# $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough · The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy 20VC · Jan 5, 2026 · 57 min · 11,478 words Speakers: Alan Chang, Harry Stebbings Source: https://www.996.fm/episodes/20vc--ep-173338e2/ ## Cold open **Alan Chang** [0:00]: If you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. There's nothing wrong with wanting work, work life balance. But I think the only way to build a generational company is like very, very strong work ethic. I I I just don't see any other way to do it. Excuses don't matter. If you're a leader of an area in the company, excuses don't matter. If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed. We increase our revenue 10 x every year since inception. The first year was £2,000,000. Second year was £20. And then this year, we're gonna end at over £200. ## Intro **Unknown** [0:37]: Simply put, I have interviewed a thousand of the best entrepreneurs over the last decade, and two stand out above all others. Nik Storonsky, founder at Revolut, and then our guest today, Alan Chang. Alan is the cofounder and CEO of Fuse Energy, where, check this out, every single year, he has scaled revenue 10 x. The first year, 2,000,000. The second year, 20,000,000. And the third year, 200,000,000. So like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. I think three of the most important categories that technology can own. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nick in scaling the company to an over $75,000,000,000 valuation. 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I think a really interesting one to start with is you're a freaking machine, and I just want to understand, when we look at, like, transformative moments, one of the most transformative early moments to you was getting the job with Nick and with Rev olut. Can you just take me to that? And Saker actually said I had to ask this one. Was like, you gotta start with how he actually got the job. How did you get the job with Nik, and what did that look like? **Alan Chang** [5:39]: At the time, I just graduated, and I was just perusing on the Facebook group. Like, it was called London Startups. And I saw this job post, Revolut. And I was like, okay. I have no idea what this company does. But I was looking for fresh grads. I like, okay. I I applied. And Nick replied within five minutes. I was like, oh, wow. That's that's very quick. And then he asked me to come for a face to face face interview the next day. So I came for an interview, and he asked me a bunch of physics questions. I was like I I didn't realize I was look I was applying for a physics job. And he offered me a role, you know, right after the interview. I said yes, and that was it. That was, like, the fastest interview process I've I've ever had. **Harry Stebbings** [6:14]: What was the position, and what size and scale was Revolut then? **Alan Chang** [6:18]: Yeah. So at the time, in terms of full time, it was Nick, Vlad, and two other full time engineers, and that was it. So it was just hot desking. Job was just you know, was called operations analyst, but effectively, the first three months was doing customer support. **Harry Stebbings** [6:34]: When did you realize that this was gonna be a massive $100,000,000,000 company? **Alan Chang** [6:39]: So at the time, Revolut was in a co working space called Level thirty nine. **Harry Stebbings** [6:43]: Yeah. **Alan Chang** [6:44]: I remember this. Yeah. And so Level thirty nine is yeah. For those who don't know, it's it's basically a giant start up co working space with maybe over 200 start ups. And Revolut was the only team that worked past 7PM on the weekday. So after 7PM, the whole floor is dead. It was also the only team that worked on the weekends. So when I realized that, you know, I knew there was something special, the second moment was I asked Nick, like, what's what's your ambition? Like, what what keeps you motivated? And at the time, he's, you know, worth quite bit of money already. So, you know, what what what drives him? Right? And he told me he wants to beat JPMorgan. So that's the second moment I realized this is gonna be a massive company. **Harry Stebbings** [7:25]: What do you think you guys did really right really early on that led to such success early? **Alan Chang** [7:31]: So at the time when when we got started, there were basically three players. There was Revolut, Monzo, and n twenty six. Yeah. And for the first two years, at least from the outside, it feels like neck to neck. Right? It wasn't clear who the winner was. But for me, was crystal clear. Right? It was crystal clear who's gonna win. And and the reason why is because it's just the team's ambition execution. Right? Because ultimately, if you if you ask the same teams at the time, like, basically the product roadmap, almost everyone would tell you basically the same. There wasn't any differentiation in product roadmap. But what differentiate between us and everyone else was basically ambition and speed of execution. **Harry Stebbings** [8:09]: I think that was it. How do you move so fast? What is your biggest lessons on how to create speed of execution within teams? I want this internally. You've met my team here. You see it. How do I encourage this urgency and speed of execution internally, and how do you do it? **Alan Chang** [8:24]: Yeah. So I think have small teams operating in a independent unit and give them very clear goals. Let them let them execute. And what you should do is monitor those teams. If they do well, let them be. If they don't do well, replace the team. **Harry Stebbings** [8:38]: What did you learn from Nick about managing people and people performance? **Alan Chang** [8:42]: It's all about results. I think Nick's make this make this analogy before. There are three types of people in the world. There are there are people who can self identify the target and shoot and hit the goal. Then there are people who can't identify targets, but if you point, they shoot and they hit the goal. And then the third type of people, which is neither. Right? You wanna maximize the first and second group of people, and you want, ideally, the first and second type of people leading teams. And basically, the throughput of your company is basically sum of the number of people in the first and second bucket. **Harry Stebbings** [9:14]: When you bring those people together and you grow very fast, what was the most significant breaking moment in the early Revolut days? And what did you learn and take from it? **Alan Chang** [9:24]: I'll I'll say the get shit done culture, the best way to build something great very, very fast. And it's something I I I took on board, but I even amped it up even more. **Harry Stebbings** [9:34]: How do you **Alan Chang** [9:35]: amp it **Harry Stebbings** [9:35]: up **Alan Chang** [9:36]: more? Putting even more intensity. Right? Just driving a lot of urgency within the company. Always keep people on their toes. How **Harry Stebbings** [9:43]: do you, like, always keep people on their toes? Is it, like, pushing them in terms of their goals? Is it pushing them in terms of the hours and the work and the intensities? What what what is it? **Alan Chang** [9:51]: Oh, in terms of results, right, or or lack thereof. I always emphasize, like, we're we're not moving fast enough. We could be doing more, but we're not. You know, for example, like, I I told the team last year, execution was maybe four out of 10. Right? And we need to get a 10 to 10 out of 10, and we're not passing. **Harry Stebbings** [10:06]: What was the problem there, and how did you fix it? **Alan Chang** [10:08]: The problem was speed of execution. We were too slow. We wanted to ship a bunch of things, and we we didn't. Right? Things were delayed. **Harry Stebbings** [10:15]: When were you off target in execution with Revolut, and what did you learn from that? **Alan Chang** [10:20]: I think we're off execution maybe every year. I think I think that mindset should be I think you need to be best versions of yourself. So you always need to review, okay, in the past week, in the past month, what could I have done better? Maybe maybe a more extreme analogy. Right? Like, used to ask my team, right, at at Rev, if you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. **Harry Stebbings** [10:43]: There will be people who say, I also have a family. I also have other parts of my life. And I get this a lot. You I'm I'm sure you've probably seen because you're socially aware, but, like, nine nine six I've been chastised for, actually, including by some of your investors at Balderton, interesting, who would say it's not work life balance. And I could always say, yes, I could have done more, but I have other parts of my life. How do you respond to them? **Alan Chang** [11:06]: Don't join Fuse. That's okay. Like, I I I have total respect for people who want, you know, like, nine to five job. There's nothing wrong with wanting work life balance. But I think the only way to build a generational company is very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it. When you look **Harry Stebbings** [11:23]: back Revolut is known for its intense culture as well. That's why I think you've learned a lot of this. Where was the Revolut culture amazing that you've really taken from it? And where was it, actually, I'm glad that we left that behind and it wasn't helpful? **Alan Chang** [11:39]: Yeah. I think Revolut's culture have never settled, like, in terms of speed and quality is something I took over. Like, Revolut had a lot of cultural values, and and to be honest, like, I think it's a bit too many for me. I always forget all of them. How many does it have? From memory, it's six. How many should you have? **Harry Stebbings** [11:54]: I **Alan Chang** [11:55]: think one. **Harry Stebbings** [11:55]: What's your one cultural value? **Alan Chang** [11:57]: So never settle. **Harry Stebbings** [11:58]: It's the one that resonated with me the most. Do you apply that to all parts of life? And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the heads of a firm recently said to me, and it's one of the biggest firms in world, but I do wanna keep this one private because otherwise they'll fucking kill me. They said, how you do anything is how you do everything. Like, if we have mistakes in a memo, that says that we're not thinking clearly and we're not putting the work in. And I actually didn't really agree with that. I think you have to pick your battles and choose where to be all in. How do you think about that never settle? Because sometimes it's okay to settle on 80% for a junior account manager in whatever. Do you know what I mean? **Alan Chang** [12:33]: I I agree with that. Yeah. I think you have to pick your battles for sure. Ultimately, like you need to identify the most important roles in the company and never settle on those roles. But the roles that matter less, I think it's perfectly okay to settle. **Harry Stebbings** [12:45]: When you're building Revolut with Nik and the team, what was your biggest disagreement with Nick and and how did that play out? **Alan Chang** [12:51]: I'll say the overuse of KPIs. Because ultimately, there are things you should measure, you know, which tells you the health of that team, how well they're doing, and you should hunt and do that. But then once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it. Nick is a super numbers driven guy. Right? And I think that worked very well in in a large part. But I would say not everything should be the KPI. **Harry Stebbings** [13:14]: What shouldn't be a KPI? And what shouldn't? How do you determine that? **Alan Chang** [13:18]: Like, when you start incentivizing a metric, we need to think about, okay, what are the second order consequences? Right? Let's take a very simple example. Let's say, let's take a a recruiter. If you give a KPI to a recruiter, let's say on hires per month, what they might start to start to do, because their bonus depends on it, is trying to convince hiring managers to lower the talent bar. And I've seen that happen before. That's actually not what the company wants. Right? What the company wants is actually keep the talent bar high. So instead, they try to, you know, some recruiters that really want to chase their bonuses, they they try and negotiate with managers, try and convince them this is the best you're gonna find. You're find someone better, etcetera, etcetera. **Harry Stebbings** [13:51]: When we look at outcomes, I think so much of Revolut's success has come from product diversification and the testing that you guys did internally. When I interviewed Nik, the thing that struck me was he said about the 26 product experiments are being run internally at the same time. That was a really interesting way to approach company building to me that no one had ever talked to me about before. What did you learn from that? What are your takeaways from seeing that you that you've applied to Fuse? **Alan Chang** [14:15]: Yeah. I think product diversification is so important. I mean, let me give you like one example of why that was so important. So during the COVID lockdowns, the interchange revenue, so, you know, revenue from people spending on cards, especially abroad, went basically near zero. However, there was a lot of stimulus checks, right, from from the COVID times, and the stock market was booming, right, and the crypto market was booming. So whilst the interchange revenue went down, the, you know, trading revenue went up. So it kind of offset each other. So that was a great example where diversification actually helped make the company's revenues much more resilient. **Harry Stebbings** [14:49]: Do you think you should have gone for the banking licence earlier? Nick's publicly said that he thinks he should have done. But when you look there, I think your product diversification was enabled by your not having the banking licence earlier when Monzo did. **Alan Chang** [15:00]: Actually, I think the product diversification could have happened even if Revolut got the banking licence earlier. I think Nik is totally right. The issue is, like, the bigger you get, the, I guess, more scared the regulators are of you. Because if you succeed, they have no upside. They don't get a bigger bonus. But if you fail, like, they might lose their jobs. So they're incentivized to be risk averse as opposed to risk neutral. Right? Whereas what's best for the economy is actually risk neutral regulators. **Harry Stebbings** [15:26]: When was the first time that you really felt incumbents and regulators were aware of how successful you were becoming? **Alan Chang** [15:33]: I still don't think they realized. I still don't think the the incumbents have woken up yet. **Harry Stebbings** [15:38]: Oh, dude, they have. They have? They have. I'm sorry. I spoke at one of the incumbents' events recently, and like pretty much the only thing that was discussed at their away day is Revolut. **Alan Chang** [15:48]: But what have they done about it? **Harry Stebbings** [15:50]: Well, the trouble is they can't, and that's why you bet long on Revolut. Like and I am trying to buy every fucking Revolut share I can at a good price because, honestly, the structures, the comp bans that they have, the policies that they have means they can't do it. It's it's almost like they know the challenge, but they are unable to fight against it. And no one has ownership. It's a 100 year old bank. As a hired CEO, he's been paid 5,000,000 a year for, you know, five years. He'd honestly, if he bounces, he'll go back to Marbella to the family home, it'll be fine. Yeah. **Alan Chang** [16:21]: Maybe. Talking about it and doing something about it is very different. **Harry Stebbings** [16:24]: Do you think it's important to have an enemy in a startup? Whether it's Revolut and banks, whether it's Fuse and, you know, traditional incumbents, is that important? **Alan Chang** [16:32]: I think it's important to have a common goal. For example, at Fuse, our common goal is, like, no trade offs. Now looking back, like, last twenty years. Right? This green movement, basically telling people to use less. Right? So you you you had politicians that says, you shouldn't you should drive less to work. You should turn heating on less often. You should fly less. You should do less of everything in order to save the environment. And then you have energy prices slowly creeping up over over the last twenty years as well. It's basically trade offs, I think that's completely wrong. It's actually moving in the complete opposite direction, right? It's we should be using more energy. There's actually a very strong correlation between how much energy you use per capita and quality of life. Right? And and if you look at the Americans, right, the Americans use, you know, almost eight times more energy than Europeans, and and look at the quality of life. But you're saying the American quality of life is better than ours? For sure. Think about the average American home. Right? They have a large, detached house, big driveway, several cars, big backyard, maybe a swimming pool, maybe a sauna, and maybe a jacuzzi. And that's, like, you know, middle class. Like, we're not talking about, like, ultra wealthy Americans. Even if you look at, like, the wealthy Brits living in London. But, **Harry Stebbings** [17:40]: I mean, that but that's bluntly built on a an infrastructure of credit and borrowing that they are unable to afford, which you see in bluntly debt and borrowing levels in The US on the consumer side being higher than they've ever been. Whilst at the same time, respectfully, dude, their food supply chain is completely fucked, unless you're on either coast, and the quality of their food is shit and manufactured. **Alan Chang** [18:00]: That's also true. But if you look at the average cost of the American home, it's relatively affordable. So what do we take away from that? I think the takeaway is you can have it all three ways. You can have low cost energy, you can have more energy, and you can have lower carbon energy at the same time. **Harry Stebbings** [18:17]: People often talk about the energy crisis that we're in today, and energy is now one of the hottest topics. When people say, like, it's a quarter to midnight, it's a minute to midnight, how close are we to an energy crisis? Is it a minute to midnight? Are we far away? What does that look like? **Alan Chang** [18:33]: I think we're in energy crisis already. In the whole developed economies, UK is in the deepest trouble. So if you look at energy consumption per capita in the last twenty five years, UK has dropped 25%. In US, it's been flat. In China, in the same period of time, it's gone up by seven times. Seven times in the same period of time. And energy prices have gone up. Price volatility has gone up. Everything is trending in the wrong direction. And **Harry Stebbings** [18:56]: what's the cause of that? Can you just help me answer? You know, I was talking to one of the biggest kind of data infrastructure providers the other day, and they were like, listen. The reason we're not in The UK is because I as a percentage of revenue, energy is 16% of our revenues in The UK, whereas comparatively elsewhere, it's three to 4%. Why is that? Why are we so bad? **Alan Chang** [19:13]: Two reasons. The first reason is overregulation. It's very hard to build anything in The UK, like physical otherwise. Let me give you an example, right? So we're trying to build a power plant in The UK. And one of the things the council have complete discretion over is planning, especially around environmental impact. So we had to do wintering bird surveys, right, over several winters. So how that works is you hire a guy with a clipboard, and they count number of birds in the winter. And until that survey is done, you can't build. So that's one example where it's so hard to build something physical in Britain. Right now, I can tell you, if you speak to any of the infra capital providers, they want to deploy a lot of capital to building infrastructure. So the problem is not capital. The problem is it's very, very hard to build. So that's the first reason. The second reason, I would say, is the quality of companies operating in this space is not very sophisticated. Like a lot of these energy, existing energy companies, they are not technology driven at all. They're very old school, still pen and paper, spreadsheet based companies that are incredibly inefficient. Now, there's not much I can do about regulation, but I think we can, for sure, build the best version of, you know, best energy company using the latest technology. **Harry Stebbings** [20:24]: Who is in charge of the regulation? Is this Ed Miller Band and the energy **Alan Chang** [20:28]: Yeah. It's it's Ofgem. It's Desnez. **Harry Stebbings** [20:31]: And when we compare that to The US, do they not have the same regulatory compliance issues that, say, California does, which is why they failed so woefully on their expansion of the railway systems that they wanted to build out? **Alan Chang** [20:42]: Yeah. I think, to be clear, I think US also share a lot of the similar problems Yeah. To The UK, to a lesser extent. And it also depends on what what state are you talking about. For example, in state of Texas, right, where, you know, a lot of people say it's a home of energy, it's much easier to build compared to The UK. **Harry Stebbings** [20:58]: When you think about energy, the energy crisis today, what does no one know that everyone should know? I'm very naive on energy. It's it's not my business. Yeah. It's not where we invest traditionally. **Alan Chang** [21:09]: So first of all, there's no such thing as 100% renewable. Just think about when the sun is shining, solar is generating. And obviously, sun is not shining all the time. For wind, it's the same. Right? When wind is blowing, you get wind energy, right, wind power. However, they are extremely correlated to each each other. What that means is even if you overbuild solar and wind, it's never possible to cover a 100% of the time to be a 100% renewable because they're highly correlated. So in certain hours, you get abundant of solar and wind energy, but in certain hours, you basically get near zero energy, even if you overbuild. Now you can argue, okay, you can put storage in. But right now, most batteries are sub two hours. So they're actually batteries are so way too expensive for us to use to store, you know, days or even weeks without, you know, solar and wind energy. So any energy company that's claiming their renewable is a is is a complete lie. They are simply buying renewable certificates to claim their harms in renewable, and it's completely false. Let me give you, like, a proof point of why why why this is completely false. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the gas prices shot up, but the energy companies that are offering 100% renewable energy tariffs also went up. How is that possible if it's 100% renewable? Right? I think that's the first thing. Second thing most people don't understand is power is not fungible across time and space. You have a lot of power, for example, wind power in North Of Scotland, that are being told to turn off because the power is not getting to where it needs to be. People are not using energy when a wind is blowing, and it's also not going to where it needs to be, which is, you know, the big demand centers like like London because the grid is not set up to do that. So, yeah, these are two biggest misconceptions in energy, I would say. **Harry Stebbings** [22:49]: If you were in charge of The UK's energy policy program, what would you do differently that we're not doing today? **Alan Chang** [22:57]: I would deregulate building anything physical. I'll make it so easy for anyone to build. Number two is I'll delete all subsidies of any kind. **Harry Stebbings** [23:06]: Why? **Alan Chang** [23:07]: Because the goal for energy should be as low cost as possible. A subsidy basically means it's actually not profitable to build this project, but because the subsidy is now profitable. Think about who takes that burden of that higher energy cost. It's ultimately the ratepayers, right? It's it's you and I. It's everyone. So it actually doesn't make sense. So I'll delete all subsidies and let the free market do its thing. If it's profitable to build it, people will build it. If it's not, don't. **Harry Stebbings** [23:34]: When we look at energy regulations, infrastructure, policy, which country do you think stands out as an exemplary that we should follow? China. Why is that? **Alan Chang** [23:44]: Just look at the energy price. If you look at the what the Brits and Europeans pay in terms of, you know, cost per kilowatt hour, it's roughly 25 to $30 cents. In The US, it's 10 to $15 cents. In China, it's $8 cents. If you look at energy per capita, US hasn't grown in the last twenty five years. It's been flat, and China has gone up by seven times. And if you look at the build out in China, right, they have truly vertically integrated energy companies run by the state, from generation to the grid and distribution. And, you know, whilst, you know, in the West, like, there are people debating, oh, is renewables better? Is, you know, oil and gas better? You know, then there's like it's it's becoming, like, a very political thing. In China, they build everything. In China, they deploy more solar than the all Western economies combined. In China, they deployed more gas, more coal, more grid. They've laid more cables of grid than all Western economies combined. So they're just building everything. Like, clearly, they understand the importance of energy costs, and they're just building everything. I think that's a, yeah, model economy we we should we should we should follow for energy policy. **Harry Stebbings** [24:47]: Do you stand by the belief that, yeah, we're all in the same WhatsApp groups and they say and everyone says, ah, but the level of talent coming out of Imperial and Cambridge and Oxford, absolutely, we can parallel The US. Do you stand by that on talent levels in The UK? **Alan Chang** [25:01]: I think talent levels in The UK is good. Like, ultimately, education. Like, I I personally receive higher education in The UK. I think it's world class, and ultimately, this is the key ingredient to to build, you know, anything successful. Although I'm short term, I'm bearish on The UK, but long term, I'm I'm bullish. What **Harry Stebbings** [25:17]: makes you bearish right now in The UK? **Alan Chang** [25:20]: Current government's heading in the wrong direction. We need deep d eregulation so it's easier to build. And there's a lot of talk about growth, but it's just talk and no action. **Harry Stebbings** [25:30]: Respectfully, don't know how you can be bearish in the short term and bullish in the long term. Like, when you look at the kind of cyclical structural decline that we're heading into, that is multi decade actually, and it's very difficult to reverse out of. So with respect, I don't know how you can be long term bullish, but short term bearish. **Alan Chang** [25:47]: I think a lot of people with common sense are realizing we're in a bad situation. What makes me optimistic is because when I speak to people, there is some common sense. Hopefully, those people with common sense will elect a more sensible government in the future that will do the right thing. **Harry Stebbings** [26:02]: With respect, do you think that's actually a fair assessment, though? I mean, right now, it looks like Nigel Farage and reform will be that government. And, actually, when you look at populace and and The UK populace, transparently, it's it's not the intellectual Matt Clifford that is the average person on the street. **Alan Chang** [26:17]: I think what's key is the next government because ultimately, I think deregulation is you just need a will, like a very, very strong will to do it. As long as the following government's gonna attract a top team around them and being advised the right regulations to look at and and to delete or reform, **Harry Stebbings** [26:38]: I think we could do it. Do you feel you have a political party home today? I feel kind of politically lost, if I'm honest, which is like I used to be a a kind of conservative. Now I don't feel any particular allegiance to the conservatives on the committee, to be honest, but I don't feel particularly strong belief in Nigel Farage and reform. I I think labor's terrible, but I don't feel like I have a political home like I used to. **Alan Chang** [27:00]: I wanna make sure there are people who have who are competent to lead the country. Right? I wanna make sure the most competent individuals are leading the countries regardless of party. **Harry Stebbings** [27:09]: Who would you most like to see? **Alan Chang** [27:10]: Mac Clifford is a pretty good choice. I'm probably in the same camp as you for now. **Harry Stebbings** [27:15]: We said about talent in The UK. One thing that's always very hard with talent is detecting it. And part of that is the interview process. And you helped me, again, you know, hire my chief of staff even. When you look at green flags in interview processes that excite you, what are some of the best signals that one can give in an interview process? **Alan Chang** [27:34]: Basically, when I when I explain to the candidate, you know, about what we're trying to build at Fuse, ambitions, how we wanna be a number one energy company in the world, the hard work that requires to build it, like, what I usually see is, like, the body language, right, as well as the facial expression. Like, are they leaning in or they're leaning out? And you wanna be hiring people who are leaning in. **Harry Stebbings** [27:52]: I don't like bounces either. You know when you look at someone's CV and it's like one year, one year, one year, one **Alan Chang** [27:57]: year. That's also not great. **Harry Stebbings** [27:58]: Anything else where you're like, not great? Fluffy CVs for me. Like, okay, you hire a marketing manager, I wanna see I increased MQLs by 38%. I did that through these three core channels. I learned this about Facebook advertising, but then it saturated when we hit expand. I'm like, oh, very detailed, like clear attribution led data. **Alan Chang** [28:16]: I'll say very long CVs is bad. Yeah. I think it should be maximum page. Like, if Elon Musk can fill put a CV in one page, so could you. Yeah. It reminds me of, like, you know, like your first ever CV. Right? And you're trying to fill the page, and you couldn't think of anything to put. And you're, like, putting in the, like, special skills like Microsoft Word. It's got that type of vibe. Right? **Harry Stebbings** [28:37]: Professional tiddlywings player. Other hobbies, skiing, Art. I fucking hate art. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. Okay. So we have that. How do you structure your hiring process? I'm always looking to be better at hiring. How do you structure it, and what what would be your biggest advice to me on how I should optimize mine? **Alan Chang** [28:56]: Yeah. I think first define the skill sets you you need. Right? So for example, for a software engineer, it could be coding skills, system design, problem solving, and as well as culture fit. So we basically find, okay, who is the best coder in the company? Who is the best assistant design? And then we assign those people to assess those skills individually. And then at the end of the process, they kind of gets a grade, right, for every single step. If they're above a certain threshold, then we offer. And that's also how we decide on how much we offer, right? So as a company, we don't actually use any comp bands. We simply look at the grades, and the higher the grade, the higher bid. Because ultimately, we're buying skills. **Harry Stebbings** [29:37]: Wow. **Alan Chang** [29:37]: So **Harry Stebbings** [29:37]: sorry. This is really interesting. So you will essentially say, okay. We are looking for a software engineer, and we need I don't know. You choose your language, whatever we're going for. We need x language, and then you will rank rank them out of 10 on that one core skill, and then you will assign them a salary as a result of **Alan Chang** [29:51]: that. Actually, we don't even look at language. So although our whole back end is in Python, we will hire any back end developer even if they know nothing about Python. So it's a coding challenge in the language of their choice. It's system design, which is about how you architect the whole system. Problem solving, which is have they successfully solved the problem in the past, whatever that is, as well as culture fit. Right? And basically, if they get, let's say, straight As in every single one, we bid a very, very high offer. **Harry Stebbings** [30:19]: Okay. They are a seven out of 10. Should you just not hire them? Like, should it not be like an all in, we should give them the top whack or don't hire them at all? **Alan Chang** [30:29]: Yeah. So our our threshold is we will hire anything above a b. If you get straight b's, you'll still get an offer, but the offer will be much lower. And it could be below what you're making today. If you have a better offer elsewhere, like, good luck to you. **Harry Stebbings** [30:43]: Why would you do that? That feels like to me, like, venture, we'd say that's like a nah deal. Like **Alan Chang** [30:49]: Well, ultimately, like, to be clear, b is still pretty good. A is, like, exceptional. So b is, like, this is where we've where the bar is. Right? And I would say, like, that you can still be a very solid performer if you're if you're a b. The difference between the straight b candidate and straight a candidate is simply compensation. And for straight a candidates, we have made offers that are, you know, much higher than what they make today. And even if we know that, that's okay because we wanna make sure we're a no brainer for you such that you will never think about leaving. **Harry Stebbings** [31:17]: How fast do you know when someone's not very good? A month, two months. Do you pull the cord that quick? **Alan Chang** [31:24]: We **Harry Stebbings** [31:24]: always give them a verbal warning first. When you give a pip, does it ever actually get better? **Alan Chang** [31:30]: Well, we don't really have formal pips. I don't believe in pips. Why? I think it's a waste of time. Like, just give them a warning because most people we hire, they're already self aware, right, of where they fall short. Even before we have the verbal warning, they kinda know they're falling short already. And, yeah, basically, the the formal warning is simply, look, we're giving you one more chance. If don't improve, you're out. **Harry Stebbings** [31:51]: When you look back, when you made a mishire, what did you not see that you should have seen? **Alan Chang** [31:57]: I used to overvalue IQ. Didn't put enough waiting on deeply caring. **Harry Stebbings** [32:03]: Can you explain that? **Alan Chang** [32:04]: Yeah. So what you wanna do is hire someone who really deeply cares about the company and about the mission, right? Someone who would stay up late to fix this bug or stay over the weekend to get this new feature shipped. Even if you hire someone very, very intelligent, but they just don't care, it's also not gonna work out. **Harry Stebbings** [32:24]: Is that not a game of luck in some ways? When you hire someone, you've never met them before, they're young, you have very little data on them. You don't actually know if they're gonna give it to you all and work through Christmas to get that deal done, to get that project off the line. Is it not a game of luck? **Alan Chang** [32:41]: It's certainly not a game of luck. There are there are questions you can ask. So I usually pitch them pitch them other companies telling, okay, we wanna be a number one company, blah blah blah. Right? I I explain to them, look, you have many, many choices. Right? You're obviously very, very talented engineer. You have many choices. You can work at any startup you want, any tech company you want. Are you really sure this is what you wanna do? Right? It's gonna be very tough. There'll be tough times. You know, you have to constantly bounce between shipping new features, fixing bugs, improving scalability of the platform. Like, why do you wanna do this yourself? Like, why are you sure you wanna do this? And if they say, oh, I'm not sure. Depends on the pay, blah blah blah, that means they're not up for it. That they lean in and they tell you, okay. I've been so bored at my corporate job. This is something I've been looking for, you know, for a very long time. Like, I'm in. Then you know. Right? Now, obviously, they can lie. Right? But most I'll say, from my experience, they don't. **Harry Stebbings** [33:34]: Any big red flags around people and their title expectations? I wanna come in, but I wanna be ahead of product. Is that okay? Or is it a, no, no, no, in and earn the right. Any lessons around title and how they feel about title? **Alan Chang** [33:48]: Yeah. We've never given a head of position to anyone we've hired. We've only given to it based based on performance. **Harry Stebbings** [33:55]: In in terms of internal promotion? **Alan Chang** [33:57]: Yes. **Harry Stebbings** [33:58]: Anyone salary, where it's like, hey, listen, I'm being paid x at my current job. I need that to make this worth my time. **Alan Chang** [34:05]: Actually, for us, their expectations don't really matter. It's about their performance. Either interview performance or performance in the company. And we will pay you top of market if you perform very well. **Harry Stebbings** [34:16]: What non obvious behavior do you not tolerate, even if they're really high performers? **Alan Chang** [34:21]: So I remember back was when I was at Revolut. I was explaining to Nik I I actually forgot what what what it was, but, you know, I failed at something. And I was trying to explain to him why I failed. Then Nik sent me this article. Alright. It was about jobs, explaining the difference between a janitor and a VP. So the story goes, if the janitor fails to collect the trash because the locks in the office was changed, jobs will say, Okay, that's irritating, but that's acceptable because you're the janitor. Somewhere between a janitor and a VP, reasons stop mattering. So every single time when one of the leaders at Fuse explains to me why they failed and they couldn't couldn't hit a certain goal, I sent them this article. **Harry Stebbings** [35:01]: So can you just help me understand what the takeaway from that is? It's like, you know what? It doesn't fucking matter why you failed. The point is you failed in the expansion. Correct. What do you take from that? Like, excuses don't matter? **Alan Chang** [35:12]: Excuses don't matter. If you're a leader of an area in the company, excuses don't matter. If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed. **Harry Stebbings** [35:22]: Do worry that you're ever too harsh on people? I get told I am. I don't care about your excuses. I care about outcomes. And people say that I'm too harsh. I'm too direct. Do you worry? **Alan Chang** [35:32]: I don't care what they think. **Harry Stebbings** [35:34]: And you don't worry about them leaving? Because, like, for my best performers, for your use, when Nick at Revolut is saying that to you, Nick should be terrified that you leave. You're a core part of that business. I I want to protect you and look after you. And when you say, dude, there's a lot of reasons why, I don't know, Poland didn't work in the expansion and da da da da. Okay, Alan. Like, you're my guy. I'm here for you, and thank you for explaining that to me. I want to protect my best performers. **Alan Chang** [36:00]: Well, I would say I don't think that's protecting. Right? That's just hiding, you know, information from your best performers. Right? Ultimately, your best performers, like, they're they're smart. They're hardworking. They're not dumb. Right? And initially, I took that feedback to Hot, and I was resisting it at first. I thought it was unfair, right? But then I thought more about it, and it made me a better person, right? So I thank him for sending me the article. What I found is usually top performers internalize as negative feedback very well. They take negative feedback too hot, and they find ways to improve. If there are people who don't take negative feedback well, I don't think they're top performers. **Harry Stebbings** [36:35]: What was the bit of feedback that you found most hard to take? **Alan Chang** [36:38]: You you have to assume the person giving you negative feedback have the best intentions for you. And once you realize that and it's nothing personal, you can take all negative feedback, even if it's very harsh. **Harry Stebbings** [36:48]: Was there a bit of feedback that you found the hardest to give? **Alan Chang** [36:52]: No. It's very important you have that you create a culture of truth seeking. And the truth is very ugly, might hurt someone's feelings, you should still say it because it'll make that person better. **Harry Stebbings** [37:02]: Is there anything that you shouldn't say because it ultimately doesn't make them better? **Alan Chang** [37:07]: Well, if it keeps giving negative feedback to a person that they haven't improved, then I I just stop bothering. They can leave the company. **Harry Stebbings** [37:13]: Do you think there's a bit of a culture of fear around you? Like, if you look again, I love Nick, and I think he's a phenomenal leader and one of the greatest founders I've ever interviewed ever, and I've done a thousand founder interviews. But, I mean, that's not I don't know whatever the right term. Let's not shy away from it. Mhmm. People are scared of him. Is it bad to have a fear based leadership? **Alan Chang** [37:32]: What matters is people need to feel like they can speak the truth. **Harry Stebbings** [37:36]: And you do with Nick? Yes. **Alan Chang** [37:38]: I tell him if I think it's a bad idea, I tell Nick. Now he can disagree with me, and sometimes I change his mind, sometimes I don't. But I do tell him the truth. **Harry Stebbings** [37:46]: What specific decision on product or strategy do you think moves the needle most with Revolut? Was there one, like, have to go into crypto, we have to go into stock trading, we have to do x country, we have to invest in x? **Alan Chang** [38:01]: No. Because the answer is we need to do everything. Yeah. I think as we build a company, we realize there's so many opportunities, and we just need to pursue all of them. **Harry Stebbings** [38:10]: That advice is completely counter what every founder is being told that you need to focus. You need to create a product for a very specific customer base and you need to deliver that excellent experience and focus, focus, focus. There's so many shiny objects, you can't pursue them all. **Alan Chang** [38:25]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [38:25]: That advice is completely counter that. What would you say to them listening who are now confused? **Alan Chang** [38:30]: I I actually think there are not enough ambitious founders out there. Because ultimately, the the throughput of the company, like how many parallel work streams you can take at given time, is dictated by a number of great leaders you have in the company. And the zero sum mindset will be, okay, I only have that many leaders in the company. But in some cases, it could just be the founders himself. Therefore, I'm just gonna pursue these things. The expansionist mindset would be, I need to hire more leaders in my company so I can pursue more. Right? So I'll argue we're in the business of expanding things. So rather than you try to play the zero sum game, we should try and figure out ways to know, hire more leaders so you can pursue more. **Harry Stebbings** [39:08]: What does your direct report structure look like? Jensen has popularized the having, you know, 50 and being so involved in the minutiae of a large amount of the business in terms of surface area. To what extent do you agree with that versus to delegate to fantastic leadership like you kind of mentioned there in terms of increasing surface area? **Alan Chang** [39:26]: Yeah. So I would say, yeah, I I think I've made direct reports. I I I don't know how many. I I would probably lean towards what Jensen's doing because ultimately, I I don't even think of them think of them as direct reports. Right? I think of them as you know, going back to self guiding missile analogy, right? You don't need to manage those people. Like, you discuss and you debate about the target. Right? But once you both agree on the target, then that's it. Right? You don't really have to manage them. You just monitor and make things that are okay, but that's about it. **Harry Stebbings** [39:55]: Talking about monitoring and management, your offices are in Canary Wharf. Not the obvious place for startups in London. Mean, shortage became the most famous silicon roundabout. Why are you in Canary Wharf? **Alan Chang** [40:06]: So first of all, it's it's probably the only place in London where you can keep expanding offices. Right? So you can keep upgrading office without incurring a big penalty in a lease. Second reason, it's it's far away from party. You know, there if you if you if you work around here, it's there's this thing going on this bar, right, or this this club. Right? I think there's too much going on in West London. Too many distractions. What's going on with the there's nothing going on. It's just work and nothing else. So **Harry Stebbings** [40:32]: Do you not think that, like, I live here, but I'm fucking disciplined? I don't go to parties. I don't drink. I I don't do anything but work and gym. **Alan Chang** [40:39]: Is **Harry Stebbings** [40:39]: that not the secret to being a great entrepreneur? Discipline. **Alan Chang** [40:42]: I think so, but I'm talking about other people in the team. **Harry Stebbings** [40:46]: You **Alan Chang** [40:47]: know, it's like if you see a, you know, a full bar downstairs, I think you're tempted. Right? You might, oh, I'm gonna, you know, pop down for a pint. Right? **Harry Stebbings** [40:55]: Do you expect people to work weekends? **Alan Chang** [40:57]: Yeah. I'd say, like, as I said before, like, this is very hard. Like, this only way to do it like, we're going against big, big, big energy companies with, like, huge balance sheets, you know, billions in revenue. Only way to win is with much more balance sheets, much less cash, much less resources is is work ethic. **Harry Stebbings** [41:15]: And work ethic gets you a long way. In the early days, you built the MVP with just a million bucks, right, before any outside funding. Can you just talk to me about that? And what you'd advise founders on MVPs and going to v one with minimal resources having done that? **Alan Chang** [41:31]: Yeah. So at the time, we wanted to build a full stack energy company, and we had a million bucks. So what we need for full stack energy company, we need power generation, we need a license. We need someone to help us guide for regulation. We need a qualified trader, so you need to be qualified to, to trade energy. And we also need a qualified electrician. So we found a single wind turbine in North Of Scotland that the seller is willing to sell for $7.50 ks. We found a license for 75 ks. We convinced the former CEO of Ofgem to become an advisor with just equity and no cash. My co founder Charles became a qualified trader and electrician. So we acquired all the skills and assets we need to build a MVP for a second energy company. So my advice is I don't think you need a lot of capital. You don't need a huge seed round to get started. **Harry Stebbings** [42:23]: If you can, why don't you? There's so much venture money, so dude. If you can, why don't you? **Alan Chang** [42:28]: I think you could. If you could, you should. But you could. **Harry Stebbings** [42:31]: Anyone would have written you like, you could say, I'm I'm doing a fart app. I'll give you $10,000,000. The disgraceful thing about you, Alan, is I would have given you money for almost anything but this. And this is, like, my biggest last name mistake. I listen to you, and I just die inside, honestly. I do also remember, dude, you had the token element, which just it was hard to digest. Yeah. We chatted about when you were racing your first round, and one of your investors said that I had to ask you. No. It wasn't. It was actually Antoine who said, is it true that you rocked up to Balderton with your Ferrari parked outside and then stroll in and say, I'm gonna raise a $60,000,000 seed round? **Alan Chang** [43:12]: Yeah. There's some truth to that. Yeah. How did it go down? I think it went pretty well. You raised 78 in the first round. Yeah. I think they they really, really like the concept, and I think what they realize is is a pretty good strategy. And I I I realized after the, you know, a lot a lot of the investments because they made so much money from the Revolut investments, they just keep investing ex Revolut teams. **Harry Stebbings** [43:34]: Is there anything that you would do differently about the early rounds of funding with the benefit of hindsight that you have today? **Alan Chang** [43:40]: Yeah. I think raise that too low price. Could you have raised it higher? Could have. Why didn't you? So we had a we had a price in mind. What was the price? It was roughly where we were at, about $1.40, actually. We had a order agreement with Balderton. We'll take the we'll take the time sheet, but we haven't signed the time sheet yet. And then later, there was another investor that came that came and said, I will offer you a a higher time sheet. We said no because we already agree with Balderton, we'll take the time sheet. And you regret that? No. Like, I'll say I I regret saying yes. It's too early because we could have raised better terms. So what would you advise founders on the back of that? Like, ultimately, I would say the I underestimated the value of the company at the time because I didn't realize, you know, investors put such a high price on it. I'll say, wait for a bit longer. At that time, it was, like, effectively the second term sheet we had. By the same time, I I I believe, like, if you say you're gonna do something, you should do it. And that's why we we took Bulletin's term sheet, even though we could have received a better one. **Harry Stebbings** [44:41]: You raised a recent round, 75,000,000,000. Yep. That that's often what's referred to as a suicide round, which is like a very high price with not actually that much money going into the business. Why is that a good round for the company? **Alan Chang** [44:57]: Yeah. So the company is doing over 400,000,000 revenue, annualized revenue. **Harry Stebbings** [45:01]: 400,000,000? **Alan Chang** [45:02]: Yeah. And When was day one revenue? What's that slope? In terms of financial year, we increase our revenue 10x every year since inception. The first year was £2,000,000, so about three, just south of $3,000,000 Second year was £20 so roughly 25, 26. And then this year, we're gonna end at over £200. So, yeah, roughly $2.60. **Harry Stebbings** [45:28]: You can't 10x again. We'll try. Where do you think you will land? If we mean you have a bet, okay, and we'll sit here next week. I mean, **Alan Chang** [45:36]: like, our our business plan is much less than 10x, right, for next year. Is it 5x? Something around there, but we'll we'll we'll still shoot for 10. **Harry Stebbings** [45:44]: What would be the biggest barrier to you hitting a billion? That is one reason. What is it? **Alan Chang** [45:49]: I think it's speed of hiring quality engineering. That that's the biggest barrier. There's no capital. It's quality of engineering. **Harry Stebbings** [45:55]: Why do you like hiring Eastern European engineers? **Alan Chang** [45:58]: Because culturally, they I think they favor technical education, and they have very strong work ethic. **Harry Stebbings** [46:05]: With the success that you've had, dude, what have been your biggest reflections on how you think about your relationship to money? **Alan Chang** [46:12]: For me, obviously, money is great. But beyond levels of personal consumption, and I personally don't spend that much money, I think it becomes a means to an end. **Harry Stebbings** [46:20]: Can I be blunt and ask you, what is that level? And this is for me. I'm not sure what that is. I don't wanna be on the hedonic treadmill, but I do think about that. **Alan Chang** [46:30]: Honestly, I think anything I'd say number's probably like five. Five, I think, is enough. **Harry Stebbings** [46:34]: Do you remember when you made your first real money? **Alan Chang** [46:37]: I do remember. Yeah. How did it feel? It felt surreal. My Revolut account went from no money and it 1,000 x overnight. **Harry Stebbings** [46:46]: Did you sell much of your Revolut? **Alan Chang** [46:48]: No. Only for personal consumption. I'm still very bullish in the company. **Harry Stebbings** [46:52]: How big can Revolut be? I often don't say publicly. It's like easily a $250,000,000,000 business without The US. With The US, it's a $500,000,000,000 business. **Alan Chang** [47:02]: I think of a trillion dollar company. **Harry Stebbings** [47:04]: Do you think he'll be able to crack The US? **Alan Chang** [47:06]: If someone's gonna do it, it's Nikolay. **Harry Stebbings** [47:08]: At what price would you start to sell? **Alan Chang** [47:10]: Trillion. **Harry Stebbings** [47:13]: What does no one know about having money that people should know about having money? **Alan Chang** [47:17]: I think it buys you time. Actually, it buys you quite a bit time back. **Harry Stebbings** [47:22]: Where do you spend to save time? **Alan Chang** [47:24]: I think having an assistant helps you save a lot of time. Like, so you don't have to do waste a lot of time doing a lot of lectures, travel. I think flying a coach just kills your I think you just waste two days. I think it's worth flying business. Know, you can work in a plane and not feel terrible, you know, the day after. Right? You know, traveling better, eating better, and not wasting time on things outside of business. You could buy buy a lot of time back. **Harry Stebbings** [47:50]: Does it change your relationship, personal relationships? **Alan Chang** [47:53]: Maybe for the better, right? So you stop thinking about price tags, which is good, right? You just go wherever you want, eat wherever you want. So I think it does help in a positive way. But yeah, but also then you need to think like who your friends truly are. Right? Have you ever had that question? Luckily, my existing friends have not changed how they treat me after some success. But I have had a love, long time from, you know, people I went to school with. **Harry Stebbings** [48:20]: Dude, I wanna ask you a quick fire answer. I say a short statement. You give me your immediate thoughts. Sure. So what investor do you not have that you would most like to have? **Alan Chang** [48:29]: One person. **Harry Stebbings** [48:30]: You. Dude, do you know what's really hard about what I do? **Alan Chang** [48:35]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [48:35]: It's that I'm friends with the greatest founders. **Alan Chang** [48:39]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [48:39]: And in a lot of cases, like, you've invested in Project Europe, and I have the joys of, like, knowing you, and it really is a joy. Yeah. And I'm like, what the fuck? Why am I not invested in these companies? I have this with, like, Matthew at eleven Labs. Yeah. And I'm just like, oh. It almost happened too early for me. Does that make sense? It's like I became friends with these people and had the chance to invest Yeah. When I was a kid **Alan Chang** [49:00]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [49:01]: And I didn't know what I was doing. **Alan Chang** [49:02]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [49:02]: And had I had that now, it would have been very different. But it is like Rachne's in order of importance. Luck, talent, and timing. **Alan Chang** [49:11]: I think timing, talent, luck. **Harry Stebbings** [49:14]: Why timing first? **Alan Chang** [49:15]: I think if you get the timing wrong, even if you're the best team in the world, you're not gonna make it. For example, I don't think Fuse could have been built ten years ago. I think Fuse is only possible because of requirements of change, right? Because the renewable penetration in the grid is so high, and the skills you need to, the ability to manage renewables is so different to how we used to generate and consume power. If you look at Revolut, Revolut is only possible because of the EMI license. And the EMI license was created just a couple years before Revolut was founded. I don't think Revolut would be impossible, you know, ten years before, you know, 2014. So I think, I do think timing matters. And then the second thing is talent. Like, I think these are two prerequisites. So if you have good timing, if you have good talent, I think luck will also come. **Harry Stebbings** [50:01]: What's been the hardest decision you've made in your career? **Alan Chang** [50:04]: Probably leaving Revolut. **Harry Stebbings** [50:06]: Did you wanna stay to IPO? **Alan Chang** [50:07]: I do. I do. Like, ultimately, it's **Harry Stebbings** [50:10]: Do you remember telling Nik? **Alan Chang** [50:12]: I remember. **Harry Stebbings** [50:12]: Can you just tell me that? **Alan Chang** [50:14]: It was a very, very hard moment. And he asked me, are you sure? Three times. And I said, I'm sure. Three times. **Harry Stebbings** [50:23]: Where were you? What time of day was it? How did you say? **Alan Chang** [50:26]: Yeah. I think it was a Friday afternoon. It was actually the same meeting main meeting room you did a podcast with Nick. **Harry Stebbings** [50:31]: Wow. **Alan Chang** [50:32]: Yeah. It was that room. **Harry Stebbings** [50:33]: What did he say? Because respectfully, a lot of people have come and gone from Revolut. **Alan Chang** [50:38]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [50:38]: But you were his guy. Was he visibly shocked? **Alan Chang** [50:41]: I don't know. He he he has this emotionless reaction. Yeah. He just ask me, are you sure? Did he invest in Fuse? Yes. In the most recent round. **Harry Stebbings** [50:52]: In the most recent round? Yeah. Is it still open? I I can't believe it. I I said this to Matthew the other day. Said, I can't believe we're still not invested. We I'm just paying any price. I'm just pissed off. Yeah. That's amazing. What's you said downstairs, being a CEO is not all it's cracked up to be. Why is it not all it's cracked up to be being CEO? **Alan Chang** [51:13]: I mean, I think there are pros and cons. I think the pros like, at Revolut, I I can basically get to pick the role I wanted, right, the problems I wanted to solve. But now I I give that opportunity to other leaders within the company. That means, by definition, I I don't get to choose the things I do. **Harry Stebbings** [51:29]: What are you not doing today that you would most like to be doing? **Alan Chang** [51:32]: I would love to go much deeper on on engineering, on hardware, like going to like very low level details. **Harry Stebbings** [51:39]: How big is the biggest incumbent in this space? **Alan Chang** [51:42]: So you have the power incumbents, and then you have the big oil majors, right, incumbents. If you look at big oil majors, like Shell, they make a billion revenue a day, approximately. **Harry Stebbings** [51:53]: How big can Fuse be? **Alan Chang** [51:55]: I think we could be bigger than Shell. **Harry Stebbings** [51:57]: How much is Shell worth? **Alan Chang** [51:58]: I think worth just north of $300,000,000,000. They're listed on the London Stock Exchange, so there's a, I think, discount. **Harry Stebbings** [52:05]: How the fuck does that I'm sorry. They do a billion in revenue a day Yeah. And they're worth less than their annual revenue then. Yeah. **Alan Chang** [52:12]: I think if if they were listed in The US, they'd probably be worth more. **Harry Stebbings** [52:15]: Would you list in The US? **Alan Chang** [52:16]: If we ever list, I think it would be The US. Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [52:18]: Would you list? **Alan Chang** [52:20]: I personally don't see a need to. There's a lot of liquidity in the private markets. And obviously, there's additional overhead being a listed company. Like like, the only reason I see listing as a as a real need is if the liquidity dries up in the private markets. **Harry Stebbings** [52:34]: Do you let team members sell? Yeah. Revolut was very tight on any secondary sales. It was like incredibly guarded subject. Are you the same or are you a little bit looser? **Alan Chang** [52:44]: Well, would say like we do wanna create liquidity opportunities for employee stockholders. And sometimes people need to buy a house, they need to buy a car, need to Yeah. Some liquidity is is helpful. **Harry Stebbings** [52:54]: Final one for you, dude. I'd like to end on a tone of positivity and optimism. What excites you most in the next ten years? **Alan Chang** [53:00]: We love to build a world where power is so cheap and abundant that any builder, AI or otherwise, don't even think about power anymore. And they can just build more and economies start growing again as a result. That'll be great. **Harry Stebbings** [53:16]: Alan, I so appreciate you. I think you're one of the great entrepreneurs in The UK. I'm gonna pass to you about investing. And I so appreciate our friendship. So thank you so much for doing this with me, dude. **Alan Chang** [53:26]: Oh, thanks for having me. **Unknown** [53:29]: But before we leave you today, ## Sponsor read **Unknown** [53:31]: as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work. 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