The Exchanges

Q by one, and it kind of Takes me back to something that both Chris and Carmen actually said beforehand, which is just how efficient you are with your use of time. You mentioned also kind of surfing earlier. How do you run your time and drive effectiveness with the time that you have, given that you do so much, and as your investor said, you're so productive with your time?

A So first of all, I have an amazing team. Let's put it this way. The second thing is I have zero issue delegating. So for me, it's like the less decisions I see, the better. I'm very much More like empower people to make decisions. And you come to me if you really, really, really need me. The truth is the bigger the company, the more geographies, there's an exponential amount of decisions. So you ultimately, you're going to still see a lot of decisions, but in spirit, it's all about pushing the decisions down to other people. I would combine that with the fact that I love my job and I really do work a lot. So I certainly do more than eight hours a day. And now, yes, I mean, with Jess, with my chief of staff, we started really like implementing certain processes. So If you want like, you know, factual tips, I have three types of meeting. I have the 15 minute meeting, the 30 minutes meeting, and the 45 minutes meeting. You have to choose between these three, and I always keep 15 minutes in each hour to do emails and WhatsApp. I'm a very big WhatsApp guy, and WhatsApp is always on fire. What I do at the end of the week, every single week with the team that actually helps me manage my time, is that we raise the meetings. Was that a good meeting? Yes or no? Was that a meeting where I needed to be there? If I didn't need to be there, Then we kill the meeting, push the decision down, s…

AI assessment note: “I have three types of meeting. I have the 15 minute meeting, the 30”

Q that is like, when you have great moments, signing great contracts, Hiring great people. Bank it, and remember it, because in the hard times, you need to use that kind of wealth of good times to fight it. Do you stop and appreciate the good wins that you have, rather than just always going for more and more, and how do you think about that, like, appreciation in the moment?

A So first of all, we are super grateful for what we have, and that's something, you know, like, every day, I look at the company, I look at my kids, I look at my wife, we're a happy family, and achieved a lot with work. And certainly you have to contemplate what you have and be grateful for that. So that's a given, but then at the same time, I think all best entrepreneurs and, you know, all people who've built category defining company have that hunger inside of them where you just want to do more. You want to build more at checkout. We want to add more geographies. We want to add more products. We want to win more merchants. It's this whole thing of like, do I stop and pause and look at what we have achieved? And yes, absolutely. I do that. Is that enough for me? No, not at all, because I want to build really a company that is long lasting, that transcends generations, and we have a town, a total addressable market that is huge, where if you take the three leaders today, which are ID and Stripe and Checkout, we're literally scratching the surface of what's possible. This is mathematical. All the revenue is still sitting in the incumbents, so why would we rest now, now that we have an amazing products and amazing customers that are really happy with us, and I have amazing investors that are helping us go after the opportunity. So that hunger and that willingness and resilience, …

AI assessment note: “do I stop and pause and look at what we have achieved? And yes, absolutely.”

Q in my head, like, you know what? I really need to focus on work. I need to get the funds up and running. I need it to be a five X or 10 X or whatever we go for. And I'll have kids when I'm 33, 10 years out. Let's do that. That's a good plan. How do you advise me? My therapist tells me it's a completely shit plan.

A First of all, to have kids, you need to find the good wife. I think like that's the first one, you know, I would put out there. But if you have the good wife, I would say like, this is not something you engineer. When you feel it inside of you, this is a good field decision. When is the right time is the right time. And if you try to think about it, I'm not saying you're in the wrong world, different, but I wanted to have kids when I'm 32. I ended up being a father when I was 26. So I think, you know, some of our thinking was similar when we were trying to plan and being a father at 26 made me a better human being and probably immensely contributed to who I am today and where checkout is today. So I'd say have the kids straight away.

AI assessment note: “So I'd say have the kids straight away.”

Q and the thing I always struggle with is, like, I am my company, and so when my company or I am removed, I feel this, like, void or lost. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, going on holiday is horrible for me, because you're not with your company, and so it's very awkward. How do you think about tying your identity to Checkout and to your company?

A I think it's a complicated question. Obviously, Checkout is a huge part of my identity, and I think it will always be, but at the same time, you know, now, Checkout is basically building its own identity. I mean, there is a management team, it's being shaped by the leaders we have on the C-level, the And I think identity is something that is organic. So there's the CEO founder identity. There's the company identity. These two in the very beginning are very kind of the same thing. And then they start kind of building their own path. And what's important is that these two paths kind of compliment each other, that there is a bit of a coherence between the two. And I think like, you know, they can completely compliment each other. You don't need to try to like, how do I escape this? I think, for me, it's more a question like, you need to be happy with what you build, you need to be proud of what you build, as a founder, but also as the people that work there in the company, they need to be proud of the company they work for.

AI assessment note: “Checkout is a huge part of my identity, and I think it will always be”

Q being the 11 year journey that it is today. And so I guess my question to you is essentially, in a world where fundraising is so front and centre for everyone starting, You didn't raise your series A until 2019 in the company was, you know, so far further along than a series A in terms of labeling. Why did you not do the traditional today and raise money earlier?

A So first of all, B to B payment processing, which is what we do for focusing on enterprise is pretty capital efficient. I think also that, you know, five good engineers are better than a hundred average ones. And there's two different ways to kind of build a company. Either you try to hire a lot of people because you want to grow super quickly. For me, it was really like a life journey. I knew I would be doing this for a very long time. I knew that the time was infinite and I was just like super committed to do the things right and really build the infrastructures before we try to scale. I think like this is something that was like, you know, ingrained in my mind. And if I look in the European market right now, you've got a company like Molly, same thing. He built a business without taking capital for quite some time and just build it step by step. The other thing also is that the capital came in after we won what was still probably our biggest contract. Which is, you know, the largest video streaming company in the world, one that everyone is actually using. So I think that when we actually won this, we didn't realize that we were like changing gears. And this is the moment where at that point in time, I have 275 employees, 280. And I was never the CEO of such a big company. You know, we're going to go global. There's real potential there. And this is where I was like, I think…

AI assessment note: “B to B payment processing, which is what we do for focusing on enterprise is pretty capital efficient.”

Q being the 11 year journey that it is today. And so I guess my question to you is essentially, in a world where fundraising is so front and centre for everyone starting, You didn't raise your series A until 2019 in the company was, you know, so far further along than a series A in terms of labeling. Why did you not do the traditional today and raise money earlier?

A So first of all, B to B payment processing, which is what we do for focusing on enterprise is pretty capital efficient. I think also that, you know, five good engineers are better than a hundred average ones. And there's two different ways to kind of build a company. Either you try to hire a lot of people because you want to grow super quickly. For me, it was really like a life journey. I knew I would be doing this for a very long time. I knew that the time was infinite and I was just like super committed to do the things right and really build the infrastructures before we try to scale. I think like this is something that was like, you know, ingrained in my mind. And if I look in the European market right now, you've got a company like Molly, same thing. He built a business without taking capital for quite some time and just build it step by step. The other thing also is that the capital came in after we won what was still probably our biggest contract. Which is, you know, the largest video streaming company in the world, one that everyone is actually using. So I think that when we actually won this, we didn't realize that we were like changing gears. And this is the moment where at that point in time, I have 275 employees, 280. And I was never the CEO of such a big company. You know, we're going to go global. There's real potential there. And this is where I was like, I think…

AI assessment note: “B to B payment processing, which is what we do for focusing on enterprise is pretty capital efficient.”

Q in my head, like, you know what? I really need to focus on work. I need to get the funds up and running. I need it to be a five X or 10 X or whatever we go for. And I'll have kids when I'm 33, 10 years out. Let's do that. That's a good plan. How do you advise me? My therapist tells me it's a completely shit plan.

A First of all, to have kids, you need to find the good wife. I think like that's the first one, you know, I would put out there. But if you have the good wife, I would say like, this is not something you engineer. When you feel it inside of you, this is a good field decision. When is the right time is the right time. And if you try to think about it, I'm not saying you're in the wrong world, different, but I wanted to have kids when I'm 32. I ended up being a father when I was 26. So I think, you know, some of our thinking was similar when we were trying to plan and being a father at 26 made me a better human being and probably immensely contributed to who I am today and where checkout is today. So I'd say have the kids straight away.

AI assessment note: “So I'd say have the kids straight away.”

Q Not at all. I've been looking forward to this one, but we see Checkout today, and it's this incredible scale-up company, one of the fastest in Europe, but I want to go back a little bit to the beginning, so tell me, what was that aha founding moment for you with Checkout?

A I think there's been a few themes that got me there, so I think there's not a single moment. One of the things I will say is that I started with a Computers at a very, very young age, probably 10 years before you were born, I still remember my Amiga 500. And then I remember basically just the computing power going and getting better. I mean, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, my first Pentium computer was like changing my life pretty much. This is something that was always like an ingrained technology is going into one direction only, which is it's getting better and cheaper. If I fast forward now to 2005, when I kind of dropped out of college, I ended up in California and took a job in a payments company. And that payments company, they were basically helping us merchants selling internationally. And I think if we really have to nail down an aha moment, that's pretty much the aha moment is that it didn't take two and two for me to understand that commerce on the internet was going to be a big thing. This is 2006. So this is like pre iPhone, pre Facebook, but you know, faster internet, but cheaper bandwidth, you know, year on year, cheaper computing power, put this together. Younger people like us, like me at the time, they said that commerce on the internet would actually only exponentially grow. And this is something we believed, like, you know, 14 years ago now, and I still believe to…

AI assessment note: “if we really have to nail down an aha moment, that's pretty much the aha moment”

Q I do want to ask, you know, when you think about going after the TAM, competing in the market that you're in, I always think, like, essentially the core feature of great leadership is efficient decision making. How do you think about your own decision making today? Do you have frameworks? How's that kind of decision making process change for you?

A I don't have a framework. I make a lot of gut feel decisions and instinctive decisions, and by that, what I mean is that, of course, as a CEO now, I mean, I have a CEO office, I have a great leadership team, and I do have access to data, but I don't think that data is the answer to everything. The life of a CEO is a bit like a probability tree. You arrive at a fork, you have to choose between A, B, C, and D, and you have to make a decision. If you make a lot of good decisions, you move on the tree. If you make a bad decision, it sets you back. I think what matters is the amount of good decisions that you're making on that tree and how quickly you do them. So I see a lot of people quite often, you know, try to overthink a decision. Hey, I have 60% of the data that allows me to make a perfect decision. I'm going to go and try to grab another 20%. I'm not like that. I'd rather do a lot of quick decisions. I get, you know, obviously data being pushed to me and I consume that data, but then I'd rather make the decisions quickly. Move. I have no issue making mistakes. I've apologized to my entire company for making mistakes sometimes. And the reality, mistakes are a good thing. They're just an additional piece of information that helps you be a better CEO. And fundamentally, what matters when you make a mistake is to learn from it. And that's it. But it's the ratio of good decision a…

AI assessment note: “I don't have a framework. I make a lot of gut feel decisions”

Q Can I ask, how the hell do you manage WhatsApp? Because WhatsApp's become my new email, and I actually just can't get my hands around it. Like you said, with 600 emails, similar for me. But WhatsApp is the same, and people write 10 messages instead of one, and I'm just so behind on WhatsApp. How do you manage it?

A I am behind on WhatsApp as well. I was giving you my tips for like Gmail. I don't have the tips for WhatsApp yet. And especially that this is personal. So you're not going to give it for somebody else to manage. So the reality is that, and this by the way is very important. I write all my emails, but I have somebody who like, and I labels them for them and source them for me. WhatsApp is personal. I have my wife sending me pictures of my kids and things like this. So that's not something that, you know, I'm going to give to an assistant, but WhatsApp right now is mostly on fire all the time. By the time you and I are finished speaking, there's probably like a hundred messages. So yes, this is Still, let's travel.

AI assessment note: “I am behind on WhatsApp as well. I don't have the tips for WhatsApp yet.”

Q and the thing I always struggle with is, like, I am my company, and so when my company or I am removed, I feel this, like, void or lost. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, going on holiday is horrible for me, because you're not with your company, and so it's very awkward. How do you think about tying your identity to Checkout and to your company?

A I think it's a complicated question. Obviously, Checkout is a huge part of my identity, and I think it will always be, but at the same time, you know, now, Checkout is basically building its own identity. I mean, there is a management team, it's being shaped by the leaders we have on the C-level, the And I think identity is something that is organic. So there's the CEO founder identity. There's the company identity. These two in the very beginning are very kind of the same thing. And then they start kind of building their own path. And what's important is that these two paths kind of compliment each other, that there is a bit of a coherence between the two. And I think like, you know, they can completely compliment each other. You don't need to try to like, how do I escape this? I think, for me, it's more a question like, you need to be happy with what you build, you need to be proud of what you build, as a founder, but also as the people that work there in the company, they need to be proud of the company they work for.

AI assessment note: “Checkout is a huge part of my identity, and I think it will always be”

Q I do want to also, you know, in terms of like that in itself, I often think about Bluntly relationships to money, especially also kind of with incoming children, even if they're a decade out. But I think my big question is like, when we think about that, how do you think about your relationship to money and how do you evaluate that?

A I think that ultimately relationship to money will change over time with everyone. One thing I'll say is that checkout.com was never started to make money. As a matter of fact, I think it's fair to say that we never thought it would be as big as it is today. And now we still believe that we're at chapter zero because we really believe we're scratching the surface of what's possible. As an individual, you change your relationship to money for sure over the years, especially if you have access to it in a certain way. But now we go back to the kids. I have three kids. And for me, it's a lot more important that my kids know me for being a good human being than for being a capitalistic hero. So I think like, you know, the kids force you in discipline as well. You want your kids to work. You want you to have side jobs and everything. We fly an economy with the whole family. It's always like, it's really important. That's the way it should happen. So for now I'm trying and funny enough, my investors quite often tell me that, Hey, you should leverage a little bit more what you have, but I tend to be pretty defensive and very Swiss on this is that this is something I say to my friends and actually even to the colleagues here at checkout. There's two types of hungry people in the world. There's the people that eat too much and the people that don't have anything in their stomach. We pref…

AI assessment note: “for me, it's a lot more important that my kids know me for being a good human being”

Q Can I ask, how the hell do you manage WhatsApp? Because WhatsApp's become my new email, and I actually just can't get my hands around it. Like you said, with 600 emails, similar for me. But WhatsApp is the same, and people write 10 messages instead of one, and I'm just so behind on WhatsApp. How do you manage it?

A I am behind on WhatsApp as well. I was giving you my tips for like Gmail. I don't have the tips for WhatsApp yet. And especially that this is personal. So you're not going to give it for somebody else to manage. So the reality is that, and this by the way is very important. I write all my emails, but I have somebody who like, and I labels them for them and source them for me. WhatsApp is personal. I have my wife sending me pictures of my kids and things like this. So that's not something that, you know, I'm going to give to an assistant, but WhatsApp right now is mostly on fire all the time. By the time you and I are finished speaking, there's probably like a hundred messages. So yes, this is Still, let's travel.

AI assessment note: “I don't have the tips for WhatsApp yet.”

Q Not at all. I've been looking forward to this one, but we see Checkout today, and it's this incredible scale-up company, one of the fastest in Europe, but I want to go back a little bit to the beginning, so tell me, what was that aha founding moment for you with Checkout?

A I think there's been a few themes that got me there, so I think there's not a single moment. One of the things I will say is that I started with a Computers at a very, very young age, probably 10 years before you were born, I still remember my Amiga 500. And then I remember basically just the computing power going and getting better. I mean, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, my first Pentium computer was like changing my life pretty much. This is something that was always like an ingrained technology is going into one direction only, which is it's getting better and cheaper. If I fast forward now to 2005, when I kind of dropped out of college, I ended up in California and took a job in a payments company. And that payments company, they were basically helping us merchants selling internationally. And I think if we really have to nail down an aha moment, that's pretty much the aha moment is that it didn't take two and two for me to understand that commerce on the internet was going to be a big thing. This is 2006. So this is like pre iPhone, pre Facebook, but you know, faster internet, but cheaper bandwidth, you know, year on year, cheaper computing power, put this together. Younger people like us, like me at the time, they said that commerce on the internet would actually only exponentially grow. And this is something we believed, like, you know, 14 years ago now, and I still believe to…

AI assessment note: “if we really have to nail down an aha moment, that's pretty much the aha moment”

Q Can I ask, how do you think about creating dissent in the management team? And what I mean by that is like creating debate. You don't want everyone to just say, yes, we agree with Guillaume or yes, we agree. How do you think about creating debate and discussion amongst the management team to really drive effectiveness?

A It's not one of our operating principles, but it's something that everyone knows at checkout is the obligation to dissent is that if you don't agree with something, you should raise your hand and say it straight away. We love debates. We have our white boarding rooms, which are like three 60 white boards where you can really like spend a lot of time white boarding and like debating on topics if you want to. But the reality is that it's ingrained in our culture that anyone can raise his hand and say something. As a CEO, I spend a lot of time on a one-to-one to just collect feedback. We have direct feedback. We have the feedback that comes through Bitcoin that is completely anonymous. It's something that is really important to us because a culture is something that is also very organic and you want People to believe that they can contribute to it. They should contribute to it. It's actually really important. You know, it's just some of the parts. And I think, like, if you really have a kind of transparent structure, and you actually action the feedback of people, then it kind of works. It shapes itself for something that is good.

AI assessment note: “obligation to dissent is that if you don't agree with something, you should raise”

Q Can I ask, how do you think about creating dissent in the management team? And what I mean by that is like creating debate. You don't want everyone to just say, yes, we agree with Guillaume or yes, we agree. How do you think about creating debate and discussion amongst the management team to really drive effectiveness?

A It's not one of our operating principles, but it's something that everyone knows at checkout is the obligation to dissent is that if you don't agree with something, you should raise your hand and say it straight away. We love debates. We have our white boarding rooms, which are like three 60 white boards where you can really like spend a lot of time white boarding and like debating on topics if you want to. But the reality is that it's ingrained in our culture that anyone can raise his hand and say something. As a CEO, I spend a lot of time on a one-to-one to just collect feedback. We have direct feedback. We have the feedback that comes through Bitcoin that is completely anonymous. It's something that is really important to us because a culture is something that is also very organic and you want People to believe that they can contribute to it. They should contribute to it. It's actually really important. You know, it's just some of the parts. And I think, like, if you really have a kind of transparent structure, and you actually action the feedback of people, then it kind of works. It shapes itself for something that is good.

AI assessment note: “everyone knows at checkout is the obligation to dissent”

Q I do want to also, you know, in terms of like that in itself, I often think about Bluntly relationships to money, especially also kind of with incoming children, even if they're a decade out. But I think my big question is like, when we think about that, how do you think about your relationship to money and how do you evaluate that?

A I think that ultimately relationship to money will change over time with everyone. One thing I'll say is that checkout.com was never started to make money. As a matter of fact, I think it's fair to say that we never thought it would be as big as it is today. And now we still believe that we're at chapter zero because we really believe we're scratching the surface of what's possible. As an individual, you change your relationship to money for sure over the years, especially if you have access to it in a certain way. But now we go back to the kids. I have three kids. And for me, it's a lot more important that my kids know me for being a good human being than for being a capitalistic hero. So I think like, you know, the kids force you in discipline as well. You want your kids to work. You want you to have side jobs and everything. We fly an economy with the whole family. It's always like, it's really important. That's the way it should happen. So for now I'm trying and funny enough, my investors quite often tell me that, Hey, you should leverage a little bit more what you have, but I tend to be pretty defensive and very Swiss on this is that this is something I say to my friends and actually even to the colleagues here at checkout. There's two types of hungry people in the world. There's the people that eat too much and the people that don't have anything in their stomach. We pref…

AI assessment note: “my kids know me for being a good human being than for being a capitalistic hero.”

Q Final one, what's the next five years for you and for Checkout? Just how big could this be in the next five years?

A I think nothing compounds like payments, so it's kind of hard to say, but I think it's going to be more growth, more people, more merchants, more products, more geographies. One thing I will say is that payment companies, or at least a company like Checkout, is reinventing how businesses, especially digitally native businesses, are interacting with financial services. So I always say to my team, we're still at chapter zero, and I really believe that. I believe that we can sell a lot more products to merchants, and I believe that we can actually really create value in how, you know, the economy, you know, economic recovery, these type of things. It's very topical right now with the Ron Khalifa review here in the UK. We have a role to play in the future, and we're very excited about that.

AI assessment note: “it's going to be more growth, more people, more merchants, more products, more geographies.”

Q Can I ask, you mentioned that your wife and your family, kids obviously changes so much of one's life. How did having kids change how you think about operating?

A So I had my daughter when I was 26, and that happened a point in my life where, you know, like, she really came as a rebirth for us, because we had lost her dad, and it was something that was kind of really important. She brought me a lot of stability. She brought me a lot of, you know, personal discipline, because now you're responsible for another human being. At checkout, I'm basically responsible for 1200 people, and the reality is that you learn from one another. I always said, like, you know, being a good dad also makes you being a good CEO. You can be super thorough, and you can be super nice, and the reality is that the kids, They bring me that stability that allows me to go and deal with what I'm dealing with every day. And I learned from one another. And you know, fun fact is you always, I have so many friends now who are kind of my age and they're still debating what is the right time to have kids. And I always joke with them. I say, there's no right time to have kids. You can look at that decision under any angle that you want. You can always find a counter argument to not have kids, like not the right time next year or whatever. I think like the answer to this is just have kids now and deal with it. That's the best experience of life.

AI assessment note: “being a good dad also makes you being a good CEO”

Q So I totally with you in terms of the importance of that cultural fit. The trouble is, honestly, in labor markets today, which are fast and so fluid, how do you think about stress testing that cultural fit in an interview process and more compressed timeframes?

A This is why you have a series of interviews that follow your first meeting, is that we are a value-driven company. So you have certain companies that are mission-driven. That's not us. We're a value-driven company. We believe in our values. We've We believe in our operating principles. We have certain things that really drive our decision making. It's like really important to us. And what we do is that if we have kind of the match with somebody, then we send him through a process, which is pretty data driven with scorecards and everything. And then fundamentally there, if pretty much everyone agrees that he's one of us, then it's like, we go with the heart, like we're all in, we want that person to join and we figure out a way to make it happen. But the reality is that I'm not the sole decision maker ever, especially for like, you know, a role like the CTO where I mean, two thirds of the company is product and engineering today. So I think it's, you know, there's a lot, I mean, I interviewed with a lot of people, but the reality is that I ignite the fire if you want to. And then there's a lot of people are going to make sure that this is the right person. And if it is, then we go for it. But I think like a united management team is probably what's most important because everything starts from the top and then it's being pushed down. So if your management team is strong and has …

AI assessment note: “we send him through a process, which is pretty data driven with scorecards”

Q the decisions that you make and have made, are there a consistent theme of segmented types which take longer for you? I agree with you in terms of speed of decision, but like for me in particular when it comes to hiring, I'm great at fast decision making elsewhere, but there I'm like, shit, I really struggle to come to fast decisions. Are there areas where it takes you longer?

A I think like, so on the hiring front, we just hired Hoyt from Toyota. He was a best entrepreneur in residence, but we did a lot of like interviews. Then I met Hoyt and I knew he was the guy. And you know, that was a nine months process. We met all these amazing CTOs from all around the world. And then I'm having a coffee with Hoyt in San Francisco, not for the CTO role, just to meet the guy. And I was like, this guy has her DNA. He loves to solve complex problems. I want to work with him. And I was like, not nearly an instant decision. Of course, he's going to go to an interview Process and everything, but I knew that he was the guy. It's just like, it's the light bulb moment. And I think like talent is really, of course you want people who have experience and everything, but talent is not the only thing. The cultural fit, believing the same things than this person and just having that right match is actually what makes you win in the end. And I think like, you know, building a team is obviously super critical to any entrepreneur. And for me, I would go back to what I told you before is that I would not over-engineer it. You meet a lot of people, Because that's the real big numbers. Of course, you try to qualify them, but when you have really a good fit with somebody, then you go all in.

AI assessment note: “on the hiring front, we just hired Hoyt from Toyota”

Q the decisions that you make and have made, are there a consistent theme of segmented types which take longer for you? I agree with you in terms of speed of decision, but like for me in particular when it comes to hiring, I'm great at fast decision making elsewhere, but there I'm like, shit, I really struggle to come to fast decisions. Are there areas where it takes you longer?

A I think like, so on the hiring front, we just hired Hoyt from Toyota. He was a best entrepreneur in residence, but we did a lot of like interviews. Then I met Hoyt and I knew he was the guy. And you know, that was a nine months process. We met all these amazing CTOs from all around the world. And then I'm having a coffee with Hoyt in San Francisco, not for the CTO role, just to meet the guy. And I was like, this guy has her DNA. He loves to solve complex problems. I want to work with him. And I was like, not nearly an instant decision. Of course, he's going to go to an interview Process and everything, but I knew that he was the guy. It's just like, it's the light bulb moment. And I think like talent is really, of course you want people who have experience and everything, but talent is not the only thing. The cultural fit, believing the same things than this person and just having that right match is actually what makes you win in the end. And I think like, you know, building a team is obviously super critical to any entrepreneur. And for me, I would go back to what I told you before is that I would not over-engineer it. You meet a lot of people, Because that's the real big numbers. Of course, you try to qualify them, but when you have really a good fit with somebody, then you go all in.

AI assessment note: “so on the hiring front, we just hired Hoyt from Toyota.”

Q Can I ask, you mentioned that your wife and your family, kids obviously changes so much of one's life. How did having kids change how you think about operating?

A So I had my daughter when I was 26, and that happened a point in my life where, you know, like, she really came as a rebirth for us, because we had lost her dad, and it was something that was kind of really important. She brought me a lot of stability. She brought me a lot of, you know, personal discipline, because now you're responsible for another human being. At checkout, I'm basically responsible for 1200 people, and the reality is that you learn from one another. I always said, like, you know, being a good dad also makes you being a good CEO. You can be super thorough, and you can be super nice, and the reality is that the kids, They bring me that stability that allows me to go and deal with what I'm dealing with every day. And I learned from one another. And you know, fun fact is you always, I have so many friends now who are kind of my age and they're still debating what is the right time to have kids. And I always joke with them. I say, there's no right time to have kids. You can look at that decision under any angle that you want. You can always find a counter argument to not have kids, like not the right time next year or whatever. I think like the answer to this is just have kids now and deal with it. That's the best experience of life.

AI assessment note: “being a good dad also makes you being a good CEO”

Q Can I ask, you know, when you look at the company scaling, it's scaled so fast with such increase in headcounts. What have been the most challenging elements in the company scaling for you as the leader? And I guess at what points did signs start to break?

A So, I mean, we're in a very strange time. I mean, when COVID hit, there was 550 of us, and now there's nearly 1200, so we onboarded 650 people completely remotely on Zoom. Fundamentally, you know, I'm kind of like, I'm a student of the situation there, and I'm learning along the way. One thing we did do is that we've opened all these channels of communication, and at all our all-hands meetings, we have a list of things that people tell us they want to change, or they want to see change, and fundamentally, we dock them one after the other. Just like, hey, we want a better scheme to buy chairs and, like, laptops at home. Okay. We're going to build something like this. We want to look after mental wellness or after wellbeing. And like, I think like as a CEO, my job is to obviously drive the business forward, but the people of the company are the catalyst of that company. And I think like, one thing is the company is only as good as the people. So you need to really make sure that as many people as possible are happy. I think this equation is very simple and the more happy people you have and the more good outcomes you get. And I think, you know, quite often, if you try to run a company with business plans and financial models and everything, You kind of deviate from that. That's why we are a value-driven company. A mission-driven company, and I'm not, you know, like here, like wri…

AI assessment note: “we onboarded 650 people completely remotely on Zoom. Fundamentally, you know, I'm kind of”

Q So I totally with you in terms of the importance of that cultural fit. The trouble is, honestly, in labor markets today, which are fast and so fluid, how do you think about stress testing that cultural fit in an interview process and more compressed timeframes?

A This is why you have a series of interviews that follow your first meeting, is that we are a value-driven company. So you have certain companies that are mission-driven. That's not us. We're a value-driven company. We believe in our values. We've We believe in our operating principles. We have certain things that really drive our decision making. It's like really important to us. And what we do is that if we have kind of the match with somebody, then we send him through a process, which is pretty data driven with scorecards and everything. And then fundamentally there, if pretty much everyone agrees that he's one of us, then it's like, we go with the heart, like we're all in, we want that person to join and we figure out a way to make it happen. But the reality is that I'm not the sole decision maker ever, especially for like, you know, a role like the CTO where I mean, two thirds of the company is product and engineering today. So I think it's, you know, there's a lot, I mean, I interviewed with a lot of people, but the reality is that I ignite the fire if you want to. And then there's a lot of people are going to make sure that this is the right person. And if it is, then we go for it. But I think like a united management team is probably what's most important because everything starts from the top and then it's being pushed down. So if your management team is strong and has …

AI assessment note: “process, which is pretty data driven with scorecards and everything”