Stephen: This is yourhost, Stephen Sargeant, the Around The Coin podcast. We are extremely lucky tohave Victor or Lof Ski, the general partner at R136 Ventures. We talk all abouthis early technology days, being the CTO of one of the largest European banksand how he grew mobile banking before there was actually even mobile banking.

He's a digital expert working with startups and founders.Directly from Silicon Valley, he talks all about stablecoins, agentic AI andthe revolution that's happening right now, whether it's fintechs or paymentsand crypto. And we also talk about growing teams because that is a lot offounders and startups.

Biggest problem, he talks about how he hired over 25,000engineers in a short period of just a few years. This is one of the mostinteresting podcasts, and although there's not investment advice, and this isdefinitely not investment advice. We do talk a lot about how he looks at theindustry currently and what it looks like in the future, especially with ai,one of the best podcasts of the year.

Check it out, and he's accepting all emails, so listen to theend where he'll provide his email and give you exactly what he's looking for inyour deck in order to get to that next level.

Stephen: This is yourhost Stephen Sargeant, Around The Coin. This is not financial advice orinvestment advice. What we do have a special guest today. We have Victor, thegeneral partner of R 1 36 Ventures. Victor, you have such an interesting path.Can you give us a little bit of your, your three minutes spiel of where youstarted, where you are now, and then we're gonna talk a little about your earlydays, uh, in the tech industry.

Victor: Well first ofall, Efan, it is great to be, um, uh, on this podcast and you just did anamazing work. Um, and, um, you have so many like listeners, um, that's really,really fantastic. Uh, just a little bit about myself. So probably I have likepretty much unconventional, uh, path to venture. So since 2015, I'm doing whatis called now R 1 3 6 Ventures.

I'm a founding partner. So there are four partners. Uh, we doinvest into early growth stage, uh, FinTech and B2B enterprise. Uh, startups,uh, primarily, uh, within, uh, Silicon Valley, uh, and Israel. So threepartners are here in the valley, including myself, and one partner is in TelAviv. Uh, so, uh, I think that, uh, we really have a, kind of a uniqueapproach, but we will hope we speak about that later.

So, uh, before, um, really jumping into this, uh, venturecapital markets and investing, I was a corporate executive, so I served asChief Technology Officer in one of the largest banks in the world. Uh, started,uh, long ago. So my first kind of, uh, large, uh, uh, assignment, if you will,uh, was, uh, a small but aggressively or.

Uh, growing back, a bank in, uh, uh, central and easternEurope, uh, where I scaled, uh, a, a mobile bank, uh, which was not called amobile bank back then. It was a featured phone banking. So it was well before,um, iPhone era. And, uh, we, uh, uh, actually have grown it to, uh, over 1million consumers. And it was, I think, one of the largest, uh, footprint in,um, uh, digital, which was not called to be digital back then, banking, uh,prior to iPhone era.

So then in 2008, 2015, I served as a CEO of one of the largestlegacy banks, uh, which when I joined, he had the zero. Uh, footprint indigital and SCTO, uh, with the help of obviously amazing team and the guidanceof CEO, you have to always remark that, uh, that, that was, I was not alonedoing that. Uh, we scaled it to 45 million consumers on a digital, uh, uh, in adigital space prior to, uh, to 2015.

And it was, uh, the largest digital footprint in the world.Imagine that Revolut was not born even. Uh, it was, um, before that, uh, uh,bigger than Bank of America, chase and city, uh, combined. So, and uh, that'show I decided I can do something on my own and, uh, jumped into this, sit onthe plane, moved all the way to Silicon Valley and to live and work out of heresince then.

And, um, actually happy to do what I do now.

Stephen: I love that,you know, you're very technical, obviously CTO of one of the largest Europeanbanks now that you're speaking to founders is, are you able to pick up whetheror not they have the technical expertise to see their fruition? Especially whenyou're dealing with a lot of B2B SaaS tech payments and crypto companies withinyour portfolio.

Can you tell right away like, Hey, you're gonna either need toget another co-founder that's super technical, uh, or you might just not makeit.

Victor: Uh, yeah, youknow, uh, well, uh, I think that, um, uh, actually I, uh, I'm like moreacquainted. I'm like, better speaking with like, uh, founders than I think mostof the VCs, because sometimes, and we invest like series B, right? Can youimagine like you are startup or you already got like your serious seed, bunchof angels then series A, uh, so now you raising your like fifth round of Tavaand now I'm coming to ask, like, chat with you, ask questions.

And sometimes founders say, oh, Victor, that's the first timeever I've been asked. What's like behind the scene? How does that work? How didyou do this? How did you do that? And founders really love telling the stories,right? But no, nobody really understand that, right? So I'm probably like theone who can speak founders the same language, because most of founders I dealwith, uh, uh, like tech, uh, founders, right?

So they developed things themselves. Recently I started seeinglike founders who are not, uh, uh, techy, right? So I think that investingbetween like 2015, that's my earliest deals to probably 2020. Mostly I dealtwith, uh, tech founders, right? And I had to really give them a lot of adviceon sales, on marketing, on uh, uh, go to market, uh, on uh, how to maybe buildtech teams because they tend to do everything themselves.

I mean, they love porting, right? Uh, and, uh, well, we allknow that even like founders of Stripe, uh, like were quoting things likefounders of PayPal famously known were like quarters. So, uh, I captured sortof this, you know, founders between like 2015 to 2020 and all of them werequarter. So what I had to explain to them that you should stop quoting now, Imean, your task is not to code.

Your task is to either, um, sale or, uh, operations or product,or sometimes in many times, hr, right? You should act as like people's manager,right? You should just don't do things yourself. You should like spend 15minutes, uh, quoting. And, um, um, whatever, 15 hours a day, uh, uh, speakingand talking to people, right?

Investors, other team members, whatever. Uh, since 2015, uh,2020, I start seeing like these founders who are like MBA, uh, graduates, uh,who have never quoted in their life. And it's still very rare. I I still seelike a lot more founders who can code and we, I, I can speak the same languagewith them because I code as well, but I have to really get them to some otherpath, and I think that's the most challenging thing.

Stephen: Are theysurprised by that they're probably coming to you 'cause of your codingexpertise to see if they're doing things right and you're like, no, we're notgonna talk about code. We're gonna talk about HR and people management andsales. And they're like, I didn't come to you for that.

Victor: They actuallylove it. You know, I believe that they love it because I can explain it, uh, ineasy way. So I scaled the team, uh, at, in one of the companies I worked for,from Zero, literally, I was a, like a, a chairman of the board of the company,which literally had three people. I scaled it to 25,000 engineers, uh, in uh, alittle bit less than four years.

So, can you imagine? It was like hiring probably seven, 8,000people a year. And, um, well managing to like. Built, uh, products, right? It'slike, I mean, they were building products. Hell, a lot of products we builtlike payment system like Stripe. We built, uh, a POS system like Square. Webuilt a core banking system.

We built, uh, um, uh, security system on top right? And it wasa software house. So, uh, I know all these challenges and I didn't do it reallywell, right? I mean, uh, I made so many errors, so many mistakes on my way. Ifyou ask me, uh, would I just do it again the way I did it? No way. I mean, Iwould not scale it that fast.

And it was a complete disaster. I mean, we developed a productand we managed to deploy it, but uh, there was a lot of overhead and there wasa lot of, uh, real like. Problems to solve, right? So, um, knowing that I knowhow it is, how difficult it is to scale, uh, technology teams, and by the way,many VCs don't really understand that, right?

They think of how you scale sales, like how you scaleoperations. It's important, right? But in essence, um, uh, these companies aretech companies and scaling, scaling, uh, technology teams is equally difficult,right? So, uh, that's my expertise and you have to differentiate you when yousit on the board. There are five, six people, right?

Each understand something. So my core expertise is technology.So I'm probably the only guy on the board many times who can understand whenCCTO is presenting. Uh, other board members are sleeping because they do notunderstand the word, right? So I can capture what this guy is saying andsecond, how to help this guy to really build his team right from five to 50 to500.

And that's difficult and that where I have a hell of expertise.

Stephen: Can you giveus maybe some framework strategies that you use? I know people listening tothis call are like, Hey, I can't even make one technical hire, and you'retalking about making 25,000, you know, developing hires, uh, within a shortperiod of time. Obviously that was probably too much at one time. Can you giveus some maybe strategies that you would use if you're a new founder or somebodyrunning a small operation, maybe leveraging ai, how they can scale up theirtech team?

Victor: Yeah, that's,that's great question. And actually, uh, Stefan, uh, it, it's changing over thetime, right? Because, uh, when I, uh, was building, uh, teams, there wasnothing in like AI by coding and all this, right? Uh, I didn't imagine, uh, anykind of like agents, like, uh, super agents or something working for me, right?

These were all people. So this agency was very much human, andnow it's very much not. Uh, so, uh, anyway, my like, first, uh, ultimate pointis that, um, you have to, um, take care not only on technology expert aspectsof, uh, whatever, uh, uh, prospect you are hiring, right? Because now like manyfounders, uh, many tech, uh, managers, they like only. of like tech expertise,right? How well you code, what you do, what you did, how fast you learn, uh,and people are missing like this, uh, uh, whatever, soft skills kind of stuff,right? Uh, I'm a great believer that you can train people, uh, to code. Well,especially now, but you could not train to, uh, people to behave differently,right?

Uh, it's, it's, it's extremely, extremely, extremely difficult.So what I really not take as granted is how people will manage workingtogether. And I think that what, that, what, uh, tech, uh, manager should likeemphasize and should, uh, uh, really go deep into is how his team is operatingas a team, right?

Regardless of whether this team is, um, um, uh, like in theoffice, which is very rare now. Right. It's now even more complex how this teambehaves, um, in the remote space, right? How they work together. And I have alot of like, um, uh, it's not rule of thumb, right? I have a lot of likechecklist for myself at least, uh, which I help founders to build upon, uh, howto really see, uh, and how like review the person's behavior as a team member,right?

And, um, uh, that's what I, uh, think I would've emphasize themost. So, uh, I could not really go so much deep, but I have like the wholeframework of how to, um, build a team, right? Instead of hiring like, um, uh,brilliant individuals and we see like, I don't want to mention like largecompanies, right? But they have to probably matter, right?

We all know that it doesn't like. Go. Well, right? I mean, why?I mean others like bad, like, uh, research team, like, uh, with like noknowledge. I mean, it's not true, right? I mean, this is amazing team, likeamazing, uh, talent, but for some reason doesn't really work well together,right? Uh, and, um, uh, I, uh, I'm a team player, so I actually played, uh,soccer for long.

I know that one player, like even US could not, uh, win, right?You just need to have like everyone in the, in, in the right place, but alsoorchestrating the whole thing. And I believe that you have like a technologyfor that, right? You have certain methodology, if you will, which can enable,and I do have it, which can enable, uh, this team to like operate like, uh,the, the, the, the, uh, dream team in a way.

Stephen: You know it.Do you find that like there was a recent situation where an AI person wasworking with five of the top tech companies at the same time. Do you see thatthere's a talent shortage, especially now when it comes to ai, especially whenyou're looking at these companies that you're looking to invest in.

You're like, are we gonna be able to scale up these teams?'cause there's just such a shortage of certain talent when it comes to ai, ordo you feel like there's enough talent out there? You just have to be dedicatedand then where to look for.

Victor: Well, I dobelieve that there is a shortage, right? But the shortage is in a, in a waythat, I mean, we could not unlock talent, right? So the reason why we could notunlock talent is that there is not enough like training, right? There are greatmathematicians. So, um, you had to, uh, have a lot of like, uh, like appliedmath, uh, knowledge in past.

Now we have, you have to really know algorithms, right? Theseare people who I wanted the most. That's the people who really get, uh, highestcompensation and stuff. Uh, so there are a lot of great mathematicians, right,who really, really are not involved into like ai, right? So what I think, uh,uh, I mean, companies should do, right?

Especially those great companies like who developing this AIthing. Uh, they have to pull mathematicians outside of like the perimeter, uh,and uh, uh, uh, and get them involved, engaged into what they're doing fromlike, uh, pure math like research, uh, to AI research. Uh, but I do agree withyou that there is a shortage, right?

Uh, uh, so we only know like nine companies in the US andCanada, like, uh, doing uh, AI models, right? But there are maybe five or sixcompanies in China, right? There are two or three companies in Europe. So theseare like 20 companies max, right? So if you think of 20 companies, um, uh, Idunno, multiply it by.

Uh, hundred, right? You will just get to like a few thousandengineers who actually drive it. All right? And there is a shortage, right? Imean, there is no company number 10. It's not just because there is no room forcompany number 10. It's just because there is no enough resource, like enoughtalent who can just get to make this company number 10.

But, uh, I do believe that again, there is like kind of abarrier. So you have to really be creative pulling people out of like mathfield, uh, like mathematicians, but those who are not yet working on this AIthing.

Stephen: That'sreally interesting and the reason why I'm sticking so much with this is becauseI think that's the biggest trouble when you look across the board, we, youknow, we've gotten a plethora of technology with ai, but it's the human talentthat I think founders are and startups are really struggling with.

I'd love for you to talk about, you know, you went fromscaling. Tech to scaling founders, and that's why you created R 1 36. Can youtell me a little bit about the name, how you and your three partners landed onit, and what void in the market did you feel that you were filling? Becauseobviously there's lots of VC firms, but you have very particular skills.

What made you decide to say, Hey, I'm seeing things that maybeother VC firms aren't, or I can service these founders the way that they can.

Victor: Absolutely.So let's start with the name. Um, uh, we really discussed a lot whether this isa good fit or not. And, um, uh, we hired a bunch of, uh, marketing, uh, folks,uh, to elaborate upon names. So this main name, uh, actually was like broughtby me, uh, to the partnership, uh, and I'm proud of that. So, R 1 36 stands fora name for the cluster of stars.

If you Google. Or chat GPT, you will find that it's called R 136, uh, one A. So that's the cluster, which is probably 50, I don't rememberexactly, thousand light years away from us, which is known to be a cluster ofvery dense, uh, uh, gas and very bright stars like brightest in the universe,uh, which were born there in like dozens or even hundreds.

So, um, uh, that's the whole story. So we are looking, uh, intounknown like universe to find this, uh, uh, condensed, um, talent, right? Thosebrightest people in the, in the, in the universe who develop something reallycool. Uh, and, uh, um, so my partners disagreed that this is a great name. Theyhad bunch of other names.

So we asked our startups what they think, and they have chosenlike 10 out of 10. They said R 1 36 is a great name. So that's how my, uh, my,uh, hypothesis win. One. And, uh, um, uh, that how, uh, we named this, uh,fund. Uh, so coming back to your question on, uh, what differentiates us,right? Um, think of like, uh.

Building a mobile bank when the mobile bank itself wasn't likea charm, right? Nobody even thought of being doing anything in mobile. And Icould not like Coin this charm, right? But I coined the thing, right? I builtlike the technology, which, um, had this featured phone banking, like taxbanking, right? But you could do everything like open bank account, why?

I would tell you want real time online? And it was 2001, 2004,right? Then we built what is called Super App. So you can have, uh, travel likeBooking or Expedia, uh, um, online theater like, um, Netflix or H-B-H-B-O. Youcould just order food like, uh, DoorDash. And you can do it all with like oneapp. So we all know that China is like very good in that like WeChat stuff,right?

Or grab in Asia. But we did before WeChat and before grab likethe 2000, uh, 2014, right? When it was all available for millions of consumersand really loved it. So I think that I can kind of dot on both product andtechnology. Uh, but um, uh, I believe that what we do like, and we haveproprietary methodology for that, and I told my partners that we should reallymarket it that way because we never did it, right?

We have a proprietary methodology of like defining the niche.So you take like the industry or domain and then you define a small niche likesharpening it. Like making it real, real crystal clear what you think willhappen, right? And then you try to find like universe of, uh, great talentworking on this particular thing.

We are not investing in seed, right? We are not investing inlike very early, right? Startups are there already. So what you need toidentify is what is the industry and the like, sub industry and sub subindustry you want to, uh, build upon, right? And then you find like 20, 30companies. I mean, in 2015 there were like five or 10.

Now you have like hundreds because it's extremely more easynow, uh, to to to start business and scale. So there are more companies at thatstage, but now you have to down select. Five you want to work with. So how wedo it, so we actually go and see around and like meet companies, right? How wemeet companies, we help companies a lot, um, earlier than we invest.

So we help probably hundreds of companies, uh, how we help, um,uh, finding talent because I raised like, um, over 20,000 engineers. Some ofthem work now for best companies in the world, like including AI companies, butsome not, right? Some like want to join this, uh, community. So I have thistalent and uh, that's probably number one problem for, uh, startups customers.

Money is a problem product, but number one is talent. So wehelp with talent, not necessarily we'll end up investing, right? But we try tobuild this relationship early enough before the round. And, um, uh, in our, uh,scorecard, uh, 75% of the weight is, uh, team and how team works together. It'snot only founders.

But it's from, from, uh, board to founders or managers or to,uh, um, uh, senior executives, uh, to, uh, ordinary like employees quarters ormarketing people, sales ops. We try to really understand if this team is. Likecapable of, uh, like breakthrough, right? Is it still a beginning of thejourney, right? Are they going to like make it for the next 78 years?

And, um, uh, we have a kind of a proprietary scorecard forthat. So we end up choosing, uh, companies like Juro, for example, which wefell in love with in 2015. It's, so I got our biggest investment, um, uh, infund one. And, uh, we were proud, uh, supporters of the company till they wentpublic. Uh, this year. This is true for many other companies and, uh, what isimportant is that we keep supporting founders no matter what.

Uh, so obviously not all our startups in the up, uh, uh,bringing like great returns to us, but if you speak to any founder, I'm surejust any founder, even those who failed, even those who really didn't make it,uh, uh, if you call them and ask or what did we do for them, I'm sure they willsay that we are one, if not the best investors in their cap table.

Not the biggest. Not the smartest, uh, but the most hardworkingand the most, uh, uh, added value. So I'm proud of that.

Stephen: And thereality is, is most founders, their second project is usually better than theirfirst project. Right. So being that like healthy relationship and especiallyduring a tough time, I'm curious, give us the state of the market, especiallynow. Right now finally, mergers and acquisitions is back on the table, it seemslike in the us but we're, you know, we're going away from SaaS and now we'regoing back into manufacturing with chips and infra.

Tell me about the state of the market. Where are Bitcoin pricesare dropping? Uh, tech stocks are going back and forth. Um, a tech a, a companycan be valued at 1,000,000,001 day and a hundred thousand the next day justbased off a tweet. So how do you gimme the state of the market as you and yourcompany see it right now?

Victor: Well, uh,yeah, I, you are absolutely right. So the last three years were not, uh, greatfor venture capital, right? I mean, in terms of, uh, recycling exits both m anda and, uh, uh, public, uh, markets were, uh, not, uh, functioning in a way.And, uh, obviously, uh, uh, venture business is all about recycling. So youhave to return, uh, um, uh, like proceeds to your, um, uh, investors and thenthey would give you more money to reinvest.

So this was not happening for last three years, and valuationsof most companies dropped, um, at least outside of, uh, um, ai, uh, field. Uh,obviously the biggest attention now, uh, is for like AI space, especiallyfoundational models. And infrastructure. I do believe that, um, we are, um,like repeating. I mean, the story is repeating itself over and over again.

So every next, uh, uh, breakthrough in technology starts withinfrastructure. We saw it, um, in eighties with in nineties with internet. Uh,then, uh, uh, we saw it with e-commerce, uh, in, uh, like beginning of, uh,2000, uh, when Cisco was, uh, if you think of Cisco, um, uh, market cap andmultiples, it was like even, uh, further ahead of, uh, Nvidia now.

And everybody, uh, thought that this is like going to beforever. Uh, I mean, Cisco is still a great company, but it's far from Bink,like on top of the list, right? So, uh, what I'm like, my, my point is that,um, uh, the story is repeating itself. Everything starts from infrastructure.Uh, and now we see like, uh, companies like Lambda, uh, Nobu, uh, name it, uh,uh, and also like cheap manufacturers like Nvidia, of course, um, uh, like ontop of investors' minds.

But, uh, I do believe that, uh, if you like, compare apples toapples, uh, uh, what foundational models do today is that what operatingsystems of the past, like Microsoft Op operating system or IBM O2, whoremembers and, uh, Oracles of this world or cybers of this world. So this is afoundational layer who wins, uh, those who touch a consumer, right?

Those who touch a customer. So it is called interintermediation, dis, sorry, disintermediation. When you, um, like, um, jumpinto in between the service provider and a consumer and become the serviceprovider, that what, uh, Facebook did. That's what Google did. That what, uh,uh, DoorDash did. Uber did. Airbnb did.

Now we are waiting for something similar happening, right? Wesee clear sign that open AI is going that way, but I'm sure there will be morewinners, right? So I do believe that, uh, from that perspective, uh, we'll seelike new wave of companies. And in the 5, 6, 7 years, we'll see like, I meanthe story repeating itself again, infrastructure will not be anymore ofinterest for investors.

I mean, they will, I mean like Cisco, this, I don't wanna namecompany, right? But those infrastructure companies will become like, uh,electricity providers, uh, right, or telco providers. I mean, they will begood, but they will not be great because uh, their margins will degrade,competition will kill them. So, um, and that's the reason why Nvidia and whyothers are trying to build like this consumer perspective, like building theupper stack.

And it's extremely difficult being an infrastructure provider.To be like a consumer facing provider. It's like a different DNA, right? It's,it's a completely different, uh, mindset of people building up products,building up technologies, and it's extremely difficult to jump into that space.So for that reason, I believe there will be new companies, right?

Some of them are born, maybe now, some are not. Uh, but I'msure that this wave will, uh, create the giants. This giants will be like top10, definitely one of top 10, uh, largest companies in the world. Do we knowtheir names now? No, we don't. Right? Uh, maybe these names do not exist even,right? These foundries may are still considering.

Uh, so, um, in terms of like ai, uh, a agent CKI, I'm very muchbeliever of agent CKI. But if, thinking of like how that could be made, Ibelieve that. We'll end up like, think of evolution, right? We are likespecies, but uh, as we speak, there are billions of species, um, interactingnow or like my, like bacteria, your bacteria, viruses around my dog, uh, overthere, like, uh, a lot of birds flying and whatever, right?

Squirrels, whatever it is, right? So every, every bunch is likedifferent, different differentiated one, right? So we are all differentiatedspecies and that's our strength, right? We are not universal. So if think,think of AI agents, this will not be universal play. There will be no one agentdoing everything right.

There will be trillions, not even billions, but trillions oreven like what our greater number of, uh, agents and each will be very special.So from that perspective, I believe that nobody will win in, in the, in, inthis agent. KI. So there will be bunch of, uh, like smaller players, like Iwould think like stripe.

Stripe is a giant, like a hundred billion dollars, but youthink of their market share, uh, in payments, it's like few percent in the US,right? Uh, globally, it's like less than few percent, right? It's still giant,right? Nobody can make, uh, one, uh, size fits all in payments. So payments isso huge and nobody's gonna be like one in single player in payments.

So to that point, nobody will want be one in single player inAI agent, uh, uh, uh, space. Uh, that's how we see it. So where we invest into,and that's like an interesting, uh, thing. So we decided not to invest intofoundational models. We are gonna decide, we are gonna invest into toolsbecause, uh, uh, there will be lot of need, like huge demand for tools, uh, toorchestrate agents, uh, to, uh, monitor agents, uh, from like cybersecurityperspectives, from uh, uh, diligence perspectives, observability.

Uh, well, everything. Cybersecurity, right? Everything name it,right? So that's the first thing. Second thing, we wanna go to, uh, expertisedomain, right? Uh, as I said, there will be like trillions of agents, but therewill be still some big domains where you can make it different. And underdomains, I understand, like a particular like, uh, think in the healthcare orin, uh, logistics or in payments or in, uh, like other sectors, right?

So we prefer now to watch like those founders and to build uponthose founders who have this expertise domain. So expertise domain is moreimportant for us than, uh, AI knowledge and ai. And, uh, second is, uh, unfair,uh, uh, access to proprietary data because that's how you can train and makeyour model even better.

So these two things are on top of my mind, at least now. Uh,and that what we are trying to find now for the next generation of founders, weare gonna, uh, uh, back.

Stephen: Can you talkmaybe about a couple of your portfolio companies? 'cause you're talking aboutfinding almost like industry market, like things that haven't been created inthe industry that almost changed the evolution industry 'cause they're in theirown category. Um, before categories even created, can you maybe talk about acouple of your portfolio companies where you saw like, oh, we feel that this isgonna create its own category and maybe how they've done and like how you kindof picked out that they were gonna be the winner in that category.

Victor: Absolutely.Yeah. When we invested in IT tour back in 2015, uh, uh, nobody really spoke of,um, uh, social investing. Right. Uh, and, uh, we were like, and I, I was likeserved by five or six private banking, uh, experts. And, uh, my portfolio wasuh, almost like, uh, well managed by like third party people, right. I wasbarely, uh, having any.

Uh, idea on how this is managed. Right. And, um, well, I waslike a, kind of like a top, uh, probably notch, like a private, uh, uh, client.But, uh, I was thinking about like others who could not afford of havingprivate bankers, right? And how can you invest like $50? And, uh, building upyour own wealth and playing the markets and stuff.

And, um, we had, uh, the statuses that, uh, there will be like,so, so, so like social patterns being built on financial side, like on, in, in,in financial sector. And we found a tour because of that. So they were buildingsomething what we really liked. Uh, and um, uh, we really liked, uh, team. Sowe made this, I know it was not like development methodology back then, but uh,we really looked into how they just worked together.

We visited, uh, uh, them on site, both an Israel and otherplaces. And we realized that this is a great team and, uh, we spoke to peoplewho worked in each order from like 2008, uh, or since inception. And, uh,people were still excited and motivated and we really loved it. So, um, andthey are definitely category leader.

Uh, so they are the largest social investing platform in theworld, I think. I dunno. If they're bigger than Robin Hood, um, uh, I meandefinitely they're smaller than Robin Hood in the US but, uh, worldwide, Ithink it's one of the biggest, uh, social investing platforms. And they'redefinitely, uh, they have definitely defined this category.

Another company I would think of, uh, is re when I joined them,uh, they were, uh, doing like, uh, ai and that was ML ai, not like, uh, uh,this large language models yet. Uh, uh, predictive analytics on data. Sobasically you, um, give them whatever data sets, like whatever size of thisdata, data sets, and they will find anomalies, right?

Something what is unusual, and they were really proud with thistechnology. And this, there were two mathematicians, like world renownedmathematicians who built these algorithms, but they really didn't understandhow to apply it into real life economy, right? They were trying to do like, um,um, um. Airplane companies, uh, they were trying to do logistics, uh, or uh, ouh, oil and gas mining because I mean, there, there is like o everywhere, likebunch of data, right?

I mean you can find like this data and people are struggling tofind anomalies, right? To, to predict right. What's going on. Uh, and uh, wellon the board we decided it was early enough. It was like 2017, I think, topivot it. And I was like a big advocate to pivot it to one single, uh, onesingle domain. And, uh, we have chosen domain, uh, FinTech and the banking andI think we were right because we built exciting tool. So a large enterprise donot like a tool for everything. They want a tool for specific thing, right? Youcould not think of like a large enterprise to be like a one united thing,right? They're are smaller units, right? And they all have their own problems.So we decided to tackle specifically compliance.

And uh, since then, we started being building a compliance techcompany, which is built on AI and now on LLMs, uh, they delivered like excitingresults, uh, or one, uh, a market, uh, with some, uh, biggest banks and withsome fintechs at scale. And, uh, I think that that was pivoting so that how wenot only found, but uh, like reconstructed together with company and the board,the whole notion of like being a category, um, um, uh, um, like a categorybuilder, not even a category leader because compliance ai.

Is something what you could not even imagine happening in like2017, because everything sh should be predicted. You could not like have ablack box, uh, for a regulator. So you have a black box and now it gives yousomething. Right? So no, like, uh, regulator likes black boxes. Even theydeliver perfect result.

They don't like oracles, they like, uh, like pure math andshould not be like, uh, uh, I mean, your results should not go out of nothing.But working with regulators, uh, uh, we really made an amazing job for them,like to understand how it works and now they're supporting this kind of stuff.So we not even built, uh, like the category.

We also explained it to regulator. This, this category

Stephen: is, which isthe real challenge, right? Forget hiring and forget, uh, I'm a cryptocompliance guy myself. So back in 20 17, 20 18, you could even black forgetblack box. You could even give them the documentation and they were happy withit. So you spend most of your, it's funny, you spend most of your time as aFinTech and payment company dealing with regulators anyway, so why not buildsomething for both the FinTech companies and the regulators can be happy with?

To your point, it's a tool that's helping both sides of theequation.

Victor: absolutely.

Stephen: What areyour thoughts on stablecoins now? Because like you talked about eToro and nowit's like we have this whole stable Coin emergence and, you know, then we getinto the conversation around AI agents, you know, being autonomous, being ableto pay now with stablecoins.

Um, we haven't seen too much of that in practice, but just likeself-driving cars, I feel like it's just around the corner before people arelike, Hey, uh, let my AI agent go buy whatever I want as long as the, thebank's insuring me or, you know, my crypto exchange is gonna allow me to dothose transactions using stablecoins.

What are your thoughts about stablecoins and how the use ofthem by AI agents.

Victor: Absolutely.Great question. Efan. And I have like, I think, uh, very controversial answerto that comparing, and you did like a great job, uh, comparing with, uh,self-driving cars. Uh, I, I live and work out of like Menlo Park, Woodside. Sofinally we have, um, WEMA here. So when I go to San Francisco, stop at, uh,like, uh, parking and then go Wema from south, uh, San Francisco to the citybecause I really love it.

But they could not get me to, uh, Menlo Park until recently.Now you can, uh, order, uh, WEMA here. So you have to go like maybe. 10 minutesto where they can park, but they still could not get me to San Francisco.That's, that's like crazy. So I tried, uh, yesterday, like going to SanFrancisco and I just realized it takes two and a half hours.

Why? I mean, I'm just staying here, like living here at 1 0 1,so it's like only one hour because they could not drive the highway yet. So, soit's, uh, to your point, uh, self-driving is around the corner. So for me it'sliterally around the corner Now let's go to, uh, where stable Coin is. I justmade my trip to, uh, latam.

Uh, I was to Mexico and was Argentina. So, um, it's a marketwhere stable Coin is not around the corner. Maybe there is something around thecorner, but not stablecoins. stablecoins are deeply embedded in what they,they're doing. And, uh, I have a friend, uh, in Argentina, uh, who shares likethe same, uh. Uh, kind of, um, place we lived, uh, in long ago.

So he now lives in Argentina. He runs a bunch of businessesthere, real estate business and rent a car business. So I just rented a carfrom him and I was curious because he told me that he can only acceptstablecoins. Said, how come? He said, well, that's the preferred I could notaccept Pesa because Pesa is like, uh, too, um, uh, like too dilutive.

Too dilutive, uh, like, um, inflation is getting it. I couldnot accept dollars because I could not, uh, change dollars to Pesa and I don'tneed anyway. And then he has shown me books and that was amazing. So he isbuying cars, uh, to his rent-a-car like long-term lease. He's payingstablecoins. He rents cars to consumers in stablecoins.

He pays salaries in stablecoins. He pays insurance instablecoins. Uh, he like all his like, business is stable. Coins, uh. Platform.So it's all based on stablecoins and he's using different tools. It's not likeone single tool because there is no one single tool available for different,uh, things. But it's amazing how adoption has taken place, right?

And it's like everywhere. So legal services, uh, uh, consumershops, uh, haircut, like barbershops, everything in Argentina, at least BuenosAires I could not speak of, like, uh, rural areas is, uh, stable Coin, notready, like it's stable Coin economy. So, uh, we are, I could not name yourcompany, but we are about to invest into really great, uh, company out of, uh,uh, Singapore, which is like a global player of course, uh, which is a stableCoin first and ready, uh, like, uh, business.

Uh, they develop, um. Uh, a white label kind of solution. Andthere are many, uh, banks now, which are consuming this, uh, service, thiswhite label platform. So I'm excited how it's just taking off and I believethat for developing world, uh, for sure, uh, uh, for developed world. I don'tknow if that takes, uh, longer mo Most probably, yes.

'cause, uh, well, I saw this, you know, how this evolution ishappening. I saw this, um, like biometric, uh, credit card, like took, likemade a payment with that in the late nineties when I just looked at this likewireless biometric card said, well, it's gonna take like three years, fouryears before every cart will be biometric and, uh, wireless, right?

But when I just moved to the US in 2010, obviously I've beenhere before, but it just. It took me a while to understand why this is stillpin and, uh, and uh, uh, like swipe and pin, right? I mean, sorry, swipe andsign right. Not a pin. Like not a chip. It's not like, like even chips werethere like in 2015, not even biometric and wireless.

I mean, you could not really use cheap, which wasn't the card,but the whole infrastructure was

Stephen: you couldn'teven tap, I think in the US until recently.

Victor: yeah,absolutely. So, so my point is that, uh, probably in the, in the developedworld, uh, it's not gonna be, uh, a mainstream, but in developing world forsure, uh, stablecoin is gonna be the mean of payment and mean of cross border.

Like I've seen so much of this, uh, happening Now, cross bodypayments, uh, conventional swift payments, right, uh, uh, are replaced bystable Coin, easy, cheap, and done in minutes. Uh, while, uh, it's a bigdisaster if you are a company in Vietnam paying your provider in, uh, Uruguay.Uh, or Chile. I mean, your payment may just be delayed for months, right?

Because of some intermediary banks, uh, that hold this payment.It's like, I mean, it's real total disaster how this payment B2B payment, uh,cross border, uh, in cross border, uh, uh, works today and stable Coin is aperfect solution to replace it.

Stephen: People aretalking about emerging countries, but even for me in Canada to send funds tothe US or great bidden or, you know, interact with vendors around the worldand, you know, entrepreneurs and other like outsource uh, vendors, it's hard todo. It's expensive, it's clunky, it's not easy. And people wonder that whystablecoins are getting so much adoption.

I saw on your LinkedIn that you guys are releasing a three-partseries and one of the parts I think by the time we release this episode will becoming up, uh, the AI inflection where you're gonna go into a little bit aboutwhat to expect in AI and tech and the capital markets in 2026. Can you give usa little sneak peek of some concepts of what the consumer can expect in 2026 ormaybe what, you know, other VCs or tech companies can expect as well?

Victor: Absolutely.And as you mentioned, rightly, this is not an investment advice, right?

Stephen: Yeah.

Victor: uh, how I seethis market going forward, uh, I mean now like is, like always like in thiskind of like hype cycles. Um, um, the question is, is there a bubble? Willthere be some, uh, uh, uh, decline and uh, uh, what will happen overall?

So I do believe that, uh, a market has to cool down, right? AndI don't think that, uh, uh, it's justifiable. I mean, what's the good marketlook like in my, in my world, right? The good market is when best companiesget, uh, uh, funded. Uh. Easily and, uh, well, as much as they need, uh, when,like, uh, mediocre, okay.

Companies get funded, they need to spend more time. They arenot gonna get best investors, but they will still be funded, right? But, um,others like two, three companies are not gonna funded, right? So that's anokay, uh, kind of condition in our market, right? When not every company isfunded, right? Only best are funded.

And some of, okay, companies are funded because not everyonecan go to the best company. I, at least from perception, perceptionperspective, what's the hype market is all about is when every company isfunded, whether it's like the best company or KK company, like a poor, poorlyuh, managed company that everyone is funded because there is so much funding,right?

So those who could not fund tier one will fund tier two. Thosewho could not fund tier two will fund tier three. That's what exactly happenedin 20 20, 20 21. That like, it was like a hype for sure because there was noone single company that would go to the market and would not be funded. Right.And some of the companies were going, uh, uh, to the market like seven, eighthours, uh, seven, eight times a a year.

Right. Which is very unusual, right? I mean, usually likefunding cycle is like 18 months, 2012 months at minimum. But when you go liketo the market every second month and you get like double valuation, it'sdefinitely not healthy. Right. So now we see something similar right. On themarket. Not exactly, it was in 21, uh, 20 20, 20 21.

But it's still. Definitely oversubscribed in a way, right? Moremoney than, uh, it should, uh, be on the market. And, uh, I believe that that'sthe reason why valuations are, uh, going that high. Uh, and this is related toai, right? But, uh, when AI market is cooling down, it does not necessarilymean that investors will switch to other markets, right?

It may might mean that, uh, investors will, um, like, uh.Reserve more and, uh, will not fund, uh, the entire market. So I do expect itto happen. Uh, so when, I don't think it's gonna happen in 20 26, 20 27, Ibelieve it'll be like 20, 28 and further because, uh, still like there is alot, uh, expectations and some of these expectations are delivered, right?

So, um, I mean, best companies like, uh, OpenAI, like, andTropic, they really grow in revenue. I mean, on OpenAI as we know, not thatmuch, but still like going at least on, uh, like user adoption dynamics. Reallycrazy, uh, companies like, like, uh, on Tropic, uh, taking off in terms ofrevenue, uh, at least rumor says that they're gonna make like, uh, what 70bill, uh, in revenue and be profitable already in 2027, I think.

Uh uh, or 2028. I read it the other day. Uh, in some of, uh,media. So my point is that, um, it should cool down, but it will take time. Uh,um, as far as agentic architecture is concerned, I told you that I do believethat agent AI will take over, but it's not gonna be one company takes it all.It'll be much more like domain expertise, the main build, and we are lookinginto these domains for sure.

Um, yeah, you'll asked, and I didn't answer this payment stuffright. I'm a big believer that none of the payment companies now, likeincluding famous, uh, and well really built, built Stripe, visa, MasterCard,could coop with payment to payment, uh, sorry, uh, agent to agent payments,right? Um, uh, you can think of like trillions of transactions, uh, uh, likesmaller transactions, almost real time in line on like small sized batches,right?

When agents have to speak to each other, like negotiate theprice, agree on price and, and uh, NetApp payments, right? So I think that willbe someone, uh, building up something on blockchain. I haven't, I I, we arelooking at that, but I haven't seen any company doing it now at scale, butdefinitely that's where we think, uh, a lot will happen, right?

And payments in payments

Stephen: Right. Youknow, one area that people are saying the reason why AI is starting to go down,especially in valuations, is it hasn't actually reached its enterprisepotential. You know, it's being sold a lot by consultants. The adoption isincreasing while the actual successful implementation is actually dropping.

Do you find that like these companies are being sold to dreamwith ai, but by the time they have to implement it, whether it's hallucinationsor you know, pushy sales hype cycle salespeople that are getting them intosomething that they may not actually need. What are you seeing from thecompanies that are actually purchasing from these ai uh, startups?

Are they getting what they thought they were gonna get? And isthere success stories you're hearing in the market?

Victor: There is,there is an amazing potential in that for sure. Right? I mean, uh, AI can helpto eliminate a lot of waste, right. In large and largest enterprises, uh, uh,for sure. Right? But, um, um, I think that, uh, it requires a lot ofrestructuring in a way these enterprises work, right? Uh, you could not likeput it on top.

And this was like the same with mobile, right? Uh, if you just,uh, add the mobile bank, uh, uh, like app into your, uh, stack, you, you couldnot be considered a mobile digital bank. Because if I go to your mobile app andthen it says it's out of service because of the, like, I mean, service time,right? Or whatever.

I mean, we are updating our system. It won't work until Monday,right? Uh, um, now you did this transaction, but now you have to call bank toverify it. I mean, it's just not a mobile bank, right? I mean, you have amobile app, but can you think of like a mobile experience? No. Right? So samefor ai, right? We just need to rebuild your platform in a way that AI genarchitecture will work.

That's the first thing. Second thing, um, AI systems are notready yet. And I spoke to one of, uh, CEOs of large, uh, logistic company,which, uh, really said that, um, implementation of ai, uh, this knowledge, uh,what you call knowledge, uh, domain like knowledge, uh, platform, uh, like asearch, like an internal search tool, if you will, like an internal.

Uh, browser, right? Like built, I don't wanna name the name ofthe company. Uh uh, uh, uh, but it's like one of these nine largest companies,uh, doing ai. So he said, um, well, it ended up in my, in my office. Uh, Isaid, why is that? He said, because I was trying to like, play with that. And Iasked, uh, uh, how much, how many?

Uh, and he's a tech guy. It's interesting. Although he's not,he's like CEO of non-tech company. He said, I just wanted to know aboutfirewalls, how many firewalls I had. And then it gave me like, bunch of dataabout my firewalls, which I was not supposed to even have, uh, a data for,right? So I asked, how come they said, oh, we can correct that.

And, uh, uh, they came like in, uh, like few days, I mean thecompany saying, now we, we have corrected this kind of search, blah, blah,blah. And he said, in five prompts. I tripped, uh, and faked, uh, it again. Soit gave me like, uh, in five prompts. It finally gave me the cost of thosefirewalls, which only finance should know, and also the IP addresses of thosefirewalls.

Stephen: Wow.

Victor: I mean,because it's not ready to like support it, right? I mean, uh, I mean, you can,you can buy prompts, you can find out more data than you should, right? And,uh, like in these organizations, you do not want every, uh, employee to knowwhat your IP address for, uh, for your firewall is, right? Or how much you paidfor this firewalls, right?

So

Stephen: don't wantNorth Korean sponsored hackers knowing that information either.

Victor: not even likethat. I mean, you don't want your managers to know it, right? Because if youare in finance, it's not supposed to know ip. If you are in tech, you're notsupposed to know how much you paid for this firewalls, right? I mean, it's liketricky, right? And, um, uh, uh, well, none of the systems can cope with thatyet.

And, uh, I believe that, uh, it'll take time before the systemswill adopt this, like, uh, robustness of, uh, like all generation platforms,like for example, like foundation, like, uh, database, like system of recordwhere you have everything really done in a way that, uh, it's like verytransparent. If you set the rights, like set the access in a way, then nobodyelse can access it because it's like very clearly done that way.

So I think that there is an evolution to take place yet toevolve the systems to evolve to that maturity, right? It probably will take afew years. Finally, you know, like large enterprise is a big complex thing, andadoption there is not happening real fast. I mean, whatever they do, theyshould do it slow.

Uh, I lo I worked for large enterprises. I know the way theywork. I mean, uh, like doing it slowly is the way they can move, right? If theystart moving faster, they will break themselves in a bad way so they understandit. So, uh, and that's the reason why you think of like, uh, I mean this, uh,cloud infrastructure, right?

Cloud is all there, right? But why, if you think of s and p500, I'm sure that over 50% of infrastructure is still in a private cloud, notin a public cloud. People may say, oh, because it's like of safety, security,whatever. No. Just because they're moving slow. Right. It just because theycould not adopt fast.

And that's the reason why no pizzeria or like barbershop haslike servers, uh, behind the wall, right? They were all cloud and all these bigcompanies, uh, born like, uh, 50 years, a hundred years ago are still in aprivate, uh, kind of infrastructure just because it was built that way, right?And, uh, if you are still operating like Kabul, and I'm sure like out of, uh,50 launches, banks in the us I'm quite sure that uh, like half of them arestill, uh, like main language programming language is Kabul.

'cause their core bank banking system are, uh, mainframe based,right? So, uh, uh, what can you do about that, right? I mean, it's like, Imean, it's embedded into such a core of your operations that you could not movefast because that what breaks you, right?

Stephen: Are thereany businesses that you've seen or just even interacting with founders andstartups that wanted you to put like, Hey, lemme just take a sabbatical from R1 36 and jump back into the game as a founder and, you know, uh, get my t get,scratch my itch again. Is there anything that you've seen other that like, yoit needs Victor in the, in commanding the seat, uh, or you really, do youreally like staying on the VC

Victor: You know,there are some, uh, I could not say that I was not invited. Right. I was not. Iwas invited to profound companies. I was invited to manage companies. Um, I'm,I'm always, uh, kidding. And this is like partially truth and partially, uh,joke that, um, uh, you have to really, um, like under, I mean, when you do thisjourney, like as a founder.

It's like 7, 8, 10 years journey, right? So you should think oflike 10 years, probably. So, 10, 10 years you should start from scratch andgradually develop things. Uh, you have to really love the problem you'retackling. I mean, my really good friend, uh, URI Levy, who is the founder ofWays, he wrote a book, which I really admire, uh, uh, essence of this book, uh,that you have to fall, fall in love with problem, not with the solution.

Most founders fall in love with the solution, and thesefounders end up nowhere. You really should love the problem. So probably thereason why I never started my own like company, right? I mean R 1, 3 6 peoplesay, oh, you're not an operator. You are a vc. I mean, sorry to say bullshit. Imean, I'm an operator of the venture, uh, uh, company, right?

Uh, I mean it's, I mean, yeah, it's like only 15 people, butwhy I'm not an operator. I'm an operator, right? I founded it. It's a startupin a way. I just treat it as a startup. Um,

Stephen: you havemore pressure. You're dealing with other people's money.

Victor: it's a littlebit of multitasking. I mean, I have to do with my LPs, I have to do with mystartups or portfolio companies, uh, with prospects.

But it's, it's still a startup. But anyway, coming to aquestion, so I was, I did not, I did not fall in love with any particularproblem. In a way I would have been engaged for 10 years, but that's the reasonwhy I decided to date with so many different, not to marry one problem to, butto date with so many different problems.

Uh, and I love what I'm doing. I think that I'm best in doingwhat I'm doing because, uh, uh, think of like being, uh, uh, again, coming backto soccer, you could just play, uh, a midfield. You can play a defender, a holekeeper. Uh, you may play a forward, uh, but you may only sit on the bench andbe a coach. Right.

Uh, like Nia or um, uh, uh, like others, um, whatever. Take,give a name. Uh, I mean, they're not the best players. Even. They playedsoccer, but they're admired and best coaches, right? So I think I'm the bettercoach than a player, uh, because I can observe, look at how others are playingand give them the right advice in the right way.

And it's extremely difficult. It's even more difficult than toplay yourself, right? Uh, uh, and you have to do it in a way, I mean, becauseall founders have a ego, right? And I admire their ego and I admire whatthey're doing. They're like doing a fantastic, whether they're successful orunsuccessful, temporarily, they are doing amazing work.

Uh, they are, uh, in a highly risk, uh, high risk. I'm not atthat high risk business because I'm diversified. I could not make as much asthey can, but I'm diversified, right? They are putting all eggs into onebasket. So I admire that. And they extremely talented and brave. Uh, and youhave to give them like a room of feeling this greatness, right?

But you still have to coach them. And it's like coaching, whenI'm thinking of that coaching re right? What you can tell him how to playtennis, he still has a coach, right? Who can tell him something what ho himselfmaybe could not do, but he can make it like different for, uh, je that's how Itreat all my founders.

I'm,

Stephen: And you, youmake a great point that you're able to observe certain things that RogerFederer wouldn't be able to do while he's playing. And that's really yourskillset because you have the experience of, you know, working in tech,building up these, you know, millions of users and millions of dollars millionin, before mobile was mobile.

You, you have that objectivity where you can input thatknowledge and observe. Whereas when you're playing, you usually don't haveenough time to observe what you're doing 'cause you're too busy running aroundand hitting the ball.

Victor: So I'm in theright place in the right time. I, I love what I'm doing. I'm surrounded byamazing people. Uh, and, uh, uh, actually, I feel like I don't feel bored anyminute, uh, in my life. Uh, and, uh, uh, it's like a fantastic, uh, uh, timeand fantastic, uh, really fantastic place to be.

Stephen: I love that.I know you had posted on LinkedIn about like founders not experiencing thepain. They're coming up with solutions, but they haven't lived the pain orexperienced the pain. Anyone in payment. You see a lot of payment founders endup creating SaaS products for re for regulations and compliance because theyfelt that pain firsthand.

What are your thoughts about founders that don't feel the painas much or haven't been in the pain? Could they still build successfulbusinesses or do they have to kind of like stew in that pain for a bit in orderto sharpen their skills?

Victor: Uh, they maynot experience pain themselves, uh, but they should really go deep into, uh,uh, into, um, uh, the problem, right? So, uh, they should at least like, uh,like on a fictional level, they should create this notion of, uh, feeling apain, right? Otherwise it won't work. Uh, right. Uh, I mean, indeed you have togo deep into the problem to find a solution.

And the, uh, founders, especially sometimes I advise earlystage founders who come with a solution without really understanding theproblem. Uh, I mean, I'm not investing, uh, I'm not even looking into thisbecause I understand that they will never, I mean, they have liberatedsomething and now they try to find how they can.

Deploy it. It doesn't work that way. I mean, you should notlike come up with something trying to find how you can like, build upon that.You should really come from the, uh, other end, right? You should go throughthe problem deep. And I just can give you like a, I, I'm, I can even like,probably name a company called eyeball.com.

I'm an advisor and, uh, probably the only angel investor that'sa payment platform, uh, for, uh, field services. And we built like a lot morethan just a payment platform now. It's like a, um, A-A-C-F-O suite. But anyway,uh, the founder is a great, uh, man and a friend of mine, Jim, he, um, uh,started the payment platform with Xal after he sold his startup in other, likehardware space.

Uh, uh, and, uh, uh, he was like doing this, um, he was tryingto create like A-P-O-S-A point of sale. Uh, uh, platform, like in payments. AndI was like very skeptical. I said, Jim, you are a great guy. But I mean, it'snot, I mean, the way you tell me this thing, you just do not really understandthe pain either of consumer or a bank or a merchant whom you are trying to makehappy.

And then, uh, he and I like came up because he was buildingwhen he, he's an immigrant like me, but much young, I mean much long ago. So hebuilt, uh, his like field service company and it's still like operational. Itmakes some money for him, but he's not managing, getting any longer. I told himthat you came through, through this, you know, the pain points, you know, likehow this business is built.

Try to build your payment platform for the field service likecontractors. And, and he did that and it scaled to over 10 million, uh, in a RRbootstrapped. Profitable. Can you think of like a payment platform, which is 10million a r growing like 15% month to month and, and is profitable. So when wejust go, I mean, I could not say more, but we just go fundraising now.

And like people say, how come? I mean, that's the reason hereally build it really well, because he understands this domain so well.Because he was a serviceman when he, man, he, he moved to the us he wasrepairing the like, uh, air conditioning and whatever, electricity himself. Sohe knows this, right? So he was at this like, uh, business and now building uppayments.

Like it's an amazing fit, right? With his passion about goinglike every single step, understanding how it works. So it's a perfect fit. So Ithink that every founder he has to go, like in, uh, Japanese, it's calledgamba, right? Gamba should go gamba and should do this work himself prior tolike considering a startup.

Automating it or disrupting it so that what I believe is, uh,the true value.

Stephen: I love that.And you know, for people that don't know, you have your own podcasts, venturesfrom the Valley, great technical look at companies and AI and tech and crypto.But you've also written books and you have this concept, rhino mindset. And Idon't wanna leave this conversation without getting a better understanding ofwhat the Rhino Mindset is and how, you know, what are some characteristics thatfounders have of this rhino mindset that's keeping them from becoming aunicorn.

Victor: Well, um, Iwas developing this book, um, uh, after my, uh, like long, uh, journey, uh, incompanies and, um, uh, I'm a true believer that you could not create innovationlike a breakthrough. Innovation is not happening. Uh, within largeorganizations, take it, uh, like any name like Apple, i, BM, uh, uh, Cisco, oreven OpenAI at the end of the day, uh, I mean, when a company becomes big, itstops innovating.

And the reason for that is that you have a lot to lose. So whatinnovation is innovation is, 99 times failure and one time, uh, success, right?That's what the breakthrough innovation is all about. You have to be 99 timeswrong and one time, right? So imagine like a manager in an organization, anyorganization s and p 500, where a manager could fail 99 times.

I mean, when he's failed, like, uh, failures like five timeshe's out, right? He could not even live through 99. Failures he can only livefor through a few. And, uh, it's not like the place where you can puteverything into. Like, call us into one basket. You have to diversify. Um, so,uh, that's the reason why innovation is not happening in big organizations, butbigger, big organizations still can be early adopters of innovation.

So when I'm sipping about, um, uh, about unicorn found, uh,sorry, uh, unicorn managers and unicorn, uh, um, uh, organizations like largescale companies, I'm speaking about an early adoption of innovation, uh, whenyou can, um, get the best of the market, either m and a or, uh, just somethingwhat was recently built right and then abstracted completely the way like IBMdid it perfectly once when they decided to build like this personal computergroup.

And that's how they built like this IBM pc. I mean, they did itas a side project, but they left this project as a startup. They didn't touchit. They let it go. Uh, and, uh, uh, that was a perfect fit, right? But it ishappening so rarely, like, and that, that is the unicorn pattern. So when I'mtalking about rhinos, rhino is the rest, right?

Rhinos are, they are unable to like rebuild themselves becausethey have a lot to lose. So when you, and, and that's what I admired. TheNvidia. Nvidia is now trying hard, uh, they're investing like crazy into notbeing an infrastructure, right? They try to be anything but infrastructure. Andif you look into what they're investing into, why, because.

I mean, you have to do it. You have to pivot when you are ontop. I mean, most of companies like General Electric, they made like thispivot. At some point they succeeded to pivot, but they did it in, uh, extremeconditions when everything was falling apart, not when everything was great. Sohow to pivot from where you are to something new, when things are great, whenyour margins are great, when you are making like huge tons of, uh, cash andstuff and it's extremely difficult.

Right? And that is like a rhino concept. Rhino concept is waituntil you hitting the wall and then change. Uh, unicorn, uh, concept ischanging when you are on top just trying to be out of the space because this isnot forever. And I believe that my book from Rhino to Unicorns is all aboutthat.

Stephen: I thinkthat's an interesting concept. And you're right, that's the hardest part. Whenthings are going well, you're not like, Hey, let's risk, let's risk all thesethings going. Well, to your point, everyone's trying to fatten up at that pointand get big like the rhino, right? Because then that's how they get theirbonuses and that's how they get promotions.

'cause now they need direct reports, so they need to hire morepeople. Uh, it's so interesting,

Victor: I gave, Igave like, sorry, sorry. Maybe just gave two, uh, like really great examples.Walmart versus Amazon. I mean, Walmart could have built, uh, online long ago.They've watched Amazon doing it. Why They didn't make it, right? Because, uh,uh, Walmart, Walmart has like, like A-D-N-A-D-N-A is that every day, uh, uh,uh, best price,

Stephen: Yeah.

Victor: Best priceevery day. Uh, and Amazon is not, right. I mean, to compete with Amazon, youshould get to this field and compete on their field rather than compete onyours, right? Another example is Nokia to, uh, apple. Uh, apple one, notbecause Nokia was like, uh, uh, I mean, not because Apple phone was web better.I mean, some people say, oh, they just built up this touch screen.

I mean, touch screen doesn't make sense. I mean, it's not thetouch screen that, that made Apple. Apple, right. And that what killed Nokia,what killed Nokia is, uh, a different business model because Apple became amarketplace. So the strength of Apple is that you have, uh, a touchscreen whereyou can buy, uh, anything you want, like thousands of millions of differentapps.

And that's the beauty, right? And uh, uh, like pivoting to thatkind of models is that is a show of, uh, like a strong, uh, unicorn pattern ina way.

Stephen: and Nokiajust stayed the phone while Apple connected to every single device that youwould ever want to use. So you just log in. Once you have a, like, nobody wantsto break that connectivity, especially with all their families. You know, youcan do everything from the phone to your computer. Victor, this has beenamazing.

You mentioned already a great book and we're gonna definitelytell people to check out your book, um, and your podcast. Uh, is there anyidea, one idea that has shaped your thinking over the last few years,especially as we go into what is unchartered territory for, you know, the nextgeneration of ai? Is there any ideas that, or conversations you had, or evenquotes that you've seen that have completely shaped your thinking in the era ofai?

Victor: um, in theera of ai. Um, actually I wouldn't think of like, uh, something immediate now.Um, um, I would probably quote, uh, uh, a book by David Desch, my favorite, uh,uh, writer who is a pioneer of, uh, quantum compute, which, uh, is yet notthere, but I'm sure it will come at some point. So, David Desch, uh, book, uh,which I admire, uh, uh, is beginning of Infinity, which was published back in2011.

Well before, uh. Uh, AI era, but, uh, the beginning of infinityis, uh, just self, self-explaining thing. I believe that we do live in thisbeginning of infinity cycle, right? Uh, that makes, uh, uh, our lives, um, likeamazing and, uh, gets like meaning to this, right? Uh, uh, it's like somethinghappening now will never stop, right?

And I believe that what we see now, like AI revolution isnothing compared to what will come, uh, in terms of business tools So, uh, myprediction again, no advice, uh, uh, investment advice, but my prediction thatin 20 years we'll see, uh, at least five of companies in top 10, uh, most likevalued companies.

There will be names which do not exist now, So there will befive new companies and I dunno what technologies they will, uh, build upon. Uh,what the business models are gonna be there, but I'm sure that this shift isthere and we will see like a completely new world, which I'm looking forward tobeing a part of.

Stephen: That'samazing. Where's the best place for people to reach out to LinkedIn, Twitter.

Victor: Yeah,

Stephen: you and askfor money.

Victor: link.LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best probably. Uh, and, uh, uh, well, you can also dothe I-C-T-O-R at, uh, R 1 3 6 vc. Uh, so vi CT R at R136 vc. So I'm reading allmy emails and I will be happy to reply

Stephen: That'sawesome. Is there anything that you're looking for in your email? Like is thereanything that gets you excited that comes across your desk?

Victor: New, newideas, new ideas. I mean, uh, come up with like, uh, new stuff you're building.Uh, I admire all builders and in doing time reading everything, uh, being sent,right? I'm not replying everything. I'm, and if I reply, be sure it's not anai, it's my voice you hear. Uh, but, uh, I definitely go through every deck I'mbeing sent, if even it's very time consuming.

I go at least a few seconds to see whether it makes sense ornot, and I reply a lot. So, yeah. So please, uh,

Stephen: Is there anyplace that people lose you in the deck? Like I know, like now that you say thatyou're reading every deck, is there somewhere, where is it that they don't,they're not putting their numbers right at the front and letting you know? Isthere anywhere where they lose, you think they lose your interest or you startto lose

Victor: well, uh, ifyou, if somebody sends me like 50 pages, uh, certainly they lose my interest.Uh, so, uh, if, uh, uh, you could not explain things on one page. So I reallyadmire, uh, what, uh, why seed is doing like this elevator speech. And you can,uh, look into my, by the way, one of my LinkedIns and, uh, uh, Substack, Ithink I, uh, wrote like a little bit of, uh, what the elevator pitch is allabout and how you should, uh, build it.

So if you are not ready, uh, and could not convince aninvestor. In 60 seconds through your like stink and elevator and withoutshowing a deck, but just telling your story, probably you could not make it.

Stephen: I love that.Victor, thank you so much for joining us and amazing work at R 1 36.

Victor: Yeah, it wasa really amazing time, uh, with you and thanks for your great questions.

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