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David Vélez

Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
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.

questionnaire, Sequoia Capital, 15 August 2018 source ↗

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Andrew Ng Co-founder of Coursera and of Google Brain; founder of DeepLearning.AI
I just finished reading BJ Fogg's new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. Fogg explains that the best way to build a new habit is to start small and succeed, rather than starting too big and giving up. For example, rather than trying to exercise for 30 minutes a day, he recommends aspiring to do just one push-up, and doing it consistently. This approach may be helpful to those of you who want to spend more time studying. If you hold yourself accountable for watching, say, 10 seconds of an educational video every day — and you do so consistently — the habit of studying daily will grow naturally.
Recorded Ng's own newsletter, The Batch, DeepLearning.AI, 2020 source ↗
Drew Houston Co-founder and chief executive of Dropbox
That night, I realized there are no warmups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Every day we're writing a few more words of a story. And when you die, it's not like “here lies Drew, he came in 174th place.” So from then on, I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting. I wanted my story to be an adventure — and that's made all the difference.
Recorded MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013 source ↗
Barack Obama 44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. … I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. … You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia.
Recorded Michael Lewis, Vanity Fair, October 2012 issue, 11 September 2012 source ↗
Mellody Hobson Co-chief executive and president of Ariel Investments
I told our Ariel team, we are not going to limp out of COVID. We're going to slingshot out of COVID. We're going to be pulling that rubber band back and back, and we're going to be warehousing ideas, and getting work done, and so when this is over we will pole vault ahead.
Recorded Kathleen J. McInnis, Smart Women, Smart Power podcast, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 August 2024 source ↗

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Question What belief do you hold that most people around you would reject or find surprising? Values & belief
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.
Recorded Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, interview, Fortune, 9 October 2023 source ↗
Question What is the biggest professional obstacle you have faced? Craft & work
Sí, empezamos desde cero. Pedimos una licencia de financiamiento comercial, pero es difícil comenzar porque la banca se basa en confianza, regulación y escala. Hay barreras regulatorias que dificultan la entrada de nuevos jugadores. Es un sector históricamente cerrado, que favorece a los incumbentes. Aun así, logramos construir una marca fuerte y generar confianza en los consumidores.
Recorded Alejandra Rico Muñoz, interview, La República, 25 March 2026 source ↗
Question What does everyone in your world seem to agree on that you think is wrong? Values & belief
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.
Recorded John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript) source ↗

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