chang sends Steve Jobs' janitor essay to leaders who miss goals
“Every single time when one of the leaders at Fuse explains to me why they failed and they couldn't hit their own goal, I sent them this article.”
Chang: True Top Performers Excel at Internalizing Negative Feedback
“Like, what I found is, like, usually top performers internalizes negative feedback very well. They take negative feedback to heart, and they find ways to improve, right? If there are people who don't take negative feedback well, I don't think they're top perfo…”
Chang: Leaders must share ugly truths to improve employees
“It's very important you have, you create a culture of truth seeking, right? And the truth is very ugly, you know, might hurt someone's feelings, you should still say it, because it'll make that person, you know, make that person better.”
Chang: I stop giving feedback to non-improving employees until they leave
“If I, when I realize a person, if I keep giving negative feedback to a person and they haven't improved, then I just stop bothering. Then, you know, they can leave the company.”
Alan Chang: Startup throughput is limited by leadership headcount, not focus
“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 number of great leaders you have in the company.”
Chang: Autonomous leaders require agreed targets and monitoring, not daily management
“I don't even think of them as direct reports, right? I think of them as, like, you know, going back to self-guiding missile analogy, right? You don't need to manage those people. Right? Like you discuss and you debate about the target, right? But once you both…”
Chang: Canary Wharf is London's only area for penalty-free office expansion
“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.”
Chang: Superior work ethic and weekend work are required to defeat energy incumbents
“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, you know, big, big, big energy companies with, like, huge balance sheets. You know, billions in revenue. The only way to win is, you know, …”
Fuse built its energy MVP with a $750K Scottish wind turbine
“So we found a single wind turbine in north of Scotland that the seller is willing to sell for 750 K. We found a license for 75 K. We convinced the former CEO of Ofgem to become an advisor with just equity and no cash. And my co-founder Charles became a qualifi…”
Chang confirms he parked a Ferrari outside his Balderton pitch
“Yeah, there's some truth to that, yeah.”
Chang: Balderton repeatedly backs ex-Revolut teams due to past investment success
“Yeah, I think they really, really like the concept, and I think what they realize is, is a pretty good strategy, and I realize after the, you know, a lot of their investments, I think they, they've just, because they made so much money from the Revlon investme…”
Chang honored a $140M oral agreement over a higher term sheet
“It was roughly where we were at a 145. About one 40 actually. And we had an oral agreement with Bolton, we'll take the term sheet. And then, but we haven't signed the term sheet yet. And then later, there was another investor that came, they came and said, I w…”
Chang: Fuse Energy is generating over $400M in annualized revenue
“So the company is doing over four hundred million revenue, annualized revenue,”
Chang: Fuse Energy targets 5x to 10x revenue growth next year
“Something around there. But we'll, we'll, we'll still shoot for 10. I think we can.”
Alan Chang: Speed of hiring quality engineers is Fuse's main bottleneck
“I think it's speed of hiring quality engineering. That, that's the biggest barrier. There's no capital. It's quality of engineering.”
Alan Chang: Eastern European engineers have strong work ethic and technical education
“Because culturally they, I think they favor technical education and they have very strong work ethic.”
Chang has only sold Revolut shares for basic personal consumption
“No. It's only solved for what I need to, only for personal consumption. I'm still very bullish on the company.”
Chang predicts Revolut will become a trillion-dollar company
“I think of a trillion dollar company.”
Chang: Nikolai Storonsky is the person to crack the US market
“If someone's gonna do it, it's Nikolai.”
Alan Chang: Flying business class is worth it to preserve productivity
“Like, flying coach just kills your I think it just wastes two days, right? So just, I think it's worth, flying business helps you know, you can work on a plane and not feel terrible, you know, the day after, right?”
Chang: Fuse Energy could not have existed ten years ago
“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, you know, the ability to manage renewables …”
Chang: Revolut was only possible due to recent EMI licensing regulations
“If you look at Revolut you know, I think Revolut is only possible because With the EMI license. And the EMI license was created, you know, just a couple years before Revelo was founded. So if, I don't think Revelo would be impossible, you know, 10 years before…”
Nikolay Storonsky invested in Fuse Energy's most recent funding round
“Yes. In the most recent round.”
Chang predicts Fuse Energy will eventually become bigger than Shell
“I think we could be bigger than Shell.”
Alan Chang: Shell would be worth more if listed in the US
“I think if they were listed in the US, they'd probably be worth more.”
Alan Chang: Fuse Energy will only list publicly if private liquidity dries up
“If we ever list, I think it would be the US, yeah. 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. Like, so far, like the only, like, only, only reason I see …”
Fuse Energy provides secondary market share liquidity for employee shareholders
“Well, I would 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, and yeah, I think, yeah, some liquidity is helpful.”
Chang: Fuse aims to make energy cheap enough to re-ignite economic growth
“I think what would be, we'd love to build a world where You know, power is so cheap and abundant that any builder, you know, AI or otherwise, don't even think about power anymore, and they can just build more, and economies start growing again as a result. Tha…”
Shorts cut from this episode
▶ It's all about Results | Lessons from Nik Storonsky · 20VC w (@5:47)
▶ All Top Performers do this... · 20VC with Harry Stebbings (@42:20)
▶ How I became employee #3 at Revolut · 20VC with Harry Stebbi (@1:40)
▶ China is More Ahead Than You Think 🇨🇳 · 20VC with Harry St (@25:24)
▶ How to Fix UK's Energy Problem · 20VC with Harry Stebbings (@24:22)
▶ The Moment I knew Revolut would be MASSIVE · 20VC with Harry (@3:08)
▶ This Company Has 10X Revenue Every Year · 20VC with Harry St (@0:00)