Why Is David Vélez Still Focused on Nubank?

David Vélez is still focused on Nubank because about a year or two of asking whether he should do something beyond the company ended in a clear answer: nothing he can imagine would have more impact than taking Nubank from three countries to 100 countries, or from 100 million customers to a billion customers.

He is motivated by impact and by putting time and energy into work that has meaning. Founders start a company, watch significant growth, and then ask what else they could be doing. On the other side of that analysis, the larger prize is access to financial services for billions of people. The same scale is also a way to understand himself through bigger challenges and to grow as a leader who can motivate an organization with big ambitions.

Technology shifts such as AI force every organization to choose which side of the disruption it wants to be on. He sees himself as more of a wartime general than a peacetime general, so a change in the world energizes him to keep executing the mission.