The Exchanges

Q That's really cool. Um, another underrated thing I learned when I was doing some research on you. So you have acquisitions as a pretty big part and component of the business. I was surprised with how many acquisitions you've done to date. So what is the strategy there?

A Um, I think M&A is a core muscle. I think companies that don't know how to do M&A's, um, have problem scaling. So it was always very important for us to bring that core competence inside of the business, and we're lucky enough that some of our executives actually have done it multiple times in the past. The way we think about M&A is very straightforward, right? Like, either we are looking specifically in our markets at companies in our space that have just not been able to scale the way we have, But have really good talent and have, like, amazing customer base and, you know, the revenue, uh, is decent where it makes sense for us to bring them in and just, like, be able to bring the customer base and work with them. So pure acquisition on that front. And the other part, which is kind of sad and happy at the same time, but it was a big realization for me, is as we get to seven years in, I'm still very, very hungry to build, but the seven years of knowledge that I built around payroll and HR, It's a little hard for me to build the depth that I have there on new products. So if you think about like performance review or ATS or compensation management, which are like very important key topics in HR, for example, it's just really hard to get the depth of knowledge that I would have had if I was starting a company just in compensation management today. And the value of bringing people…

AI assessment note: “The way we think about M&A is very straightforward, right? Like, either we are looking”

Q What do you think the key traits are that make a really good salesperson?

A The thing is, I'm a good SMB sales. Enterprise sales is a whole different art, um, that I've yet to master, but I'm working on. I think it's a mix of different things. I think the best salespeople are willing to listen. Um, you know, When you're a founder at the very beginning, you talk a lot because you're so proud. You want to say, ah, I do this, I do that, I do that. The best salespeople are the people that actually listen. Hey, what do you have? What's your problem? The ones I actually, and it's, it's actually not obvious, but the strongest ones are the ones that truly understand the problem. A lot of salespeople are very superficial about their understanding of the product that they're selling. At deal, when you're looking at like, okay, you have an HR stack, you have different companies, you have different employees, you have different contractors, like, How do you work through that? Like, what product makes the most sense for you, et cetera? We've kind of built and went from being, like, one product you sell, it's very easy, into, like, being very much, like, almost external consultants that help you as a company think about your global workforce, think about where you want it to head, and, like, that's very different than, like, you know, just selling, selling something super fast, right? And those are the salespeople I actually value the most, the ones that are able to…

AI assessment note: “I think the best salespeople are willing to listen.”

Q Let's get into the details of the scale. Okay, so can you lay out Deel's business right now? What's the currency? You've been around for around seven years, founded in 2019. What is Deel in 2026?

A So, as you said, we started the business in 2019, um, and the main idea behind Deal was, today we're in London, tomorrow you can be in Israel, in Dubai, in Nigeria, wherever. There's amazing people around the world, right? We wanted to basically build the infrastructure that helps amazing companies like yours, or larger ones, be able to hire the best talent in the world. And we really saw a huge gap in that market at the time. Now fast forward seven years, almost seven years, it's actually Deal's birthday very soon. We're going to do something fun. You know, what we've done is we've really evolved, right? Like we've kind of built what we think of as the platform and ecosystem for companies to be able to grow global, right? Payroll, HR, kind of like the core part of your business. In today's world, companies have started to go global much more, and there just wasn't any tools there. And what started as a small product to help some of our friends be hired by such companies kind of became today The platform that's used by more than 40,000 customers to scale globally.

AI assessment note: “became today The platform that's used by more than 40,000 customers to scale globally.”

Q Oh my gosh, and so what have you learned from all of those individuals for key traits when you're looking to hire out the team?

A You know, I think those individuals are unhirable, almost. Like, this is like the special people that you have to co-found a company with them to be able to bring them to the table. Similar with Shuo, right? Like, or to some extent, even myself, like, you want me on your team, it's like, you can't really hire me. I mean, you know, if we raise the same way Anthropic and OpenAI do, maybe we can afford them. Uh, but, uh, but I, I, it's hard to compare, like, the type of people, those type of people, um, with who I want to, to really hire. But, you know, when I look at my, Across the stack, but like, let's focus maybe more on my executive team. Um, I think the common thread we, I actually always look for, but as a team we always look for, obviously you have the skills. If not, we wouldn't even be talking to some extent, but you know, being able to be grounded into building a great business, being focused on your customer, and understanding that you can't have ego. Like, this is going to be a battle for the next decade in terms of like, what we want to build, how we need to build it, all of the like, challenges that we're going to see as a company. You need people that are grounded, that are happy, and that are excited for the journey, and that have the lowest ego possible so that you can actually go into battle with them and know that they're going to be the best people to have by …

AI assessment note: “being grounded into building a great business, being focused on your customer, and understanding that you can't have ego”

Q right now. And it's neck and neck with Polymarket and they just keep on fighting. Um, On top of that, we also have Brex, and I think we all know who their competitor is, but thou shall not be named. So I'm curious for you as a CEO, how do you navigate leading the company through difficult situations like this, and how do you let it not affect your employees?

A The funny part is, although I have more affinity with some than others, you know, the companies that you've talked about, um, a lot of it is a little bit bullshitty because if you actually put the cash guy in the polymarket in a room, they would get along so well. And if you put the Braggs guys and, and it's my opinion, right? And the company who should not be named if you want in the room, they're actually great people as well. Um, so, you know, I think the media bubble, the X bubbles there really doesn't help in buildings like some of those competitive Mindset for, for no real reason when, like, in terms of, like, the people themselves, they're, like, such great people, and they're being able to build such amazing businesses, and sometimes people need competition to thrive, but, you know, I wish it was different for them, right, because I think they didn't all really get along. Operating in a complex and competitive environment, look, for us, it's always been quite interesting, because we've kind of always been ahead in our market, right, so, um, what's always been very important for me, and it's very hard to do, But as we grew and as we take, you know, back shots from a lot of different companies and little steps here and there, having the company and everybody focused on ourself has always been the most important, right? And it's, sometimes it's hard, right? Like news, fund…

AI assessment note: “having the discipline of being very focused on yourself is probably the best thing”

Q I can't imagine getting into all these countries is easy. So what is the process for this?

A Um, I think we've built a very good playbook. So it depends on the product that you're building, right? Like different products have different complexity in terms of how you're working. I think if you were to like simplify it a lot, like there's like, apart from being the HR system for your, for your company at a global level, the two things we're really known for is you want to hire John. John lives in Poland. But you don't have an entity in Poland because you're a small company, or you just never plan to open for one person an entity in Poland. Well, we have all of the entities around the world, HR, legal, payroll, finance, in every single country, so that we can employ this person on your behalf and give them a great experience without having you setting up structure there. And the second one that most people look up to us for is, at some point, it makes sense for you to open in Poland, but when you do, we help you open the company and we actually run payroll for you in that country. And before a deal, right, the way people were structured is that they had, like, one provider for Poland, one for France, one for Germany, one for the US, like, very, very, very messed up infrastructure, right? So giving them the ability to have, like, one vendor that understands, invests, right? Like, tell me how hard is it? Well, we're still not where I want us to be, right? And I think it's g…

AI assessment note: “the two things we're really known for is you want to hire John”