Paving New Pathways for Financial Success

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Welcome to “Breakthrough Labs” from General Atlantic, a podcast where we speak about companies and executives who are using technology to transform the world. My name is Martín Escobari, and I am Co-President of General Atlantic. Today I have the enormous pleasure of being with my friend and partner Guilherme Benchimol, the founder of XP Investimentos. Good morning, Guilherme! 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Good morning, Martín! A pleasure to be here with you. Ten years we’ve known each other, and I hope our chat is as interesting as the recent ones that we’ve had. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Wonderful! Guilherme, for the benefit of those who are listening to us who are not Brazilian, tell us what XP Inc. is.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Well, XP Inc today is a one-stop-shop for financial services. However, that was not the way we started out, as we began as an investment company that helped Brazilians invest better. Over the years, we proceeded to horizontalize the company, adding other services, such as a bank, credit cards, and other additional things—and nowadays what we do is fight banking hegemony in Brazil. Brazil has a banking hegemony that’s among the highest in the world, as more or less ninety percent of all financial services are concentrated within five banks. So, we are steadily making our model capable of addressing the enormous market that exists is in this country.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Guilherme, today XP is a company with over three million customers and yet began one day when you were fired from a bank. Tell us about that story.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Yes, I started up the company really without intending to. My father wanted me to be a physician; he’s a physician. And I ended up studying Economics because I was good at math. I wanted to be a trader and yet I had zero talent as a trader. And one fine day, I was working at a brokerage firm in Rio de Janeiro that has since closed down, and this Rio brokerage firm was not doing very well financially, so it had to cut costs. My division was cut, and I was fired. I recall I arrived home a few weeks earlier and had told my father that I was scared, right, that I had heard word going around the company that it was going to cut costs and that some areas were about to be shut down. And my father said, “Guilherme, don’t worry because good executives are never shown the door”. So, he gave me some terrible advice at the time and when I got home after being fired, I felt very embarrassed. And that’s how I came to live in the south of Brazil, because I wanted to escape from Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t want to see him anymore, and I didn’t want to see my friends anymore. I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, , that I would even risk going broke in order to have control over my life. And so, I started up the company, it was in a tiny little room of just twenty-five square meters, I had around ten thousand Brazilian Reals in my pocket and a second-hand car that I had bought some years before. I got a ‘Gaucho’ partner, and that’s how the company started up. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Tell us a bit about beginning the company based on financial education and your experiences as an investment guru.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: When I began the company, I was very young. I was twenty-four living in a city that was very inward-looking—a very conservative city. And I believed that, in the beginning, the format for customer sourcing was what the other banks did, right. So, you had to put on a suit and tie, stick a briefcase under your arm and schedule visits, right? Only I had no experience, had no experience and my company was nothing yet, right? So, this formula, this formula that I began to do at the beginning wasn’t achieving any result and my money was running out. And when the money is running out, you start to get worried, because you’ll go broke. 

And so, bit by bit, I started building up a different format. I began giving talks, because I saw that people liked chatting with me about investments, and that gave me a bit more scale. And so, via this format, I began to see that the path was education. And when my money actually ran out, I had the vision, together with my partner at the time, to launch a course that could help people invest. So, we created a coursebook. The building where we were had an events’ room that didn’t cost anything—you just had to clean up afterwards. And our final great stroke of genius, let’s say, was to launch this course. And we stuck an ad in ‘Zero Hora’, the Gaucho paper at the time, thinking only a few students would show up and thirty students came along, who I call the courageous ones, because they came to learn with me and the course cost three hundred Brazilian reals. So, I made nine thousand Brazilian reals in a weekend. And what is most interesting is that the thirty customers who turned up to learn with us, opened an account after this. 

So, the formula was clear. It was not to convince people to come and invest with us. The formula was to convince people to come and learn, and the natural consequence of teaching was to convert those students into loyal customers. So, then we began to find a different model, a model that could empower people, help people to understand the financial market in a different way, a thing that banks until then had never done. 

And, based on this format, we began connecting the dots. We started to steadily educate and began to realize that when you do the right thing, when you help people, people accompany you and help you much more. And we began doing courses every Saturday and Sunday, and then Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and many years went by giving talks and lots of courses. 

But this format demonstrated that it was a highly consistent one, right. We didn’t need to contract people who were well-connected, it was enough to have a good method, do education in a very genuine way and that would naturally make people trust us. And so, we kept going and advancing. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: From a Saturday class for twenty people to Expert last year, XP has changed a lot. Tell us a little bit about Expert from last year and the magnitude of this event.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: In 2010, we went to visit… we always had an important benchmark, right, that was a US brokerage firm, Charles Schwab. And in 2010, we went to visit a fair of theirs called Impact and, if I’m not mistaken, it was in San Francisco. And we came back from there in awe. 

We saw that that was very coherent. It’s a fair where all the Brazilian AEFs come together, that could bring together the asset managers, the insurance firms, the mid-sized banks. And we could be the “hub” of this process, the new investment dynamic in Brazil. 

And soon after, we held our Expert, a 1.0 version, we did it in Barra da Tijuca. And we had rented a hotel, there were six stands, we had three hundred guests, half of the guests were from XP itself. But everything started out small. You have to take a little step, and then, after that, you go on advancing. 

And last year, actually, in 2019, before the pandemic, our fair overtook the Schwab fair in size. We held a fair for almost one hundred thousand people and there were 200-some-odd stands. And last year this fair ended up being…actually, in the last two years it ended up being virtual, and last year we impacted almost ten million people, bringing incredible names from around the entire world and…in other words, we keep doing education, but increasingly more at scale. And it’s a simple concept. If we help people to get familiar with things they perhaps did not know, this generates great empathy, this creates loyal customers and makes our brand increasingly stronger. So, this year our Expert was in-person again. When we opened up the agenda, Martín, in half an hour we had sold out all the stands. And this year there will be almost three hundred stands, we expect one hundred and fifty thousand people, it will be an incredible fair. 

And even a point of curiosity, right, in 2015, right, we began doing our fair in Brazil, it was a bit bigger and the people at Schwab didn’t let us keep attending their fair, because the fair was just for US AEFs. And we were banned from the fair, we felt really upset. And, around three years ago, the people from Schwab came to our fair and we put out the red carpet and said, no, you guys can come here because, because you helped us a lot, so, if you want our help, you can count on us. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: That’s beautiful! That’s beautiful! And, as an investor, Guilherme, I look for entrepreneurs who have a sense of mission and that it is a mission that I can share. Tell us about your mission and how it has been changing over time. 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Well, I’d say that if my father had a phrase at home, right, he always used to say, “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you”. But when you are just a boy you don’t pay much attention to it, you hear. He repeated it over and over again and I don’t think I made much of it. And when I was fired, I had a short executive career—I spent six years at three companies and two years at a brokerage firm where I ended up leaving. And I didn’t feel right, I just felt like another number in there. I didn’t feel that the company CEO paid attention to the people who were in there. I didn’t feel that it was a company with body and soul. And when I began to run the company, right, when I had the opportunity to start up my business, perhaps this phrase that my father taught me back then, “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you” came to be pertinent in a different way. I said “Look, I want to set up a company that really looks after people in a way that I had never been cared for, that can inspire people, that can inspire the customers, that can create a unique connection.” It’s then I began to realize that education was a very cool way to connect with people, to help. I think that “help” is a very important word. It’s perhaps one of the things that provides the most genuine happiness to you—when you are helping someone, something fills you inside and you feel truly happy, right. So, I took it that as the company mission, that it was always to help. Be it helping the customers, be it helping employees to grow, be it helping partners to be increasingly more of a partner. And when you create this all-positive current, this has a very, very great impact, So, I would say that the company mission has not changed: it is still to help. We want to go on helping increasingly more Brazilians to have financial success, steadily helping more people to achieve success. And nothing is more inspiring than this, right, when you genuinely help the customer, when you help the people who are at your side or even under you to have success, this creates a unique company in every sense. So, that’s how it is.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: One of the things that have impressed me during the decade we’ve been together, Guilherme, is the culture of meritocracy and how it is maintained… 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: I think Marco’s calling over there…

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Right…reflecting on the ten years that we’ve been together, the culture of meritocracy, I see a major differential in XP. Talk about the XP culture and problems, the way to manage to maintain this meritocracy at scale. Because today XP is no longer one little room with two employees—you have three thousand employees, and soon enough we’ll have five thousand. How do you maintain a homogeneous culture, focused on meritocracy?

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Meritocracy is a word that’s very easy to say, but very difficult to carry out. But I think that one of the key reasons that have allowed us to get this far has been because we have used this word for what it actually means, literally. And it would be really nice to believe that perhaps the team that starts off at a company will be the same team that goes on to the end, right. Admitting that there is an end, right. That is highly improbable, and you have to be able to always have the best people, in the right position and a very strong culture, that can connect all of them. So, what I understand as meritocracy is performance and culture. Performance I see as the capacity of each person to achieve impossible goals and culture is how much this person abides by company values. Here at XP, we have three values: dream big, keep an open mind and have an entrepreneurial spirit. In other words, we want people who believe that the impossible is possible, people with an open mind, whether people who are intellectually more humble and who accept living with minor errors and mistakes, but correct these quickly, and people with an entrepreneurial spirit, people who are focused on the solution. 

So, we measure this in people every 15 days, right. We have a pulse survey at the company that every six months we run twelve checks on people in relation to these three topics. And achieving impossible goals become quantitative goals.

So, this way we begin to understand who the people are who do the magic, people who do impossible things, the way that we believe. And I know I’ll use a very strong word here and if you even feel it is too [sic] strong, you can cut it later, okay? But you have to make it so that…you have to make it so that Darwin operates in the company, right. You have to run a natural selection and meritocracy is that, right, meritocracy is enabling the strongest people, those most pro-company, those who manage to do even more extraordinary things, with the correct culture, to be able to have even more space, as well as the opposite. That is merit. Right….so it’s no use having a person at the company who is spectacular at achieving impossible goals and not have any connection with the culture of the company. As well as the opposite is also no use, the person has incredible culture but didn’t make it, was unable to get anywhere. We have to seek out these two things: performance and culture. And these are the people who grow at the company, they are going to make more money, they are going to have higher positions, they are going to be more partners. And, if you have a process that guarantees this long term, you’ll have a strong culture in the long term and will ensure that in every fundamental area of the company, there’s a magician at the helm. 

So, very often I’m asked “Ah, how do you ensure that your team continues to have a strong culture if you are not close to them?” Process. We can set up a company with fifty people who are in a tiny little room and it is not because we are close that we will have a homogeneous culture – strong culture and homogeneous culture is process. 

So, if we ensure that the meritocracy process is in place, there is no guarantee that anyone can grow within the company, unless they are very much aligned with the culture of the company. So, over these twenty years, our team, let’s say even unfortunately, had to change a number of times, because it is difficult for people to transform at the speed that very often the company demands. 

So, I started up the company back then, twenty-one years ago and it was a little room. Look how many transformations I’ve had to undergo—to the point of me no longer being the company CEO. I am already at version 20.0 here, but there are people who, sometimes, are unable to, don’t want to… there are people who, at times, are content with that which they have already achieved. And, if you are not skillful… in a constructive way, to be able to make these changes, if you do not transform your company into a living being, in my opinion, it will be difficult for you to manage to achieve longevity.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Processes and culture. Talk a bit about the role of technology to help you in processes. And how this vision has helped you think who your successor should be. 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Look, the technology to create culture processes, right? If I understood the question correctly, a strong culture is something that normally is difficult for companies to achieve, right? I would say that most companies do that which I mentioned which is goals and culture, but the culture part is very subjective. You reach the end of the six months and then the area leader calls in their team members and does that feedback there, that, which I feel is super removed from reality. Just that you give the feedback remembering the last three weeks of the last six months, you don’t remember the start of the  year. 

So, let’s say that we are already in July, you’re not going to remember what happened in January, February, March—you’ll remember the recent times, right. So, we have constructed a pulse survey, which is an app, where everyone, all company personnel are assessed every fifteen days. That is, it’s straightforward and there’s no major technology involved. 

And, with this, culture has become an objective thing, it becomes a tangible thing, since people have scores. So, it’s no use reaching the end of the semester and saying that the person…asking how the person performed in culture, if every fifteen days the scores haven’t shown this, right. And then, the feedback is based on these twelve surveys.

So, this was how we made progress. You asked about the transition? The other question was…

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Yes, you value technology and when thinking of your successor, you chose the technology director. Tell us about the process, at what moment did you decide it was the moment to make the transition? And why did you pick the person you have chosen? 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Look, I had…I had read a Harvard study, shortly after we opened up our share capital, which I don’t think I have even told you this, Martín, but I read that and kept it to myself, right. The study said the following. It said that when you have a founder at the helm of a company, in the IPO… their IPO on average is worth ten percent more than their peers who have no founder at their helm. But that three years after the company is listed, when you have a founder at the helm, the company begins to lose value; and six years after that, the value of the company implodes. 

Obviously, there are some exceptions. I looked at that, I said “wow, I adore facts and data, there’s an interesting study here.” And as I’ve always done…perhaps the greatest merit that I’ve had at the company all these years has been the capacity to change people, to not be afraid to make changes. 

My life as company CEO was a bit confusing, right, and becoming CEO was also very confusing—but after we were listed, I started having a very intense schedule with investors. I began to be in much demand for corporate engagements. So, the company was doing well in Brazil, it was having some success here, but these things were difficult to delegate, even though I enjoyed delegating, I wasn’t able to do this very well. 

And, at the same time, I had to run the company on a daily basis. So, here in Brazil we talk a lot about ducks, right—the duck is an animal that runs, that walks, swims and flies, but doesn’t do anything. So, I was feeling a bit like a duck, I was feeling… I wasn’t able to concentrate on that which I felt was important, which was the day-to-day of the company, looking at indicators, pushing the team to the limit, looking at the details, when necessary, close to the teams, and hence, at the same time, I also wanted to be able to lift up my head and look more to the future. 

And Thiago had already guided our technology team for four years, he had been conducting a very great transformation. Half of the company was the technology, so, of our current 7,000 personnel, 3,500 are technology personnel. And around two years ago, right, okay…sorry, one year ago, this was not very different. And I began to realize that Thiago had genuine leadership, he was a person who was more detail-orientated than me, was more organized than me. The founder, normally, he says a lot from the gut, right? He fights, he, you know, he…what is it that they say…he is passionate. I was always one to go into meetings and convey certain things with a lot of passion. That’s good and bad, right, because passion, at times, was a bit exaggerated, too.

So, Thiago had characteristics that I would say that they were very good, and looking to the future of the company, I think I was a good CEO. I had little doubt about that, because the company has gotten this far, but looking to the future, I had no doubt that Thiago would be a better CEO than me, because he had characteristics that lended themselves more to the present and future of the company. And, at the same time, if I could have more free time to connect with investors, that I could spend far away from the micro-management with…with the next five, ten years, the company would evolve too. 

So, since the company directors bought into this vision and it was unanimous that Thiago would be a better CEO than me, and that it was also unanimous that my time would be better spent in a more specified manner looking to the future too, it would be better, why not do it? Win-win situation, right? And so, we made the transformation and it’s already been a year and I can say with all certainty that XP is better than it was before in all respects. 

Thiago runs things, like… my agreement with him is that he…he is concerned about the next three years of the company and I look at the next three to ten. We complement each other, we talk five times a day, and I keep helping him gain a bit more of my experience, and that’s it. It’s very good to lift up one’s head and I think every founder and every CEO who’s been around for some time, at some moment, should do a similar transition, right. 

When you do this, after a while, you realize that you used to do things that other people would do better, and that your time could be spent elsewhere to allow the company to do even more incredible things, so… 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: I’ve learned a lot with you these ten years, Guilherme. And one of the most noticeable things, in addition to the meritocracy that you demonstrated when renewing the team and in your own renewal, is the courage. There were dozens of times that you came with these very courageous ideas of drastic changes in the company, and I was more hesitant and you always said “dude, if it doesn’t work out, we retreat and fix it, let’s go for it”. Where did you get this courage? 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: This courage right…it’s not, like,….the Latin American culture, right, it’s a culture…it’s a culture that…that penalizes errors, right. Like, I don’t know whether in the United States it’s like this or not, right, but it certainly is in Brazil…

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: No, no, no, it’s not, it’s not, and it’s a major cultural difference.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: So, in Latin America error is a bad thing, so, if you go bust, like, far worse. But I don’t know anyone who has learned to ride a bike who hasn’t fallen off. 

So, this concept, it demonstrates well that the Latin American is not correct about this principle. I have never been afraid of making mistakes, because, like, obviously I don’t want to make a mistake, but if I guide my decisions on facts and data, and always begin very small, any error that I make is always small, and since I regard myself as intellectually humble, and I’ve surrounded myself with people who also believe in this, okay, as bad as the scenario is, say you’re sorry, correct, it’ll be a quick correction, cheap, and in the worst case, we come away more intelligent from that movement. 

So, innovate, to make an innovative company is to have the disposition to have a team that is willing to get it wrong, right? Obviously, it is not about getting it wrong because you want to make mistakes, it’s a mistake based on facts and data. Beginning everything very super tiny, nothing at XP started off large, and Martín you know this, we have been together for ten years and there have been infinite errors, but all super tiny ones. So, I cannot recall any major mistakes, but I remember thousands of tiny errors. How many things that we began and that never even moved forward.

So, and I think that like this you go on advancing—, you go on advancing and you go…you…you go on creating these areas and go on creating other deals and go on doing things so that your company ends up steadily more complete over time.

In companies, in major companies, in large multinationals, and I confess that

I love competing against multinationals, against companies without owners, because there the person cannot make a mistake, because the impression that it gives out is that if the person does, they will be fired. So, it will never advance, it will never manage to have…it will go on dying over time because you will always do that which, that everyone does.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Let’s reflect a little on the ten years of partnership with XP. What has worked? What hasn’t worked? And what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs who are thinking of bringing in a financial partner? How do you pick and deal with a financial partner?

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Ah, I think that, in our partnership, I think everything has worked, like, without exaggerating at all, at all. We’ve had lots of fights, in the good sense, but that’s part of a relationship, right, everybody is aligned. And when you came in, back in 2012, we were very immature in some areas, above all in the control areas, in internal governance. 

So, having someone who is not connected to the day-to-day and who is able to see more ahead helps a lot. Even more so when, ten years ago, I was very performance driven with the whole team, companies that work out during this initial stage, like us, we had already had ten, eleven years of history. It’s a team that gets its hands dirty; it’s really getting stuck in, like, we are unable to lift our head, although we want to, we are unable to. So, you made us lift our head up you make us look to the next three years, which for us was the long term like, four years, five years, and you made us build processes that made the company more orderly. So, I can remember that up to 2012, we didn’t have strategic discussions, we thought we had them, but we didn’t. We began to study the models that worked well in the world a bit more, to talk to other entrepreneurs when you came in. I recall that as soon as you came in, we had a tough year. You came in in 2012, right, if I’m not mistaken, 2013 or fourteen we had a difficult year. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Profits got smaller.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Profits got smaller. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: And a lot…

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: But revenue grew. But revenue grew. But it’s good, look, I think that more than finding a company that is an investor-partner, more important than that, more than finding a sign that is relevant, you have to have a person who has a very deep connection with you. So, without a doubt, Martín, you and Catunda were special for us. Because, at times, you have an important company, but the…like, I don’t know what it is that I used to call what you were back then. What were you? You were our… 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: I was…the partner who was on the board.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Right. You were our partner who was at the helm there with us, but that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? So, you looked after XP as if it were your only business concern. There were weeks when, man, you’d call me every day. So, the pressure that you put on me was very good, it was very good. And you had no commitment to the day-to-day— I recall that one day I you, I wanted to include you in a WhatsApp group that was for company directors, I included you, five minutes later you left the group. I said “No, Martín, I want you to par…” and you said, “No. no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to have any ties, like, I don’t want to be tied to the day-to-day, because I don’t want to have any bias”. 

So, that’s it. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: It has been a…It’s a wonderful journey of learning for me, I am very grateful. Big dream, Guilherme, what is the big dream for XP today?

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: The big dream? Well, I think I could say you are a person of impossible dreams. Okay? But the real truth is that we today in Brazil have a financial system that had 830 billion in revenue and in 2021 last year we made 13 billion. That is more or less 1.5 percent of revenue market share. So, our feeling is that we are getting started and when I bring up this data it’s clear that this is true. 

What we really want, what I want, not just me but my team too that is very famished. It’s to continue believing that our airplane can fly much higher and much farther. We want to continue raising the bar, so there is nothing that we do that we are not fully convinced that can be done much better, anything at all. From operating processes to commercial processes, to customer enchantment. Everything. Everything, everything, everything. So, I want to continue with the team at the helm of the company, inspiring Brazilians to believe increasingly in entrepreneurism. I think this is a thing that moves me a lot. I think that Brazil, who is going to change Brazil is not government A, B or C. It’s the entrepreneurs, and I think because we have a special entrepreneurial history, this inspires a lot of people in Brazil. But the company will keep on improving because it has a team that believes in this, it has a team that is tireless, insatiable, that every time it raises the bar higher and that’s the dream. The dream is to keep improving, advancing, improving, advancing, and if we maintain this mindset, you can be sure that the company will go on being steadily bigger and better over time. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: It’s really cool, sure. Now we’re heading into the final phase I’ll ask you five quick questions, a bit more ludic. If you could have dinner with any person today who would you choose? They can be alive, dead, historical, present. 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: I’d have dinner with Ayrton Senna. I think that Ayrton Senna was the greatest leader that Brazil has ever had that I know of. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: What’s the best advice you have every received? 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Well, I think that the best advice… the best advice I have already received, I read a [Warren] Buffett phrase once, which is his number one advice: do not lose money. And then the second advice of his was: do not forget the first advice of his, do not lose money. I would say that to be an entrepreneur is for you to do just three things well. It’s increasingly make more revenue; increasingly control expenses and increasingly deliver more quality to your customers. So, I think that these phrases that I read from Buffett form a concept that I mention at the company all the time. Revenue, expense and quality. Only these matter, this is the only way you will build a company that has consistent net profits over time, and this is the only way to build long-term value. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: How do you manage stress? What activity makes you reboot? 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: I would say that I have a very disciplined life. I am a person who likes to go to sleep early, I like to wake up early, every day I exercise. My wife is a nutritionist, so I try to feed myself in a healthy way—this makes me energized and with a lot of disposition. And I have some very close friends and we are very close and I have my family which is my safe harbor. So obviously I always, I get stressed as any entrepreneur does, but I think that if you have your health, body, mind, family and friends in place you can get through the tough moments well. You have to get to know yourself, this has been my formula. And if you decide to be an entrepreneur, it’s a way of life, right. I decided to be an entrepreneur, my only business is XP, my only long-term business will continue to be XP and these things keep me focused. Focused and, at the same time, I stay close to the things that also bring me happiness, which is what I mentioned: friends and family.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: Final question: in an alternative universe where Guilherme Benchimol is not an entrepreneur, Guilherme Benchimol would be?

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: I’d be an athlete. I love playing sports, I love it. When I was an adolescent…I think you know this, Martín, I think I’ve already told you this. I wanted to be a tennis player, right. And I was a good tennis player, but I wouldn’t be a professional tennis player. But I played and I ended up placing second in Rio de Janeiro, in this city where I lived during my teenage years. I have always liked sports a lot, I have always liked competing a lot, it’s even some advice that I give, right. To parents, I think the best way you can teach your kids what life really is, is to get your kids involved in a competitive sporting activity. I have three kids here at home and the eldest two who are 11 and 12, the girls, I don’t negotiate with them. They compete, they do it, they complain but they are competing at Olympic gymnastics and swimming. Because sport teaches a lot, it teaches you to lose, teaches you to win, teaches you to have humility, teaches you to be kind, to plan yourself, to feel nerves, to suffer. It’s real life, right, it’s real life. So, I’d love to be a sportsman. Actually, I am a bit, right? I am just an amateur athlete who does some trials from time to time. 

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: The world is a better place with you as an entrepreneur. Brazil is a better place because XP exists. 

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Without a doubt.

MARTÍN ESCOBARI: But I agree, I agree that it’s a life lesson. Guilherme, many, many thanks for having taken part in Breakthrough Labs from General Atlantic and for sharing your story, the story of XP. Proud to be your friend and your partner. Thanks.

GUILHERME BENCHIMOL: Thanks Martín, a pleasure.