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" Celebrity-spotting is pretty standard at Davos. It's one of the things that makes it easy to criticise. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Makes
Things
Standard
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" The world is becoming more global. More than ever, people are proactively deciding where to live, where to study, where to work. Sometimes it's out of necessity, sometimes it's out of choice. "
Taavet Hinrikus
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Live
People
" Talent is a complex subject: from the education our kids get in kindergarten and beyond to the re-skilling of some parts of the workforce; from the opportunities available for research to how we attract the best people to work in our companies. "
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" Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Creating
Country
New
" Large incumbents become big and sometimes become lazy and set themselves up for failure in the future. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Become
Future
Failure
" A preoccupation with job title is an immediate giveaway that someone's priorities are not in line with the company's. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Line
Someone
Priorities
" Maybe I think too highly of myself, but I think maybe sometimes I can give some good advice - sometimes bad advice, I'm sure - and I think that's a way of giving back. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Think
Advice
Bad
" Hiring new people, opening up in new markets, all of that takes money. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Money
New
New People
" 'Big' problems are overwhelming, but when we distil them down to their simplest forms, then the solutions become simple, too. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Down
Too
Simple
" Talent is the lifeblood of a fast-growing company. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Company
Fast-Growing
Lifeblood
" I get a kick out of helping the next generation of founders. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Kick
Generation
Helping
" I spent my workdays at Skype creating a more connected world. We were shrinking the distances between people, making it easier to connect across countries. Then I'd go to my bank to transfer my euros to pounds, and it was like going back in time 50 years: expensive, inconvenient, and painfully slow. It was a nightmare. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Bank
People
Slow
" Building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. I don't believe it when people tell me they've been working 80-hour weeks for five years in a row. I just don't think that's possible. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Marathon
Me
People
" We built TransferWise focused on customer innovation. That means we build our product based first and foremost on our customers. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Product
Customer
Build
" There are lots of people building the next TransferWise, not in a sense of competing with us but in a sense of building large, successful companies that are doing something important. I just enjoy helping these founders navigate the journey. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Building
People
Journey
" People need the financial sector to be safe; people also need the financial sector to go through a massive phase of innovation. That means delivering on the positive rhetoric, like around settlement accounts, not allowing Open Banking to be diluted, and leading the way on AML. "
Taavet Hinrikus
People
Positive
Innovation
" Doing something that empowers people makes you realise how boring it would be to work for a place where the goal is just to make more money. It's much easier to get out of bed and look forward to 12 hours of work if you're making the world a better place. "
Taavet Hinrikus
World
People
Money
" I think that if Britain does decide to leave the E.U., that would be a disaster for the technology sector here and probably also for the broader economy. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Think
Disaster
Economy
" The world is getting smaller thanks to technology. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Thanks
Getting
Technology
" International money transfer is a massive consumer rip-off. Banks and companies like Western Union have gotten away with it for too long. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Union
Money
Consumer
" To be a global business, you need access to the best talent from around the world - fix this, everything else falls into place. Whether it's homegrown or imported, we don't mind where it comes from - we just want the best. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Business
World
Talent
" Changing behaviour is a very slow process. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Behaviour
Process
Slow
" Bitcoin and the whole discussion around it shows how big a need there is for innovation about what money is and how it is stored. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Discussion
Need
Money
" Financial services have always been about trust. Perhaps the biggest barrier to entry has been getting new customers to trust an unknown brand or service, and that's particularly true with digital disruptors who lack a physical presence on the local high street. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Street
Service
Trust
" The attitude to failure is one of the characteristics that's often called out as the difference between the U.S. and Europe. And we do need to be less risk-averse, more embracing of failure. Having failed makes you look bad in Europe. But in the U.S., it makes you look experienced. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Failure
Bad
Need
" Companies that are natively technology-focused I would trust more than a bank. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Would
Than
Trust
" Sometimes, companies are better placed than politicians and governments to make change happen. That doesn't mean that they should not be held to account and follow international rules. But with the right motivation, they can be the force for change. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Rules
Better
Change
" I did an MBA because when I left Skype, I didn't have a clear idea of whether I wanted to create or join a company. But you don't need an MBA to become an entrepreneur. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Entrepreneur
You
Create
" The technology is not an end in itself: it is a tool. It can make it easier for us to communicate or manage our finances. It can help us take care of our health or help policemen in their work. It can create jobs and boost growth. It can enhance transparency and accessibility to services. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Work
Growth
Health
" Historically, people have flocked to Silicon Valley because of the belief that that's where the latest innovation is happening. It's a snowball effect. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Valley
People
Belief
" When we talk about technology changing the world, we often hear about how it makes our lives easier, more connected, safer, or even healthier. They're all things we can easily identify with. The Internet makes our lives easier; services like Skype and WhatsApp allows us to be more connected - the examples are endless. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Internet
Technology
World