75 Quotes by Taavet Hinrikus

There are lots of people building the next TransferWise, not in a sense of competing with us but in a sense of building large, successful companies that are doing something important. I just enjoy helping these founders navigate the journey.

Financial services have always been about trust. Perhaps the biggest barrier to entry has been getting new customers to trust an unknown brand or service, and that's particularly true with digital disruptors who lack a physical presence on the local high street.

Maybe I think too highly of myself, but I think maybe sometimes I can give some good advice - sometimes bad advice, I'm sure - and I think that's a way of giving back.

Hiring new people, opening up in new markets, all of that takes money.

I did an MBA because when I left Skype, I didn't have a clear idea of whether I wanted to create or join a company. But you don't need an MBA to become an entrepreneur.

I think that's the beauty of being a private company: you get to choose when you disclose something. You can play it in a strategic way or in a tactical way.

Being a 'global citizen' is not something reserved for the global elite anymore. Thanks to the democratising power of technology, it's not a trend determined by privilege or even age but by attitude.

If we think about how long Google spent searching - I think they came around in '98? And, OK, Gmail came in 2004, but it was literally built by one engineer as a 20%-time project. It was probably 10 years before Google started diversifying.

You start a business being hungry, foolish, and a little bit naive. But more often than not, you end up being disrupted yourself. It happened to Skype.