I started with a huge fall, you know? So life isn't about who hits the hardest, right? It's about who gets hit and keeps learning from their mistakes and keeps evolving in life.
This is Guilherme Benchimol, founder of XP. Before building one of the largest investment firms in Brazil, he was fired and told he didn't have the right profile for the financial market.
In the beginning, it's really embarrassing, right? We started this story from scratch, and I think that helps keep the team grounded.
XP revolutionized the financial market, went public on the Nasdaq, and today has around 2 trillion in custody, 5 million clients, and 8,000 employees.
I think magazine covers don't show all the sacrifice behind it, right, Cris? And I went many years without taking a vacation. My daughter was born, I went to the hospital, and two hours later I was back at the company. The part about slogans on the wall is the easy part, right? The hard part is actually applying that in practice, right? If you don't have grease in the gears, metal hits metal, and the company explodes, right? The factory blows up.
We have been simplifying many things. So everything that is very repetitive has already been eliminated in the company. All the work an advisor does is already guided by artificial intelligence. I see the company becoming more and more scalable over time, I see artificial intelligence increasingly creating abundance in the market, but at the same time, I see few business owners optimizing this tool with the power it truly has.
Let's go. Thanks for agreeing to chat with us.
Let me show you this flag here, this flag here is cool. Every floor has something remarkable. This flag here was the IPO flag, that classic photo you see at the NASDAQ. It was this flag right here. So everyone who was there, we took 300 of our employees to the NASDAQ to ring the bell at the IPO. It was December 12, 2019. And everyone who was present at the event signed it and so on. So it became a symbol for us of a company that is succeeding.
You took some partners too, right?
Yeah. Man, it was a good kind of chaos. So cool. You guys stopped New York. We made a flag like this, of this type, for B55. And actually, even the founding team, everyone signed it too. We're going to hang it up at the office, inspired by this flag.
I remember what André Street had done a few months earlier, right, and he'd also caused a good stir. "Bro, we're going to break his record too. We're going to bring more people than he did." And we brought a big crowd. So, it's always, always, always really cool. But, but an IPO is never the end, right? Many entrepreneurs think the IPO is the finish line. An IPO is just a means to give you more muscle so you can keep advancing your long-term project.
Hey Gui, so we're at the XP headquarters in this...
We're on the 29th floor here.
We have our headquarters in São Paulo, which is about 45,000 square meters just in São Paulo.
That's a tough record to beat, isn't it? How many floors in this tower?
9,000 employees. 75% of them are in São Paulo. And here on this floor, we have our institutional areas. These are the areas that serve large international funds and local funds. So it's a complementary desk to the retail desk. Today, we have about 15% of the total market share of the Brazilian stock exchange, and we're going to get to know this part of the company, which is more institutional, right? How do we serve these funds, how do we... Each broker has a Bloomberg terminal in front of them with information on Brazil, the world, etc. And that's how we create market and ensure clients get good information and the best possible prices. Well, let's go.
Let's do it. What's it like to go from that 25-square-meter room to this whole structure, right? This super iconic building here in São Paulo, right?
It's one day at a time, you know? So today, this growth—people looking from the outside might have a very different impression than those who have lived through it for 25 years, right?
But it's a huge source of pride, for sure. It's a huge source of pride to see where we came from and where we're going. So, I think the whole team today ends up carrying a bit of that history, right? When people arrive at this building and see these two towers, they think we started big, right? But we started the story from scratch, and I think that helps us, I think, to tell this story with a lot of intensity; I do that a lot, and it helps keep the team grounded. But here, here we're going to see, right? We cover every market that exists in Brazil and around the world. So, we're going to see the fixed income desks, the equity desks, derivatives, foreign exchange, there are infinite markets, commodity markets, right? So, whenever an investor wants to access a market, they connect to these desks and we offer not just the best information, but also the best prices. So, this here is one part of the company, which is the brokerage firm, right? It looks like a bong booth, right?
Literally, on this floor, we must have about 300 people, more or less. They are different client profiles. So each broker serves a portfolio of clients, each bay is a type of market, and each bay serves a specific group of clients. So it ranges from funds to banks, including international funds, large family offices in Brazil, right? So, each client has their own profile, each client has their own specific details. And the mission of this whole group here is precisely to help these clients make good deals. And it's a, again, it's a super dynamic world, because every day is a new day, so all markets are highly volatile, and there are moments that are even more volatile. It's really a very dynamic life, isn't it?
Whoever has the fewest screens here has four.
Yeah, yeah, that's it. We are currently the company with the most Bloomberg terminals in Brazil as well. Another record that isn't exactly great to break because every terminal is super expensive.
We're here in the office, right? Anyway, how's your routine? You still come to the office every day. You wear a shirt every day, right?
A shirt every day. Uniform.
I think I can unlock it. Let me see if I have access here in the room. Well, let's go. I, I come in every day, yes. I haven't been the CEO of the company for 5 years now. Thiago is the CEO; I was the CEO of the company for 20 years. I've already told this story in our course, right? Jorge Paulo once told me a phrase, you know, that really influenced my present, my current situation, which is: when you're an owner, the CEO chair often feels too small, right? So, in my case, I agree. When you're a CEO, you have to follow various rituals the company imposes on you, and often you can't focus on the topics you find important for the time they require, right? So, it's great that I found someone better than me to run the day-to-day, and I'm able to have a quality schedule so I can dedicate myself more to the topics I find important. I come in every day, I arrive at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, I leave at 7:00 or 8:00 at night, I love what I do, but I have a more flexible schedule, I love it. I do the things I find most important, always aligned with Thiago, and I also end up spending a significant amount of time on commercial agendas, right? It turns out that, since I am the face of the company, that also helps the company quite a bit to open doors. Thiago, as a former CTO, ends up giving it even more of that feel of a financial market company, but a technology company within the financial market, right?
And I think we see a lot of that here. How are the topics of intensive use of technology, but especially artificial intelligence, going here at XP?
Look, they are accelerating more and more here inside. We have simplified a lot of things, so everything that is very repetitive has already been eliminated in the company. And I think the main impact I see is the work of a broker, of an investment advisor; it was a very artisanal job until a few years ago, right? And nowadays, with the amount of data, it's not. So today, all the work an advisor does is already guided by artificial intelligence. Whether it's the client's allocation, the way they will get in touch, what they will say—these are our tools that know the clients very well and increasingly know the appropriate way to reach out, what to do, and how to do it. So, I see us improving our service more and more, offering increasingly better quality, and having more and more scale over time.
It's not one specific area of the company; you can see that the business is artificial, artificial decentralized in the company, it's within each area, there are priorities, evidently, but it is indeed decentralized. And where the client sees the most impact is precisely in this service area. We are now launching a virtual advisor, it starts operating in June, which will support clients with up to 100,000 reais. So, clients with up to 100,000 reais will talk to an advisor that is an artificial intelligence. Cris, this advisor does absolutely everything, okay? You can talk about macroeconomics, talk about Trump, about international scenarios, you can talk about who Cris is as an investor; it will build your portfolio and adjust it over time. So, incredible. So, I see the company becoming increasingly scalable over time, I see artificial intelligence increasingly creating abundance in the market, but at the same time, I see few entrepreneurs still optimizing this tool with the power it has.
That helmet was the one Alonso raced with in the 2024 Bahrain race. We actually sponsored the Aston Martin team for two years in Formula 1.
From the Aston Martin team, we are always very associated with sports. So we are with João Fonseca, and several other sports assets. So this idea of associating with sports is not just a way to make our culture tangible, right? Every athlete must have resilience, focus, discipline, and these themes that are geared toward great athletes. So we do internal marketing work by creating these comparisons, and it's also cool that we are sponsoring Brazilian athletes. When we talk about sports, there's no right or left, there's just being Brazilian and raising the country's flag. So, it turns out to be our strategy to connect more with Brazil and Brazilians, while at the same time conveying these values that are so important to a successful entrepreneur.
Because going back to the beginning of our conversation, everyone knows that whole story which is very cool—I think it's a new video—but you were fired, right, labeled as unsuitable for the financial market.
Incompetent. But on the other hand, perhaps unlike common sense, man, you actually used all of this as fuel to become an entrepreneur in the financial market, right?
Look, I think you use it as fuel. After you start having some success, because in the beginning, it's really embarrassing, isn't it? Actually, it was embarrassing back then, but today, at nearly 50 years old, I can understand the reasons that led to me being fired, you know? Just because you were fired doesn't mean you're an incompetent person.
But after a while, when you start making things work a bit better, you realize that showing yourself as vulnerable connects, and then you start taking pride in talking about your failures.
And all of this makes the team feel very humble, and you become an accessible leader, an honest person, an open person, someone who also shows themselves as entirely vulnerable. This creates a great internal atmosphere. It also creates a connection with clients and partners.
So no, nobody, nobody is only success. You might succeed more than you fail, but you still had your falls along the journey, right? So I started with a huge fall, you know? And even after that fall, I had other falls along the way. So life isn't about who hits the hardest, right? It's about who gets hit keeps learning from mistakes and keeps evolving in life. So that's the best way to explain what resilience really is, you know? So that was a little bit of my story.
And when you decided to be an entrepreneur, you know, to start XP, anyway, how was the family support, mom, dad, friends, what did they say? We always know that story where we start a business, and it's like, "What if it goes wrong, since it's not a steady job, not a guaranteed thing," because, well, you had already lost that steady job. How was that support at home?
No, in my case, I had no support at all. My father's dream was for me to do an MBA, to study abroad, to follow a corporate career. So, on top of having been fired, my father said, "Wow, and you still want to be an entrepreneur? So you're doubling down in the wrong direction." That was his view.
And the Brazil of 25 years ago wasn't an entrepreneurial country, right? So, really, ah, what I ended up doing 25 years ago was something very unlikely indeed, right? No doubt that it would work out. Despite that, I almost went broke a few times in the beginning, right? So, I didn't have anyone's support. I think every entrepreneur who starts out, they struggle against the odds, right?
But there's something inside them that stirs them and makes them believe it will work out. So, with me, it was no different. It's like, you have a rough idea, you see point B, you go with all your intensity in that direction, and then you connect C, or D, or E, and so on, right?
What would you have done? Looking back now, it's easy to say, maybe, right? Easy to say: "Man, I always imagined myself at XP," right? Anyway. If you hadn't started XP 25 years ago, can you imagine what you would have done?
I think I would've been fired, especially because I wasn't a person who fit into a corporate environment. So, when you're very entrepreneurial, you don't really fit the rules, right? So, I was that type of employee, right? Very questioning, very much wanting to do things my way and a little more rebellious. So I think if I hadn't started it, I would have started another business, because I wouldn't have lasted in corporate life, I would have been fired again.
Had you already given up on tennis?
I had already given up on it. But I think the sports life is very tough, right? Very tough. Although it was an important dream in my teens, it's a good thing my father didn't let me pursue that path. But I think I would have been an entrepreneur anyway. I thank you. No, I wouldn't have had the profile to pursue a corporate career. And I think being an entrepreneur is very much about that, right? You have to learn to know yourself. So, those who are more self-motivated, who perhaps have a more competitive spirit, who are more self-taught, this profile is a more entrepreneurial profile, it's someone who, because it's hard to fit into a corporate structure.
Right? I think that's why I ended up, I think if it hadn't been with XP, I think I would have ended up succeeding at something else, right? In all modesty here, okay?
No doubt, no doubt, absolutely.
So, looking back at this whole story, there is a, you know, a very interesting fact that you'll like to know, one that's worth us remembering. I had a company called Axera. We provided data solutions for consumer goods, but we created a spinoff which was a software factory, and we'd take on any business. The company was just starting, and I was helping the team out a lot since we had, you know, created a spinoff and separated a team. I was helping the guys organize sales and everything else, and I would join them on sales calls at large industries and major companies. At one point, a company called XP from Porto Alegre called the office. Our office was down south, really close to XP. "There's a request here to create some dashboards for XP and such." "Who is XP?" "What is that business?" "No, they're the guys who deal with the stock market." Back then, I didn't even know what the stock market was, right? I said, "You guys go to that meeting; I'm not even going to that one." So the team went, you know, they did a mapping there. Your team at the time shared a bunch of spreadsheets on how they organized their client portfolio, anyway. "Look, we need to automate a bunch of these things here." But I remember that moment. I remember that well.
Ah, man, that was, I don't know, 20 years ago.
Yeah, 2000, 2004, it was around there.
Yeah, you guys were moving to a slightly more upscale office in Porto Alegre, right?
