Output and ourselves - Irina Bednova

00:00

Whenever I do something, I want to know exactly why am I doing this. I'm not and never have been okay with doing something because this is how we do things, or this is the shit process, but someone else thinks it's a good process. I of course make mistakes and it's important to me to be able to make mistakes and to have this freedom to fail. And I'm happy to bear the consequence of these mistakes, but I like making the decisions myself because I know why these decisions are made. I'm happy to talk to other people. I'm happy to ... I have a co-founder and we discuss things all the time. And sometimes we disagree. And sometimes I'm very happy to take her side, even if I don't feel like it's ... Even if originally I disagree. But because I know exactly why am I doing this, there is a sense, there is a meaning to this. And that's very important to me. This is how I do my best job.

01:04

I'm a software engineer and I have been a software engineer my entire career. That always was a fixed variable, I think for me, ever since I became interested in computers. I got a degree in computer science, but I got a degree in computer science in Russia. It was quite ... I did go to one of the best universities in Russia, but it was still very outdated. More of a general engineering degree. It was comput ... It actually wasn't even ... I think that maybe the official title is computer science, but it wasn't very computery or sciencey. It was more ... They were always interested into how to build robust tanks more than anything else.

01:56

I started ... My first commercial programming happened when I was still studying. I was a second year of uni and we started freelancing. We, me and my friends, that we studied together, we started freelancing and building websites and building web projects for money. And that was kind of like what ... How did I ... In that sense, I know it's very counterintuitive, but I call myself self-taught because none of the things that I was studying were anywhere remotely related to web development that we started doing to earn money. And it was interesting. There were communities online. There were ... It was generally the set of problems I was interested in solving. I like playing with computers that continue playing with computers.

02:52

Do you think that there's an advantage to learning how to program while studying something else at uni?

03:09

If you want to be a programmer, for sure. If you don't want to be a programmer, then I'd say no. I think maybe ... I don't have massive exposure to how coding skills can help you in different roles. I'm sure they can, but in reality, if you want to be good at something, you don't have a whole area. You can only be good at one or two things essentially. And I was interested throughout my career in a lot of different things and a lot of different technologies that were on the edge of my professional interest to hobby. And I don't remember any of that because I don't use it every day.

03:54

I did build Arduino projects. I was interested in electronics. I did design some schematics to power Nixie tubes to build a clock, but I can't ... Ask me anything about it. I don't remember anything because it's not something I use every day. It's not something that I constantly develop, so I don't have ... I don't know if this is ... You will hear a lot of depressing answers in a very prosaic and practical way from me. This is the first one.

04:27

I can't wait. How do you know where the line is between your professional inclinations and your hobbies?

04:41

When I was ... I'm the CTO now. I'm a CTO now. It's only marginally related to coding. But most of my career, I was programming. And at that time when my main job was programming and when I was younger and had something more of something to prove, the line was blurred. I did projects in my free time. Sometimes I did projects because it was a hot tech that I thought I should know or should learn. Sometimes it was something ... Often, more often, it was something that I was just purely interested in. Again, electronics, low level programming. I don't know. How Unix works, whatever. The line was quite blurred at that time. But again, I was younger and I had more to prove. And the culture of programmers at that time, and I think maybe to a lesser extent now, I don't know, was that if you are passionate about it, you have to program in your free time.

05:46

That's a whole mark of a good developer, is a developer who codes in their free time. I don't do it now. And I think it will be a long time before I will do something coding for fun. Just because I spend so much time in front of the computer, all the time I can afford to spend not in front of the computer, I do. I have a lot of hobbies now that are in no way related to being in front of the screen or to coding and programming. And that is import ... At this stage of my life, it is important for me to have this balance. It is important to do something completely different.

06:32

Does that in any way feel bittersweet?

06:41

That's not how I would describe it. To me, it feels like ... You know when you're a teenager and you think you're not like everybody else and you think you're incredibly unique and special and the only one with, I don't know, spiky collar or a chain on the belt and you think that ...

07:02

Take me back there.

07:03

Yeah, you're the only one. And then suddenly you find ... Not suddenly, but then slowly you converge on things that other people converge on. Not because you are a sheep and everyone is a sheep and there is no hope for everyone, but because there is a reason that people converge on that. There was a joke on Twitter a couple of years back about how every programmer eventually converges on doing woodwork. And I did do woodwork when I moved to my current house, but that's because we have common things. That's because doing something with your hands with tangible results, it feels nice. And actually, I find myself that maybe I'm not as special and unique, but I find it comforting, I would say. I find it connecting. I discovered, just like everyone else, that spending time in nature and doing things with your hands is enjoyable and satisfying.

08:03

If I take you back to when you were experimenting and trying different technologies, how did you know which technologies to pursue with from a professional point of view and which ones to pursue for a hobby?

08:28

That was always a very easy answer, whatever was the coolest. And if you are plugged in online communities in your profession, you probably can save top three coolest things. I always went for something that was the coolest. And it fortunately worked out for me. It wasn't a very well thought through strategy. It's not something I deliberately did, but it did work out for me. For example, I start my career as a Ruby on Rails developer. And at the time, it was a very in demand job. It's still to an extent an in demand job, but then at some point cloud distributed systems came up. So we start writing software in slightly different way and that came with not necessarily ...

09:22

It's not just the technologies, but also concepts and knowledge and skills and understanding of how it works and how to work with it. It was cool. I went for it. And that was the reason why I joined Monzo. And that turned out to be the best career decision in my life because it opened a lot of doors for me. I met a lot of people that really propelled me forward in my career and in my life in general. But I went there because they were doing something cool and I wanted to work there because they were ... I wanted to learn the new cool tech.

10:03

It's interesting how sometimes it works against us, trying to work out what's cool and then following it. And sometimes it works for us because we're able to identify what's going to increase in demand and then we become more employable. And it's hard to know sometimes whether you should be motivated by things around you that feel cool because maybe following those things might not give you the more intense satisfaction that you're after in some way.

10:40

If you do find satisfaction in learning this stuff, I think that was my rule of thumb. I did it not because I hated it, but it was cool. I did it because I enjoyed learning something that was cool. I enjoyed buying in the hype and learning new things. This is why I think this probably is the origin of this notion that good software developers are the ones that program in their free time because that indicates that they enjoy learning new things. And if you enjoy the process, you will get better results. But there's a whole host of other reasons of why this shouldn't be a ... The free time program, it shouldn't be an indicator, but that's separate thing.

11:31

It sounds as if you're pulled by what you enjoy. And we've spoken about hobbies and almost a sense of fun and play and enjoyment. What are you, at your deepest level, motivated by?

11:58

Depends on what I'm doing. This is a very ... Depends what the trade-offs are. When I was an engineer, when I was coding and I was working as a programmer, I was deeply motivated by ... I really enjoyed writing good systems and really enjoyed both making and observing elegant solutions. And that just brought me a lot of joy, so I was seeking that. Now that I am in a more management position, two things that motivate me deeply is independence, understanding. I want to understand exactly why am I doing what I'm doing.

12:53

What do you mean by independence?

12:58

Like I said, whenever I do something, I want to know exactly why am I doing this. I'm not and never have been okay with doing something because this is how we do things, or this is the shit process, but someone else thinks it's a good process. I of course make mistakes and it's important to me to be able to make mistakes and to have this freedom to fail. And I'm happy to bear the consequence of these mistakes, but I like making the decisions myself because I know why these decisions are made. I'm happy to talk to other people. I'm happy to ... I have a co-founder and we discuss things all the time. And sometimes we disagree. And sometimes I'm very happy to take her side, even if I don't feel like it's ... Even if originally I disagree. But because I know exactly why am I doing this, there is a sense, there is a meaning to this. And that's very important to me. This is how I do my best job.

14:00

It's amazing how that's ... Has that changed? Did you want that independence before? And I can almost sense that maybe part of your decision making to start something instead of writing code is to optimize for that independence in a way.

14:26

It was, but not because I was tired of writing code. It's because I had a chance to work as a manager. Writing code is great. If Cordless doesn't work out, I see just going working as a mid-level engineer and being very happy at it. But unfortunately, the more ... Well, I'll say unfortunately. That depends on the taste. But the more you grow in your career, the more responsibilities you take, the more it becomes a team. It is a teamwork to begin with, but the more it becomes a teamwork. And then when I had a chance to work with managing stakeholders and getting everyone on board and ensuring the buy-in, then I realize that I absolutely hate doing that. And I would rather the cold, fair, invisible hand of the market tell me that I'm shit at my job than receiving a very long worded six-monthly performance review from a manager who would tell me that I'm shit at my job. Does that make sense?

15:42

Yeah. And it makes me think how hard it is to ... It's almost as if ... It's this dichotomy. You start something because you want it to be successful and you want that invisible hand of the market to not tell you it's shit, but to tell you it's good. And you follow it and you try and make it as good as you can. And if that invisible hand says yes, your company grows, your product gets better. And then you're in that situation again, then you're the one giving the performance reviews. Then that sounds shit.

16:18

Unfortunately, yeah. The people management is something that you rarely can escape. But again, then it comes to two things. I told you about my first motivator in this job. The second motivator is money. And I don't understand why we, in startup community, in tech community, don't talk about this. Well, I do understand why we don't talk about this. But nevertheless, to my taste, we don't talk about this often enough. But ...

17:02

Why don't we talk about it, do you think?

17:02

We don't talk about this because a lot of founders come from the backgrounds where money is not an issue for them. And so, this is where the change in the ... Making the world a better place often ... This is why making the world a better place often comes in first. But the reality is for someone who just has a job, there isn't that many opportunities to make, let's say, more than a million pounds without winning the lottery. Or it's either that, or starting a business essentially. So this is the second motivator. When I do something that I don't feel like doing, when there comes tough times, when ... And being a founder is emotionally difficult at times because the cold hand of the market is not inclined to tell you that you're doing a good job and there's a lot of work. You have to persevere a lot up front before you see any results. And again, believe in yourself, which does not come natural to old people, including me. Then I remember about money and I remember that the alternatives are less money, and that gets me through tough times.

18:28

It's so incredibly refreshing because there are two things there that you've said that are counterintuitive, or at least a contrarian that people wouldn't necessarily say. "I don't really like managing people," is something that people wouldn't usually say. And, "I'm doing it for the money," is other thing that people would usually avoid. But somehow you have the courage to just be completely straight with it.

18:56

It's not what I lead with when we pitch to investors. Let's put it this way.

18:59

That makes sense.

19:04

I'm not delusional about it.

19:09

And that maybe is another reason why it's that way because the invest ... You're incentivized as a founder to ... You know the story that they're after. You know that what they want is that deeper mission founder fit. And you end up portraying that specifically for that reason rather than shooting the absolute truth.

19:38

There is a reason for that and it's not ... There are no ill players in this. The reason for this is because someone who has a lot of money will not be convinced that money as a motivator will get you through the hard times because it probably won't get them through the hard times. If someone has a hundred million pounds to their name and the result of the venture is 10 million pounds, when they hit the hard time, this is not important to them. This is not what's going to get them through. So they look for someone who is mission driven. They look for someone ... Basically, they look for conviction that you're not going to quit when it gets hard. And first, it's the personal experience that feeds into it. And second, it's the experience in the industry. And in the industry, yes, there's a lot of people who I assume are driven by conviction and mission driven.

20:36

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, maybe they're all driven by money. I don't know. I don't how they think. But this is what you see worked before and this is why investors tend to invest in the founders that look like, in the broad sense of the word, other successful founders. We came out of Monzo. And a lot of successful companies came from previously early stage employees of hyper growth startups. Some investors invested in us because that fits our profile, that we were early employees in a hyper growth startup. It kind of works both ways. Sometimes it works to your advantage that you, again, in broad sense of the word, look like previous successful founders. And sometimes it doesn't.

21:33

Your decision to join Monzo and then spin out of it, when you look back, makes a whole load of sense and, like you said, puts you in a position where you're in an advantageous place if you're going to raise money or something. What are the decisions that are a bit more invisible have you made that have put yourself in a situation like that one? They're not immediately obvious, but they've been advantageous in the long run.

22:01

One is ... I can't give you any specific example because I don't remember. But throughout my career, starting from uni, I bit my tongue before being mean to someone so many times. And so many times it paid off. When I was irritated, angry, and just generally being faulty as a human, and I want to snap at someone and I didn't, almost always later down the line, this person was in some way gave me something. And I'm not ... I know it's a bad reason to be nice to people because you can get something out of them. And I do believe that you should be nice to people just because you should be nice to people.

22:49

Well, it's ... Lincoln used to write those letters, didn't he? And then just never send them and just put them in his ...

22:55

Yeah,

22:56

And it's not that ... He was a good guy, not a bad guy.

23:01

That's kind of more throughout everything. What other decisions? I don't know. I think in terms of specifically starting the company, that was just Monzo. In terms of specifically ... Because that was the first job where I was exposed to how companies work and took interest in this information and I got quite excited about it. I thought, "This is what I want to do. This is where I get my independence. And this is something that is actually doable and achievable." I think whilst it definitely was an accident because I definitely didn't understand the startup scene, nowhere near where I need to, to the extent that I should have at the time. And I genuinely joined Monzo just to work with Kubernetes and work with distributed systems. That led to Cordless.

24:13

Can I come back to the independence? Because it feels like such an important part of your decision making and your own personal journey and what you value now. And I wonder where that independence is born. Where did that come from? Because not everyone has that.

24:41

No, but I think that's ... I don't think anyone can answer this question. I think I prefer chocolate cake to vanilla cake. And you maybe prefer raspberry cake. And maybe there is a reason for this, maybe there isn't. I think it's just this is how I function best. This is what's important to me. This composes things that drive me and things that upset me. And everyone has their own set and I think it's just important to play to your strengths. I really like this saying. I don't remember where it comes from. I heard it on Twitter somewhere. That if you try to constantly improve your weaknesses, they will never become your strengths. At best, you will be mediocre at everything. But if you continuously try to improve your strengths, then you will become exceptional at what you're already strong at.

25:47

And I would add to that you would also enjoy it better because your strengths are your strengths. There's probably a synergy of what you're enjoying to do and what you're good at just because you're inclined to spend more time on it. I have a huge amount of respect of people who are able to navigate and efficiently contribute in large organizations, especially on mid-level and high-level managerial positions. I think that takes ... You have to be smart. That takes tact and grace and empathy and a lot of other human virtues to be able to do that. I can't do that and I don't want to do that.

26:36

I'm not trying to posture as a ... And this is why I'm a special founder and you all have to do your corporate jobs. No, that closes off a few very lucrative options for me. And as you remember, as a money motivated person, it's a downside, but I am trying to play to my strengths.

27:04

You have to have some serious courage not to follow the classic advice there, which is really to self reflect, to be aware of yourself, and to focus more on those things that you're not so good at. It takes a huge amount of courage, I think, to say, "Yeah, I'm shit at that and I'm going to continue being shit at that."

27:32

I'm incredibly self-reflective person. I am a woman in tech. What are you talking about? I have so much insecurities. It's easier to count the ones that I don't have. But in this ... But it's a pretty fundamental choice what I'm talking about, learning to navigate the organization versus learning to build a company. It's not like ... Well, there's a pretty fundamental choice of vocation. And it's only natural to go for the one that you feel you will enjoy more. I don't think ... I'm also privileged to be in this position. Let's be very clear. I am financially, visa-wise, or in any ... Health-wise. Whatever you can ... There's a lot of factors that allow me to do this. And these factors are not due to my ... Some of them I worked for. Some of them are luck and privilege. So I don't see it as a courageous act. Honestly, I don't. I see it as actually the opposite. The ability to self-reflect and figure out what you would like to do and the privilege to be able to pursue that.

29:06

That's so interesting because I think for me, it's the opposite. I really admired when you said that. I imagine when you said that because I was like, "Well, I think I self-reflect to reflect on what I'm bad at." I feel I fall the other side. And in some ways, I think I do it because ... Why do I do it?

29:42

I don't know. Almost because that's ... If you have this, you kind of feel like that's the point, to make things really difficult to push yourself harder. Therefore, you choose the hardest thing to get better at. And it doesn't make a whole load of sense when you say it out loud.

30:02

No, I see what you mean. And I think actually this is one thing that I have observed in people and I think doesn't make a lot of sense when you say it out loud. We expect everything to be hard. We expect that ... We expect life to be a never ending resistance workout. That if you're not feeling the resistance, therefore it's not going to be beneficial for you. That is not true. I have seen ... I have observed tragically smart people, especially women, working careers they don't enjoy just because two things, inertia and because they expect something to be hard. I observed people fail at what they ... At starting their own ventures because they were trying to do too much because they didn't have the ability to say, "Fuck this. I'm ... It's too hard. I don't want to do this. Find the other guy who will do this. I will hire someone to do this because I don't like it."

31:04

It's a delicate balance because there is also definitely a fault on the other side, avoiding challenge and avoiding discomfort. It also doesn't bring you anywhere. But I think the performative struggle, even if this performance is just for yourself because you believe you should do it, is also counterproductive. So you need to ... I really believe that you need to find this balance and question what are you doing. Are you doing this because ... And I do it sometimes too. That's a massive ... It's definitely work in progress for me because sometimes I find myself doing a lot of work because it is because I'm a founder and I'm early stage founder, pre-product market field founder, and I'm supposed to do a lot of work. And sometimes I take a step back and ask does it actually need to be done? Or do I just feel bad sitting on my hands and not doing anything? And sometimes the answer is I just feel bad. And you don't always have to do something. You don't always have to work hard.

32:21

How do you get yourself out of that trap?

32:26

You need to be really rigorous with why are you doing what you're doing. This is how I do it. This is how I get myself out of this trap. You really need to honestly ask yourself, "Why am I doing this now? Does it need to be done? Does it need to be done now? Does it need to be done by me? Is there a more efficient use of my time?" And the second thing is you need to understand your limits. It took me a long time and I'm only now starting to really truly grasp with that. But you need to understand how much you can work, of what type of work you can do. What absolutely takes you out of it? What energizes you? I like thinking about it. And it's maybe counterintuitive that I like thinking about it. I like thinking about myself as a resource.

33:19

If you have a company car and you never ... I don't know anything about cars, so I apologize in advance. But if you never change oil and change tires, and drive it through the desert and then it breaks, you're an idiot. It's not car's fault. You misused the resource that was available to you and now you don't have a car. And for some reason, when it comes to work and burnout, we think completely differently about ourselves and people we work with. When someone I work with, I see that they are struggling, that they might be close to burnout, the feeling I have is not, "Oh, poor you. You must be so tired." The feeling is, "Stop wasting company resources. Stop abusing." And I'd say ... And I think that about myself. This is my responsibility to make sure that I am productive and I'm not going to be out of action. And that forces you to stop doing performative suffering.

34:30

But that performative suffering, in some ways, it's like a drug, isn't it?

34:37

Yeah, it's very hard to stop. I really hate HIIT workouts. They make me feel worse. And I can't stop doing them because at some point I decided that this is good for me. And now I associate the physical feeling of about to throw up and pass out on the floor as health. So it is very hard to stop. It's very hard to get out of this preconceived notion. And also, sometimes people around you and the company around you and the situation enables that. Sometimes no one will ... Very rarely, someone will tell you in the ... Not your loved ones. Hopefully your loved ones will tell you that if you overwork. But people that you work with are not always positioned or qualified to tell you that this is counterproductive. And honestly, most of the time when we work in any company, small, big, profit nonprofit, most of the time no one really knows what the other one is doing, so you can't really judge accurately of whether they're working hard or not.

35:47

And if this is combined with your own insecurities or maybe, again, the situational insecurities where the company puts you in a situation where you feel like you need to prove yourself constantly, it's almost impossible to get out of the performative suffering. It's hard enough when it's just for yourself. And it's almost impossible when someone else expects you to. I heard ... I've never worked as a management consultant, but I heard stories from management consultants about going home at 6:00 AM to have a shower and drive back for a meeting and stuff like that, which is terrible way of working. I wouldn't be productive doing that. I wouldn't want anyone I work with to do that. Again, not only because I think it's inhumane, but also I think it's stupid and inefficient. It's as stupid as abusing a company car.

36:46

Everyone's limits are different, so it's not even that you just have access to ... It's not even that you don't have access to what they're doing day to day. But it's also that the two of us, between us, have different limits. We have to self-discover those limits. And that self discovery has no comparison points, so it's hard to benchmark, so it's hard to know. It's almost like if someone says, "How hard are you working? Or are you close to your limits?" "Well, I don't know. I haven't thrown up yet." So what's the definition of that limit? Is it throwing up? Is it a ... It's hard to know.

37:31

I think you need to figure it out by experience probably.

37:38

Just test the limits.

37:40

Well, I can't say I really tested the limits. In my career, I wasn't working super hard and long hours or really to the limit basically anywhere. But I also didn't want to. I also saw that if I'm writing code for more than a certain number ... It's not even the number of hours. I know it depends on the job, but for me it's not the number of hours. It's the units of concentration. If I spend a certain number of units of concentration a day, then beyond that, the decisions I make are bad. And everything that I produce beyond that point, it needs to be fixed the next day, so what's the ... It's literally detrimental to keep going. You kind of need to understand yourself, but it's super important to be in an understanding environment.

38:35

And this is another reason why I like being a founder, because my understanding ... The main person I'm accountable to is my co-founder. And we're 100% on the same page, and we can talk openly, and we can discuss our limits and our mental state and everything and the decisions that we're making openly and honestly. A, for me, it's great because it's just one person. And B, because we are in this intense relationship that is formed to achieve the same goal, we are forced to develop this very open and efficient lines of communication, so that's great. When I think that, "Oh, actually, you know what? This is not the best use of my time," I can openly say that and I know it's not ... I know that I don't need to prove that. No, I really think that and I really feel that.

39:40

It's interesting that work in the past was more manual and we had less of a chance to share our unique gift for society through work by doing this intellectual task. And in the old days, I guess we would have. It's easier to know what your limits are if you're testing your body, but it's harder to know what your limits are if you're testing your mind.

40:16

I don't know. I think if you know, you know. First, there's two criteria. One, at which point you start doing shit job, because at some point you do if it's a truly intellectual work. If there is no point at which you start doing a bad job, then it's a repetitive task that needs to be automated. And the second criteria is how you feel. Can you keep going? I know, again, there are a lot of people in the environments that got them so bent out of shape that they can't maybe understand. There's a very ... I don't know. I'm thinking of analogy with eating disorders when you completely divorced with your hunger cues and the advice of just eat when you hungry, that no longer applies. But maybe it's the same with just stop working when you're tired, no longer applies if you are used to habitually overwork yourself. But not really. You're right. There isn't really a recipe to figure this out.

41:27

If you were to take this theme and apply it to our search for success, we hit on the hedonic treadmill. We're constantly trying to get better and better and better. And it's not just in our ability to self-reflect and figure out which parts of ourselves we should improve or not, or necessarily how hard we work and what things we should be doing. But it also then since seeps into our ambitions and they begin to rise and they begin to get more and they begin to go higher. How do we avoid a circumstance where that success that you're trying to pursue is always and consistently out of reach?

42:17

Therapy. This is just ... It's the pure subject of therapy, genuinely. This is something ... One find oneself in the situation where the goal posts keep shifting, or you're constantly unsatisfied with where you at, then therapy. There is no one ... I don't know. Or silent retreats or whatever works for you, yoga camps.

42:53

I think there is a lot of ... Therapy, spirituality and religion are the tools that usually help with that. I don't think there's really a ... There's a lot of written and said on the subject.

43:12

Why are they the tools that help you?

43:17

They're not necessarily the tools that help ... Well, the tools, the therapy does help me because it helps me understand my motivations. It helps me understand ...

43:31

Two sides of this. First is the understanding of why you feel a certain way, why I feel a certain way. And to a healthy extent, not believe in your feelings in the moment. If I am hungry and suddenly everyone is an asshole around me, that's not because everyone is an asshole. It's because I'm hungry or tired or whatever it is. We are physical creatures and you need to take care of your physical needs before making any important decisions. But secondly, it's the mental hygiene, if you will, the healthy practices. You can't expect to be ... Yoga helps with being flexible. If you sit at the desk all day and your shoulders are tight, doing some yoga will probably help your tight shoulders.

44:21

If you are a high achiever all day and your head is spinning out of control, then maybe doing some CBT, or whatever, or praying if that's your cup of tea. Then that just is the acts of mental hygiene, this acts of mental self-care, not in the sense of self ... Not self-care in the sense of relaxing with cucumbers on your eyes, but self-care in the sense of you doing it to brush your teeth and feed yourself reasonably healthy meals in order to feel physically well and you need to do certain whatever. There is a wide variety, so I don't want to mention anything specifically to not to prescribe. Do something to maintain your mental health.

45:09

I felt like there were two strands there. One, that you sit on a cushion on your own for an hour, or therapy, or you're cleansing your mind, you're working on it. I completely get it. The other is, or almost the other side, which is in order to get out of my own head, I have to believe in something else. In order for this to make sense in a way, I have to believe in something greater. It's almost like on the one hand, one way of coping with it is by cleansing it. And then the other is by almost relieving it of the pressure by having faith in something else.

46:07

I think you described it well. I don't think it's either or. It's kind of the complimentary things. I think believing in something is a tool that you can use to make yourself feel better essentially. It comes in different ways to different people. You don't ... I don't believe in God, for example, not in traditional whatever, Christian, Catholic, whatever way, but different people believe in different things, so believing in something bigger than yourself is ... A lot of people find helpful. And that does not necessarily have to be religious. It can be a spiritual or it can be ... It's a way ... I don't feel super comfortable talking about this because I'm not an expert, nowhere near, so I don't know. You know what? I think I shouldn't talk about any of this in abstract. I can tell you what helps me. I can tell you what I do and how I keep my mental hygiene, if that helps.

47:22

But I don't think it is becoming to go anywhere beyond an attempt to give advice or anything else. What helps me is to remind myself that I'm not running the show. What helps me is to remind myself that I am responsible for the efforts, but I'm not responsible for the outcomes. I can control the effort I put in. I can control the actions and the attitudes that I have towards things. I don't control the outcomes. I can ... If we go back to managing people, which is the thing that I find difficult, I can do my best. And sometimes my best is not going to be enough. And sometimes I going to feel like an idiot. And sometimes I'm not going to be able to say the right thing. Or I'm going to do a situation ... I'm going to be in a situation that I will handle poorly and I will come out of it. And it has happened. And I come out of it and I feel, "Oh, this ... I should have done a completely different thing," but that's the outcome.

48:28

And I'm fallible like any other human. And I remind myself that I'm doing my best and that's all I can do. And there is literally no reason and no effect of me worrying about the outcomes. It's a daily practice. I'm not sad at once and then I'm happy forever. I have to keep reminding myself that because it's very natural to go into worrying about outcomes, especially when you're doing startup things like fundraising, hiring, or trying to sell your product, and you don't know if anyone's going to buy it, or if anyone's going to give you any money. But I keep reminding myself that I'm only controlling the efforts. I'm not control ... I don't control the outcomes.

49:18

What happens when you find the independence that you've been searching for?

49:27

Well, I think I found it. I would need to figure out what to do with it. When COVID started, I always thought ... Before COVID started, I always thought of myself as a self-starter, self-manager, very independent and creative person. And when COVID started, and that coincided as when I quit Monzo, so I was going to take six months off, I was going to relax. And then COVID hit and I couldn't go anywhere. I realized that I have been in daycare my entire life. First, I was in the actual daycare. Then I was in school when the structure was defined for me. Then I was in uni when the structure was defined for me. Then I was working nine to five when the structure was defined for me. And turned out that, yes, I thought of myself as this incredible, creative spirit, and turns out I needed my nine to five, breakfast, lunch, mid-day nap, and someone to give me a gold star at the end of the day to say that I did a good job.

50:30

So when I did find the independence of, "Oh yeah, I can actually work whenever I want and however long I want and do whatever I want," and now I'm working from home ... I hated going to the office, especially in winter. It was so ... You go there, it's dark. You go back, it's dark. You sit in a dark room. The LED lights are flickering. It's awful and depressing. But then turned out I'm sitting at home all day and I'm just going slowly. I'm sure everyone can hard relate to that after the last couple of years. Then I had to adjust. I had to actually find how to manage myself and how to be my own daycare. And the amount of times you need to decide what to eat is just more than I expected.

51:22

But so in terms of work independence, it's not ... It comes with downsides. It's just the question ... For me, the upsides outweigh the downsides and that's why I keep going. But it's hard sometimes when you hit the tough patch, when you don't know what to do. You feel like an idiot. You feel like this is never going to work out. It's too hard. And you need to figure out how to get through those patches. And then you get to a good patch where things are looking your way. You get a ... You land a good customer, or you raise money, or you're ... For me, I get a lot of joy out of the team, working with people in our team. Sometimes I just feel very ...

52:14

I know it's super cliche, but I do feel very grateful. And I do feel like, "Oh, wow, this is amazing. These are people who helping me realize my dream. And they're brilliant and super smart and they're doing it." So I think the freedom is there and the freedom can be there at any moment. You can always ... Whatever you do, I think you can try and pursue a more free option. I don't know. A lot of people that are in the intellectual labor can freelance, work for themselves, or ... I know there's a massive side hustle culture on Twitter, but it always comes with the downsides and you just need to figure out whether it's worth it for you or not. And if it's not, it's also fine.

53:01

I think the most telling part of our conversation, for me, was when we were talking about therapy and you spoke about understanding why you were doing things and it almost felt like the next level into the matrix. It's like the first level is you want the independence to be able to not be part of that classic structure and instead do something different. And then you went one step further again to ask, "Okay, why am I thinking in this way?" And that felt like the most telling part of our conversation to me.

53:48

Right.

53:53

Don't know what to add, really.

53:58

Thank you so much for sharing it with such clarity and such honesty. And it's counterintuitive and it's not necessarily straight and it's not the way that people usually explain, I think, how they see things or how they go about things. But I wish they did.

54:25

Thank you for asking good questions. Usually when I start talking about how you should work less, it comes off as incredibly contrarian. And through your questions, it was more reflective and insightful, rather than, "Stop what you're doing now. Go home." All right.

54:45

Cool.

54:45

Well, have a good rest of day.