Benchimol: "I regret trying to change people"

It's great to be here with you all today. I think this is the third or fourth time this has happened with me. We've been together for 13 years, and I'm sure we'll only continue.

Well, speaking a bit about Brazil, I think every entrepreneur is super optimistic, right? And I've been in business literally for 25 years. Since 25 years ago, I don't think the scenario was ever worse than today. We had a series of 20% interest rates, we had enormous external challenges, and many other things that we don't have nowadays. And I think Brazil is the country in the world with the most possibilities. So the most important thing here is to understand the scenario and capture your opportunity in Brazil, because in Brazil, everything is still missing. And that's the good thing.

In 25 years of XP, we've been through crises and here we are. I started the company with R$10,000 in my pocket, and today the company is worth more than R$50 billion. We have more than 5 million clients today, more than R$2 trillion in assets, and again, we've been through crises. Human beings are curious, human beings are pessimistic, and it's precisely this survival instinct that works in some ways, but we always think the last crisis is the worst, when it's simply the last crisis, because the next crisis will be worse. That's how it goes.

Even though the current crisis is real, things are getting better and better. From the financial market's perspective, I think Brazil is privileged, because we have an international scenario of a weak dollar. We're showing correlation with other emerging countries, growing more than average, with a weaker dollar. The US government's policy today is one of internalizing various things, etc. Therefore, they want to export less, so they want a policy of having a weaker dollar.

So, weaker dollar, more dollars in the world, and more dollars in the world end up being invested in emerging markets. So that's very good for the dollar. When we look at Brazil, Brazil is a country with abundant energy, it's large, we have a unique language, and at the same time we have a monetary policy with a lot of room. We see inflation ending the year perhaps slightly below 4%. The real interest rate, the crisis interest rate, is a real rate of 11% per year.

I think if we continue, I'm sure this will continue, we'll keep working to ensure inflation converges aggressively, we'll have that very soon, and I think that makes many people optimistic. Brazil has a lot of opportunity in infrastructure because Brazil has historically never delivered on public works, which makes this opportunity reach very high levels.

Investing in credit is a good opportunity in Brazil, but I think there's a big opportunity today in buying companies because if we get a Selic of 8-9% soon, I think the equity market changes to another level. But today, when it comes to investments, I think the secret is to diversify. When people invest, many always look for a silver bullet. I don't think there is one. It's not a product, it's a portfolio that needs to be balanced over time, and it's precisely that balance that makes your portfolio resilient and allows you to get through crises.

But I'm a big advocate of diversification because a friend of mine says diversification is the only free lunch in finance. It's your chance to protect yourself and build wealth, and that's a bit of what entrepreneurship is about. So while most people say, 'Wow, Brazil is full of problems,' maybe the entrepreneur should look at it as, 'Good thing there are problems, that way there are entrepreneurs to solve them.'

I think we've done an OK job so far. When you look at the concentration of investments, today it's about 82%. When we compare with the United States, with Asia, the bar is very high. Here in Brazil, banks ended up having more strength than the global average. The clients ended up concentrating their financial lives there. And when you think about investments worldwide, you think of an independent advisor, someone more aligned with your interests than the bank. A bank is normally a place for credit, a place for transactions, but it's not where you invest.

So my answer here is more of the same, because we started to change, but that change was much less than it should have been. We're talking about 75 years of dominance in Brazil, we have the largest concentration of banking in the world. That makes me certain that we're talking... many times you have to adjust our strategies, and we're adapting, but the direction is to keep advancing more and more, and keep showing the solutions that can serve people better. We keep bringing in other models. We have other models that serve. In the past, there was a model based on commission. Today you have a fixed model, you have consulting, you have several other tools. So the strategy keeps changing, but the direction is the same: keep bringing quality financial education to people, keep having an increasingly competent team, keep showing that you're learning to grow your wealth over the long term.

It's hard, man. It's a journey, right? This year I turn 50, I think you mature a lot. I think in life, speaking entrepreneurially, I think the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur is to keep transforming over time, to have the awareness that many times the stability that got you to a certain stage is the very skill that will get you to the next stages. And many times there are many entrepreneurs who end up stuck in power, so to speak. And my vision was never that. I want the company, perhaps the work that I helped start, and along the way other partners joined me, I want it to continue to be independent of whether I'm the one running it or not.

So I was a partner in the company at 20, I stepped down as CEO 5 years ago, I'm now chairman of the board, I'm still a partner in the company today, but it's great to have a smarter partner who will produce, for example, more than I can. So I think perhaps the skill I've exercised most over all these years is the skill of letting go, of understanding that a company is a living being, and that these changes need to happen, including with myself. So I think the more success you have, normally I think people become a bit more arrogant. When you have success, you become more confident, but I think the right thing is the opposite. The more success you have, the more you should stay grounded, the more humble you should be. I think that's what will keep you more and more connected to these changes that are always necessary. So maybe that's it.

Maybe another thing I've learned over these years. You're more anxious, right? It's normal. You want to prove yourself, etc. And I've been learning in recent years that sometimes slow is fast, you know? Sometimes we think going fast is going fast, but sometimes going fast is going slow. And sometimes learning to plan, learning to have a bit more patience, controlling your anxiety a bit, planning better, because when you're young, you want to just go out and do things, you want to execute, and sometimes you need to take a little more time to be sure this is the right path. Get more certainty, because you never have absolute certainty. I think these are learnings you gain with maturity, and you find this balance.

Look, I'm here alive today, right? So if I go back and change something, who knows, maybe I wouldn't be here today. So I think I wouldn't change anything. But I think the lesson, perhaps my biggest mistakes, would be around people. I think when I was younger, I believed I could push people. I don't believe that so much anymore. People are a force of attraction, you can smooth some rough edges, but you can't make people do more than they want to do. I think it's fundamental to inspire, to tell stories, to align, etc. But it's important to have people around you who you can't lose. So I think perhaps the biggest mistakes in my life were trying to hold on to people for too long. And then you wear yourself out and you make people do things they don't want to do.

In other aspects, I think in my entrepreneurial career, I think I've been wrong more times than I've been right. But I think we built a company, I think a bit of my mindset is that I believe to innovate and to improve, you have to be able to manage mistakes, you have to be able to start some things, realize those things aren't working, interrupt quickly, face the failure as a lesson, and move forward. That's what life is about: starting small things, learning from mistakes, recalibrating your aim, and continuing to move forward over time. So there are many mistakes, but quick mistakes, short mistakes, and when you find a direction, you put a lot of intensity into it. That's how we built the company over the years.

And the important mistakes that perhaps I regret, it was that, perhaps giving too much of a chance. People who were very good, but perhaps couldn't transform within the company, or perhaps partners where the role grew too much. A company that grows a lot like ours, we doubled several times. So every entrepreneur wants a company that grows a lot, but they don't have the managers to bring in. So every two years, that specialist, who was an expert in one subject, transformed into a leader of 50 people. People can't transform inside. So thanks to everyone, you have a company that grows very fast. So it's good that in the last three years we grew a little slower, it helps to put things in place, helps with people. These are important learnings.

I think it comes a bit from our belief that sport inspires Brazil. I think in a way we're talking here about my trajectory, and partly a trajectory that is somewhat inspiring, in the sense of something that started a few years ago from zero and is here today. So I think in a way it's our way of impacting clients, impacting Brazil, by bringing good stories. Our entrepreneurial trajectory, celebrating talents that do good. When we think of sport, we can remember the scene at the Maracanã, athletes who have no labels, no left or right, nothing but being Brazilian, our flag, and believing more in the country. So in my logic here, how is it possible that the next Senna won't emerge? I've always been after this, because my dream wasn't to be an entrepreneur, it was to be a tennis player.

And well... no, I wasn't great, I was good, I was good. A curious story: until I was 15, I played tennis at a decent level for a school. One day I got home and told my dad that I was going to drop out of school. I said, 'Dad, I've decided I don't want to study anymore, I want to focus on tennis.' And he said, 'Son, very good. So today your tennis career is over, you're going to study now, enough with tennis.' Thank goodness he did that with me. So I think this thing about sport, sport is important because perhaps it's the best way to teach young people how life works. So it's very good for all of us to encourage our children to play competitive sports. The answer is literally how life is: learning to have a hunger for victory, learning to manage yourself, learning to deal with defeat, learning to be humble, etc. That's life. So when we talk about sport, we're talking about that. We're talking about inspiration, we're talking about Brazil, we're talking about believing, believing in the country.

I think Brazilians are very critical and have been punched many times. But I think we live too little. When we go to the stadium, we see the little houses with flags on the doors. I think it's important for us to believe more in the country, to show good examples. The impression is that sometimes there are only bad examples, and in the end that's not true. There are very good stories, but it's a cultural characteristic of ours. And I think in a way we're trying to change that a bit, by telling our story, showing that we got here without doing anything wrong, without crossing picket lines, celebrating Brazilian athletes, not international athletes, and so on. So we have an agenda to end that, to show our team entirely as good examples, to show clients what our soul is made of. I hope all of this transmits good values.

Absolutely. I think perhaps the themes that I think draw the most parallel are: there's no way you can be successful as an athlete, as an entrepreneur, or as an executive if you don't have resilience and a lot of discipline. I think those are two super important things. You have to understand that success doesn't come in the short term. I think the current generation has very little patience. I understand it's due to their social circumstances, etc., but good things take time to truly happen. And at the same time, you'll only get there if you have discipline, if you have a clear plan, and if you're faithful to the choices you make. It's no use wanting to do everything at once and in the end doing nothing. I always say internally that a company has a big difference between committed people and competent people. Everyone is committed. They arrive early, leave late, etc. But very few actually do what needs to be done and are resilient to problems, because that's how you build something. There are many people who, every six months, change projects thinking the grass is always greener on the other side. In the end, you have to find something you believe in, something vocational, something you do well.

By the way, going further in that direction. We're taught at home that you have to do what you like, right? I don't like it, you have to do it, you'll like what you do. Then you keep moving in that direction. There's nothing more enjoyable than feeling you're doing a good job, right? And that's it. And then, a lot of discipline. I think my life, I built it a bit with this vision of learning to have a clear vision of what I wanted to be in the future, looking a lot at facts. So when I read a text on the left, I had a good notion of American banking concentration, of what was happening in Brazil. So I looked at facts and data, and then how do I build compatible plans that lead me in the direction I was seeking. Having a vision is easy, having a plan is a bit harder, what's really hard is executing it day to day, right? What are you going to do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, where are you going to spend your time? And if you have discipline, you learn to say: 'No, I'll do this, this is now, this is later.' Well, I think that's about it.