What I find annoying is that an image has been deliberately created of me by some people that I don't recognize myself in. I find that annoying, especially when the people around me also suffer from it.
He was born in Canada to Iranian parents and is called the unicorn whisperer in the press because before he turned 40 he stood at the cradle of three companies that each reached a valuation of more than a billion. He started a hosting company during his studies at TransIP that would later be worth billions. He applied for the first Dutch banking license in 35 years with bunq. Ali Niknam, welcome.
bunq is not one company. We are involved in a great many different things. So the challenges we have in the US are very different from those we have in the Netherlands.
To what extent have you sacrificed your health for building those companies? What my mental coach always used to say to me: when you walk into my room, I always have the feeling that you walk in like a kind of Atlas. Why do you carry the weight of the whole world?
How old are you?
When I read those stories about you — that some of your employees were sitting at the office crying, that customers with 80 bank cards came to your headquarters because they couldn't reach customer service by phone — then it doesn't sound empathetic at all.
That is a good question. That is a journalist who has been chasing me for six years.
Can you handle injustice well?
I'm still practicing. At first it was all very sweet, and at a certain point I became one of those terrible tech billionaires. I never called myself a billionaire. If you write complete nonsense and people start believing things at some point, because yes, it's in a newspaper. I'll help you out of all your illusions.
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Welcome to a new episode of Doorzetters. He was born in Canada to Iranian parents, grew up in Gouda from the age of seven, and is called the unicorn whisperer in the press because before he turned 40 he stood at the cradle of three companies that each reached a valuation of more than a billion. He started a hosting company during his studies at TransIP that would later be worth billions. Then came the Data Center Group, and finally he did something almost nobody does. He applied for the first Dutch banking license in 35 years with bunq. He paid the bill in those years — about 150 million a year — out of his own pocket. He won a lawsuit against the regulator, De Nederlandsche Bank. And meanwhile more than 22 million Europeans bank with him. The Big Bros and I welcome Ali Niknam to Doorzetters. Welcome.
Well, how nice, guys, that I can be here. I'm really looking forward to it.
How nice that you're here. Ali, what was the hardest moment in your career?
The hardest moment in my career. Yes, I get this question quite often, and I honestly wouldn't know. I honestly wouldn't know. I think I look at these kinds of things differently.
Namely, most things don't really affect me that much. For me it's just a given, and then something happens. Sometimes it turns out well, sometimes it turns out less well. Sometimes it turns out terribly badly, sometimes it turns out terribly well. And yes, you know what also happens? At some point you go to bed, and then the next day there's another day, and then, well, you solve it again.
Yes.
And do you sleep well? Do you always sleep well?
When I sleep, I always sleep well.
Yes. And when don't you sleep?
Well, often when I have a lot on my mind, I like to finish things. I find it very unpleasant to go to bed with unfinished business, because then it's still playing in my head.
But don't you always have unfinished business?
Unfinished business. Yes. Sorry about that. So, background again. No, because then you'd say that you hardly sleep.
No, no, no. Yes, lately it's mainly the jet lag, but actually in the evening — and I also advise people around me who think, geez, it's becoming a lot — whether that's inside bunq or outside. Well, guys, in the morning, actually what I do is quite easy.
In the morning I just start with the things that are most urgent, even if they're the ones you like least. Yes, me too. I call it the shit hour. Between one and two hours I always do it. And then it's best if you leave me alone for a bit, because then I'm not always in my best mood. And then we've had that, because otherwise a kind of dark cloud hangs over your head. You know, is that done? Well, in the meantime I make sure I always answer my emails, messages, notes, whatever you have. Because communication is what I find most important, because then everyone knows where they stand and what needs to happen. And then I start on my somewhat longer projects. And before I go to bed, I make sure my inbox is empty, my WhatsApp is empty, that it's all done.
And yes, there is indeed a project that takes longer. For example, building a bank or an app or whatever. Yes, that doesn't feel unfinished, because the things of that day are just done.
You know that that's an ongoing...
Yes. I know what I had to do that day, I did it, and everything above that is a bonus.
But you said, for example: 'Don't touch me,' so you can handle disappointments well.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Because it often doesn't feel like a disappointment to me.
No, so is your expectation pattern then, let's say, not high enough, or is that...
No, that's not it. Let me think about how I can word this properly, but it's a bit like — lately, well, you said it already, I have Iranian parents. Lately I picked up a very Iranian thing, namely playing backgammon.
No, certainly not. Hmm. Not really. He's been a checker player.
Oh, professional checker player. Well, can you do it a bit? Can we do a small one? Yes. Yes, nice. But anyway, so I picked that up — I don't know, a few weeks ago, I think a buddy of mine had bought a board for a few euros at a flea market.
You can play it anywhere, right?
Yes, you can play it anywhere. It's a lot of fun and it's a pretty simple game. And well, so that's great fun. And at a certain point — I find this quite interesting — I thought at a certain point you get a little better. And then I thought: 'Hey, why doesn't it come out right all the time? And why do I roll wrong just now? Do I really have that much bad luck?' Rationally...
I know that that's not the case. I mean, a die is a die. It has no memory. Random things just happen. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it really doesn't. That's what I knew rationally. But emotionally...
It felt as if I had just rolled that one on 36. I always have bad luck. And I found it very interesting to observe myself.
Because what you tell yourself, you also start to believe.
So at a certain point it was again and again and again. Why do I always have bad luck? And then I thought: 'Yes, but Ali, this is what...' I don't know what I'm allowed to say here.
And then I started thinking, and then I thought: 'Well, I know it doesn't add up rationally. Why does it feel that way?'
And then I found out. Yes, because all those times that I do have luck — because when you play you think: 'Oh, if only he doesn't roll a new one and then it doesn't fall.' And then you take a kind of credit for that, and you don't tell yourself that.
No. So you take the positive as negative, and you remember the negative.
So I found that. But what I also found interesting is that I never had that feeling about my company.
About my company I did. Yes, it doesn't matter what you roll. Meanwhile we're a few weeks, maybe even a month further.
And now I've caught myself.
It brought you peace, maybe.
Exactly. What I roll is what I roll. Yes, I have no emotional... I just do the best with what the dice give me. Because of that I play much better. I find it much more fun, and I got rid of the nonsensical idea that I would have bad luck. Because that's obviously not the case.
I read your book, 'Entrepreneurs Always Have Luck'.
Never Have Luck. And if I translate that freely, you're basically saying: listen, you can force luck. It's not luck. If you just work harder, if you have more work ethic, if you really just go one night longer than a competitor, then you win. I'll translate it in my own words.
So in backgammon you believe in luck, but in business you force luck.
Yes. No, but actually I think it's beautiful that you say that, because I wrote that book a long time ago. Yes. With an update a number of years later, right. Yes. And so it was a bit of an underestimate, but those two things do come together. And that is exactly what I was trying to explain just now. In my work I don't have those emotions of 'oh what bad luck' at all. It's just 'oh okay, well this is what happens. What is the best thing I can do?' That or done.
But Ali, look, when the OCC says no to a banking license for bunq in the United States, you don't think 'oh well, too bad, we'll just carry on.' Then you do think for a moment — I'll put it very bluntly — 'goddammit', don't you?
The OCC was... geez, what's happening now?
And then... but yes, immediately: okay, we have to communicate, we have to do something with all the employees who worked hard. What are we going to do? What does it mean for us? We have to inform all the regulators, give the regulators context so they don't start thinking things that may or may not be true. Yes, it's just work.
Yes, you're now with AMX and we also tried, of course. We are a part shareholder of this company. We were working on a banking license, right. You also read and did that. And we didn't get that either, right. And then we think that was unjustified, actually. But yes, about that OCC again. We don't need to spend an hour on it. No, no, we can talk about it right away. But let me maybe give one example. If you're a postman, yes, then you know that you occasionally get wet from the rain. Yes. Then you can complain, you can whine, you can cry, you can find it annoying, you can find it terrible. If you play backgammon and you roll those dice, yes, then they also fall wrong sometimes. Well, if you then only keep saying every time: 'Hey, I have bad luck. I have bad luck. I have bad luck.' It doesn't get more fun, and you don't get better at it either. Yes, that is, I think, my point.
What kind of passport do you have?
Three: Dutch, Iranian. But the Iranian one has been expired for a very long time, so I don't even know where it is, but in theory I have an Iranian passport. Dutch, and then this one.
No, because I was wondering whether that... well, you're undoubtedly going to carry on, because you're a go-getter. Yes. But whether that rejection from the OCC could also have something to do with your Iranian background, given the times we live in now.
Yes. Yes. Well, that's what I find beautiful about America. I checked that with my, actually European, view of the world. Zero percent chance.
No chance at all that that's what it is.
That that's what it is. Hmm. Okay. Because the rejection was a very personal rejection, right.
Well, I can give the context. I mean, it's not some big secret or anything. With the OCC we had a number of conversations and we knew we had to do a number of things. A number of the things we had to do are also in that letter. Only we had the intention to do that after conditional approval. The OCC doesn't approve you in one go, by the way, just like De Nederlandsche Bank. You get a conditional approval and then you get a kind of to-do list to work through. And well, when you've met those conditions, you only get your real banking license. So much of what was in that letter we intended to finish after approval, after conditional approval.
Well, somewhere the opinion about that changed, or maybe the opinion was always like that. I don't know. Well, what's going on in the background and politically, I've heard a thing or two about that. It doesn't have that much to do with bunq or with my background. And that's why, yes, I think it will work next time.
This is a postponement, not a cancellation.
Is that the ideal future vision, actually? Having a banking license in America?
No, because everything we do at bunq we do for our users. And a banking license is not a goal, but a means. And a means is so that we can help the users there and be of service. The US, by the way, has multiple banking licenses. The legislation around the financial sector there is a bit more complicated than in Europe. Yes. You have multiple types of banking licenses. You actually don't have an EMI. We're not with an EMI. You don't really have a PSP either. No. So yes, it's just different there.
Hmm. You didn't exactly choose the path of least resistance to apply for a banking license there. You could also have just taken over a small bank.
Yes. Yes, because then you'd still have to meet all the requirements yourself.
Exactly. No, you still have to go through it. And it's very dangerous to take over a bank because, look, banks have all sorts of things on their balance sheet, and we've all heard about money laundering and this and that, and you don't know what you're taking over. So then you might be 3, 4, 5, 6 months faster. But yes.
