A Brazil Journal videocast.
You don't have to do what you like, you have to do what you do well. And the better you realize you do something well, the more you will want to do it.
Hello, we are here for another Business of Life meeting, with a very special guest, Guilherme Dias Fernandes.
Well, it's Dias Fernandes, I hadn't heard that in a long time.
Ah, eh, Guilherme Benchimol, who is the founder of XP, an entrepreneur, an economist, and with an incredible story that we're going to get to know a little bit about. I thank you very much for being here. I know you're in a week, well, everyone, I imagine, your schedule is complicated, but this past week was very complex, with a new project, B55, so it's a gift for all of us here. We are having your time here.
No, it's a pleasure, Nilton. It's always good to talk to you guys. I hope the chat is enjoyable too.
It will be, it will be. I have no doubt. It's an incredible story, right? Tell us a little bit about your background.
From Rio? Where from? What part?
From the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Eh, eh, my parents separated when I was very young.
And school, where did you, what did you do?
I went to, I went to São Vicente de Paulo.
Ah, São Vicente de Paulo, that's an old one. I had a middle-class life. My father is a very competent doctor, so my life with him in adolescence was a more, eh, a more plentiful, more abundant life. My mother had a harder life, so they were two very different worlds.
They did, they lived near the Botanical Garden, my mother, and my father in Leblon, so they were two good neighborhoods. Eh, but life with my mother was a life with tighter money, it wasn't, you know. Right? So it was one, but it was, I stayed more, it wasn't, it was more weekends with my father and during the week with my mother. So my normal life was with my mother, it was this life a little bit, a little bit harder, and with my father, right? A life that was more...
Brother. Did you have any?
I have, I have two more siblings.
Two siblings. And so, I grew up taking the bus to school.
Eh, were you a good student?
I was a good student in math, for the rest I was just a passing student, barely scraping by in the rest. So, I was that student who was good at math, but I loved playing soccer at school. Uh, and I got by, right? Uh, I loved sports. So, my life was basically, uh, doing well in school, minimally well, and playing tennis. So, that was my life during adolescence. Uh, I never dreamed of being an entrepreneur. I imagined that my life would be following an executive career. So, my cousins were my great role models; they were all very well-educated. So, my father wanted me to be a doctor. Later he, he saw that I didn't have the calling. He said: "Guilherme, you have to follow what your cousins did."
Why, where did he see that you didn't have the calling?
Because I, because in my teens I, I used to accompany my father a lot, my clinical father, and he did a lot of angioplasties. And in one of these, in one of these exams that I ended up accompanying him on, the patient ended up having something super rare, which is an allergy to the plastic of the catheter. And she passed away in front of me and I saw the whole dynamic happening there, and so on. I said: "Dad, look, no, it's not for me." I was, I was 15 years old, so I was oscillating between, actually, I wanted to play tennis, my father wanted me to be a doctor, and then...
Your brothers, did any of them go into medicine?
No one went into medicine. And, and then, at that moment I, I was perhaps for about two years there, kind of, kind of orphaned. But I was good at math and I attended a lecture by Luiz César Fernandes in '91, '92, where he talked about the financial market: that if you were good at math, you would learn how to make money, you would learn to understand stock fluctuations and so on. And I found that interesting and I think it combined a bit with this idea of learning to deal with money. Since, since my mother had a somewhat more difficult life, I wanted to learn to manage this business that ended up being lacking at home. So I think that the combination of this led me to study economics.
Your grandparents, your paternal grandfather was a doctor too. The family, you, the family, the whole family, because your family, the Benchimols, I, I know them because I am, obviously, from the Jewish community. Benchimol is a traditional name there in Pará, especially now in the Amazon, the Benchimol family is well-known.
Yeah, the family from there are more merchants, the ones in Rio are more, they are great entrepreneurs.
They are great entrepreneurs. Yeah, but the family, but they were, it's a, it's a more distant part of the family. Uh, you didn't have contact with...
Little contact with them, little contact, like, my grandfather was a doctor, my uncles were all doctors, my cousins were doctors, are doctors.
They lived in Rio. Lived in Rio. Lived in Rio. So, so that was a bit of, of, of life. And so I ended up doing economics because I wanted to work with money. And I remember my father, I, I wanted to go to PUC, he said: "Guilherme, you have to go to UFRJ because UFRJ has a curriculum that they won't take away from you and such." And it's a, it's a more academic course, right?
It's not such a, such a practical course, right?
So I did UFRJ and I think the advantage of having gone to a federal university was that, because it was a very academic course and maybe even a bit boring, I started working too early. So I entered college already interning and I joined a brokerage firm at the time. Sênior, later it became Ágora.
And I stayed, I stayed interning there for two years.
No, Sênior was, it was Edgar's and Vanderlei's. So I joined there as an intern, stayed for two years, took several courses and, and I think the advantage of starting to work early is that you start to realize what you don't like and what you think you start doing well, so you want to do it better. So I remember that, that I, that I arrived at the brokerage firm super early, often left super late. So I liked working much more than doing, than doing UFRJ and that academic course where I learned a lot about Karl Marx, that didn't...
And it was possible to coast through the course easily.
I kept going like that because they didn't take attendance that much, so I, I was finding my way. Yeah, I, I think I was that student who could explain to the professor that I, that I had to be working, you know, I couldn't give up the internship and all that and I finished the course in exactly 4 years. But, but it was...
And already, already in that, in that condition, did you start to get pleasure from, from having your own subsistence there?
Yeah, my father, so, like, my father, until, uh, until I became of age, until I became of legal age, my father gave me an allowance and then he said, "Look, now that you're of legal age, you're on your own now, there's no more help whatsoever." Ah, uh, so that's what ended up forcing me to get an internship right when I started college. So, it was, it was the natural path. It wasn't that I wanted to start an internship, it was really out of necessity. And then it was, and then you start gaining independence, you start learning to, to go after things.
So, uh, but did you feel like, once you entered that financial architecture, did you feel like, am I cut out for this?
I'm at the beginning, I'm, I'm trying to remember, right? Because it's been, it's been almost, almost 30, it's been 30-something years, right? 32 years. Look, in the beginning it was a really big shock, you know? You, you leave high school, you start working right away, and uh, look, in the beginning I had doubts if I, if I fit into that, especially because I started my internship on the trading desk, so it was a thing uh, like, you working on the desk, I don't really match with the desk, you know? That whole thing of, of, right? I, I, I am more of a people person, more of a team player, right? And there it was mostly me and the phone, it was mostly me, the phone, the computer, the screen. So in the beginning I asked myself if that suited me, you know? It was a lot of pressure, having to learn how to make money choosing what to buy, what to sell. I, I don't, I don't really have that trait. And then little by little I started changing areas in the brokerage and I ended up finding myself more in commercial areas. That was when I started to realize that, whoa, this is what I think I do better, learning to, to read the client, learning to fit the product, right? It was there that I, I started to realize. So, I think the good thing about starting early is that you also know what you don't do, what you don't do well, and what you don't want. And then you start looking for that which you...
Which you fit better and then you start doing better what you do well. But this sales part wasn't, wasn't like in the, in the capacity...
It wasn't talking to the client, it was, it was receiving the client, it was being kind to the client, it was learning to present the brokerage, it was, it was super simple things, right?
More than, than knowing how to present the product, it was more this, this...
It wasn't more, it was more like, how could I convince a client who wanted to open an account with the brokerage to realize that we were a, a serious place, a cool place. So it was, it was much more that. So, when I, when I started to leave this more operational area, this area more of a traditional, old-school financial market, I started to fit in, to see myself more in this field. That was when I started to realize: "Wait, I think I have a talent here that isn't negligible for, for connecting with people." And then I kept advancing more and more on that agenda. I stopped being perhaps such a technical person, such a trader, such a broker, and became someone more focused on clients, on products, on building new businesses. And then, and then I started to navigate more in this environment.
And this perception was, was corroborated by the, by the...
Wasn't it? It's just that, in the end, whoever, whoever enters the financial market has that, that impression that the financial market, well, nobody enters the financial market wanting to be in sales or wanting to lead something. You know, it's the old-school financial market: buying, selling, right, weathering crises, doubling down on bets, right? So, uh, I also had that, that belief. Uh, but with that initial belief, I confess I was a bit lost, right? And, and then, right, I kept trying, I kept trying to navigate within the brokerage firm until I, until I found this path, and, and it takes time, you, you know, at 20, 21 years old, you're, you're nobody yet, right? So, uh, I went there, then maybe at 23, 24, after having switched, right? I joined Sênior, stayed there for two years, then another two years at the Catu brokerage, then another two years at the Vi Shop brokerage. So, in those last two years, I already felt a bit more mature, right? I already felt like a more independent, more persuasive person. Uh, I could already network, I could already have clarity in my ideas. Those were different times, right? Like, young people today are much more skilled, they are, they are much more experienced than I was at 20, 23 years old. And that was when, when at 24 years old I ended up getting fired, right? It was, it was my big shock, it was what allowed me to become an entrepreneur.
This was a mass layoff. You know, several...
It was a dismissal, it was a mass layoff. Brokerage Vi Shop cut 10, 20% of the team and my area was less important, so I ended up being cut, but my understanding of this move at the time was that I was incompetent, you know? I mean, I've told this story a few times. I remember going to talk to my father, who isn't an entrepreneur, isn't experienced. I said: "Dad, I'm hearing rumors at the brokerage that they're going to make cuts, you know, that they're going to, you know, they're going to roll heads." He said: "Guilherme, don't worry, they'd never fire a competent person like you." And so that was it, and that was the reason I decided I didn't want to live in Rio de Janeiro anymore, that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And at that brokerage where I worked, I had already met some brokers from the south and I thought Porto Alegre was an interesting market.
Yeah, Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre of all places, that...
Because it was a market that had a lot of educa, had, had a, had a, had a very educated population, had high income and had low fixed costs. I said: "Whoa, this is a good market, if I want to be an entrepreneur, this is fertile ground." So, uh, I was fired on Thursday, by Monday I was in Porto Alegre running away, it was much more about running away from Rio de Janeiro, because I was ashamed of myself. Look, my father, I think he wondered a bit if I was competent or not, right? And I remember my friends saying: "Ah, Guilherme isn't a guy, isn't a, isn't a person, uh, Guilherme has no future, right?" I mentioned this a few times back then.
And that's when I, I thought it was...
But do you think it was prejudice because you weren't on the trading desk? Because you weren't with that...
No, it wasn't prejudice, no. I actually think I was carving out an executive career, nothing brilliant, but I had a reasonable resume by then: 2 years at a brokerage, 2 years at CATU, which was a very serious brokerage at the time, and then years at the Vi Shop brokerage, which was also a very serious firm. In other words, I was carving out a career that I thought was reasonable, I wasn't a brilliant person in that position, but I was advancing. And then when the blow comes and...
And did you have a little cushion to do like this, nothing.
Ah, I had practically nothing. I had a, I had a, I had a financed car and I ended up getting R$10,000, which was the severance, that was the layoff that I ended up receiving. So that was, that was my savings and I said: "Look, I don't want to work in Rio anymore." Then I had convinced a brokerage firm from Rio Grande do Sul to buy a system from the brokerage at V Shop. And then this brokerage said: "Guilherme, since you convinced me to buy this tool, why don't you come work with me?" So I went to work. Uh, no, no, no. So I, so I went to work at this brokerage, I stayed there for three months. I said: "Oh, if I stay here, I'm going to get fired." And at that brokerage I met Marcelo, my ex-partner.
And so three months later we, we started XP Investimentos. We had, we had, we had R$10,000 in our pockets and we had the desire to pursue a solo career. And that was when little by little I started to find myself.
At that moment when you're about to found something, to be an entrepreneur for the first time, did you already have any, any, any focus, anything you imagined as, as...
The calculation I made was I, I think some of my friends will give me a vote of confidence and start investing with me. Marcelo is a, a guy from the south who is super well-connected, his family has money. I think maybe his father will come with us, and since we had a very low fixed cost, if half a dozen clients came, we could support ourselves. So that was the short-term vision that made me move in that direction. Simply, look, I think with half a dozen clients we can survive and then whatever comes after is profit.
But you weren't ambitious like that, like, you obviously wanted to be...
I just wanted to, to support myself. I just wanted to support myself. I didn't, I didn't want to... I, I think at that moment I was so... I never dreamed of being a rich person or being someone who has power. No, no, that wasn't what I was looking for. What I, what I loved was sports, was, was, was helping my mother, right? Helping my family, no, like, I didn't have any grand ambitions. Uh, and, anyway, things started like that, without any, any big master plan.
You have a very interesting insight into this market regarding what you could offer, and you later create this idea of financially educating people, noticing that people had very little knowledge of that. Where does that come from?
Yeah, that was, that was where I think I really started to find myself. I think I started to, obviously when you start doing something that works, you start wanting to do it more and more, right? Because you feel useful, don't you? So, when I began to realize that financial education was a path that generated impact, there was something there that attracted me. Then I, I, wait, there's something here that sparked the competitiveness in me, maybe from sports. I channeled it in that direction, because it's so good to help people, to be able to have a formula. So with financial education, my feeling was that I was empowering people regarding a topic that no one knew about. And then I started doing courses and more and more courses on these subjects. And more and more I perceived myself as someone didactic who could bring knowledge that no one had, and that generated credibility that converted those students into loyal clients. And then I, wait, there is a business here that is increasingly about empowering the population with knowledge. And the more I do this, the more I will, the more I will make money, because I will charge for this course and then I convert these students into loyal clients and the thing just goes. And, and then things started moving forward. And I think the ambition grew as things started working out, right?
But, and this moment where you feel you got it going in Porto Alegre with this local public, with this universe, uh, initially small, but what do you think was, when did you feel that it had traction?
Well, when I did the first course and when it sold.
