Take this moment for any doubt or question you want to ask David Velez. He'll answer it now. They've already started.
Let's see. This one is very good. What would you invest in if you had no money at all and you won the Baloto right now? Right now.
Right now. What would I invest in? You don't have money, you're an ordinary person, and you win the Baloto.
I would invest in CDs or bonds, or even in a Nubank savings box, and no...
And it's not to advertise, but the thing is that most people think investing means taking absurd risks to try to double or triple, and really...
The way to build money and build wealth is by investing for the long term. Having a very long-term mindset and watching how the interest rate compounds over the years, compounding and compounding, compounding, and that grows exponentially.
And that is safe money, and that is safe money where you're not taking any kind of risk. There is a specific risk there from the Colombian government if it goes bankrupt, because they are treasury bonds.
But in general, it's not buying, it's not making bets, it's not investing in stocks that you really have little capacity to understand. It's looking for safe investments that maybe don't pay as much as others that promise the moon.
Come on, we see a lot in Colombia these pyramids and these frauds. None of that is true.
None of it, those are pure scams. It's looking for safe investments: treasury bonds, Colombian government bonds, Nubank savings boxes, investing for the long term, and being very responsible and disciplined with what you spend.
That's exactly what we talked about when we started the stream, when I told you, so if I have a million dollars and I put it in the Nubank savings box, in a year I'd have...
14... I'd have another 130,000 extra just by leaving it there, just by leaving the million dollars sitting there. And what he answers is literally right on point. What do I do if I win the Baloto? I put it there.
I'm not losing, I have my money there, and on top of that, the more time passes, the more the fortune grows, right?
And that's the part that many times we don't... it's hard for us humans to understand the exponential. That keeps growing on interest, on interest, on interest, on interest, and after 5, 10 years that's a lot of money. Why don't people do that? They can't save, they don't have the...
Yes, I think first because there are always the sirens' songs of the quick buck, of free money, of the pyramids, of this thing where there's a lot of money and a lot of fraud is lost.
Another is the discipline of saving for the long term, and the discipline of not spending so much. I think it's those combinations.
Let's see, there are many questions here. Let's throw another one. At what moment did you realize this is what you wanted to do?
Well, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I mean, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but as I told you, since I was 20, when I arrived at that bank and I spent 12 years, from 20 to 33, trying to see ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas, and nothing came out of my head.
I can't imagine how it felt to leave the bank you arrived at, when you said, 'No, you know what, I'm tired.'
One of the big banks here in Brazil. I won't say the name, but one of the most luxurious branches.
That's a very good one. What sacrifice do you think is the biggest one you've made to get where you are?
And I think working so hard in my 20s, because in my 20s, that decade again, that was little friends, little going out, little girlfriend, little partying. It was work, work, hard work, and there were friends who were going out partying and everything, and sometimes I could too, I won't say I didn't.
But it was a moment where I said, I'm here to learn, to learn everything I can, to absorb as much information as possible.
How important is a woman in a man's growth in a project like this? For example, your wife, how important has she been for you to be where you are now?
Wow, she was very important. I met her at the beginning of Nubank, and she lived through the whole process. She really lived through the whole process, and she was a very, very strong support. One, I sometimes say that since I started at Nubank I sleep like a baby.
I wake up every 2 hours crying in panic. That's entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship isn't... everyone says entrepreneurship is going to talks and shows and all the interviews. No, entrepreneurship is very hard. It's a lot of work.
The quarters don't work, the quarters break, you're left without money. So having had someone, a partner who gives you that continuous support, and especially since I care so much about having a family that works well, the children, it has given me the mental peace to be able to focus many times on what needs to be done here inside Nubank.
Of course. And in this case, young people of 20 who get a woman, do you think that in today's youth it's good for someone who's an entrepreneur to have a woman? I say it in the sense that women take away time, [laughter] right?
I think so, I mean, always if it's the right company, the right partner. There's company that adds and there's company that takes away. If it's the partner that lifts you up, of course, at 20 it's also healthy to have and healthy to have friends too.
But I'm not saying that one has to be locked away. It's good to have some breathing room too, and people with whom you can discuss until the early hours too, or have a boyfriend, all of that is very, very useful. But being surrounded by people who are going to add to you and not people who are going to take away from you.
I have a doubt from my point of view. I don't know if this happens to me because of the world I'm surrounded by, or if the world is really changing, but I feel and I see in the world around me, and especially in Colombia, that traditional families...
They're not even... people don't want to get married anymore, they don't want to have a partner, you see a lot of infidelity and it's even normalized. I don't know if it happens in my world or if in the normal world everything is working as it always has, right?
I think it's like that everywhere. Yes, yes, I think it's like that everywhere. Each person will have their reasons for choosing and their vision for choosing what is best for their life. I think there is freedom there.
A question about Nu. Does it have an account maintenance fee? Can a young person with no fixed income use it and save?
Zero account maintenance fees. Anyone can open the account, receive a debit card, can open a credit card. Anyone over 18 can open the account.
Exactly. Really, right? And it just asks you for documentation, anyone over 18 opens it, you download the app, it takes 2 minutes, you take a selfie, enter the information, boom, you open the account. It's very easy.
And then we send the debit card to your house, and there's a credit card that if there's a credit approval, sometimes they come with high limits, sometimes they come without a limit because of the credit part, and it goes up over time.
But debit and savings boxes for everyone, without any kind of commission, right?
And right now you're focused on... it's not growing in Colombia. Are you very focused on...
Yes, no, we're doing well, we're doing well in Colombia. We're reaching almost 100 million clients and we're doing well, but there's still a lot to go. There are another 20 million clients in Colombia that we want to bring in, and we're going to launch more products next year and launch more segments. So there we go, there we go.
Mm, sorry, there are many questions, they're asking a lot about AI. People are very interested in AI. They're asking about countries where they want Nu to open, because, well, which countries?
They were saying Venezuela.
Ah, well, Venezuela, we're going to study it, there's an opportunity there that could be interesting.
Which is the toughest market that you think is hardest to enter with Nu? China or what?
Well, China, I think it's... yes, yes, it's already... it would be impossible, but we never say impossible.
Of course, because over there they're also very digitalized. It's very, very digitalized, very advanced.
But among the opportunities, the United States, which is what we just started, is a market, it's half of the world's financial services, so a very big market.
It wasn't your plan A. What was your plan B and C?
I had a little list of ideas.
I had a little list of ideas there that I was always thinking about. And it wasn't plan A. Plan B always caught my attention: education. We talked a lot again about an industry where there's a lot of lack of access and a lot of lack of quality.
And the third was health. It's another big industry where people don't receive good services, people have to wait a lot. Those three industries, and the fourth was Telecom. When we looked in Brazil, there was a list of the most hated brands.
The first ones were banks, the second was Telecom. So we started with banks, and today it has changed. Now banks are viewed very favorably, partly because of the competition we brought. And those were the Telecoms, and here in Brazil we've already launched a Telecom product, you can already open a Nu Cell account, it's called, you can open a cell phone account within Nu.
So those have been those big industries.
Does the Nu app only lack chat or what? WhatsApp?
It's missing, and we already have everything there.
Because there you can buy tickets, you told me. Hotels, right? It's crazy. It's crazy.
Well, let's see, I see they're asking about the foundations.
Let's see, if you had to start from scratch with the mindset you have now, what would you do or what would you dedicate yourself to if you had no foundation like me or most young people today? [laughter]
Let's see, I first... a bit is if it's not very clear what to do, always look for a job with someone with whom you can learn a lot.
