B&P #32: Transferwise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus: “It’s healthy that some companies go out of business”

In this episode Bits & Pretzels Editor-in-Chief Britta Weddeling talks to Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder of London headquartered borderless cash company Transferwise, who’s a tech pioneer, an investor and business angel, just days after his company announced a 43 percent valuation jump to a valuation of 5 billion dollars after a secondary share sale. In 2003, Taavet was the first employee at Voice-over-IP platform Skype, before he decided launching Transferwise in 2011 to provide cheap cross-border transfers. In this podcast Taavet explains why he left Skype to become a founder himself and what rules have guided him since – while building Transferwise from a niche into a global platform – now serving 8 million customers, processing around 4 billion in cross-border payments each month across 54 currencies and why today you can build a global player from anywhere in the world. More to explore: Stay updated on news & insights from us about founders, startups in Bavaria, Austria & Switzerland at www.bitsandpretzels.com. Signup for our media newsletter to get the next episode of this podcast delivered right to your inbox: www.bitsandpretzels.com/media-signup. Host: Britta Weddeling (@bweddeling), Editor-in-Chief of Bits & Pretzels (@bitsandpretzels) Featuring: Taavet Hinrikus (@taavet), co-founder & chairman of TransferWise (@TransferWise), previously built Skype (@Skype) as 1st employee Follow us: Twitter: @bitsandpretzels Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bits-&-pretzels If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review & tell your friends about us! You can also send us feedback at [email protected]. Production: professional-podcasts.com (Regina Körner, Migo Fecke), Hubert Honold & Sophie Dechansreiter.