Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Large incumbents become big and sometimes become lazy and set themselves up for failure in the future. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Become
Future
Failure
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Talent
Best
Edge
" Traditional consumer finance has been unfair for decades. Banks have had a monopoly on financial services and have been able to overcharge and underserve consumers. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Finance
Unfair
Monopoly
" The growth of FinTech has been driven by adoption across age groups, but the demand from the millennial generation to innovate and think about financial services differently has been a catalyst for change. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Age
Financial
Growth
" 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
" There's always been a lot of interest in the tech community about how to foster innovation and creativity - both within a company but also in the ecosystem of a tech cluster. In both cases, creating opportunities for people who don't encounter each other normally to meet and talk is key. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Creativity
Community
Meet
" 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Broken
Strong
Frustration
" Climate change, migration... they transcend national borders and require an international response. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Change
Climate Change
Migration
" As consumers in general, and with Millennials in particular, we're getting used to everything being cheaper, faster, better - and banks aren't keeping up. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Better
Everything
Used
" Companies that are natively technology-focused I would trust more than a bank. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Would
Than
Trust
" If the U.K. leaves the E.U., we'll have to consider whether it makes business sense to stay headquartered here. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Leaves
Stay
Here
" 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
" If you think about the influence it has had, it's incredible. Think of all the relationships that have been saved because of Skype. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Think
You
Relationships
" At TransferWise, we started out as - and continue as - idealists. We start with what we can do to make things better and how we can solve problems, focusing on what people need. It turns out you can focus on building the best service and be successful as business. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Business
Best
Service
" 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
" If we think about how long Google spent searching - I think they came around in '98? And, OK, Gmail came in 2004, but it was literally built by one engineer as a 20%-time project. It was probably 10 years before Google started diversifying. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Think
Google
Long
" 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
" There are so many instances in banking where 'free' simply doesn't mean free, whether it's opaque overdraft charges or credit card providers that are quietly raising interest rates without customers noticing. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Credit Card
Credit
Without
" The financial crisis of 2008 created a seismic shift in the dynamics of trust in financial services. FinTech would have happened without the global financial crisis - but it would have taken much longer. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Financial
Shift
Without
" We're living in a world where international governance is failing to overcome borders, but technology is succeeding in removing them. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Living
Overcome
Technology
" Scaling a business at speed can feel like an out of control roller-coaster. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Control
Feel
Business
" Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Creating
Country
New
" 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
" 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Think
Choose
Beauty
" 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
" Costs should always be presented up front so that consumers can make informed choices and get a fairer deal. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Up
Costs
Choices
" The fact that Skype was founded in Estonia, the fact that Skype had a successful exit, which meant that Estonia benefited in a major way, meant that entrepreneurship became legitimate. There were more than a thousand people who either worked or had worked at Skype who had seen what it takes to build a global business. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Successful
Way
Business
" If the hard Brexit happens, I would assume that London wouldn't be the centre of the tech world in Europe. "
Taavet Hinrikus
World
Assume
Happens
" 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
" '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 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Best
Talent
People