00:27:32 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:27:32] S1: And what's that investment worth now? Probably $500,000,000. It's pretty good. [00:27:39] S0: Yeah. With all the dilution and... [00:27:41] S1: It's pretty good. Yeah. And she's... And she owns... Well, owned 20%. [00:27:46] S0: Yeah. Back then, obviously, it's diluted. Now she's, like, 5% probably today. Pretty good. Yeah. That's her first investment and also probably the last investment. [00:27:58] S1: And she's still... She, like, run finance? [00:28:00] S0: No. She is our president. She runs all the comm, and she runs our charity foundation. And she does, yeah, a lot of the the the public affairs stuff. [00:28:12] S1: And so she gives you the money. Yeah. You closed the coffee shop and the burger shop down? [00:28:18] S0: No. That was still going. The shop's still there. Today? Yeah. No way. Yeah. I mean, somebody else is running. We we not really involved anymore. Do you own it? Not anymore. We we we sold it after, I don't know, four, five years after started Airwallex. So you quit the bank? We we not, like, entirely sold it. We just give it to a friend. [00:28:42] S1: K. And your friend still owns it? Yeah. Do you ever go back? [00:28:46] S0: Yeah. The shop's still there doing so well. [00:28:48] S1: I mean, almost died during COVID, but, you know, she struggled a bit and... But still there. I mean, you're, you know, in a position where you could probably buy it back. [00:29:02] S0: Yeah. But, like, I Make it an office. [00:29:05] S1: Make it an office.
00:29:05 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:29:05] S1: Make it an office. [00:29:07] S0: I I don't I don't think that way. Like, why? I mean, the coffee shop is doing well. Just let it be. I moved on. Right? [00:29:16] S1: Maybe... How do I say this? The feeling that I seem to get is that it didn't really matter what business you're really in. The end goal was the business, like going and building a big company. And you have belief that that company could be a national franchised burger shop or coffee shop or magazine. Is that fair? I I think I was just trying to be happy, and I wasn't happy [00:29:49] S0: between 20 and 30. I mean, literally since 17. Right? I I wasn't happy with where I was. You know, I I grew up very happy. You know, I was one of the wealthiest family in the town, and my academics are very good. I was very popular as a kid, and I played basketball really well. I'm just kind of have everything, and I was really happy. And But since my family moved to a new country, don't speak the language, you know, you just feel that your life have fundamentally changed and, you know, really it's just struggle to find my belonging and find my happiness in a society. And I think building businesses is one way for me to keep discovering how can I get back to where I was from both of a mental and spiritual [00:30:41] S1: perspective? Like when you were a kid?
00:30:41 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:30:41] S1: perspective? Like when you were a kid? [00:30:43] S0: Yeah. Like, when I was, like, a teenager. Right? It was, like, building the magazine. I was, you know, the happiest period of my life, and I had everything I I need to have in in life. And I was extremely happy, and I just never able to get back to where I was. And and it's just sort of that struggle throughout my twenties. Just Literally, all [00:31:02] S1: of your twenties? [00:31:03] S0: Yeah. I mean, just really... I mean, I I I work in a decent job in the investment bank. [00:31:07] S1: Yeah. Goldman's not bad.
00:31:08 · Jack Zhang
[00:31:08] S0: I I mean, I write in code. And Yeah. But I just don't feel that's what I... Where I'm belonging. I I feel I can do bigger things. I feel I can... I'm smarter than most of the people I'm interacting with, and I was just different. Right? I always complain about, oh, this is so bad, and why can't we fix it? And why can't we do this and that? And you always have some sort of management of the management come to tell you, I just just... You know, that's not your job. Don't worry about it. And I look up to the people that my managers and my manager's manager and the head of the entire investment bank. I'm like, I don't wanna doing that job. That's kind of like a shitty job. And just become part of this machine and, yeah, doing nothing relevant. You're not creating anything, and especially as a trading... As a sort of writing code to trade, and you just see a p and l. You know, I I used to say daily p and l's of hundreds of million dollars. Right? And and then you're running this machine behind this massive number, and then you feel like a sense of... You don't feel a sense of achievement. You feel that you're just dealing with a number that what do you do have zero impact to the society. You're not helping anybody. You're playing a zero sum game. All you try to do is showing that you're smarter than the guy sitting the next to a next to a computer, you know, in front of a computer screen in Chicago probably, like, just also doing algo trading and profit trading. It it... I just fundamentally don't know the value I'm creating for this world. Mhmm. I just really lost. And... But I don't wanna resign from my job because I love writing code, and I feel that if one day I can do something, it's probably technology. And that's the the scale I I would I would love to to see, and I wanted to keep running code so I can do something one day. That's why I always get Max to do the to do the stuff full time, and I'm always, like, keep running code.
00:33:09 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:33:09] S1: Do you feel happy now? [00:33:13] S0: Better than than, you know, like, when I was in the twenties. I feel I've found something I really enjoy doing and and able to scale. Right? The economy scale is really exciting, and building something that changing the financial infrastructure landscape globally, building a new generation of a global bank is is very exciting. And now you're able to leveraging AI to creating organic finance on top of this infrastructure even make it more exciting. But if you ask me, like, am I as happy as I was 14 years old and building that magazine? Probably not. [00:33:47] S1: Do you think you'll ever get there? Do you think it's possible? I don't think so. Why not? You know, like Have you reflected on this?
00:33:47 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Jack Zhang
[00:33:47] S1: Do you think you'll ever get there? Do you think it's possible? I don't think so. Why not? You know, like Have you reflected on this? [00:33:54] S0: As you're getting older, you... You're just getting more complicated that you you see more, you know, the ugly side of the world, and you just don't have the the spiritual mindset anymore when you as a kid, as a 14 years old that the world is so pretty, you know, you're building something that from nothing and then you work with the people you like and no one's getting paid, but you get a lot of... You know? Well, how to call it, like... Everybody just love what you do. You know? And I couldn't say all the employees and everyone love what I do. I mean, they they, you know, I'm not... You know, they they might understand... Not understand the decisions I'm making sometimes. Right? But when I was 14 years old and everybody just truly, truly believe in what we're doing, enjoy what we're doing, there was no such... It's almost like a fantasy, if you know what I mean. It's just like a perfect world that there's no downside. It's just people are just happy and have a lot of upside. Mhmm. And people are just simple as a kid. You know? Mhmm. [00:35:02] S1: Are your parents still around? [00:35:03] S0: Yeah. My my parents live in Melbourne. And do you [00:35:08] S1: keep in touch with them? Yeah. Every week. You enjoy running a company of this scale?