David Vélez
Founder & CEO, Nubank · 2 appearances on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
founderexecutiveinvestornubank.com.br ↗Wikipedia ↗
David Vélez co-founded Nubank in 2013, building it into one of the world's largest digital banking platforms across Latin America. Prior to founding Nubank, he was a partner at Sequoia Capital leading Latin American investments and worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
63statements → 36claims → 20claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.92/5average certainty → 2.11/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 78said about them ↓
10 supported 9 partly supported 1 contradicted 6 not yet assessed 10 not checkable as stated how the 36 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
12 predictions · 24 assertions · 4 opinions · 13 insights · 8 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 36 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 20 are resolved, 6 are not yet assessed, and 10 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how David argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Velez: LATAM stock exchanges remain dominated by century-old incumbents
“About 25, 30% of companies in the Nasdaq today didn't exist 23 or 30 years ago. If you look at Ivo Vest by Brazil and Mexico, there's still incumbents that existed a hundred years ago. So the opportunity for disruption, a lot of these markets exist today.”
Their most notable contradicted claim
Velez: Sequoia interviews job candidates top-down, starting with firm leadership
“The first thing that came to mind was the first interview was with the head of the firm, not with the youngest analyst. In most firms, you start from the bottom, and then you go up, and Sequoia is the opposite. You go from the top, and then you go down, and yo…”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →
4.5 / 5
directness 4.8 · coherence 4.8 ·
precision 4.4 · compression 4
redirected or did not address 1 of 21 assessed questions (5%). Watch them ▸
This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. We have 16,675 words of David Vélez, and that is not enough to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 2 rated episodes:
host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host 1.5/10
setup questions received 53%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 12:34“When you look at your other D locals of the world, they're good, but they're not, they're not true, true venture, and you can't have a portfolio alone on that. Am I wrong?” ▶ 21:55“of the 50% of, you know, bank accounts that you have in Brazil today, how many are primary accounts of those 50%?” ▶ 32:28“Why, why do this?” ▶ 11:12“Just help me understand, why haven't they worked, and what are you doing differently to make it work for Nubank?” ▶ 13:38“How did you determine whether to accept or reject advice?” ▶ 28:32“He asked, did you ever have imposter syndrome, and how did you deal with that?”
Everything David Vélez said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Velez: Complacency allowed emerging markets to surpass US and Europe in fintech
“I think that level of complacency in these industries, in these big countries, has stopped innovation and have permitted that a lot of these emerging markets, these technologies have leapfrog to a place today where, where Brazil, China, India are ahead of U.S.…”
Velez: Spiky hires with obvious flaws outperform well-rounded candidates
“I rather have the people that have the There's incredible strengths in the weaknesses than the people that are okay in just certain areas. Those tend to be, if you manage them adequately, those are much more powerful type of hires.”
Velez: More Nubank-scale tech giants will emerge in LATAM within 10 years
“I do think now that the kind of the setup for more new banks in the region exists. And you'll see them over the next five to 10 years.”
Velez: Single-country startups in Chile or Colombia face severe exit constraints
“I think you run a little bit into more of the liquidity constraints where you see the businesses just building for Chile or building just for Colombia. Those tend to have much much harder exit opportunity. But when you really get Brazil and Mexico, you'll find…”
Velez: Nubank sees path to become largest bank in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia
“When we go to these three countries, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, we go after big markets where we see a path to be Probably the largest financial institution in each one of these countries eventually, because we are the primary bank account and we become the…”
Velez: Nubank is the primary bank for nearly 30% of adult Brazilians
“So if we have 50% of the population and 60% of primary bank account, we have already close to, we have the primary bank account for close to 30% of adult Brazilians. Which, by the way, is now the highest among any bank in Brazil. We are now the most often, mos…”
Velez: Nubank's Mexican credit card achieves world-leading 94 NPS
“The highest-rated-NPS consumer product in the world in any category is our purple, is Nubank's purple credit card in Mexico. It's a 94 NPS.”
Velez: Emerging markets' fintech lead will accelerate over next 5-10 years
“And this is just the beginning. You'll see this trend just accelerating, I think, over the next five, 10 years when you start thinking about open banking, when you start thinking about the uses of crypto, when you start thinking about how, what AI could do in …”
Velez: Fintech startups should obtain banking licenses instead of avoiding regulation
“The sense is that in a lot of our geographies, entrepreneurs try to almost do everything except embracing the space, except becoming a bank. Because of some arguments that if you became a bank, then your valuation multiple was going to be lower and you're goin…”
Velez: AI private bankers will disrupt ultra-wealthy management within 10 years
“I think then AI and this vision around AI really private banker could become the catalyst for accelerating the immigration towards a fully digitalized private banker. And at that point, then you really start attacking the one percent. You really start offering…”
Velez: AI will act as a banker in every pocket, democratizing finance
“We think that AI is now the second platform shift that might actually be able to take it to its final conclusion. And so if the smartphone was the bank in every pocket, AI is the bank and the banker in every pocket. And that really is the catalyst to Enable hu…”
Velez: Peak positive market sentiment is the optimal time to go public
“Everything is looking so good. The entire environment is so positive. There is only downside from here, which means this is the perfect time to go public.”
Velez: Nubank will expand beyond Latin America and fintech by 2028
“We would have Become the leading financial institution in Latin America, especially in these three markets. Clearly, we made that, we kind of checked that box. We've gone beyond Latin America. Not sure exactly where, but we've gone beyond in terms of internati…”
Velez: AI private bankers will surpass smartphones for Nubank interactions by 2028
“And on top of that, AI, the AI private banker, the self-driving banker is the leading platform, the leading way where consumers are interacting with us, probably even beyond the smartphone. So I think those are would be, those would be the key pieces of that.”
Velez predicts major neobank consolidation as consumers reduce financial apps
“Customers will have less apps in their phone, not more, and they will not have five banking relationships or 10 banking relationships or five different wallets. So I would expect a significant consolidation of that over the next few years”
Velez: Nubank has no growth limit and can become a global giant
“I honestly think there is no limit. It can be one of the largest companies in the world. I'm very confident with that.”
Velez: 2012 Latin American startups were unambitious Silicon Valley clones
“Why would Sequoia, who had access to best entrepreneurs in the world in Silicon Valley, spend time just going and investing in some of these businesses that in a way were just wanted to be clones of Silicon Valley businesses. They were not really shooting that…”
Velez: LATAM stock exchanges remain dominated by century-old incumbents
“About 25, 30% of companies in the Nasdaq today didn't exist 23 or 30 years ago. If you look at Ivo Vest by Brazil and Mexico, there's still incumbents that existed a hundred years ago. So the opportunity for disruption, a lot of these markets exist today.”
Velez: Nubank is redefining itself into a broad consumer platform
“We're in the early days of using these eighty-five million digitally only consumer base to build a marketplace to go beyond financial services and enable our customers to access non-financial services products. So this is almost a redefine of what Nubank is. M…”
Velez: Diversified portfolios render private banker commissions unnecessary
“Today you don't really need a very sophisticated personal bank to tell you where to invest. If you realize that almost all returns comes from having a very well diversified investment portfolio and fixed income and equities, you should just do that yourself an…”
Velez: Nubank profitably serves $50 loan and $200 investment accounts
“Today we can serve customers that need a 50 dollar loan profitably. We can serve customers that have 200 dollars to invest Profitably.”
Velez: Foundational LLMs like OpenAI are just basic infrastructure
“I see the existing LLMs, the open AI, the Entropic as sort of basic infrastructure.”
Velez: Banks do not need proprietary LLMs to build AI bankers
“So I don't think you need to own the model, but I do think you need to own And be very thoughtful around how do you, what are the incentives and what is the objective function of that algorithm when you start actually programming it.”
Velez: Hire people with questions over experienced industry veterans
“We like to hire people that have this ability, that has more questions than answers, that are able to look at a problem with a bunch of questions versus the traditional experienced persons that have been doing it for 30 years, And therefore I know the answer. …”
The other half of the tape: David Vélez's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 74 times in 21 episodes on 20VC. 4 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 43Sebastian Siemiatkowski 9Jag Duggal 8Martin Escobari 4Doug Leone 3Jason Wilk 2Bill Cillufo 2Nigel Morris 1
Statements about David Vélez, by other people (4)
Escobari: General Atlantic passed on Nubank's Series A, B, and C rounds
“I should have backed David Vélez at Nubank. David had worked at GA. I had tried to, and he left for Sequoia, and I tried to bring him back when I got hired into GA. He called us in our Series A, Series B, Series C, then he stopped calling because he kept sayin…”
Siemiatkowski passed on early advisory and angel investment role in Nubank
“He sends me an email, which was like, hey, Sebastian, would you like to, like, advise me a little bit? I'm starting this new company. And I was like, I'm sorry, I don't have the time. So I lost out on a lot of, a lot, I would have been a great angel investor t…”
Kaszek Backed Nubank's Seed Round When It Was Just a Deck
“In Nubank, we invested in the seed investment together with Sequoia, so it was a PowerPoint really early on, David Velez by himself, and that's when we joined, and then we participated out of the fund one in several rounds in the series A and the B and the C a…”
Duggal: David Vélez targeted underserved LatAm consumers, not credit cards
“David, David, you know, just to take that new bank example was in love with the potential of unleashing the Latin American consumer who was being really badly served. He wasn't in love with, I need to build a credit card for Because of X, Y, Z reason or busine…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 14 mentions in 2 episodes 7 per episode
2025 2 mentions in 1 episode
2024 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- Keith Rabois on Rejoining Khosla Ventures | E1102 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jeff Wang: Sequoia Capital's $9BN Global Equities Fund on The Future for NVIDIA, Google & Meta|E1212 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Justin Ishbia: The Three Traits Required to Succeed in Private Equity | E1119 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Roger Ehrenberg: Why VC Returns Will Get Worse & Why LP Incentive Structures are so Broken | E1117 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 32 mentions in 6 episodes 5 per episode
- Jag Duggal: How We Scaled Nubank to 80M Users; Google's Brutal Hiring Practices | E995 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jackie Reses: The Most Powerful Woman in Finance; Making $50BN for Yahoo on Alibaba | E996 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tooey Courtemanche: From Construction Worker to Billionaire CEO | E1090 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Scott Farquhar: Founding Atlassian; How We Scaled to a $50B Valuation; The 4 Jobs of a CEO | E1070 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marc Benioff: The Future of San Francisco and What He Would Do if in Charge | E1064 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta: LATAM's New $500M Growth Fund; Investing Billions at SoftBank | E1042 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- Martin Escobari: How to Invest During a Recession; Negotiation Tips; Developing Markets | 20VC #948 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: How Today's Market Changes How Companies Should Approach Burn and Runway, Are Financing Markets Closing? How To Know When To Pay Up vs Stay Price Disciplined & Why The Most Important Thing in Venture is Generating Positive Selection with Bill Cilluf
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 13 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Sequoia's Doug Leone on What Has Been Instrumental To Scaling Sequoia Over Generations, How Sequoia Think About International Expansion and What They Learned From China and India & Why When You Lose Pre-Seed You Become Private Equity
- 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
- 20VC: Why Bundling Does Not Work, How The Best Founders Analyse Unit Economics, Why The Way We Approach Mental Health in Venture and Startups is Wrong with Nigel Morris, Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ QED Investors
- 20VC LATAM Part 2: a16z's Angela Strange on When To Expand Beyond Your Core Market, Why Serving the Unbanked is Such Good Business & Whether the Startup Will Acquire the Distribution before The Incumbent Acquires the Innovation?
- 20VC: The Pinterest Memo: Bessemer's Jeremy Levine on The Secret To Success within User Generated Content Plays, Where Most Investors Make Mistakes When Analysing Consumer Social and How The Pinterest Deal Wouldn't Have Happened without a Diverse Partners
- 20VC: Basecamp CEO Jason Fried on His Relationship To Risk, Money, Vulnerability and Self-Doubt, Fantasising About Being Fired, How To Optimise Decision-Making and Minimising Regret
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
Appearances (2)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| David Velez: How AI Changes The Future of Finance | E1059 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings | Sep 11, 2023 | 54m |
| 20VC: Nubank CEO David Velez on Scaling Nubank to a $25BN Company, Why What Makes a Great | Mar 26, 2021 | 26m |