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" 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

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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. "

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" International money transfer is a massive consumer rip-off. Banks and companies like Western Union have gotten away with it for too long. "

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" With a smartphone, we have a supercomputer in our pocket and are always connected. The way we bank is changing as part of this macro trend. "

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" Companies that are natively technology-focused I would trust more than a bank. "

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" I was pretty vocal about being anti-Brexit before the referendum vote. "

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" I was in my early 20s when Estonia joined the E.U. For a kid who'd grown up in the Soviet Union, it seemed like my country had come of age. For a country that had been isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, it seemed like we were becoming part of the global community. It opened a whole new world of possibility. "

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" Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be. "

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" 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. "

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" Securing and attracting the best talent is an obsession in the tech industry for good reason. It's your main asset; it's your edge. "

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" People bought bitcoin because they thought it would be worth more tomorrow. And a lot of people got lucky. But we're not seeing real people use bitcoin. And we don't know what problem it solves. Now, blockchain, I think, is a genius advancement in technology. "

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" While in two very different sectors, both Skype and TransferWise were born out of frustration. "

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" In 2011, when we launched TransferWise, it was our frustration with banks not giving us what we wanted or needed as customers. The motivation was a strong desire to solve a problem and not just fix something that was broken but create a better alternative and a new system for doing things. "

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" If you think about the influence it has had, it's incredible. Think of all the relationships that have been saved because of Skype. "

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" Most of my time at Skype was spent doing new things. "

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" 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. "

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" I think that's the beauty of being a private company: you get to choose when you disclose something. You can play it in a strategic way or in a tactical way. "

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" For Estonia, joining Europe meant our potential as a country increased - not decreased - because of that connectedness. "

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" Without immigration, nations would stagnate. It is key for innovation and for economic growth. "

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" Bitcoin, I think we can say, is dead. "

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" You start a business being hungry, foolish, and a little bit naive. But more often than not, you end up being disrupted yourself. It happened to Skype. "

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" Changing behaviour is a very slow process. "

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" We're living in a world where international governance is failing to overcome borders, but technology is succeeding in removing them. "

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" Being a 'global citizen' is not something reserved for the global elite anymore. Thanks to the democratising power of technology, it's not a trend determined by privilege or even age but by attitude. "

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" A preoccupation with job title is an immediate giveaway that someone's priorities are not in line with the company's. "

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" As technology progresses, I believe that fintech will fundamentally change finance. "

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" 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. "

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" The banks never sent me one chequebook. I'm very happy not to have ever touched one. "

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" There's most definitely a Davos bubble. You're in a small Alpine town that, for just four days in January, sees its population tripled with world leaders, CEOs, media, police, the army... and a whole bunch of people who aren't invited but just come to hang out. "

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" Celebrity-spotting is pretty standard at Davos. It's one of the things that makes it easy to criticise. "

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" 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. "

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