20VC: $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

Summary

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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Alan Chang on Fuse Energy, the Revolut Playbook, and Building at Record Speed

Podcast: The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)
Host: Harry Stebbings
Guest: Alan Chang, CEO and Co-founder, Fuse Energy (Formerly Revolut)
Date: January 5, 2026
Episode Theme: How Alan scaled Fuse Energy from zero to $260M in three years, championed the "never settle" work ethic, and operationalized lessons from the Revolut hypergrowth playbook—while sharing unflinching takes on startup culture, ambition, energy markets, and hiring.

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Episode Overview

This episode is a masterclass in high-performance startup building, fueled by Alan Chang's unapologetic take on ambition, speed, ownership, and what it takes to create category-defining companies. Emerging from pivotal roles at Revolut, Chang built Fuse Energy by ten-x’ing revenues yearly and carrying hard-won philosophies of "extreme ownership" and "no excuses" into the energy sector. The conversation dives deeply into management, culture, hiring, product strategy, fundraising, and Alan’s vision for abundant, cheap power—and how work ethic and urgency, not work-life balance, underpin generational companies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Career, Joining Revolut, and the Importance of Speed

• Getting Hired at Revolut: Alan’s entry was a serendipitous, ultra-fast process (05:39).
  • “Nick replied within five minutes. I was like, oh wow, that’s very quick. ... He offered me a role right after the interview. I said yes and that was it. That was like the fastest interview process I’ve ever had.” - Alan Chang (06:02)
• Revolut's Unique Culture: Observed that they were always the last team in the coworking space, sparking Alan’s conviction in their ambition (06:45).
  • "Revolut was the only team that worked past 7pm on the weekday. … also the only team that worked on the weekends. So when I realized that, I knew there was something special." - Alan Chang (06:45)
• Execution as Differentiator: Early on, the thesis was clear: product ideas weren’t unique, it was execution speed and ambition that set winners apart (07:31–08:10).
  • "What differentiate[d] between us and everyone else was basically ambition and speed of execution. And that was it." - Alan Chang (08:04)

2. Management, Team Building, and the Playbook for Speed

• Team Structure & Accountability: Favors small, independent teams with clear goals and rapid accountability (08:24).
• Type of Team Members: Draws from Nick’s "self-guided missiles" analogy—the best people set and hit targets independently (08:42).
  • “You want to maximize the first and second group of people ... throughput of your company is basically sum of the number of people in the first and second bucket.” - Alan Chang (08:56)
• Relentless Urgency: Culture of "never settle." Execution was ‘4 out of 10’ last year—constantly push for more (09:51–10:06).
• On Work-Life Balance: No apologies for demanding work ethic; generational businesses require sacrifice (11:06).
  • “Don’t join Fuse… I have total respect for people who want, you know, like nine to five job... but the only way to build a generational company is like, very, very strong work ethic.” - Alan Chang (11:06)

3. Culture: The Revolut Legacy and Fuse’s ‘Never Settle’ Value

• Revolut’s Many Values vs. Simplicity:
  • “Revolut had a lot of cultural values. And to be honest... it’s a bit too many for me ... I think one [is best].” - Alan Chang (11:54)
  • Fuse’s core value: “Never settle. It’s the one that resonated with me the most.” (11:57)
• Perfectionism vs. Pragmatism:
  • “I think you have to pick your battles for sure. … Never settle on [critical] roles. But the roles that matter less, I think it’s perfectly okay to settle.” - Alan Chang (12:33)

4. KPIs, Product Diversification, and Outcome-Driven Management

• On KPIs: Use data-driven targets carefully—over-incentivizing numeric KPIs can create perverse incentives (12:51–13:52).
  • “Once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it … you should hundred percent do that [for health] but not incentivize everything.” (12:51)
• Aggressive Experimentation: Multiple product experiments at once was crucial to resilience during crises (14:15–14:49).

5. Ambition, Focus, and Scaling: “You Need to Work Weekends to Win”

• Contrarian View on Focus: Instead of hyper-focus, advocates broader ambition—pursue as many opportunities as you have great leaders to own them (38:10).
  • “I actually think there are not enough ambitious founders out there … the expansionist mindset would be I need to hire more leaders in my company so I can pursue more.” - Alan Chang (38:30)
• On Working Weekends: Essential for beating incumbents with smaller balance sheets and resources (40:57).
  • “We're going against big, big, big energy companies with huge balance sheets … the only way to win...is work ethic.” - Alan Chang (41:15)

6. Building Fuse Energy: Bootstrapping, MVPs, and Fundraising

• Fuse Energy’s MVP Story: Built a fully licensed, vertically integrated energy company MVP with just $1 million (41:31).
  • “We found a single wind turbine … for 750k ... a license for 75k … convinced the former CEO of Ofgem to become an advisor with just equity and no cash ... so my advice is...you don’t need a huge seed round to get started.” (41:31–42:22)
• Fundraising Stories: Alan tells the (true) story of turning up to a VC with his Ferrari and raising a $78m seed (43:12–44:07).
• Reflections on Raising: Regrets not waiting for a higher price; values honoring term sheet handshake over maximizing price (44:08–44:41).

7. Talent, Hiring, & Compensation: Radical Candor & High Bars

• Structured Hiring: Graded interviews for core skills and compensation based purely on grading, not experience or previous pay (28:55–30:19).
  • “As a company, we don’t actually use any comp bands, we simply look at the grades and the higher the grade, the higher a bit because ultimately we’re buying skills.” - Alan Chang (29:52)
• On Mis-hires: Used to overvalue IQ, now weighs “deeply caring” much more; asks candidates directly about their motivation and willingness to sacrifice (31:57–33:41).
  • “Even if you hire someone very, very intelligent, but they just don’t care, it’s also not going to work out.” (32:04)
• Non-obvious Red Flags: Never hire for ambition on title or salary expectation—both must be earned (33:33–34:05).
• Letting Go Quickly: No formal pips (performance improvement plans); quick, direct feedback and action (31:24–31:51).

8. Ownership, Accountability, and “No Excuses” Leadership

• On Excuses: Once you’re a leader, reasons for failure are irrelevant (34:21–35:12).
  • “Excuses don’t matter. If you’re a leader ... If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed.” - Alan Chang (35:12)
• Direct Feedback: Top performers take harsh feedback well and improve; if not, they’re not top performers (36:00–36:35).

9. Energy Market Realities & Chang’s Vision

• UK & Global Energy Crisis: UK has overregulated, under-built, and lagged behind China & US in energy capacity, affecting cost and quality of life (18:32–19:13; 23:42–24:47).
  • “In China, they build everything ... Clearly they understand the importance of energy costs and they’re just building everything. I think that’s a model economy we should follow for energy policy.” - Alan Chang (24:47)
• ‘Renewable’ Claims Are Misleading: No grid can be 100% wind/solar because storage and grid constraints make it impossible—companies claiming so are misrepresenting (21:09–22:49).
• If Energy Czar: Deregulate all building and ax all subsidies—let cost and efficiency win (22:56–23:34).
  • “A subsidy … means it’s actually not profitable to build this project. … I’ll delete all subsidies and let the free market do its thing.” - Alan Chang (23:07)

10. Personal Reflections, Wealth, and Long-Term Vision

• Relationship to Money: Beyond 'level five', it’s just a means to create and buy back time (46:11–47:17).
  • “For me ... money is great, but beyond levels of personal consumption ... it becomes a means to an end.” - Alan Chang (46:11)
• On Going All In: Leaving Revolut was hardest—Nick asked thrice if Alan was sure (50:05–50:41).
• On Fuse’s Potential: “We could be bigger than Shell.” (51:55)
• IPO? No rush; happy to stay private unless liquidity dries up (52:19).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Work Ethic:
  “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.” – Alan Chang (00:00, 10:20)
• On Accountability:
  “Excuses don’t matter. If you’re a leader of an area in the company, excuses don’t matter.” (35:12)
• On Focus vs. Ambition:
  “I actually think there are not enough ambitious founders out there … the expansionist mindset would be I need to hire more leaders so I can pursue more.” (38:30)
• On Culture:
  “‘Never settle’ is the one that resonated with me the most.” (11:57)
• On Product Diversification:
  “We need to do everything.” (38:01)
• On Building MVPs:
  “You don’t need a huge seed round to get started.” (42:22)
• On the UK’s Energy Woes:
  “The problem is not capital, the problem is it’s very, very hard to build.” (19:13)
• On What Money Buys:
  “I think it buys you time. Actually buys you quite a bit time back.” (47:17)
• On Leaving Revolut:
  “He asked me, are you sure? Three times. And I said, I’m sure three times.” (50:12)
• On Vision:
  “We’d 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...” (53:00)

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Key Timestamps for Major Topics

• Alan’s Revolut Origin Story: 05:39–06:14
• Culture & Execution at Revolut: 06:45–08:10
• Management, People, and Culture: 08:38–12:01
• KPIs, Gaming, and Incentive Pitfalls: 12:51–13:52
• Ambition and Focus in Startups: 38:01–39:26
• Energy Markets, Policy, and the Realities of Renewable Claims: 18:32–24:47
• Fuse’s MVP Creation Story: 41:31–42:22
• Fundraising Antics: 43:12–44:41
• Hiring Philosophy & Process: 28:55–34:16
• Accountability & Feedback: 34:21–36:35
• Personal Wealth & Relationship to Money: 46:11–47:17
• Fuse’s Scale and Vision: 51:39–53:00

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Final Words

Throughout, Chang is clear: "nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance, but to build a generational company" demands relentless work, high standards, and total accountability—anything less, he says, belongs elsewhere. For founders (and investors) aiming for outlier impact, this episode is a riveting blueprint and a challenge.

“We’d 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.” – Alan Chang (53:00)

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Transcript

[Alan Chang]

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, life balance, but I think the only way to build a generational company is like very, very strong work ethic. 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 10x every year since inception. The first year was £2 million, second year was £20 and then this year we're going to end at over £200.

[Investor/Host Introduction]

Simply put, I have interviewed a thousand of the best entrepreneurs over the last decade and two stand out above all others. Nick Staronski, founder at Revolut and then our guest today, Alan Chang. Alan is the co founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, where check this out. Every single year he has scaled revenue 10x. The first year 2 million, the second year 20 million and the third year 200 million. 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.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

Where he played a crucial role as.

[Investor/Host Introduction]

Alongside Nick, in scaling the company to an over $75 billion valuation.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

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[Podcast Host]

You have now arrived at your destination. Alan. Dude, I am so looking forward to this. So I, I have you to thank for hiring my chief of staff. Because we were sitting in a cocktail bar in London and you were helping me H I was like then holy shit, this guy is brilliant and I need to do a show with him. That was three Years ago. So thank you so much for doing this with me.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

I think a really interesting one to.

[Podcast Host]

Start with is you're a fricking machine. And I just want to understand when we look at like transformative moments, one of the most transformative early moments for you was getting the job with Nick and with Revolut. Can you just take me to that? And Saka actually said I had to ask this one. He was like, you gotta start with how he actually got the job.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

How did you get the job with.

[Podcast Host]

Nick and what did that look like?

[Alan Chang]

At the time I just graduated and I was just perusing on the Facebook group. It was called London Startups and I saw this job post, Revolut. I was like, okay, I have no idea what this company does. I was looking for fresh grads. I was like, okay. I applied and Nick replied within five minutes. I was like, oh wow, that's very quick. And then he asked me to come for a face to face interview the next day. So I came for an interview and he asked me a bunch of physics questions. I didn't realize I was applying for a physics job. And he offered me a role right after the interview. I said yes and that was it. That was like the fastest interview process I've ever had.

[Podcast Host]

What was the position and what size and scale was Revolut then?

[Alan Chang]

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, it was called operations analyst but effectively the first three months was doing customer support.

[Podcast Host]

When did you realize that this was going to be a massive $100 billion company?

[Alan Chang]

So at the time Revolut was in a co working space called level 39.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I remember this.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. And so level 39 is. Yeah, for those who don't know, it's. It's basically a giant startup co working space with maybe over 200 startups. And Revlut 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, I knew there was something special. The second moment was I asked Nick, what's your ambition? What keeps you motivated? And at the time he's worth quite a bit of money already. So what drives him? Right? And he told me he wants to be J.P. morgan. So that's the second moment I realized this is going to be a massive company.

[Podcast Host]

What do you think you guys did really right. Really early on that led to such success early.

[Alan Chang]

So at the time when we got started, There were basically three players. There was Revoluts, Monzo and N26. 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 it was crystal clear. Right? It was crystal clear who's going to win. And the reason why is because it's just the team's ambition and execution. Right? Because ultimately, if you ask the same teams at the time, 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. And that was it.

[Podcast Host]

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]

Yeah. So I think have small teams operating in the independent units 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.

[Podcast Host]

What did you learn from Nick about managing people and people performance?

[Alan Chang]

It's all about results. I think Nick's made this analogy before. The three types of people in the world, 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 want to 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.

[Podcast Host]

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]

I'll say the get shit done culture. The best way to build something great very, very fast. And it's something I took on board, but I even amped it up even more.

[Podcast Host]

How do you amp it up more?

[Alan Chang]

Putting even more intensity. Right. Just driving a lot of urgency within the company. Always keep people on the toes.

[Podcast Host]

How do you always keep people on their toes is like pushing them in terms of their goals, is it? Pushing them in terms of the hours and the work and the intensities, what is it?

[Alan Chang]

Oh, in terms of results. Right. 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 told the team last year, execution was maybe 4 out of 10. Right. And we need to get a 10 to 10 out of 10 and we're not passing.

[Podcast Host]

What was the problem there and how did you fix it?

[Alan Chang]

The problem was speed of execution. We were too slow. We wanted to ship a bunch of things and we didn't. Things were delayed.

[Podcast Host]

When were you off target in execution with Revolut? And what did you learn from that?

[Alan Chang]

I think we were off execution maybe every year. I think the 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 a more extreme analogy. Right. Like, I used to ask my team, right, 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.

[Podcast Host]

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. I'm sure you've probably seen because you're socially aware, but like996, 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]

Don't join Fuse. That's okay. Like, I have total respect for people who want, you know, like nine to five job. Right. There's nothing wrong with wanting work life balance, but I think the only way to build a generational company is like, very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it.

[Podcast Host]

When you look back now, Revolut is known for its intense culture as well. That's where 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]

Yeah, I think Revolut's culture never settled. Like, in terms of speed and quality is something I took over. Like, Revolut had a lot of cultural values. And to be honest, like, I think it's a bit too many for me. I Always forget all of them.

[Podcast Host]

How many does it have from memory?

[Alan Chang]

It's six.

[Podcast Host]

How many should you have?

[Alan Chang]

I think one.

[Podcast Host]

What's your one cultural value?

[Alan Chang]

So never settle. It's the one that resonated with me the most.

[Podcast Host]

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 the world, but I do want to 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, sometimes it's okay to settle on 80% for a junior account manager in whatever. Do you know what I mean?

[Alan Chang]

I agree with that. Yeah. I think you have to pick your battles for sure. Ultimately 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.

[Podcast Host]

When you're building Revolut with Nick and the team, what was your biggest disagreement with Nick and how did that play out?

[Alan Chang]

I'll say the overuse of KPIs because ultimately there are things you should measure which tells you the health of that team, how well they're doing, and you should hundred percent do that. But then once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it. Nick is a super numbers driven guy and I think that worked very well in a large part. But I would say not everything should be the KPI.

[Podcast Host]

What shouldn't be a KPI and what should and how do you determine that?

[Alan Chang]

When you start incentivizing a metric you need to think about, okay, what are the second order consequences? Let's take a very simple example. Let's say, let's take a recruiter. If you give a KPA to a recruiter, let's say on hires per month, what they might start to do, because the 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, you know, some recruiters that really want to chase their bonuses, they try and negotiate with hiring Managers try and convince them this is the best you're going to find, you know how to find someone better, etc. Etc.

[Podcast Host]

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 Nick, 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've applied to Fuse?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I think product diversification is so important. I mean, let me give like one example of why that was so important. So during the COVID lockdowns, the interchange revenue, so revenue from people spending on cards, especially abroad, went basically near zero. However, there was a lot of seamless checks from the COVID times and the stock market was booming and the crypto market was booming. So whilst the interchange revenue went down, the trading revenue went up. So it kind of offset each other. So that's a great example where diversification actually helped make the company's revenues much more resilient.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think you should have gone for the banking license 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 license earlier where Monzo did.

[Alan Chang]

Actually I think the product diversification could have happened even if Revlo got the banking license earlier. I think Nick 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 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.

[Podcast Host]

When was the first time that you really felt incumbents and regulators were aware of how successful you were becoming?

[Alan Chang]

I still don't think they realize. I still don't think the incumbents have woken up yet.

[Podcast Host]

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]

But what have they done about it?

[Podcast Host]

Well, the trouble is they can't. And that's why you bet long on Revolut and I am trying to buy every fucking Revolution share I Can at a good price. Because honestly the structures, the compounds that they have, the policies that they have, means they can't do it. 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 who's been paid 5 million a year for five years, he Honestly, if he bounces, he'll go back to Marbella, to the family home and it'll be fine.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, maybe. Talking about it and doing something about it is very different.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think it's important to have an enemy in a startup? Whether it's revolut in banks, whether it's Fuse and traditional incumbents, is that important?

[Alan Chang]

I think it's important to have a common goal. For example, at Fuse, our common goal is like no trade offs looking back like last 20 years, right? Like this green movement basically telling people to use less, right? So you had politicians that says 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 the last 20 years as well. It's basically trade offs and I think that's totally wrong. It's actually moving in the complete opposite direction. 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. And if you look at the Americans, the Americans use almost eight times more energy than Europeans. And look at the quality of life.

[Podcast Host]

But it's right, you're saying the American quality of life is better than ours?

[Alan Chang]

For sure. Think about the average American home. 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 I.

[Podcast Host]

Mean that, but that's bluntly built on 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 harder 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 manufactured.

[Alan Chang]

That's also true. But if you look at the average cost of the American home, it's relatively affordable.

[Podcast Host]

So what do we take away from that?

[Alan Chang]

I think the takeaway is like you can, you can have it all three ways, right? You can have low cost energy, you're going to have more energy and you can have lower carbon energy at the same time.

[Podcast Host]

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 far away? What does that look like?

[Alan Chang]

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 25 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 the wrong direction.

[Podcast Host]

And what's the cause of that? Can you just help me understand? I was talking to one of the biggest data infrastructure providers the other and they were like, listen, the reason we're not in the UK is because as a percentage of revenue, energy is 16% of our revenues in the UK, whereas comparatively elsewhere it's 3 to 4%. Why is that? Why are we so bad?

[Alan Chang]

Two reasons. The first reason is overregulation. It's very hard to build anything in the uk, like physical or 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 over several winters. So how that works is you hire a guy with a clipboard and they count number 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 existing energy companies, they are not technology driven at all, they're very old school. So 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.

[Podcast Host]

Who is in charge of the regulation? Is this Ed Miliband and the energy?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, it's ofgem, is desnas.

[Podcast Host]

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 that expansion of the railway systems that they wanted to build out?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I think, to be clear, I think us also share a lot of the similar problems to the UK to a lesser extent. And also depends on what state are you talking about. For example, in state of Texas, where a lot of people say it's a home of energy, it's much easier to build compared to the UK when you.

[Podcast Host]

Think about energy, the energy crisis today, what does no one know that everyone should know? I'm very naive on energy. It's not my business, it's not where we invest traditionally.

[Alan Chang]

So first of all, there's no such thing as harms and 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, wind power. However, they are extremely correlated with each other. What that means is even if you overbuild solar and wind, it's never possible to cover 100% of the time to be 100% renewable because they're highly correlated. So in certain hours you get abundant of solar and wind energy, but at 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 days or even weeks without solar and wind energy. So any energy company that's claiming their harmonic renewable is a complete lie. They're simply buying renewable certificates to claim their harmonic renewable and it's completely false. Let me give you a proof point of 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 the big demand centers like London, because the grid is not set up to do that. So yeah, these are two biggest misconceptions in energy, I would say.

[Podcast Host]

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]

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.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Alan Chang]

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 you and I, it's everyone. So actually it 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.

[Podcast Host]

When we look at energy regulations, infrastructure policy, which country do you think stands out as an exemplary that we should follow?

[Alan Chang]

China.

[Podcast Host]

Why is that?

[Alan Chang]

Just look at the energy price. If you look at what the Brits and Europeans pay in terms of cost per kilowatt hour, it's roughly 25 to $30 cents. In the US is 10 to $15 cents. In China it's $8 cents. If you look at energy per capita, US hasn't grown in the last 25 years, it's been flat in China, it's 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 whilst in the west there are people debating, oh, is renewables better, Is oil and gas better? Then there's becoming a very political thing in China. They build everything in China they deploy more solar than all western economies combined. In China they deployed more gas, more coal, more grid, they've laid more cables at grid than all western economies combined. So they're just building everything. Clearly they understand the importance of energy costs and they're just building everything. I think that's a model economy we should follow for energy policy.

[Podcast Host]

Do you stand by the belief that we're all in the same WhatsApp groups and everyone says 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, I.

[Alan Chang]

Think talent levels in the UK is good. Ultimately higher education, I personally receive higher education in the uk, I think it's world class and ultimately this is the key ingredient to build anything successful. Although I'm short term, I'm bearish on the uk, but long term I'm bullish.

[Podcast Host]

What makes you bearish right now in the uk?

[Alan Chang]

Current government's heading in the wrong direction. We need deep deregulation so it's easier to build and there's a lot of talk about growth, but it's just talk and no action.

[Podcast Host]

Respectfully, I don't know how you can be bearish in the short term and bullish in the long term. 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]

I think a lot of people, 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 with respect.

[Podcast Host]

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 the UK populace transparently, it's not the intellectual Matt Clifford that is the average person on the street.

[Alan Chang]

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 you know the following governments can attract a top team around them and being advised the right regulations to look at and delete or reform. I think we could do it.

[Podcast Host]

Do you feel you have a political party home today? I feel kind of politically lost, if I'm honest, which is like it used to be a kind of conservative. Now I don't feel any particular allegiance to the Conservatives under Cami, to be honest, but I don't feel particularly strong belief in Nigel Farage and reform. I think labor's terrible, but I don't feel like I have a political home like I used to.

[Alan Chang]

I want to make sure there are people who are competent to lead the country. Right. I want to make sure the most competent individuals are leading the countries regardless of party.

[Podcast Host]

Who would you most like to see?

[Alan Chang]

Matt Clifford is a pretty good choice. I'm probably in the same camp as you for now.

[Podcast Host]

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 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]

Basically when I explain to the candidate about what we're trying to build at Fuse Ambitions, how we want to be a number one energy company in the world, the hard work that requires to build it. Like what I usually see is the body language, right. As well as the facial expression. Like are they leaning in or they're leaning out? And you want to be hiring people who are leaning in.

[Podcast Host]

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 year.

[Alan Chang]

That's also not great.

[Podcast Host]

Anything else where you're like not great fluffy CVs? For me, like, okay, you hire a marketing manager. I want to 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 X spend. I'm like, oh, very detailed, like clear attribution led data.

[Alan Chang]

I would say very long CVs is bad. I think it should be maximum page. Like if Elon Musk can 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 he couldn't think of anything to put and he had like put you in like special skills like Microsoft Word. It's got that type of vibe, right.

[Podcast Host]

Professional tiddlywings player. Other hobbies, skiing, art. I fucking hate art. I totally agree with. 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 would be your biggest advice to me on how I should optimize mine?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I think first define the skill sets 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 a certain design. And then we assign those people to assess those skills individually. And at the end of the process the candidate gets a grade, right. For every single step. If they above a certain threshold, then we offer and that's Also how we decide on how much we offer. 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 a bit because ultimately we're buying skills.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, sorry. This is really interesting. So you will essentially say, okay, we are looking for a software engineer and we need choose your language, whatever we're going for, we need X language. And then you will rank them out of 10 on that one core skill and then you will assign them a salary as a result of that.

[Alan Chang]

Actually, we don't even look at language. So although our whole backend is in Python, we will hire any backend 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 A's in every single one, we bid a very, very high offer.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, they are a 7 out of 10. Should you just not hire them? Should it not be like an all in? We should give them the top whack or don't hire them at all.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. So our threshold is we will hire anything above a B. If you get straight Bs, you 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.

[Podcast Host]

Why would you do that? That feels like to me like in Vanche would say that's like a meh deal.

[Alan Chang]

Well, ultimately, to be clear, B is so pretty good. A is like exceptional. So B is like this is where we've, where the bar is. And I would say you can still be a very solid performer if you're B. The difference between this straight B kind of and straight A kind is simply compensation. And for straight A candidate, we have made offers that are much higher than what they make today. And even if we know that that's okay because we want to make sure we're a no brainer for you, such that you will never think about leaving.

[Podcast Host]

How fast do you know when someone's not very good?

[Alan Chang]

A month, two months?

[Podcast Host]

Do you pull the cord that quick?

[Alan Chang]

We always give them a verbal warning first.

[Podcast Host]

When you give a pip, does it ever actually get better?

[Alan Chang]

Well, we don't really have formal pips. I don't believe in pips.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Alan Chang]

I think it's a waste of time. Just give them a warning. Because most people we hire, they're already self aware of where they fall short. Even before we have the verbal warning, they kind of know they're falling short already. And yeah, basically the formal warning is simply, look, we're giving you one more chance if you don't prove you're out.

[Podcast Host]

When you look back when you made a mis hire, what did you not see that you should have seen?

[Alan Chang]

I used to overvalue iq, didn't put enough weighting on deeply caring.

[Podcast Host]

Can you explain that?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. So what you want to 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 say 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 going to work out.

[Podcast Host]

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 going to give it the 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]

It's certainly not a game of luck. There are questions you can ask, so I usually pitch them about a company telling, okay, we want to be number one engine company, blah blah blah, right? I explain to them, look, you have many, many choices. You're obviously 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 want to do? It's going to be very tough. There'll be tough times. You have to constantly bounce between shipping new features, fixing bugs, improving scalability of the platform. Like why do you want to do this to yourself? Are you sure you want to 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. 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 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.

[Podcast Host]

They don't any big red flags around people and their title expectations. I want to come in, but I want to be ahead of product. Is that okay or is it a no, no, no? Come in and earn the right. Any lessons around title and how they.

[Alan Chang]

Feel about title yeah, we've never given a head of position to anyone we've hired. We've only given to it based on performance.

[Podcast Host]

In terms of internal promotion.

[Alan Chang]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Any on 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]

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.

[Podcast Host]

What non obvious behavior do you not tolerate? Even if they're really high performers?

[Alan Chang]

So I remember backwards when I was at Revolut, I was explaining to Nick, I actually forgot what it was, but I failed at something. And I was trying to explain to him why I failed. Then Nick sent me this article. 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 would say, okay, that's irritating, but that's acceptable because you're the janitor. Somewhere between the janitor and the vp, reasons stopped mattering. So every single time, when one of the leaders at Fuse explains to me why they failed and they couldn't hit a certain goal, I sent them this article.

[Podcast Host]

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.

[Alan Chang]

Correct.

[Podcast Host]

What do you take from that? Like, excuses don't matter.

[Alan Chang]

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.

[Podcast Host]

Do you 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]

I don't care what they think.

[Podcast Host]

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 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]

Well, I would say I don't think that's protecting. Right. That's just hiding information from your best performers. Ultimately your best performers, they're smart, they're hard working, they're not dumb. Right. And initially I took that feedback to heart and I was resisting. At first I thought it was unfair, 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 like usually top performers internalizes negative feedback very well. They take negative feedback to heart 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.

[Podcast Host]

What was the bit of feedback that you found most hard to take?

[Alan Chang]

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.

[Podcast Host]

Was there a bit of feedback that you found the hardest to give?

[Alan Chang]

No. It's very important. You have. You create a culture of truth seeking and the truth is very ugly. Might hurt someone's feelings. You should still say it because you'll make that person better.

[Podcast Host]

Is there anything that you shouldn't say because it ultimately doesn't make them better?

[Alan Chang]

Well, if I keep giving negative feedback to a person and they haven't improved, then I just stop bothering. They can leave the company.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think there's a bit of a culture of fear around you? Like if you look again? I love Nick. 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. People are scared of him. Is it bad to have a fear based leadership?

[Alan Chang]

What matters is people need to feel like they can speak the truth.

[Podcast Host]

And you do with Nick?

[Alan Chang]

Yes. 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.

[Podcast Host]

What specific decision on product or strategy do you think moves the needle most with Revolut? Was there one like, we 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]

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.

[Podcast Host]

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. There's so many shiny objects, you can't pursue them. All that advice is completely counter that. What would you say to them Listening, who are now confused.

[Alan Chang]

I actually think there are not enough ambitious founders out there because ultimately the throughput of the company, like how many parallel work streams you can take at a given time, is dictated by number of great leaders you have in the company. And the zero sum mindset would be, okay, I only have that many leaders in the company. In some cases they could just be the founders themselves. Therefore I'm just going to 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 trying to play the zero sum game, we should try and figure out ways to hire more leaders so you can pursue more.

[Podcast Host]

What does your direct report structure look like? Jensen has popularized having 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 the delegate to fantastic leadership like you kind of mentioned there, in terms of increasing surface area?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. So I'd say yeah, I think I have many direct reports. I don't know how many. I would probably lean towards what Jensen is doing because ultimately I don't even think of them as direct reports. Right. I think of them as going back to self guiding missile analogy. Right. You don't need to manage those people. You discuss and you debate about the target, 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.

[Podcast Host]

Talking about monitoring and management, your offices are in Canary Wharf. Not the obvious place for startups in London. I'm sure it's kind of most famous Silicon Roundabout. Why are you in Canary Wharf?

[Alan Chang]

So first of all, it's probably the only place in London where you can keep expanding offices so you can keep upgrading office without incurring a big penalty on a lease. Second reason, it's, it's far away from the party. You know, if you work around here, it's. There's this thing going on, this bar, right? Or this club. Right. I think there's too much going on in West London, too many distractions. There's nothing going on. It's just work and nothing else.

[Podcast Host]

So 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 don't do anything but work and gym. Is that not the secret to being a great entrepreneur, discipline?

[Alan Chang]

I think so, but I'm talking about other people in the team. It's like if you see a full bar downstairs, I think you're tempted, you might, oh, I'm going to pop down for a pint. Right.

[Podcast Host]

Do you expect people to work weekends?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I'd say, as I said before, this is very hard. This only way to do it. We're going against big, big, big energy companies with huge balance sheets, billions in revenue. The only way to win is with much smaller balance sheets, much less cash, much less resources is work ethic.

[Podcast Host]

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 V1 with minimal resources having done that.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. So at the time we wanted to build a Full Stack energy company and we're at 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 trade energy and we also need a qualified electrician. So we found a single wind turbine in north of Scotland that the seller's willing to sell for 750k. We found a license for 75k. 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 full second energy company. So my advice is I don't think you need a lot of capital. You don't need a huge C round to get started.

[Podcast Host]

If you can, why don't you? There's so much venture money. So dude, if you can, why don't you?

[Alan Chang]

I think you could. If you could, you should.

[Podcast Host]

But you could. Anyone would have written you like you could say, I'm doing a far app. I'll give you 10 million bucks. The disgraceful thing about you Alan, is I would have given you money for almost anything. But and this is like my Biggest lesson 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.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

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 Boulderton with your Ferrari parked outside and then stroll in and say I'm going to raise a 60 million dollar seed round?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, there's some truth to that. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How did it go down?

[Alan Chang]

I think it went pretty well.

[Podcast Host]

You raised 78 in the first round.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I think they really, really like the concept and I think what they realize is a pretty good strategy. And I realized after the, you know, a lot of the investments because they made so much money from the rebel investment, they just keep investing ex rebel teams.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

Is there anything that you would do.

[Podcast Host]

Differently about the early rounds of funding with the benefit of hindsight that you have today?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah, I think. Raise a too low price.

[Podcast Host]

Could you have raised it higher?

[Alan Chang]

Could have.

[Podcast Host]

Why didn't you?

[Alan Chang]

So we had it with a price in mind.

[Podcast Host]

What was the price?

[Alan Chang]

It was roughly where we were at about 140actually. We had an oral agreement with Bulletin. We'll take the, we'll take the term sheet, but we haven't signed the term sheet yet. And then later there was another investor that came that came and said, I will offer you a higher term sheet. We said no because we already agree with Bulletin, we'll take the term sheet.

[Podcast Host]

And you regret that?

[Alan Chang]

No, like I would say, I regret saying yes, it's too early because we could have raised better terms.

[Podcast Host]

So what would you advise founders on the back of that?

[Alan Chang]

Ultimately I would say I underestimated the value of the company at the time because I didn't realize investor put such a high price on it. I'll say wait for a bit longer. At the time it was effectively the second term sheet we had. By the same time, I believe if you say you're going to 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.

[Podcast Host]

You raised a recent round 70 at 5 billion.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

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]

Yeah. So the company is doing over 400 million revenue. Annualized revenue.

[Podcast Host]

400 million?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And when was day one revenue. What's that slope.

[Alan Chang]

So in terms of financial year, we increase our revenue 10x every year since inception. The first year was 2 million pounds, so about 3. Just south of $3 million. Second year was 20 pounds. So roughly 25, 26. And then this year we're going to end at over £200. So yeah, roughly 260.

[Podcast Host]

You can't 10x again.

[Alan Chang]

We'll try.

[Podcast Host]

Where do you think you will land? If me and you have a bet. Okay. And we'll sit here next to you.

[Alan Chang]

Our business plan is much less than 10x for next year.

[Podcast Host]

Is it 5x?

[Alan Chang]

Something around there, but we'll still shoot for 10.

[Podcast Host]

What would be the biggest barrier to you hitting a billion? There's one reason. What is it?

[Alan Chang]

I think it's speed of hiring quality engineering. That's the biggest barrier. There's no capital. It's quality of engineering.

[Podcast Host]

Why do you like hiring Eastern European engineers?

[Alan Chang]

Because culturally they. I think they favor technical education and they have very strong work ethic.

[Podcast Host]

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]

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.

[Podcast Host]

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 want to be on the hedonic treadmill. But I do think about that.

[Alan Chang]

Honestly, I think anything I'd say numbers probably like five. Five I think is enough.

[Podcast Host]

Do you remember when you made your first real money?

[Alan Chang]

I do remember, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How did it feel?

[Alan Chang]

So surreal. My Revlo account went from no money and it 1000x overnight.

[Podcast Host]

Did you sell much of your Revolut?

[Alan Chang]

No, only for personal consumption. I'm still very bullish on the company.

[Podcast Host]

How big can Revolut be? I often say publicly it's like easily a $250 billion business without the U.S. with the U.S. it's a $500 billion business.

[Alan Chang]

I think of a trillion dollar company.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think he'll be able to crack the us?

[Alan Chang]

If someone's going to do it, it's Nikolai.

[Podcast Host]

At what price would you start to sell trillion? What does no one know about having money that people should know about having money?

[Alan Chang]

I think it buys you time. Actually buys you quite a bit time back.

[Podcast Host]

Where do you spend to save time?

[Alan Chang]

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 chores, travel. I think flying a coach just kills your. I think it just wastes two days. I think it's worth flying business. You know, you can work in a plane, not feel terrible, you know, the day after. Right. You know, traveling better, eating better and not wasting time on things outside of the business. You could buy a lot of time back.

[Podcast Host]

Does it change your relationship, personal relationships?

[Alan Chang]

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?

[Podcast Host]

Have you ever had that question?

[Alan Chang]

Luckily all my existing friends have not change how they treat me after some success. But I have had a lot of long time from, you know, people went.

[Podcast Host]

To school with dude, I want to ask a quick firearm. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. So what ambassador do you not have that you would most like to have.

[Alan Chang]

One person you.

[Podcast Host]

Do. You know what's really hard about what I do is that I'm friends with the greatest founders and in a lot of cases even best in Project Europe. And I have the joys of knowing you and it really is a joy. And what the fuck? Why am I not invested in these companies? I have this with like Mattie at Elevenlabs. 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 when I was a kid and I didn't know what I was doing and had I had that now, it would have been very different. But it is life. Rank these in order of luck, talent and timing.

[Alan Chang]

I think timing, talent, luck.

[Podcast Host]

Why timing first?

[Alan Chang]

I think if you get the timing wrong, even if you're the best team in the world, you're not going to make it. For example, I don't think Fuse could have been built 10 years ago. I think Fuse is only possible because the requirements have changed. 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 consumer 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 10 years before 2014. So I do think timing matters and Then the second thing is talent. I think these are two prerequisites. So if you have good timing, if you have good talents, I think luck will also come.

[Podcast Host]

What's been the hardest decision you've made in your career?

[Alan Chang]

Probably leaving Revolut.

[Podcast Host]

Did you want to stay to ipo?

[Alan Chang]

I do, I do. Like, ultimately, like, it's.

[Podcast Host]

Do you remember telling Nick?

[Alan Chang]

I remember.

[Podcast Host]

Can you just tell me that?

[Alan Chang]

It was a very, very hard moment and he asked me, are you sure? Three times? And I said, I'm sure three times.

[Podcast Host]

Where were you? What time of day was it? How.

[Alan Chang]

I think it was a Friday afternoon. It was actually the same meeting where you did a podcast with Nick.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Alan Chang]

Yeah. He was that room.

[Podcast Host]

What did he say? Because respectfully, a lot of people have come and gone from Revolut, but you were his guy. Was he visibly shocked?

[Alan Chang]

I don't know. He has this emotionless reaction. Yeah, just ask me. Are you sure?

[Podcast Host]

Did he invest in Fuse?

[Alan Chang]

Yes. The most recent round.

[Podcast Host]

In the most recent round, Is it still open? I can't believe I said this to Massey the other day. I can't believe we're still not invested. I'm just paying any price. I'm just pissed off. That's amazing. You said downstairs, being 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]

I mean, I think the pros and cons. I think the pros. Like at Revolut, I can basically get to pick the role I wanted, the problems I wanted to solve. But now I give that opportunity to other leaders within the company. That means, by definition, I don't get to choose the things I do.

[Podcast Host]

What are you not doing today that you would most like to be doing?

[Alan Chang]

I would love to go much deeper on engineering, on hardware, like going to very low level details.

[Podcast Host]

How big is the biggest incumbent in the space?

[Alan Chang]

So you have the power incumbents and then you have the big oil majors incumbents. If you look at big oil majors like Shell, they make a billion revenue a day. Approximately.

[Podcast Host]

How big can Fuse be?

[Alan Chang]

I think we could be bigger than Shell.

[Podcast Host]

How much is Shell worth?

[Alan Chang]

I think worth just north of $300 billion. They list on the London Stock Exchange. So there's a. I think a discount.

[Podcast Host]

How the fuck does that. Sorry. They do a billion in revenue a day and they're worth less than their annual revenue.

[Alan Chang]

Then I think if they were listed in the us, they'd probably be worth more. Would you list in the U.S. if we ever list? I think it'll be the U.S. yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Would you list?

[Alan Chang]

I personally don't see a need to. There's a lot of liquidity in the private markets and obviously there's additional overhead of being a listed company. Like the only reason I see listing as a real need is if the liquidity dries up in the private markets.

[Podcast Host]

Do you let team members sell?

[Alan Chang]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

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]

Well, I'd say we do want to create liquidity opportunities for, for employee stockholders and sometimes people need to buy a house, you need to buy a car, they need to. Some liquidity is helpful.

[Podcast Host]

Final one for you, dude. I'd like to end on a tone of positivity and optimism. What excites you most in the next 10 years?

[Alan Chang]

We'd 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.

[Podcast Host]

Alan, I so appreciate you. I think you're one of the great entrepreneurs in the uk. I'm going to pass to you about investing and I so appreciate our friendship. So thank you so much for doing this with me, dude.

[Alan Chang]

Thanks for having me.

[Sponsor/Ad Read Host]

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