Early hardship and competition build unmatched startup resilience
Jack Zhang · Airwallex CEO & Co-Founder, Jack Zhang: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 26, 2025 · at 8:28
Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, discusses how early life hardships and losing his family's financial backing built the resilience required for entrepreneurship.
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“I think when you grow up that if you taste, you know, what success looks like early, you know, whether it's spot or any type of mass competition or Olympic competition or any type of competition or any sort of team spots, the tough experience you know, when I kind of lost financial support and when my family kind of lost most of the money, that really toughen you up, right? You become quite resilient. And when you're working, you know, A hundred hours a week at this age and, you know, had to go through that mental challenge of figuring your life out at such a young age. I think you just become a lot more resilient.”
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