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- Nov 07, 2020
Taavet Hinrikus Quotes
Most Famous Taavet Hinrikus Quotes of All Time!
We have created a collection of some of the best taavet-hinrikus quotes so you can read and share anytime with your friends and family. Share our Top 10 Taavet Hinrikus Quotes on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- First
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- Nov 07, 2020
We built TransferWise focused on customer innovation. That means we build our product based first and foremost on our customers.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
As technology progresses, I believe that fintech will fundamentally change finance.
- Dead
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- Nov 07, 2020
Bitcoin, I think we can say, is dead.
- Disrupted
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- Nov 07, 2020
You start a business being hungry, foolish, and a little bit naive. But more often than not, you end up being disrupted yourself. It happened to Skype.
- Failure
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- Nov 07, 2020
Large incumbents become big and sometimes become lazy and set themselves up for failure in the future.
- Fast-Growing
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- Nov 07, 2020
Talent is the lifeblood of a fast-growing company.
- Better
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- Nov 07, 2020
As consumers in general, and with Millennials in particular, we're getting used to everything being cheaper, faster, better - and banks aren't keeping up.
- Need
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- Nov 07, 2020
I did an MBA because when I left Skype, I didn't have a clear idea of whether I wanted to create or join a company. But you don't need an MBA to become an entrepreneur.
- Got
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- Nov 07, 2020
No amount of PR works if you've got a bad product.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
Building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. I don't believe it when people tell me they've been working 80-hour weeks for five years in a row. I just don't think that's possible.
- Money
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- Nov 07, 2020
Doing something that empowers people makes you realise how boring it would be to work for a place where the goal is just to make more money. It's much easier to get out of bed and look forward to 12 hours of work if you're making the world a better place.
- Digital
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- Nov 07, 2020
We believe that the future of money is digital.
- Process
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- Nov 07, 2020
Changing behaviour is a very slow process.
- Bitcoin
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- Nov 07, 2020
Bitcoin and the whole discussion around it shows how big a need there is for innovation about what money is and how it is stored.
- New
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- Nov 07, 2020
Most of my time at Skype was spent doing new things.
- Europe
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- Nov 07, 2020
If the hard Brexit happens, I would assume that London wouldn't be the centre of the tech world in Europe.
- Business Sense
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- Nov 07, 2020
If the U.K. leaves the E.U., we'll have to consider whether it makes business sense to stay headquartered here.
- Only
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- Nov 07, 2020
Most banks tell their customers that they only pay a small upfront fee for international payments. But in reality, customers pay much more.
- Go
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- Nov 07, 2020
I spent my workdays at Skype creating a more connected world. We were shrinking the distances between people, making it easier to connect across countries. Then I'd go to my bank to transfer my euros to pounds, and it was like going back in time 50 years: expensive, inconvenient, and painfully slow. It was a nightmare.
- Money
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- Nov 07, 2020
The U.S.A. is a huge market which has a large immigrant population from Europe, India, from all around the world; lots of them have, still, strong ties to home, so move lots of money.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
The banks never sent me one chequebook. I'm very happy not to have ever touched one.
- Disaster
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that if Britain does decide to leave the E.U., that would be a disaster for the technology sector here and probably also for the broader economy.
- Credit
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- Nov 07, 2020
There are so many instances in banking where 'free' simply doesn't mean free, whether it's opaque overdraft charges or credit card providers that are quietly raising interest rates without customers noticing.
- Choices
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- Nov 07, 2020
Costs should always be presented up front so that consumers can make informed choices and get a fairer deal.
- Customer
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- Nov 07, 2020
There's one thing a CEO should always keep at the front of their mind, and that's customer needs.
- Kick
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- Nov 07, 2020
I get a kick out of helping the next generation of founders.
- Important
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- Nov 07, 2020
There are lots of people building the next TransferWise, not in a sense of competing with us but in a sense of building large, successful companies that are doing something important. I just enjoy helping these founders navigate the journey.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
Maybe I think too highly of myself, but I think maybe sometimes I can give some good advice - sometimes bad advice, I'm sure - and I think that's a way of giving back.
- Disclose
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that's the beauty of being a private company: you get to choose when you disclose something. You can play it in a strategic way or in a tactical way.
- How
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- Nov 07, 2020
If we think about how long Google spent searching - I think they came around in '98? And, OK, Gmail came in 2004, but it was literally built by one engineer as a 20%-time project. It was probably 10 years before Google started diversifying.
- Estonia
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- Nov 07, 2020
The fact that Skype was founded in Estonia, the fact that Skype had a successful exit, which meant that Estonia benefited in a major way, meant that entrepreneurship became legitimate. There were more than a thousand people who either worked or had worked at Skype who had seen what it takes to build a global business.
- Best
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- Nov 07, 2020
Securing and attracting the best talent is an obsession in the tech industry for good reason. It's your main asset; it's your edge.
- Innovation
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- Nov 07, 2020
Historically, people have flocked to Silicon Valley because of the belief that that's where the latest innovation is happening. It's a snowball effect.
- Education
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- Nov 07, 2020
Talent is a complex subject: from the education our kids get in kindergarten and beyond to the re-skilling of some parts of the workforce; from the opportunities available for research to how we attract the best people to work in our companies.
- Failure
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- Nov 07, 2020
The attitude to failure is one of the characteristics that's often called out as the difference between the U.S. and Europe. And we do need to be less risk-averse, more embracing of failure. Having failed makes you look bad in Europe. But in the U.S., it makes you look experienced.
- Community
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was in my early 20s when Estonia joined the E.U. For a kid who'd grown up in the Soviet Union, it seemed like my country had come of age. For a country that had been isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, it seemed like we were becoming part of the global community. It opened a whole new world of possibility.
- Country
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- Nov 07, 2020
For Estonia, joining Europe meant our potential as a country increased - not decreased - because of that connectedness.
- Nov 07, 2020
The world is getting smaller thanks to technology.
- Health
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- Nov 07, 2020
The technology is not an end in itself: it is a tool. It can make it easier for us to communicate or manage our finances. It can help us take care of our health or help policemen in their work. It can create jobs and boost growth. It can enhance transparency and accessibility to services.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
The world is becoming more global. More than ever, people are proactively deciding where to live, where to study, where to work. Sometimes it's out of necessity, sometimes it's out of choice.
- Attitude
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- Nov 07, 2020
Being a 'global citizen' is not something reserved for the global elite anymore. Thanks to the democratising power of technology, it's not a trend determined by privilege or even age but by attitude.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
At TransferWise, we started out as - and continue as - idealists. We start with what we can do to make things better and how we can solve problems, focusing on what people need. It turns out you can focus on building the best service and be successful as business.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
Sometimes, companies are better placed than politicians and governments to make change happen. That doesn't mean that they should not be held to account and follow international rules. But with the right motivation, they can be the force for change.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
To be a global business, you need access to the best talent from around the world - fix this, everything else falls into place. Whether it's homegrown or imported, we don't mind where it comes from - we just want the best.
- Positive
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- Nov 07, 2020
People need the financial sector to be safe; people also need the financial sector to go through a massive phase of innovation. That means delivering on the positive rhetoric, like around settlement accounts, not allowing Open Banking to be diluted, and leading the way on AML.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
International money transfer is a massive consumer rip-off. Banks and companies like Western Union have gotten away with it for too long.
- Frustration
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- Nov 07, 2020
While in two very different sectors, both Skype and TransferWise were born out of frustration.
- Broken
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- Nov 07, 2020
In 2011, when we launched TransferWise, it was our frustration with banks not giving us what we wanted or needed as customers. The motivation was a strong desire to solve a problem and not just fix something that was broken but create a better alternative and a new system for doing things.
- Down
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- Nov 07, 2020
'Big' problems are overwhelming, but when we distil them down to their simplest forms, then the solutions become simple, too.
- Factors
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- Nov 07, 2020
A seed depends on a whole host of factors to grow - from the fertility of the soil to the right mix of rain and sun to not being eaten by a passing bird. The same goes for an idea. For an idea to really take hold, other factors come into play, from timing to the emerging technology that makes it possible.
- Growth
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- Nov 07, 2020
Without immigration, nations would stagnate. It is key for innovation and for economic growth.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
Climate change, migration... they transcend national borders and require an international response.
- Creating
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- Nov 07, 2020
Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be.
- Overcome
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- Nov 07, 2020
We're living in a world where international governance is failing to overcome borders, but technology is succeeding in removing them.
- New
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- Nov 07, 2020
When a new hire is afraid to roll up their sleeves and get things done, it's a clear sign it's not going to work out.
- Job
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- Nov 07, 2020
A preoccupation with job title is an immediate giveaway that someone's priorities are not in line with the company's.
- Dynamics
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- Nov 07, 2020
The financial crisis of 2008 created a seismic shift in the dynamics of trust in financial services. FinTech would have happened without the global financial crisis - but it would have taken much longer.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
The growth of FinTech has been driven by adoption across age groups, but the demand from the millennial generation to innovate and think about financial services differently has been a catalyst for change.
- Connected
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- Nov 07, 2020
With a smartphone, we have a supercomputer in our pocket and are always connected. The way we bank is changing as part of this macro trend.
- Makes
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- Nov 07, 2020
Celebrity-spotting is pretty standard at Davos. It's one of the things that makes it easy to criticise.
- Police
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- Nov 07, 2020
There's most definitely a Davos bubble. You're in a small Alpine town that, for just four days in January, sees its population tripled with world leaders, CEOs, media, police, the army... and a whole bunch of people who aren't invited but just come to hang out.
- Community
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- Nov 07, 2020