What are you most proud of at XP today?
We only have 10% market share at XP. We have an ambitious goal, which is by 2033 to become the largest investment firm in Brazil.
Looking ahead, XP turns 25 — what do you see? We have the Brazilian scenario, elections this year...
If the general starts coming down the hill, that's the beginning of the end, right? He's losing the war, right?
How does Guilherme make these decisions about where to direct his attention and energy? What's it like today?
Whenever I talk to an entrepreneur, they say: 'Ah, my dream is to open a branch outside Brazil.' I say: 'But have you already conquered Campinas?'
And how do you balance the weight of responsibility with wanting to wake up every day and have fun doing what you do?
Queen Elizabeth literally became our partner.
Wow, now I really want to see that.
What's Guilherme's next big achievement?
If everyone does what they know needs to be done, you'll get there.
I wanted to thank the opportunity we have to interview this guy sitting next to me. 50 years of Guilherme Benchimol, 25 years of XP. And I wanted to start by asking you what the feeling is. We're at this beautiful event here — there are over 80,000 people, the atmosphere is incredible. It's our second day here, yesterday and today. What's the feeling, Guilherme?
Nani, it's strange. It's strange because it went by fast, right? 16th edition of XP Week. You said it — almost 80,000 people in three days. It's curious, right? Because there are booths from Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, Itaú, BTG, Safra. So I think we managed to create an event that transcends XP itself. It's an event that perhaps symbolizes Brazil's strength, right? You see 80,000 people here talking about investments with the Selic at 14, 15%, right? Imagine if Brazil really succeeded, right? Imagine if the Selic were at 7, 8, 9%, right? So, I'm a big enthusiast of Brazil, right? And what we do — I know we're a company that addresses investment pain points. But by helping the client invest better, we also address something very important, which is credit. We brought competition to credit because we created the capital market — by helping the client invest, we started building the secondary market for debentures, CRIs, CRAs, and so on. So that decentralized capital in Brazil. That gives me certainty that Brazil will succeed, sooner or later.
Yeah. Well, for context at home, when XP started, 99% of investments were done through banks.
Today we've reduced that a bit...
That pyramid? A little bit.
But it's still very big. Today it's about 82%.
But XP was very unlikely, right, Guilherme? I think... what made the difference? And many people must have doubted you back then. How was that?
No, look — I think you have to put a bit of craziness in your head, in a good sense, right? Believe in something, preferably based on facts and data. In my case, I looked at that snapshot. I always liked to look at what had worked elsewhere in the world. And I had already seen that people around the world hadn't invested through banks for 25 years. But in Brazil it was the opposite — 99% was inside banks. So I looked at those numbers and said: 'Wow, there's an opportunity here.' But I think spotting an opportunity isn't a differentiator — I think it's a starting point.
Then I think two important characteristics come in: you have to be very resilient and very disciplined, so you can do what needs to be done.
Yes. And doing what needed to be done at the beginning was probably much harder — is it harder or easier than now?
It's harder. Because back then — any company that starts from scratch, like you started yours, you know it depends a lot on your individual effort.
So in the beginning it obviously depended much more on me than it does today. Then, after a while, you start forming people better than you, you learn to delegate. And you start to have money, right? Because having cash makes a big difference, right? Back then I had no margin for error. I started the company with R$10,000 and a used car.
So I had no right to make a mistake. If I made a mistake, the car would flip over.
But once the car is running, then the people who [clearing throat] also help you...
Yeah. Then... once you understand — there are two things, right? You can't be a victim. So that's it, right? If you sit on the road and...
Waiting for someone to come...
If you sit on the hood of your car on the road and ask for help, nobody will help you. But if you run after it and do what needs to be done — which is push your car — people will push with you. And the second tip is you really have to help people. If you help people from the heart, you can be sure that most human beings are good — they will pay it back.
This line of resilience and discipline — I believe that early in life you needed an opportunity, but now you're at a moment where you generate opportunities for others. That's where we need more discipline to say no, to know how to choose. How do you see this today? Because you have a world of opportunities in front of you, XP has a very broad path of opportunities. How does Guilherme make these decisions about where to direct his attention and energy? What's it like today?
You said something very important for anyone who wants to start a business and succeed entrepreneurially, right? Which is trying to distinguish what they want to do from what needs to be done, right? So I always say that entrepreneurship is doing a sequence of logical things, right? The sequence is one, then two, three, four, five, and so on, right? So whenever I talk to an entrepreneur, they say: 'Ah, my dream is to open a branch outside Brazil' — just an example, right? 'My dream is to open a branch outside Brazil.' I say: 'But have you already conquered Campinas?' The person says: 'No.' So, start in Campinas. See? A good entrepreneur has that discipline of having the vision. So he's in the present, he has the vision of the future, but he can connect the low-hanging fruits in the correct sequence. When you invest, you always have to help the client optimize their efficient frontier, right? We call it the Markowitz curve. You have to be optimizing your risk in terms of risk — you have to optimize your return in terms of the risk you take. Entrepreneurship is the same thing — you have to be optimizing things. And if you start doing things out of order, you're leaving money on the table. And that can break you.
Have you been through that, close to it? Was there a moment when you took a...
Every entrepreneur is tempted to...
Bite off more than you can chew.
Yeah, do something silly, do things out of order, right? But you have to have this mindset about entrepreneurship. Many people think an entrepreneur is a risk-taker — that an entrepreneur has to take big swings and all. I don't think so. An entrepreneur is conservative. An entrepreneur takes one step at a time. He makes small mistakes. Whenever he starts something, he starts small, because he's sure that it apparently seems like the right thing, but it's never been done.
So he'll keep changing his mind until he starts getting it right. That's being conservative. So you do things slowly, and then when you realize you're getting it right, then you go intense. So...
I don't like entrepreneurs who are too bold. You look at this and say: 'Man, but Guilherme, you're a very bold entrepreneur.' No, no. This is the 16th edition. The first edition of XP had 200 guests. 150 were employees and there were six booths, four of which were our own internal areas. And we kept improving little by little, little by little. Little by little. So you can't be in a hurry. An entrepreneur is an ultramarathoner, but he knows the game is stacking grains of sand.
So it gets boring — we can be boring. Because it's calm, calm, consistency, resilience, a lot of discipline.
Yeah, it's hard to have that long-term vision many times because you want fast results, and you see — especially today with the new generation — comparisons on the internet, social media...
So look, I know my story is an unlikely one, but it's 25 years.
It's 25 — what I say is, I've been doing the same thing for 25 years.
Yeah. And now, from here on, there's more time with XP in your life than without XP, right?
That's true, that's true.
Now you've hit that milestone.
No, if you take out the... the zero to ten, then not even...
Yeah, exactly, it's already...
Not even worth mentioning, right?
Yeah. What are you most proud of at XP today?
What I'm most proud of... I think what I'm most proud of is having, in a way, broken part of the banking oligopoly that exists in Brazil. So, modesty aside, XP brought competition to a sector that wasn't competitive. 15 years ago — and it's still like that in large part today, okay? Proof of that is that the savings account is a DI fund that charges 4% a year. And it has an anniversary date. But 15 years ago it was much worse. Much worse. There were many DI funds charging 4% a year. Today there still are — capitalization plans, consortiums being badly sold, etc., etc., etc. So, in a way, we've been democratizing access to investments in Brazil. Obviously, I'm not saying I'm not — we also make mistakes, but we're not afraid to face them, to correct our mistakes, to pay the price many times. But I think that's what I'm most proud of — having had the courage, together with my partners, to compete in a sector that had no competition. And if you don't compete in the financial sector, you'll never democratize capital in the country. And if you don't do that, the country won't move forward.
And where does that come from? From your personality? You talked about disrupting the market, being a maverick on this journey. It's a bit like what we do at The News too, because what you did with the big banks is what we want to do in media, in the media industry. But does that have to do with you? Did you always see yourself that way? Were you always someone who liked a challenge?
Yeah, I think life loses a bit of its fun if you don't have a good fight ahead of you, right? You have to make life worth it, right?
Yeah, but it's an interesting thing today — with a company of over 8,000 employees, R$2 trillion under management, R$20 billion in revenue — what fight do you still have, Guilherme?
Yeah, well, as you go along, you start to see, right? You start to realize that, right? As you have some success in life, you start establishing various pacts with the people who help you along, right? A pact with your partners, with your employees, with your clients, with the market. And stopping can't be an option.
Because you committed to doing what...
Now it's for the people, less the Guilherme and more...
No, and that becomes your life. So, I love what I do, I love being here with you, talking, telling my story, seeing all these people here, right? We have almost 9,000 employees, almost 20,000 independent advisors, over 5 million clients — man, look at that. So, that's how it is — we can't stop.
Because that makes life worth it. So I think everyone should have a bit of that luck.
Yeah. And when did you see that turning point? Was there a moment when you said... Before the IPO, of course — you started in a 25 m² room.
I think when I started to realize things were getting a bit more serious was when we brought in our first private equity fund as a partner. That's when I felt things were more serious, right? When you bring in a partner — and that was 2010, right? It was a British fund called Actis. They bought 20% of the company for R$100 million — they invested R$100 million in the company. Then when you start talking to a foreigner — and that Actis fund was the fund of the British crown. So Queen Elizabeth literally became our partner. I said to myself: 'Wow.'
Man, this is serious. And then you start to see that other people perhaps believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Then you say: 'Wow, it's getting real.' Now I...
And how do you balance the weight of responsibility with wanting to wake up every day and have fun doing what you do? I think for the entrepreneur that's a challenge — it keeps growing, it keeps getting more...
It's natural, in the end I think the entrepreneur who lasts long — he lives well with that pressure, he likes that pressure. It's like — I don't know, I love tennis, right? You talk to Djokovic or Federer or Nadal, they like feeling the pressure of being in the final.
They like that — that fuels them. So the pressure, the need to find solutions, knowing you'll go through crises, knowing some things will go wrong and you'll have to fix them — that's what makes you better.
That's what the entrepreneur who goes far is like — he likes that, he's built that way.
It's the long-term journey, as you said — it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Yeah. An entrepreneur who doesn't like that sells the company. Sells the company.
Anyway. But again, there's no right or wrong — it's about who you are, right?
Exactly, exactly. And looking ahead, XP turns 25 — what do you see? We have the Brazilian scenario, elections this year, maybe even a message for entrepreneurs who keep thinking: 'Ah, if this one wins or that one wins'...
Look, our future is — we only have 10% market share at XP. We have an ambitious goal, which is by 2033 to become the largest investment firm in Brazil. The whole company today is focused on delivering a full agenda of quality. Our CEO's goal and our entire team's goal is quality — that we delight all our clients. And we understand that's the formula that will make us increasingly successful in a country where banking concentration is very high. Our wholesale bank is becoming increasingly relevant, so the same transformation we made in retail, we're also making in corporate. The vision is increasingly to help the entrepreneur optimize their finances. So there's a whole agenda in Brazil of more of the same, but better. Aside from the wholesale banking theme, which is a new audience — but we already have over 100,000 clients, over 100,000 companies. And there's also an important international agenda. We're realizing it's time to take a step further and become an increasingly international company. We already have a relevant international operation, but it's very focused on serving the foreign client who invests in Brazil and the Brazilian client who invests abroad. So we're preparing to increasingly serve an international client in their home country, right? So that's the agenda, more or less.
On the XP side still — then we'll get to entrepreneurship and people — but we're seeing a shift toward consulting, more consulting, less advisory. Yesterday we heard Mafra talk a bit about how XP wants to be the client's CFO. What's your market vision, what changes are you seeing out there?
We positioned ourselves as the first agnostic company in Brazil from a service model standpoint, right? So we're following a bit of how the American market evolved, right? You have a model where you can be served seeking a model where your advisor charges you per transaction, charges you a fixed fee on what you're investing — half a percent, one percent a year, etc. — or you choose where you want to keep your money and you come in just with the intelligence, becoming the consultant for that portfolio. So we launched these three models, and in the United States there's a certain balance among these three formats. Here in Brazil, the fixed-fee model has been growing. And I have no doubt that in the long run things will be very, very similar, right? But there's no right model, right? There's a model that fits the right client. There are clients who are more self-directed, who know what they want, and then the commission model ends up being more appropriate. There are clients who think that format isn't as appropriate because they want to be sure there's no conflict of interest. There are clients who want to maintain a relationship with the place where they invest, where only your intelligence matters. In the end, the beauty now is that we have a car that can adapt to the customer's taste.
And again, in the end, the market will regulate, but I have no doubt that all the models make sense. And I'd say the market will determine the model that best fits the client's profile.
