How He Built the World’s Largest Digital Bank with 140 Million Customers
In a Nutshell
Nubank built the world's largest digital bank by using smartphones to eliminate 6,000 physical branches and 90,000 employees, cutting customer service costs to 3% of traditional banks and capturing 140 million customers with 10,000 staff. The company is positioned to lead a massive market transition where digital banks replace traditional ones across 100 countries, while AI will solve the three core banking problems: access for 3 billion unbanked people, cost by returning $600 billion in branch fees to customers, and intelligence by giving everyone private-banker-level financial advice. Nubank's data advantage from 20,000-30,000 data points per customer over 13 years, combined with their early AI adoption and banking licenses, creates a moat that traditional banks with 15 fragmented legacy systems cannot match as the industry shifts to instant payments and open finance.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
For ten years, all we heard was that it was impossible to compete with any bank, that we would be crushed, and that we had no hope of success. Today, Nubank has 140 million customers and 10,000 employees. Competitors have 100 million customers, 100,000 employees, and 6,000 branches. Customer service cost is only 3% of what a traditional bank would pay.
Five years ago Nubank had 35 million customers. Now it has 140 million customers. Five eventful years of tremendous growth.
The global consumer financial services sector is worth approximately $10 trillion, with about 90% still passing through bank branches and owned by traditional banks. Digital banks and fintech companies combined represent less than 10% of the market. The financial services sector is still as if 90% of the world's population goes to movie rental stores to buy videotapes and DVDs. Services like Netflix still only account for 10% of this sector. The transition from traditional companies to digital startups is still in its very early stages in financial services.
Nubank is the only digital bank in the world that has completely outperformed the largest traditional bank. Nubank has approximately 120 million customers in Brazil, representing more than 65% of the adult population. Approximately 60% of customers use Nubank as their main bank account. Nubank has replaced the traditional bank and is the primary banking institution people deal with daily.
Nubank is increasingly applying this model in Mexico and Colombia. The shift anticipates a major shift in market share from traditional banks to digital startups over the next 10 to 20 years. This is not just about market share migration, but a significant increase in market size as billions of people enter the banking system. There are still 3 billion people completely outside the banking system and unable to obtain credit.
The first phase of transformation that enabled many changes was smartphones. Smartphones enabled serving consumers without needing huge physical infrastructure, giving a huge advantage in the cost structure that passes efficiency to the end customer through lower fees and a better product. Nubank has 140 million customers and 10,000 employees, while competitors have 100 million customers, 100,000 employees, and 6,000 branches. The cost of real estate for branches is exorbitant. Customer service cost is only about 3% of traditional bank service cost. This creates large profit margins that can be passed to customers by eliminating fees, improving user experience, offering better interest rates, and a better product overall.
Artificial intelligence will double the efficiency of banking services by automating many aspects of banking operations. Banks with 500 billion customers and 5,000 employees are within reach. The question is whether to simply expand to 100 countries and accelerate the transformation through Nubank as one of the world's leading companies in digital financial services.
Financial services problems fall into three main categories: access, cost, and intelligence.
Access
There are still three billion people around the world who are denied access to any credit product. Nearly half of the world's population does not have access to credit. In countries like Mexico and Colombia, credit card usage does not exceed 13%. Cash is gradually fading away, being replaced by instant payment systems like Pix in Brazil and UPI in India. In 10 to 20 years, 100% of the world's population will have access to banking services, 100% of the world's population will have access to credit, and 100% of small businesses will have access to credit. This represents a huge boost to global GDP.
Cost
The United States has approximately $15 trillion in retail deposits. Banks pay on average about 40 basis points per year as a return. In a world where interest rates range between 4.5% and 5%, approximately $600 billion goes to banks to finance their branches, while in a digital banking environment this money would remain in consumers' pockets. This is considered a huge wealth tax. In the United States, $100 billion is transferred abroad annually with fees ranging from 5% to 10% per transaction. Monthly account fees in the American banking system range from 5% to 10% monthly. The same high costs exist in Europe, advanced economies, and Japan.
Intelligence
Top 1% income earners have access to the best financial advice through private bankers who optimize deposits, consider tax efficiency, and search among different banks for the best returns. The bottom 99% of income earners, especially those with lower wealth, cannot access this intelligence. Historically, education was considered the solution, but people lack financial literacy and this approach never worked. The intelligence problem will be solved by artificial intelligence, enabling almost every individual to have superior intelligence to improve their financial life and eliminating many current sources of profit in the banking sector.
The first obvious change will be the redistribution of the $600 billion that banks hold on their balance sheets to pay for branches, transferring it to all bank customers. People will realize the opportunity cost of leaving balances at zero, especially considering compound interest. In any country, approximately 70% of deposits at major established banks do not pay any interest, with 30% paying some return usually to higher-income earners or corporations.
In an ideal competitive environment, the best product should win. Banking is ultimately a commodity, so a bank that doesn't charge fees and provides the best experience should capture 100% of market share. This does not happen due to system rigidity. With integration of intelligence and open banking, the "Blade" platform can connect 120 million accounts. When intelligence is added, each customer can know how to improve their financial situation and what fees they will incur.
Nubank tells about 50 million customers daily: "Your bank account and credit card with our bank are due tomorrow. You don't have enough funds, and 15% interest will be charged daily. Let us give you some money to pay off your credit card. Or do you have a loan at 10% interest? Let us refinance it at 5% interest." The ultimate goal is to improve the financial situation and reduce the profit margin for the benefit of the consumer.
For some consumer segments and products like mortgages or high-end products, having a physical location is valuable, representing approximately 5% of cases. For savings accounts, credit cards, or loans, physical infrastructure is no longer needed. The majority of people, especially in the mass market, no longer need or frequent physical infrastructure.
In the new era of artificial intelligence where the cost of building new things digitally has become much lower, early-stage startups relying on artificial intelligence and digital transformation will benefit most from speed and the ability to move extremely fast and launch different products. However, in financial services and especially banking, regulation is required. Banking licenses cannot be obtained from ChatGPT or regulatory authorities within six months instead of two or three years.
Nubank has approximately 140 million customers with 20,000 to 30,000 data points per client over 13 years. This enormous amount of information enabled building the basic model for financial services and credit decisions. This provides a significant advantage in making credit decisions and collection decisions. Data has become an important competitive advantage for established companies.
Nubank started using machine learning since the company was founded in 2013. Brazilian interest rates for consumers paying 500% and 600% annually presented an opportunity to use better data, analytics, and machine learning to price credit risk. Unlike many fintech companies, Nubank decided to use the balance sheet to bear credit risk and be capital-intensive by default. The company already had a highly optimized organization for making decisions based on models and data.
When GPT technology emerged about three or four years ago, Nubank began paying close attention to how the technology could facilitate certain decisions. Nubank acquired Hyperline in Palo Alto, which was already working on developing basic models for financial services. Hyperline was having difficulty selling products to major established banks with two-year sales cycles. Nubank bought the company and merged its team. Nubank believes it was the first financial services company in the world to build its own underlying data model for making specific credit decisions. All research is published. The basic model is now used to make decisions about fraud in Mexico and Colombia. With the launch in the United States, Nubank can start from day one with the basic model to understand how to use data for key decisions.
Size is important but the right culture and systems are also needed. Blockbuster had massive amounts of data from people checking videotapes and DVDs, but this data did not help them build better search algorithms because they were not collecting data, did not have appropriate systems to collect it, and did not have the appropriate data culture to make decisions based on data or models. Netflix was able to build a better algorithm without any data initially. Size and data are important, but systems and culture are equally important.
Traditional banks have 15 different systems as a result of massive acquisitions over the years. When considering artificial intelligence applications, they are still asking how to change the way they use artificial intelligence to translate COBOL and how to get rid of mainframe computers. These banks are still in the process of putting their systems on the cloud, with 10 to 15 years in the transition to cloud computing.
Traditional banks historically considered large numbers of branches as the basis of competition. Consumers chose banks based on proximity to branches. Enormous efforts went into real estate and physical infrastructure, with focus on building brands and gaining consumer trust. When Nubank started, energy was focused on the digital world rather than the real world. Technology and data were seen as means to build competitive advantage. From the beginning, Nubank saw itself as a technology company operating in the financial services sector, not a bank. Corporate culture relies on data and analytics continuously in every decision.
The basic model has enabled significantly reducing the cost of adding a feature to the model. Before artificial intelligence, it took six months to add a new feature. Testing a new feature required several weeks. With the basic model, different methods can be tested much more quickly. The cost of creating templates has decreased significantly. The cost of conducting experiments has decreased significantly. Every decision in the organization can now be automated and made by a model instead of a human. Artificial intelligence allowed doing what was already being done on a much larger scale, but the corporate culture itself was already well-established.
The end of cash transactions represents one of the most transformative technologies in financial services. This shift is happening almost everywhere, with large economies heavily reliant on cash such as Mexico, Indonesia, many African countries, and previously Brazil, where cash will disappear and be replaced by digital systems, particularly through instant payment systems.
Effects of this shift include eliminating or reducing bank branches, with less obvious effects including increased efficiency of banks without needing physical branches, faster money movement in the economy, and increased data creation that can be used to provide credit.
Open finance and open banking services worldwide mean that consumers own all their data across all organizations and can share this data with anyone else. The biggest source of inertia in financial services, as well as telecommunications and utilities sectors, is having a history with a particular company that cannot be transferred to a new company.
Established companies have benefited greatly from this stagnation in data. When consumers can link all their records from all services and pass them on to someone else, this reduces inertia and allows more competition for their data. Consumers can generate income from this data by obtaining historical information from a bank and offering it to someone willing to pay for it.
Open banking reduces global stagnation and increases competition in the banking sector. The global banking sector today is largely based on a monopolistic, few-vendor structure. In the United States alone, five or six banks own between 60 and 70% of total assets. The same applies to Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
This leads to a less concentrated, more fragmented banking sector with greater competition, translating to lower fees and costs.
The role of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins has been a major trend lasting two decades. As people become more mobile, they will deal with a combination of a local monetary system and an external global system. People are increasingly willing to bank in the offshore system, trusting their banking system but not trusting their paper currency.
There are approximately 190 currencies around the world today. After 10 or 20 years, this number may drop to just 10, as the financial situation in many countries is so dire that paper currencies are not real money but rather digital tokens. Billions of people will increasingly turn to offshore banking transactions such as US stablecoins, Bitcoin, and other assets.
US stablecoins will ultimately be one of the biggest saviors of the US dollar by making it more accessible on a wider scale. The financial situation in the United States is deteriorating rapidly, but it is better than the financial situation of more than one hundred other countries. Looking at balance sheets of central banks in emerging markets of Latin America reveals more worrying conditions, and these countries lack sufficient sovereign capabilities.
There is significant demand for the US stablecoin, while demand for the Brazilian stablecoin is very low. Having a stable currency for the US dollar will ensure the US dollar retains its strength as a reserve currency for a long time, but it will not be unique. There will be five or six other paper currencies that people will resort to for saving, along with some digital currencies for diversifying investment portfolios.
The digitization of the economy unlocks credit access for a large percentage of the world's population. For most of the world, economies remain largely offline. A taco stand in Mexico City buying and selling for cash has transactions that aren't recorded anywhere, meaning the vendor cannot get credit today despite having daily cash flow.
Once transactions are recorded digitally, the taco vendor can take this information to a bank and access credit, potentially expanding from one taco stand to two or five. About 70% of all jobs in Brazil are in small businesses, not big companies, with the same pattern in India and Southeast Asia. Many small businesses historically dealt in cash but are now going digital, unlocking trillions of dollars of credit for billions of people worldwide.
The goal is not just to measure or record transactions but to empower people to build a credit history. Nubank was the first to issue credit cards to 30 million people in Latin America. When banks were asked why so many people weren't getting credit, the answer was that people didn't want credit cards because they were afraid of paying taxes.
The real issue was that people were missing products that met their needs. Nubank started with many people receiving an initial credit limit of $20. Banks thought this was ridiculous, but people appreciated having $20 rather than nothing. This $20 turned into $100, then $1,000 over time.
AI-powered smart assistants guide customers through steps in spending, investing, and saving to increase their credit scores and enhance creditworthiness.
Lessons learned in one country are more exportable than expected. The biggest difference was between Brazil, which was more bank-dependent, and countries like Mexico where people preferred cash and didn't believe in digital payments, credit cards, or debit cards.
When moving from a country with a banking customer base to a country without one, competition becomes more difficult. The company operates like a shark in digital waters but becomes less competitive when forced to compete with bank branches, which they lack. After several years, they became the second largest bank in Mexico and the largest digital bank there.
As countries like Mexico turned to digitalization, the world began to look more homogeneous. Financial services are becoming more like social media, Netflix, Spotify, Uber, and Amazon - the same product globally.
Early-stage startups will need to look toward less obvious areas as entry routes. Building a consumer brand with hundreds of millions of customers at this stage will be much more difficult unless completely different innovations are introduced.
Mickey Malka, considered the best investor in financial technology, is doubling down on investments in new digital banks and major digital fintech companies that are positioned to combine AI evolution with access to massive data resources, trademarks, and licenses.
Nubank was founded with the idea that the global retail banking sector would undergo radical transformation through digital startups better able to solve financial services problems: cost, accessibility, and intelligence. The launch in the US market and announcement of stablecoin-backed accounts in more than 35 countries represents the beginning of implementing this global vision.
Over thirteen years, the model proved successful in Latin America, becoming the largest private financial institution on the continent with the highest customer satisfaction rate and highest return on equity in Brazil.
The United States remains dominated by large traditional banks, with most banking transactions still conducted through bank branches. Nubank's advantages include providing credit to the mass market, making global payments, and building customer loyalty in an environment where customers don't care much about banking relationships.
Building a strong brand will be one of the hardest challenges in the US market. American consumers cite brand as one of the most important factors in choosing banks. The goal is to become customers' primary bank account.
Key metrics include customer growth, net promotion index, customer acquisition cost, and whether growth targets underserved markets with unique products. The ratio of customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost (LTV/CAC) and return on equity are crucial indicators.
Nubank achieves return on equity two to three times higher than major banks in the countries where they operate, despite not charging large fees, indicating advantages in cost structure and ability to deliver better quality products at lower cost.
The company was founded as a reaction to consumer suffering from poor banking services in Brazil. Inspiration came from Amazon's consumer focus and Disney's creation of magical experiences. The goal is to create captivating customer experiences, turning simple actions like sending money into magical experiences.
Customer focus means prioritizing consumer obsession even when uncomfortable, particularly from a financial standpoint. The difficulty lies in adhering to stated values when they conflict with short-term profit opportunities.
Agents have become a customer segment no less important than consumers. Products need to be provided for agents, marketed to them, and search engines optimized for them. A specialized team understands this segment and its needs.
Trust and brand remain foundational in banking, as customers want to know where their savings are deposited. Marketing to customers and building trust continues alongside agent-focused strategies. Some products require more authorization while others require less.
In Brazil, where customers represent 65% of the total population, there is a unique opportunity to be the ideal consumer agent, providing access to all needed financial services through the app, including products from external banks and financial institutions.
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One of the most notable changes was the perspective on office work. About five years ago, everyone was working remotely, including the organization. During these five years, the importance of spending at least some meaningful time in the office was realized. This perspective seems illogical compared to five years ago. Even with artificial intelligence, which may also seem counterintuitive, it increases the importance of spending more time in the office. Because the work that artificial intelligence can do is increasingly almost the same as the work that individuals can do from home. Therefore, the individual at home will compete with artificial intelligence and will lose this competition. But face-to-face collaboration and coordination is what humans need, and it's what should happen inside the office. The organization has moved from remote work to hybrid work and now spends much more time in the office.
The second part is about how the organization changes specifically through artificial intelligence. Close attention was paid to this technology, but when tested, it was not effective. For example, the Clojure programming language was used extensively. Until 2025, many Clojure models continued to be used, specifically in programming, but they were not working. As the most experienced engineer said, this won't work. Tests were being conducted, and then Opus 4.6 was released in December 2025, and that was the moment when many people suddenly realized that this technology actually worked. The crucial moment in December was not noticed. It was only discovered 60 days later, when two partners were in California and started meetings with a group of early-stage entrepreneurs. They said, "Well, something substantial has happened." New models were started testing, the new GPT models from Closer, and they said, "Wow, this actually works now, and it can, it can, it can do the Closer operation very well." Those 60 days made a huge difference between the organization and the best companies in their class that were using artificial intelligence.
After returning to Brazil, a complete restructuring of the entire organization was carried out. A step back was taken, and the organization is now in the process of reinventing the entire organization. 120 different workflows across the entire organization were outlined. Programming is one such area, but everything from product design, through understanding customer journeys, internal auditing, compliance, and organizational capital management, to reinventing every part of the organization—that is, 120 workflows—using artificial intelligence tools. A large-scale assessment infrastructure was created to measure how these workflows could be reinvented at every step. The organization is more advanced in some areas and less advanced in others, but the entire organization is undergoing reinvention. This is what's exciting about the moment, as the organization is able to reinvent the way work is done using artificial intelligence technology, and often huge gains in productivity are seen. It's not just about artificial intelligence; there's simply always an opportunity to reinvent the way work is done effectively. If this were being done now without artificial intelligence, gains in productivity would be seen, but artificial intelligence only enhances the possibility of doing it.
This creates an opportunity for a wider scope of oversight, fewer managers, and greater transparency. The speaker went from one direct supervisor to twenty direct supervisors during that period. This simply increases the ability to work horizontally. The levels of the organizational structure have decreased. The organization went from ten levels to five. Therefore, the organizational structure became very horizontal. This is a major boost for the organization in terms of the ability to implement.
As the organization began its major expansion, going from 1 million customers to 140 million, organizational layers started being added, which led to a kind of self-inertia. Every fast-growing organization goes through the same process, because problems are seen recurring everywhere. All these difficulties arise from expansion and growth, and the easy solution when problems occur is to add more managers to solve the problem immediately. And so, naturally, a very vertical organizational structure was ended up with, a structure that does not provide a clear vision. Artificial intelligence, in part, gives the opportunity to reconsider everything about the business, and this was a catalyst to rethink the organizational structure.
Toby Lütke spoke about this, and how he can now simply ask the company, and thanks to artificial intelligence, the company can tell him the information, thus removing the gap between him and the objective, data-based truth. This was previously known as the dictator's dilemma: the more power someone has at the top of the organizational hierarchy, the harder it is for them to distinguish between reality and truth. So how should this situation be dealt with? How can one stay informed about the objective truth and what is happening within the company as its scope expands? In each part of this series, there is a possibility of the message being distorted, and a distorted view is accumulated after going through ten different layers. Therefore, once many of these layers are removed, the organization gets closer to objective truth, and they can greatly reduce them through information systems that access everything that is happening throughout the organization, i.e., a proactive and reactive corporate mind. It effectively sends information about what the organization is doing, from changes in the shift towards artificial intelligence to how the organization is performing in launching certain products, metrics, or features.
A mindset of direct communication with the people who are doing the work should also be adopted. It is very convenient as the organization takes its own form to respect communication channels. This will be seen in large institutions. The manager cannot be bypassed and a question cannot be asked to someone who actually does the work. There is a specific chain of command that must be respected. This is more related to traditional institutions. This is where the approach as CEO comes in. It's like saying, "No, I want to talk to whoever I have a question with, and there's no respect for the chain of command." Honestly, whoever has the best information will be turned to if there is a question, or problems will be worked together to solve if a slump is noticed. So, it is partly about technology, partly about culture, and partly about being willing to integrate deeply into the organization.
This will cause a radical transformation. The lack of discussion about how to reinvent artificial intelligence for human resource management in organizations is surprising. Because if looking at the current situation, or as is the case in most organizations, the manager gives feedback every six months, telling what is good and what is not good. This is illogical. There is a strong bias towards recent events, so it is not really about six months, but about the last thirty days, that is, what was done during that time and what was good or bad. Generally, these observations are not actionable. It's like saying, "You're good at this, you're not good at it. Maybe you need to improve." Imagine if this kind of feedback was given to an Olympic athlete. That would be crazy. Olympic athletes will never be able to succeed that way. Olympic athletes have a coach who guides them daily and provides them with valuable feedback. This is the opportunity that artificial intelligence will ultimately create for every individual in the organization. Training similar to that given to Olympic athletes will be received.
What is being created in the HR processes system is that daily feedback can be literally gotten from artificial intelligence, depending on the job position, whether engineer, designer, or product manager. The smart assistant, artificial intelligence, reviews withdrawal requests and tells not only how these tools are used, but how they can be used better. These are very practical and highly personalized comments about what is done. If a designer, it is good to have artificial intelligence give feedback on work performance and how it can be improved. If a manager, managers currently have very little information, especially if managing a large number of people. There is still an outdated concept of broad scope of control. There is a feeling that it is necessary to hold individual meetings with each person in the team on a weekly basis. However, these one-on-one meetings are often of low information density. The manager who has access to all this information and these tools now sees in real time the performance of every individual on the team and enables them to improve their performance.
Specific time needs to be allocated each day. For example, one hour is allocated to read the updates. It's similar to a sports program for business. How things are managed? How that is done? People's performance is followed, and a lot of time is spent on a particular topic. This is believed to be the source of many developments. A program is used that gathers and summarizes many developments and details. Specific time is allocated in the schedule to use these tools and build products. This is something that hasn't been done in a long time. Yes, there are discussions with the teams about what can be done. For example, during the afternoon a cryptocurrency application that does not require detention was programmed. This is something that was discussed at Nubank for a long time, and it was implemented. All executive managers are required to build products every three months, actual programs and products, to ensure integration and full awareness of what is going on. The solution does not necessarily lie in spending 70% of time programming. There are those who are more efficient and productive in this field, but it is important for everyone in the organization not only to read the tools, but to use them effectively to understand the speed at which technology is evolving.
If going back to the beginning, the original motives are talked about. And not just the business opportunity, but also the personal motivation, the sources of self-motivation. How this motivation developed, and what it is like today? How would it be defined today? Being driven by impact, by making what is done valuable, by doing something into which time and effort are invested, something that has meaning and impact. A phase was gone through, even with Nubank, where the question was started to be wondered: Is there more that should be done outside of Nubank? All founders start by focusing on the company, then the company grows significantly, and then questions start being asked: What else can be done? Ultimately, the other side of this analysis was gone through for a year or two, realizing that there was nothing else that could be imagined that could have a greater impact than moving NuBank from its current position to a size ten times larger, going from three countries to one hundred countries, or from one hundred million customers to one billion customers. What this means in terms of its impact on financial services, its impact on people around the world, and on billions of people's access to financial services.
Along with this external influence, there is also an internal influence. It's more like how self-development occurs to meet bigger and newer challenges, and how evolution as a leader occurs to motivate an organization with big ambitions. With major technological shifts such as artificial intelligence, one can choose to either stay behind or stay ahead. But this technological transformation forces every organization to think about which side of this radical change it wants to be. This is an opportunity. Being closer to a war leader than a peace leader. So, when a radical change occurs in the world, it suddenly becomes a source of motivation. More activity is felt and more energy to continue carrying out the task.
One of the questions that has personally crossed the mind, even as the business has expanded, is: Will more professional managers need to be hired at some point? Because no one had been managed before Nubank was founded. Then suddenly the CEO of one of the largest banks in Latin America was found, and the question was wondered: What does the institution need now? Do more experienced managers need to be hired? Indeed, a lot of external talent was hired, because it was thought it would be needed. But it was soon realized that this was not what the organization needed. What the organization needs is more of what has already been given, which is clear leadership, motivation, a willingness to think strategically, ambition to achieve big dreams, and getting people excited to do things that initially seem impossible. When things become clear, it becomes clear that this is the best solution and the organization can continue with greater confidence. Especially when changes and transformations occur, there is always a question that haunts: Am I putting too much pressure on myself? Am I asking too much of the team? Is this the right pace? After 13 years of working in this field, and with increasing self-confidence, the answer became: Yes, enough effort is being put in. It is the duty to do the best, to dream big, and to aspire to the highest levels. The organization will then react and respond if necessary, but it is helpful to have someone actively pushing the boundaries of what the company may be willing to do.
The hardest part of doing that for a long time is imposter syndrome. It's okay to be a founder at the beginning, but when suddenly running a very large organization is found, the question is wondered: Am I the right person to lead this organization? Through reflection, experience, and opinions, a definitive answer to this question must be arrived at at some point. You may not be for some reason, but you probably are. This does not necessarily mean that the founder has all the answers and all the skills. People with many complementary skills will need to continue to be attracted, but for the speaker at least, it was about getting past the stage of having an inner voice asking: Are you the right CEO for the company? This is to define the difference between a founder and a CEO, because founders usually hold both titles, but they are two completely different jobs. The roles of founder and CEO are not necessarily compatible. So, what is the basic energy of each? The founder is hasty. The founder has a strong sense of urgency. The founder will want to go very fast. As for the CEO, more patience will be needed. The CEO will need to follow a more structured approach to decision-making. The CEO will have to adopt a broader systems mindset when expanding the organization. And sometimes these things overlap. If impatience must be on one hand, then patience must be on the other. Conflicts like this may arise. Generally, CEOs are thought to be better managers. Founders do not usually tend to be good managers. They do not have much patience or desire to hold one-on-one meetings and provide guidance to the team. They just want to work quickly. Often, they tend to be individual shareholders rather than managers. CEOs tend to be better managers. CEOs tend to be better managers because they have to build systems. They need to think from a broader, systemic perspective. So, the key, at least for the speaker, is to recognize that the title of CEO and the title of founder have different meanings. The secret lies in being able to combine them, that is, having more patience when needed. But in general, it is better to maintain the founder's role rather than the CEO's role. This is believed to be why companies led by their founders have continued to excel for decades, because if a choice had to be made, the founder role would be chosen over the CEO role. Especially in environments undergoing major technological transformations, the advantages of the founder stand out more clearly than those of the CEO.
Expanding the scope of work is difficult, especially since decisions are constantly being made about situations that are not known very well. For example, a technology company was not wanted to be built, but the speaker was not an engineer. Therefore, competent technical managers needed to be hired and a distinguished technical organization needed to be built. How is a competent technical manager supposed to be chosen at that time when experience and competence are lacking in the field of financial services and credit? Therefore, many questions were had about decisions regarding team formation, which made the wonder: Do we need someone with more experience than the speaker, from a large bank or a huge institution, to manage the company? A specific moment would be mentioned. For a while, the imposter syndrome was felt that made the wonder: Am I the right person to lead this increasingly complex and fast-paced organization?
Surpassing a number of existing banks in Brazil was a very moving event, because for ten years it had been heard repeatedly, especially from local experts, that it was impossible to compete with any bank, that the organization would be crushed, that they would go bankrupt, that these were the most reliable brands in the market, and that there was no hope of success. So, to one day become bigger than some of these banks, and to become the largest private bank in the entire country, was amazing. That was very impactful in terms of what was able to be achieved on a large scale. Being personally born in Colombia, and having to leave when eight years old because of the deteriorating security situation there, and then moving to Costa Rica. Colombia was the third country lived in at the time. The launch of NuBank in Colombia, which took place at a huge event attended by the country's president, was a very moving moment. Feeling like returning to the homeland and offering a product and service that is believed will be great for the country, in an environment where people welcomed very warmly. The event was broadcast on video, and 100,000 people participated. It was a very moving and very emotional moment.
With all this experience in business management, how great leadership would be defined is particularly interested in the subtle aspects that define a great leader. The first one is vision. A leader should be able to see what many others cannot. It is a vision of a world that is not entirely clear at the moment. With the overwhelming amount of information lived with, it's becoming increasingly difficult to have a distinct perspective on anything, whether it's about the line of work, the company, or how things are developing. Therefore, it is essential to have a distinctive vision for the future. But then, this vision must be able to be marketed. Marketing is the art of inspiring people. Often, this vision is extremely difficult or almost impossible. The natural reaction of most people when presented with an impossible vision is to reject it and describe it as unrealistic. This statement: "It is not realistic for this to happen." What is unrealistic? Look at every significant development in world history, and it will be found that at some point it was described as unrealistic. What's ironic is the amount of confidence many experts or people use when they say it's unrealistic. Therefore, this vision needs to be able to be marketed in a way that motivates a lot of people. This is what motivates and encourages them to follow it. But also needed is to be a good listener and realize that mistakes may sometimes be made. The vision may not be completely complete. There are two different patterns. A style in which going against the consensus, declaring it completely wrong, and being a radical revolutionary. Consensus is meaningless, and everything is reinvented. This is a pattern. The other pattern is to be consumed by the idea of consensus, thinking that progress is unrealistic and that things will remain the same. What is difficult for a great leader to do is to reconcile the two. The consensus exists, or the status quo exists, because thinking about it from an evolutionary perspective. That vision of the world competed with other visions, and it prevailed. Thus, the world seen today was better than all possible worlds. Therefore, there are elements in this current situation that exist for a good reason. Therefore, what these elements are needs to be understood, and they will remain. But also needed is the ability to challenge this conventional wisdom to determine what needs to change. Leadership means knowing what should not be changed, and striving to change what should be changed. This is a combination of conviction, active listening, and humility—that is, recognizing that not all the answers may be had, and that the mind will need to be changed effectively when doing so. Therefore, combining all these different factors is believed to be crucial for good leadership.
If thinking about the next five years specifically for Nubank, a picture would be drawn of what is considered the worst-case scenario for the company, what the worst-case scenario is that is most concerned about, and what is being worked hard to ensure does not happen. Then, if thinking optimistically about the best possible scenario for Nubank over the next five years, two contrasting viewpoints would be heard.
In the worst-case scenario, the three Latin American countries reach complete saturation with declining growth. No alternative growth paths exist from the customer perspective. With 65% of the Brazilian market, the company will soon exhaust available Brazilian customers. A rise in Brazil's birth rate and increase in the number of children is not occurring. International expansion fails, leaving the company confined to these three countries with saturated growth. This scenario also prevents taking advantage of many artificial intelligence opportunities.
In the optimistic scenario, the company benefits from its hypothesis about the market share shifting from traditional banks to emerging digital companies over the next two or three decades. The transition accelerates through technological shifts including instant payment systems, open finance, and artificial intelligence. NuBank's global vision implements through a multinational platform reaching more than 100 countries over the next few decades. Key problems solved include 3 billion people lacking access to credit, cash going digital, and more people needing banking services.
With a cost structure advantage compared to competitors who capture 90% of the $10 trillion in total profits, and a cost structure fifty times lower than theirs before artificial intelligence, the company transfers significant efficiency to customers through higher returns, lower fees, better experience, full digitization, integration of insights into products, and optimal exploitation of international expansion opportunities.
When asked about the most interesting lesson learned about entrepreneurship, the founder explains how to quickly ignore imposter syndrome. Being the person who had the vision and energy to build something from nothing creates a high level of interest in the company, making that person the right leader for a very long time.
The key insight is that no one in the world cares about the company as much as the founder does. This care is almost instinctive. No one will care about the company's success as much as the founder. This drives expending significant energy and focus to achieve success, ultimately making the founder the right leader for the organization for a very long time, regardless of experience, knowledge, or having the right background. This energy alone makes the founder the right person.
The framework breaks down into two parts: trust yourself more, and be very specific about the vision you want to work on. If the vision doesn't come from the depths of your heart and intuition, you won't benefit from this approach. The second part about the mission is especially important. Finding a task that truly excites you is a luxury and a blessing. This excitement will keep you moving forward on the path.
Starting a company will be more difficult than anyone expects. Without firm conviction about the task, it will be much more difficult. When seeking the right job or project, there is an aspect of chance and luck, and another aspect of research, listening attentively, and feeling that this is a project or problem that really concerns you. Something that, if you truly care about it, you won't be able to sleep because you think about it constantly. You cannot imagine your life continuing if you do not decide to address it.
Artificial intelligence makes establishing a company more difficult, not easier. The criteria for establishing a company are now much easier, so founders will not look for problems that are easy to solve. This explains why some of the best founders pursue the impossible. There is a noticeable shift toward devices, space, and things that seem completely impossible. Founders actively seek opportunities that are harder and more unique, opportunities where they are the only one capable of solving them.
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