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David Vélez

David Vélez

CEO of Nubank

Oct 6, 2026

7:06
But talk to me about some of the schleps in the US that people don't realize exists.
7:10
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
7:12
So I'm not Brazilian.
7:13
I'm Colombian.
7:14
And it took a foreigner to come to Brazil and to see the system with new eyes to realize something's wrong here.
7:20
And when I would talk to the locals, my friends in Brazil, they would say, what do you mean? Bank is fine.
7:26
This was 2013.

14 MINS LATER

21:55
What is NuFormer and what does it actually do for you?
21:52
And as you went along that journey, Are there any moments that stick out that really gave you confidence that this was really working, that the thing that you'd taken this big risk on and had put so much effort in was actually going to get you right the way to the finish line? Was there any particular sort of data points you look back and go, that's when the probabilities really shifted in your mind?
22:13
Yeah.
22:14
Yeah.
22:14
So the million customers in five years was huge.
22:17
felt almost impossible, felt crazy because we put that goal when we had no customers and we didn't even know if Mastercard was going to say yes to us or Visa or we were going to find initially a banking partner that we needed.
22:31
But then we worked in that accelerated fashion and we launched the product for the few customers.
22:38
We initially had 12 cards and it was the 12 of us, 12 employees.
26:44
Because it's one thing to say you're customer obsessed, but you've got to show it through the decisions you take over many years.

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