The technology is not an end in itself: it is a tool. It can make it easier for us to communicate or manage our finances. It can help us take care of our health or help policemen in their work. It can create jobs and boost growth. It can enhance transparency and accessibility to services.
If the U.K. leaves the E.U., we'll have to consider whether it makes business sense to stay headquartered here.
There's always been a lot of interest in the tech community about how to foster innovation and creativity - both within a company but also in the ecosystem of a tech cluster. In both cases, creating opportunities for people who don't encounter each other normally to meet and talk is key.
People need the financial sector to be safe; people also need the financial sector to go through a massive phase of innovation. That means delivering on the positive rhetoric, like around settlement accounts, not allowing Open Banking to be diluted, and leading the way on AML.
I was in my early 20s when Estonia joined the E.U. For a kid who'd grown up in the Soviet Union, it seemed like my country had come of age. For a country that had been isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, it seemed like we were becoming part of the global community. It opened a whole new world of possibility.
For Estonia, joining Europe meant our potential as a country increased - not decreased - because of that connectedness.
Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be.
The fact that Skype was founded in Estonia, the fact that Skype had a successful exit, which meant that Estonia benefited in a major way, meant that entrepreneurship became legitimate. There were more than a thousand people who either worked or had worked at Skype who had seen what it takes to build a global business.
Talent is the lifeblood of a fast-growing company.
At TransferWise, we started out as - and continue as - idealists. We start with what we can do to make things better and how we can solve problems, focusing on what people need. It turns out you can focus on building the best service and be successful as business.
Climate change, migration... they transcend national borders and require an international response.
There are so many instances in banking where 'free' simply doesn't mean free, whether it's opaque overdraft charges or credit card providers that are quietly raising interest rates without customers noticing.
International money transfer is a massive consumer rip-off. Banks and companies like Western Union have gotten away with it for too long.
Scaling a business at speed can feel like an out of control roller-coaster.
Changing behaviour is a very slow process.
Historically, people have flocked to Silicon Valley because of the belief that that's where the latest innovation is happening. It's a snowball effect.
In 2011, when we launched TransferWise, it was our frustration with banks not giving us what we wanted or needed as customers. The motivation was a strong desire to solve a problem and not just fix something that was broken but create a better alternative and a new system for doing things.
