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" The world is getting smaller thanks to technology. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Thanks
Getting
Technology
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" 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. "
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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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" 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. "
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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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" 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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Union
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" 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. "
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Finance
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Monopoly
" 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
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" We built TransferWise focused on customer innovation. That means we build our product based first and foremost on our customers. "
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Product
Customer
Build
" As a consumer, I'm definitely waiting for what's going to come after banks. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Consumer
Waiting
After
" 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
" 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
" There's one thing a CEO should always keep at the front of their mind, and that's customer needs. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Front
Always
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" 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
" 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
" When a new hire is afraid to roll up their sleeves and get things done, it's a clear sign it's not going to work out. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Things
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Done
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" A seed depends on a whole host of factors to grow - from the fertility of the soil to the right mix of rain and sun to not being eaten by a passing bird. The same goes for an idea. For an idea to really take hold, other factors come into play, from timing to the emerging technology that makes it possible. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Seed
Sun
Rain
" I was pretty vocal about being anti-Brexit before the referendum vote. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Before
Being
Pretty
" 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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Bank
People
Slow
" 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
You
Start
End
" 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
" 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. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Attitude
Age
Thanks
" The banks never sent me one chequebook. I'm very happy not to have ever touched one. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Never
Touched
Happy
" Without immigration, nations would stagnate. It is key for innovation and for economic growth. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Growth
Innovation
Key
" Celebrity-spotting is pretty standard at Davos. It's one of the things that makes it easy to criticise. "
Taavet Hinrikus
Makes
Things
Standard
" 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
" 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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Police
World
Small