David Velez

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@velez_david

founder and ceo, Nubank

Sao Paulo, Brazil nu.com Joined March 2011

1.4K Following 39K Followers 490 Posts

Latest posts 5

David Velez @velez_david Nov 5

Can AI "accelerate time" to test agents faster? Yes, it can as we build millions of simulated customers to interact with our agents before any roll out!
Amazing work by the @nubank AI Core team

Rohan Ramanath Verified account @rohanramanath Nov 5

Building an agent isn’t one-and-done.

Before it can solve anything, you need two things: a clear definition of “good” and a clear definition of “done.”

Our paper takes one step in that direction and was just accepted to AAAI 2027 🎉 x.com/i/article/2117…
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David Velez @velez_david Oct 17

The “mind of the expert”- so easy to underestime when you are peak arrogance

Hans Mahncke Verified account @HansMahncke Oct 16

Wow. Back in 2017, Volkswagen’s CEO absolutely ridiculed Elon Musk and Tesla with a breathtaking level of arrogance, compounded by that typically German air of smug superiority. Here's a translation:

"Well, I suppose I have to say a few words about Tesla. With all due respect, there are companies out there that are world champions at making grand announcements. I won't name names.

There are companies that struggle to sell 80,000 cars a year. Volkswagen sold 11 million that year. Then there are companies like Volkswagen that generate €13 or €14 billion in annual profits. And if I'm correctly informed, Tesla is burning through hundreds of millions of euros every quarter, while firing employees whenever it feels like it.

As for any sense of social responsibility, I'm not sure where that comes into the picture.

So I would ask everyone to get a sense of perspective here and stop comparing apples with oranges."

Nine years later, Volkswagen is heading for the scrapheap of history, while Elon is making cars fly.
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David Velez @velez_david Oct 1

Thank you, @gabi_imarques and @colossusmag

Colossus Verified account @colossusmag Oct 1

David Vélez is the founder of Nubank, a bank with 140 million customers and a market capitalization of $60 billion.

When he started the business in 2013, no one thought it would work, not even his investors. He has faced down regulators, oligopolies, and corruption to build Latin America's largest digital bank. Now he is bringing Nubank to the United States, where he faces his biggest challenge yet.

@gabi_imarques, who grew up four miles from Nubank's headquarters in Brazil, spent time with @velez_david in São Paulo, where the business started, and in Miami, its latest beachhead.

She profiles a man who is no stranger to a fight, having grown up in Medellín, Colombia, when the city was at war with Pablo Escobar. Six-year-old Vélez would pull on layers of sweaters before stepping outside, hoping, as a child might, that the extra padding would cushion any bullets.

colossus.com/article/david-…
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David Velez @velez_david Sep 10

More than 95% of banking around the world still runs through the same expensive branches. Customers pay for that infrastructure whether they use it or not.

We built Nu because that math never made sense to us. We were told it was impossible in Brazil. Then in Mexico. Then in Colombia. Now, more than 140 million people in these three countries trust us with their financial lives.

So the next step became obvious: keep expanding the model beyond our core markets.

Today, we are launching Nu in the United States through a partner bank model, with a full suite of financial products for everyday banking. And, for people whose lives already cross borders, we are also introducing Nu Global, a multi-currency digital account allowing fee-free, fast money movement across more than 35 countries.

There are certainly still those who think this is impossible. That disbelief has always been our best fuel.

Every time we entered a new market, the incumbents had more capital, more branches, more history. Every time, we brought our culture: people who choose the harder problem on purpose, teams that act like owners, and an obsession with fighting complexity and making customers love us fanatically.

The US market is the largest and most competitive financial market in the world. But despite the number of players, many customers still face complexity, high costs, and fragmented financial lives. Our answer is the one we have been executing in Latin America for thirteen years: no branches, technology built from the ground up, a low cost to serve — and that efficiency returned to customers as better yields, no fees, and service they don't have to fight for.

We have believed since day one that consumer-obsessed digital banking is the future of retail banking. That was never a Brazilian thesis, or a Latin American one. It is a global one.

Our launch of Nu US and Nu Global are where we start proving it: we are no longer building the largest digital bank in Latin America; we are building a global one.

And we are still in the first minute of the first half.

nu.com/en/newsroom/co…

nu.com Nu takes next step in expansion with launch in the US and introduction of Nu Global After 13 years of building the largest digital bank in Latin America, Nu enters the United States via a full suite of financial products

David Velez @velez_david Sep 1

New fintechs and digital banks such as @nubank in Brazil increased country´s GDP by R$1.6 Trillion reais in one decade as they competed away the banking oligopoly - the beauty of competition!

poder360.com.br/poder-economia…

www.poder360.com.br Fintechs aumentaram PIB em R$ 1,6 tri de 2016 a 2026, diz estudo Pesquisa do Reglab, com apoio da Zetta, atribui avanço à maior concorrência no crédito e nos serviços. Leia no Poder360.