Un constructor.
Vicky Dávila, interview, Semana, 1 October 2022 source ↗
The question
How would you sum yourself up in three words?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's weekly The Q&A repeatedly uses this exact standing prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Un constructor.
Vicky Dávila, interview, Semana, 1 October 2022 source ↗
Sensitive, kind, silly.
Honest, empathetic, daring.
Alchemy. Love. Resilience.
Cheerful, sensitive, sassy.
I always say the Nubank story was very unlikely. It was a very low probability event. Again. We were going after these very big incumbent banks. Everybody told me, you know, you're Colombian. You have no idea what you're doing in Brazil. They're going to crush you. Like, don't. Just don't do it. And I did it mostly because everybody told me I couldn't do it. And so, if somebody tells me I can't do something, I want to go do it.
Me gustaría que la gente se viera empoderada a construir, a resolver problemas. Que salgamos muchas veces de esa visión de víctimas en la que dependemos de muchas fuerzas. Que veamos problemas como grandes oportunidades para ayudar a resolver. Por ejemplo, frente a esa mala experiencia con los bancos, como me pasó en Brasil, mucha gente se hubiera sentado y quejado del banco. Pero vi una oportunidad gigantesca de ir y competir contra él.
Moving closer to work. I live in São Paulo, Brazil, and I used to spend an hour or more in traffic every day, just sitting in the car getting frustrated and anxious. It was a waste of my time.
Vicky, qué pregunta más difícil (risas). Voy a hablarle de los casos que nos han inspirado, como Charles Feeney, cofundador de los Duty Free Shop en los aeropuertos. Él hizo eso en los años ochenta. Se volvió uno de los hombres más ricos del mundo cuando vendió su compañía e inmediatamente se dedicó a la filantropía y gastó todo su dinero en metas sociales.
Pix is probably the most successful payment infrastructure run by a government in history. I think Pix has been what has allowed a country like Brazil to leapfrog developed economies like the U.S. and in Europe, and has positioned Brazil today probably five years ahead of the U.S. I don't think anybody understands that, and probably in the U.S. they didn't really expect that.
The simplicity and yet profoundness of the above logic leads us to conclude that for us the most natural and truthful path is to invest this wealth until "our last check bounces", as one of our personal heroes, Chuck Feeney, likes to say.
Roger McGough, Katie Melua, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Stephanie Beacham, Isabel Allende, Phoebe Dynevor
Search the directory for somebody in particular.