Oh my god, I remember the year when Revolut had just opened and got the license from Lithuanian Bank and it's hard to believe. I'm very glad about this sector.

Once you're inside, that's another thing, maybe the listeners would agree, especially in the high-growth startups. In the very beginning, when they are a bit bigger, you wouldn't necessarily think that the company grew that much, because you're always working, there is not a lot of time and a lot of vocations to stop and reflect, you're always grinding and you're always pushing yourself in the company and yeah, we are 6000 but now I think it's only a matter of few years probably when we are twenty thousand or fifty thousand.

And how do you see the difference back then, when there were only a few people, and now - the work culture or the environment? Do you see any difference or are you still grinding?

No, I think that's a very good point and I think that almost requires another podcast, Indre, right? So in the future, maybe? About this culture and kind of perception of the environment and feeling the changes when you are big compared to when you were small I think it depends on what a person wants to see, right? So in my case, I could say, now it's a bit more bureaucratic. The decisions cannot be made as fast as they used to be, because in the past you would need to do 10 jobs in your position, right? Whatever the position was, let's say in my case, I would need to just do it because, there are not enough people, and now we have people, very focused on a particular area, and field and the decision-making is a bit bureaucratic, corporate if you'd like. But then, when you think about that rationally, you almost have to become corporate or start becoming corporate because if you think of any other company in the world, especially the big one, Google, Facebook, and similar. They all started as startups in the past, right? You probably remember seeing Mark Zuckerberg drinking beer upside down in those Youtube videos, like fifteen years ago, and now it's a huge corporation, right? Security people at the door and a lot of processes, bureaucracies or corporations, and that is essentially the right thing because all these bureaucracies, all those processes, extended decision making that helps to be sustainable, right? And not as chaotic as in the beginning, but we are still trying to grind. This culture didn't escape anywhere. We're still pushing ourselves, still getting things done, never settling, and other Revolut values that are already somewhat famous.

Okay, glad to hear that the companies also are still grinding, still doing their best.

We're still small, come on.

Well, you're not. It's 6000 people and I believe that you recruited many and you had quite a few recruitment failures. Maybe you could emphasize about one, which is the most insightful one?

Yeah, I thought about that Indre. There could be many, for example, you ask the wrong questions and in the end, you got the wrong answers, or the right answers, and then once the person started, you're kind of regretting that you didn't ask or you didn't check one thing or another. But I chose to explore one thing, especially in the early days and that would be useful for early startups, one to two years startups, it depends on how fast they grow. But in our case, we were somewhat, at least I can talk about myself, I was doing a lot of recruitment in various roles at Revolut, especially in the beginning. I somehow believed that if you have a very experienced on paper, on LinkedIn, a very experienced person, SVP, VP at a big company. Not only talking about the famous ones, but it could also be any kind of big company, 10000 plus employees, 50000 plus employees, you somehow believed and you recruited for that particular role. Let's say the head of growth or head of partnerships, head of business development, head of the country and so on, you would believe that person and take it for granted that person has to know how to do things. I remember I was maybe skipping or being too biased or too misled by that belief and taking it for granted because they look so good on their CV, they must do good at the company, if we get them to join us. What then happens in the majority of the cases, I'm talking about some of the particular cases in my experience and in the Revolut experience, where they joined, they cannot, and believe me I went through the same process myself when ten years ago I left the legacy company and they joined my first startup, Revolut essentially is my sixth startup or even seventh startup. And that startup journey, when joining Revolut I already understood, what the startup world is but the first startup that I joined after the legacy, type of company, or the big corporate company, was a nightmare for me. I was used to thinking systematically, to have processes written somewhere, so we can kind of follow processes efficiently and so on, and when I joined that startup, I remember and that same is probably valid for some of the candidates that we hired, was that wow there's so much chaos, how is it even possible, anything is accomplished, so much miscommunication, so much you know chaotic things.

No one exactly knows what to do, right.

Exactly. It's like everyone is running around and what happens, so I somehow, and pretty sure the same happened with these candidates at Revolut, in the beginning, when I was speaking about this kind of experienced, good on paper, senior roles candidates - how would you know that you will fit at the startup? This question developed a bit later, after a few mistakes when we had to say goodbye mutually to those senior candidates that we hired right? So we started to and maybe we will dig into that learning phase a bit later, but I would then ask how would you know that you will fit. And the answer would raise some red flags. If the answer is something like, I've been reading about fintech for the last three years, I've been reading tech crunch, some other blogs and magazines, I'm so excited about fintech, it's amazing. This enthusiasm is good. It's a healthy thing to have in the candidate, but then it's actually these hands-on and problem-solving elements that are crucial to check for in the interviews and we didn't check for some of those, for these things in some of the candidates in the beginning, and we had this painful experience. Which is a mutual fault I would say, the candidate also should have done a background check and so on, checking whether they would fit. And after we realized, after a few expensive mistakes because it's also important to realize when you're looking for that senior person, it's going to be a big increase in the turn rate for that startup because that person would want, not even a lot of options but also a proper salary. Because normally they are already kind of established professionals, with their family, with the kids, private schools, so it's not necessarily fifty thousand a year type of hire. So it can be really painful for a startup. Do you want me to continue to explore some of the particulars?

Well, I have a question about this, as you said yourself the learning curve? And first of all is it possible to assess a persons suitability to a startup? How could you assess that?

That's a very good point. Of course, there is no 100% success, how-to-say, recipe to find that this person would fit into the startup. But talking specifically, even if that person is me in the past, let's say when I joined Revolut, I already had like 5 startups on my CV, right? So, I knew that it could be chaotic, it would require work long hours. It would require me to do many things, not only my area or title. Even for these types of candidates, there is a risk of not being a fit, for the high-growth startup. So especially for some candidates that spent 15/20/25 years in one company, bigger company, corporate, with processes established, with teams knowing what they're doing, with people knowing what they're doing. For that person but as you say as you're trying to refer, there could be cases that still that person could fit into the startup, and the way to find this out and then we develop the whole you know, hiring, system if you like and questions and stages and so on, and now it's even more developed, but in the past, let's say early stages, what we try to do when you try to dig deeper and see how hands-on they still could be; whether some of the biggest achievements lately that team or the company have achieved. What was their involvement in that achievement and more importantly, especially if they are managerial level people, who normally are there to manage people in the right direction. We ask about them the greatest problem in their opinion. And the greatest challenge in their opinion that they recently worked with and either succeeded to achieve or not succeeded to achieve and then they would start describing that challenge. You know it's kind of easy I guess for anyone to think of some recent challenges. And then what you do, you dig deeper to the level, where you understand whether that person was there just for the sake of being there - I don't want to insult anyone or these corporations, etc. But sometimes it happens that those people, especially the biggest seniorities, are there not necessarily digging into the problem. A good example could be someone on the highest level possible in the management structure like Elon Musk, I'm pretty sure if you ask Elon Musk about even the gradual, very detailed problem, about some of the manufacturing of the cars or Spacex, he would probably know everything about it, I'm not saying that every manager, senior manager has to have that, but it's so important because if you do your job well and especially relevant for Revolut cases, if you're responsible for one area or another area, it's not the time where you cannot know the details - not to the very deep depth but the details, why we are going this way, why we're solving the problem this way, and not this way, and so on, so how did you change the course. What did you do to solve this when you ask those questions and dig deeper and dig deeper with those questions you understand that person wasn't hands-on, but familiar. I would say it this way. It's not that person that reaped the success of the project. It's almost as if with that person or without that person probably the team would have figured it out.

But what do you think if for example a person did not have any chance or maybe their organizational structure was so that they couldn't be involved or hands-on. Is there any other way, not just by cases and digging deeper, by the behaviour of the person in that specific job position. But somehow by the personality to assess, that maybe the person wants to switch from corporate to startup life?

Yeah, that's a good one. And we have sometimes, especially nowadays at Revolut, there is so much complexity, that sometimes you just have to fill some of the senior roles that wouldn't necessarily know a lot of detail. It's like it's a huge team or teams under that department that just have to be there and represent the company with the many other stakeholders, the regulators, and policymakers. So obviously now it's a different world than it used to be but in the past things that helped in my experience was that you would still potentially give the person if the person has the right attitude or sorts some hypothetical situations; like how would you increase the profit of the company, which is almost applicable to any role; even HR or legal, you can always ask that question just to kind of get their sense of thinking and then analytical kind of way of thinking and if you see that they're digging deeper and they're very analytical; if you're open and transparent, in that early stage from the startup and with that person who is looking to make the move, if you are very transparent with that person, and ideally if that person wants to leave that job, in the big company. I would always look for this because that could be painful. The a very difficult and painful situation for professionals, in their careers. They were hoping to join this high-growth startup and spend another fifteen years with that startup. And it didn't work out after 3 months or 6 months and now they are kind of depressed and don't know what to do.

I agree that transparency is number one because as we talked about in the very beginning, it's a mutual agreement. So a candidate also needs to assess everything and make the decision according to themselves, after what they heard. What about meetings out of the office? A good example is Google's founders hiring CEO, Eric Schmidt, and inviting 11 CEO candidates to the US in the desert, Burning Man. To see how they behave and different and chaotic, right and stressful other kinds of difficult situations. And I heard there's another Lithuanian startup - what they do is if it's a like higher-level candidate, they invite for dinner, to spend some time, to see how the person is behaving. How do you find this kind of the interviewing?

Yeah, these things could be important, for sure. But it's almost like a complimentary thing. It's on the top of the scale. I don't want to be biased, that everyone who achieved a lot in their lives cannot do a startup etc. Not at all. Different people, different situations, different startups, different cultures. They could be an excellent fit for another startup. In our case, it would still be the skills, the ability, and the chance of fitting and doing the job at hand properly over those soft elements, of course, it's important that you can spend time with that person in one room and that you can speak and debate and have common values; but it's the skills, the problem solving the kind of grit, the never settle, get it done, it's very important for us to figure out if I take on the scale from 1 to 100 right on where are they on get it done scale of things because more than anything at the early stage startups and I love that the audience, listeners are on that stage. It's more important to get things done and to push things to the world than to contemplate, to evaluate, whether you should do this way or this way, I know it sounds boring and probably everyone knows that but especially in the beginning and if you ask me, what are your top 3 total, ultimate learnings of this startup, Revolut especially experience, one of them would be just doing it, get it done if you're not embarrassed when you are launching too late. I don't know who first said that Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, or somebody, but this is so true because alternatively you can be crushed by your competition before you even launch something right? If you procrastinate. This element of getting things done and understanding from the candidate whether he will be pushing the boundaries and again different stages of the growth of the company, dictates a bit different things right? We cannot be reckless now, we are less aggressive in pushing things now than we used to be. Particularly speaking about that early stage when you need to establish yourself. No one knows you right? No one knows you, you have to get there. You have to get there because the worst thing can happen is you don't fly or you pivot. And you do something else, close this startup and open another one.

Yeah, it's better to do this earlier than later, always.

Obviously now it has to be more evaluated from different angles, different risk, and so on.

Could you give an exact situation when you hired a person, so you interviewed, the Linkedin profile looks amazing, but the person is not getting things done. So how were you reacting to it?

For sure. Look, I'm pretty sure every situation was different as far as I remember. And it has to be different. One of the common ones, which I'm pretty sure can happen at any high-growth startup in a similar situation when the startup hired a senior person is essentially not fitting the expectations of the startup. So let's say during your weekly catchups with that new employee, you keep hearing even after you give the feedback, even after you give the guidance, try to push some things, try to get some early wins and low-hanging fruit, you still hear 90% of the time spent defining the problem and only 10% proposing the solution or acting on the solution. If defining the problem is more than 50% rather than speaking about the solution or talking about the result of the actions taken to solve that problem, it's already a red flag. And it happened in many cases, then you try to say to those people - okay, try to minimize the time you spend about the problem because there's always going to be problems. That's why we hired you. Not to re-tell the problems back to us that we already know but to focus on the solutions, and lay them down. In many cases in those big corporations (again I'm not saying that those corporations are bad), it's exactly the opposite. A lot of meetings are spent defining the problem and sometimes not even a single minute is left to look for the solution or to define the solution.

Yeah, just to imitate that problem solving basically. Okay and how long does it usually take for you to identify that there is no match?

My rule of thumb is three months - used to be three months, now it's different, with our kind of revise the hiring etc. We kind of look for more stuff depending on the position that we are hiring for. But definitely if you really want to see whether a senior person that you hired and you are really spending a lot of money which are so precious for early startups. Unless they raised one billion and they have to burn money, it's to evaluate that mutually in a few months. That's for sure. I think it's not beneficial for either side right?

And also for the team, right? Because especially if it's a manager so they just reorganize everything, and then if you hire another one, it's again, the transition period.

Yeah, so that's why we have and I'm pretty sure a lot of other companies still have probation periods, right? It is coinciding with three months, which really helps to evaluate the person and to have those checkpoints. Oh yeah, Indre, we could really do another podcast or 3 on these ways.

Another question is, what I'm curious about is, because in the very beginning, at Revolut, all the employees were kind of shareholders, getting stock options, is it still now like this?

Yes, let's say there are different, you know as I told you Indre, right, we are big, I mean not that big, but not that small anymore, right? There is this option element in the remuneration, whether it's a sign-on bonus when you just start the job or whether it's performance bonuses which are also options. It's a crucial part, it's an important part of the remuneration at Revolut, and on the motivation to some extent, right? Because I'm very straightforward when it comes to what motivates me to work at this particular company or that company - I think it's two things: It's the product that the company is building or the mission that the company is striving for and working for to achieve in the world, and that satisfaction that comes when you see people using your product and which changes their lives, improves their lives. So whatever the particular product is and the other part is the money part. It has to be that part. It has to be the remuneration and what you can do with that part to improve your life, to improve your relative's life, to then make a difference yourself, right? If you earn a lot of money at that particular startup in the end right? Then to create a charity, donate to the charity, and so on. I don't know maybe I see the world just too black and white. But it's kind of important.

But for me also to be a shareholder is like a different kind of the motivation. You're building kind of your startup, not someone else's.

Yeah, look, if you're not owning the company, and it's very kind of straightforward, I don't want to make the headlines with this sentence, with what I'm going to say - if you want that metaphor and analogy - it's really simple. When you are not a shareholder of the company, you are a 9 am to 6 pm employee or worker? When you are a shareholder of the company, you are 24/7. What I mean by 24/7 is not that you work 24/7, but you care about the company 24/7, it's your baby. Of course the more shares you have the more options you have, you probably care a bit more, but still even if it's just something. It's a different balance.

And this is my question, because in the very beginning of any startup, when you become a shareholder then you are really a key person and the amount the proportion of the shares is higher but when there is a very big company, you get a very small percentage - so is it still motivating or is it then just money?

So then you flip into the product and mission area more, then you flip into the when you kind of keep yourself in that options remuneration area. Because you're right. There are so many employees and now I'm not going to use Revolut case, I'm going to use some of the really big ones, Google and Apple and Facebook, where there are still employees from like fifteen years, twelve years, ten years ago, that they got amazing packages in terms of options, right? So their options are probably worth tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions for some, and they're still with the company and why they are with the company, I'm pretty sure there's still something that motivates them and in many cases, there must be - I'm just talking like Jesus now, like God or someone that knows everything, but there must be that product, that mission, the feeling, the knowing that product that you work on or the project or the people, it could be even people internally, at the company that you are in the same team with. You impact their life and you change their life for the good, and you make the world a better place. I know it sounds cliche. But to make the world a better place I think it's the ultimate motivator even for the biggest entrepreneurs in the world not to retire, not to think of retirement.

What would be the key insight for other listeners, for other startup people, when hiring? What is the most insightful thing you learned to do throughout your career?

Yeah, so look, I will try to kind of direct and address my insight to the particular area of potential listeners. Because it's impossible to tell something that would fit all of your listeners, it could be so different and some of them may think, what is he talking about and some of them, oh my God, this is the best thing in my life. So I'm directing it to the founders of the startups, tech startups, most likely that grow, let's say not keeping a few people but grow into tens and hundreds potentially within let's say first three years. Let's take this kind of most common segment. So for that segment, from the hiring perspective, especially hiring the experts, is hiring for the people that would be hands-on, that would be okay with solving the problems. That wouldn't sit down on the sofa or behind the sofa and kind of hide from the responsibility, not knowing the details - at the same time, you have to manage the candidate's expectations. So maybe just to kind of clarify the big insight is to manage expectations as Warren Buffett, I think has said - the secret of a happy life is low expectations - I'm not saying low expectations, I will rephrase it - the secret of a happy life is managed expectations. So if expectations are managed from both sides, the company believes and manages expectations - that okay, this is the person we want to have and this is exactly the person that seems to be right, and it's a good fit for us, not only by looking at the Linkedin profile and the titles that they have, but really by asking these questions that I went through in this podcast, and on the candidate side again - managing expectations in the way, as you said Indre, maybe doing a bit of more research of the company and culture. Maybe challenging the belief, that I will be fine after working at this company for 20 years, especially if the company hasn't grown that much. That's another potential failure, big failure - imagine there are so many companies that are hundred years old or like 50 years old, they haven't grown at all. And you still believe and no matter how many positions you change in that company - maybe you started as a personal assistant 20 years ago, and now you are a Head of Engineering. This is important- to manage the expectation from the candidate, about the company and don't over-promise to yourself because I'm pretty sure some of those candidates are just over believing in themselves that, oh it's going to be a piece of cake to adjust to that environment. Because I made the same mistake, I thought it was going to be piece of cake and it took me 5 startups to get adjusted, maybe 3 you know, like on the fourth and fifth one I already was kind of okay, no one will scare me, no one will surprise me. And yeah, let's leave with this one - manage expectations on both sides and look for someone who fits what is important for the company.