Jesse Choi: Bain Capital & Stanford MBA, Moving To Indonesia For Love & Founding Reku Investment Platform - E469

Jesse Choi, Cofounder of Reku, and Jeremy Au discussed:

1. Bain Capital & Stanford MBA: Jesse shared his journey from an operations research and economics student at Columbia University to an early career at Bain management consulting and Bain Capital private equity. His Stanford MBA experience also expanded his professional network, deepened his analytical skills and broadened his career horizons.

2. Moving To Indonesia For Love: Jesse articulated his decision-making process behind relocating to Indonesia for the love of his life. His methodical approach to life's risks and opportunities focused on his assessment of Southeast Asia's potential, his professional strengths and long-term personal goals.

3. Founding Reku Investment Platform: Jesse recognizing the growth potential within Indonesia and founded Reku, an investment platform initially centered on cryptocurrency. He strategically broadened Reku's offerings to include US public equities to enhance accessibility, diversify investment options and tap new opportunities for Indonesian investors.

They also touched on the leadership and entrepreneurship courses at Stanford's MBA program, personal philosophy on life, and how he assessed risk in shifting geographies, industries and roles.

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(01:43) Jeremy Au:

Hey, Jesse, excited to have you on the show.

(01:45) Jesse Choi:

Hey, Jeremy, thanks for having me.

(01:47) Jeremy Au:

So, I think for us, it's a lot of shared commonalities. We both did MBA. We've both been at Bain. So, we'll probably have to make it not like a total insider chit chat session here comparing what's it like to be a, ABC, but yeah, Jesse, could you introduce yourself?

(02:01) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, sure. So I'm Jesse Choi. I'm the cofounder of a company called Reku here in Indonesia. We're a investment platform. We are business for most of its history was focused on crypto. And then most recently, we expanded into offering US equities to our Indonesian users. So that's a big deal and a big move for us as a company.

As a company, our overall focus is really around like the high end of the market. So making sure that we're not going too mass, but we're really focusing on products that the very high end of the market really needs. So that's what, makes a special I would say.

Before Reku I was like you mentioned, I was at Bain & Company. That was my first job out of college. And then I spent time at a startup. And then I spent time as an investor in private equity, not VC, but private equity at a company called Bain Capital. And then I did my MBA at Stanford. And then there, I met my wife my now wife, not at the time. And she's Indonesian. So yeah, after I graduated shortly after I moved here and then it's just been working on Reku since then.

(02:55) Jeremy Au: Incredible. So, what were you like in university? You studied at Columbia. You were doing operations research and economics. Were you nerdy? Were you cool?

(03:02) Jesse Choi:

It's a good question. I think I would like to say that I was cool among my, among my peers, but maybe my peer group itself was a little nerdy.

(03:12) Jeremy Au:

I know exactly how that feels.

(03:13) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, I did, I did maybe like traditional cool person things. Like I was on student council and intramural sports and whatever, whatever. But, oh, of course, deep down, I'm a super nerd. So I think we all are in some ways.

(03:24) Jeremy Au:

So there you are, you're the student council. Oh boy, one of those student council. I was never good enough to be on the student council. You had to run. Did you have to run for election? I wasn't one of those appointed ones?

(03:34) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, I think I, I ran maybe my first year I ran, but then. I believe every year after that I ran uncontested for my position, trying to remember what it was, but anyway, it was not, it was not the president. But it was some other position.

(03:44) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, those are the days. And I think what's interesting is that, you graduated with operations, research, and economics. How were you thinking about that career at that point of time? Were you in your head? I want to be a founder at that point of time? Or were you like, Hey, I want to be in finance.

(03:57) Jesse Choi:

Honestly, I didn't know. I wasn't really sure. Of course, I knew I was going to be a consultant right after, but what I really wanted to be for a long time was to be an investor. And I think what dread that would drove me to become a private equity guy, even back then, I think past that I had no kind of clear vision in terms of what I wanted my life to be. I just knew that I wanted to invest early on in my twenties, like work hard, classic work hard and learn as fast as you can. But then after that, in the back of my mind, I knew that I wanted a little bit more autonomy, a little bit more freedom. So, yeah, it was loose. The vision, I would say overall.

(04:29) Jeremy Au:

So you want to be an investor and then you joined Bain & Company as a management consultant. And we actually overlapped, at the same time, I just realized because I was there 2012 to 2014 plus so yeah, we overlap, but yeah.

(04:41) Jesse Choi:

Which office you're in?

(04:42) Jeremy Au:

I was in the Singapore and Southeast Asia office.

(04:45) Jesse Choi:

Oh, okay.

(04:46) Jeremy Au:

We covered all of Southeast Asia at that point of time. So it was interesting. Good times, lots of things. I also worked quite a bit on M&A and like the Bain Capital as well on one of the projects. So yeah, but the point is like, Hey, you wanted to be a investor and then you joined management consulting. So how did that work out?

(05:00) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. I mean, the management consultant, I think I really drank the Kool Aid. They say Oh, this is like the best place to start your career. Like no matter what you do after having this experience will be very useful, which I actually agree with. I mean, I do agree completely with, and so that's what got me. I knew that I was willing to invest a little bit of time upfront to do something that wasn't exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life maybe. And I knew two, three years, I would be quite happy doing it. And that's exactly what I did.

(05:23) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, I think it's fun times. And what did you take away from the Bain experience? What were those key learnings they got from your perspective?

(05:29) Jesse Choi:

I think the first one is like really making sure you're surrounding yourself with people because I think the main thing that I learned was there's so many people in this world, like all the Bain people that I've met, who were just very impressive. I was impressed by almost all of them. And, we met a lot of different people from a lot of different offices, and I felt very consistently that way. Not only are they really admirable and charismatic on a personal level, but they're also super like smart and just have good judgment and all these things. And so the first thing I learned was just making sure to surround myself with people that I really respected because that was a new-ish experience for me. And it was just very transformative in that way.

And then I think the second thing is I always say this, but like in high school, you learn how to follow instructions. You learn how to just be a good citizen of the world. And in college, you learn how to be independent a little bit more. And at Bain, I really learned how to problem solve. I think, like, how do you really break down a problem and think about it intellectually and put a framework around it and be thoughtful about it and risk, the way the risks and rewards and things like that. And so I think that's a good ground, foundation for basically everything I did after that from a professional standpoint. So I think those are the two main things that I really took away.

(06:31) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. And then, you know, you kind of did this, classic Bain to Bain Capital move, but along the way you were doing some marketing at Thumbtack. So I saw you flirting with the technology side. So you got to explain that one to me.

(06:41) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, that was also a situation where I wanted to be around really good people, so I knew a lot of the guys at Thumbtack. It was a high flying startup. I think when I joined, it was maybe series D or so. I think now it's like series G or H, or I can't even count but the startup is a marketplace for local services. So for example, if I need a plumber, I can go on the app and it's connects me to local plumbers in the area, but the main thing, it was less about the vision of the company or even the specific function of marketing, but it was really following the people. I knew that there were a lot of interesting people there that I wanted to work directly with, and I wanted to have a little bit of the operating experience. So that's what drove me there in terms of my experience there.

I think it was short because I had already secured the job in private equity after because they recruit like 18, 20 months ahead of time, but the experience was really interesting, like super unstructured, smart people, but, it wasn't like, that knife was very sharp in terms of it's a good knife. It's just not very focused in a specific way just yet. And it's like quite general. So I felt like it was a little bit inefficient in that way, a little bit chaotic, but yeah, it was a good time. I learned a lot about how to deal with like uncertainties and just making your path forward without the structure of the clear structure of a Bain & Company. So, yeah, it was an interesting time.

(07:48) Jeremy Au:

So there you are. And then you're, you're living the dream, right? Which is every Bainist dream is to go to the Bain Capital. You've ascended one level up to heaven. And you're three years in Boston, right? So how's that like?

(07:58) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, it's funny. Maybe just for the listeners, Bain and Bain Capital, same name, but totally different companies, totally different founders run completely separately. But yeah, I mean, I couldn't leave the Bain name, I guess. It was really a good experience, I think. That's where I went from feeling like I kind of referred to this a little bit, but at Bain & Company, I was really inspired by the people around me, especially on a personal level. And then when I got to Bain Capital, I was like, I am definitely the bottom half here. That's how I felt. I don't know if it's true or not. Hopefully it's not too true, but I really felt, man, all these guys are like outclassing me. These guys are like, I was very grateful to keep upgrading the people around me.

And being an investor, extremely different from being a consultant, I really enjoyed that experience for sure. It's a much more kind of, perhaps a more narrow job you could say than being a consultant, which is by definition, super, super broad. And you get thrown any question and you have to answer it. But as an investor, I really saw a lot of very interesting things. I looked at a lot of interesting deals. And that's definitely the place where I like truly solidified my work ethic, I think, cause I probably worked double the hours that I did at Bain & Company. So, there's a lot in there for sure, but it was, it was a very transformative time for me.

(09:02) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, people think that Bain and Bain Capital are the same. And as a Bainie reporting to the Bain Capital is very much a culture shock in some ways as well. Don't get me wrong. I think there was one path and just a different path to take. But what's interesting is that after that, you decided to do your Stanford MBA. So what's your context for that?

(09:17) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. So, I guess if we play back to when I'm 21, I'm graduating from Columbia and I'm thinking to myself, I think being an investor would be really interesting. And then I get myself there and I'm 27, 28, something like that. After doing three years of investing. And I'm thinking to myself, I think this is really cool. I think this is really interesting job, but at the end of the day, I don't know that I can really feel like I can invest in companies without having run a company. I definitely had that kind of imposter syndrome, I guess you could say. And it was very, I felt this very strong urge to do something different and see a bigger part of the world.

At the end of the day, I think you're working at a mega fund, have a team of for example, before I left, I was on the healthcare teams and that team was maybe like top to bottom, everyone included, maybe like 12 people, 11 people, something like that. And so you're seeing these same 11 people and you're like looking at a hundred companies and the 11 people you're learning from, they're telling you how every company should be. And I just felt, is that really right or not? How could I know without my own experience? So I just had this very strong craving to explore something else at the end of the day. I don't know exactly what that is, but let's explore something else. And because I believe anything I do, if I want to stay investor, anything that I learned will help me be a better investor. And if I find something that I like more than investing, even better. So it was only upside for me. So that's how I thought about it. I went in quite open minded. That's on the professional side.

There's of course like a whole story on the personal side just in terms of your classic things, having friends and having that network with you, but also just, especially with Stanford, I think they really emphasize hard on personal growth, and like the, that personal touch of leadership, the touchy feelys those types of classes and that just really resonates with what I was trying to get out of and who I see myself as a person. So yeah, for a whole host of reasons, I think it just made perfect sense, even though I didn't have a very exact idea of what I wanted to do. I think, it was definitely the right move and yeah, it worked out.

(11:00) Jeremy Au:

So what was the Stanford MBA like? I mean, Harvard, they were like, Hey, this is the West point of capitalism. But you know, it's surprisingly, there was a lot of courses on obviously, entrepreneurship and so forth and very much a sensation of like catching up on learning from Stanford as well. And then we always heard about how GSB is a lot of authentic leadership developments and like human development. So what was your experience of the GSB?

(11:21) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. I mean, I would say all those things like number one, entrepreneurship is like huge, huge part of the curriculum. And even if you're not taking entrepreneurship classes per se, the professors are all like pushing you in that direction. They're all encouraging you to take the risk because like, why not? Don't worry about if you fail or whatever, like the world is your oyster. It's very much like that. And I think the thing that I thought was most interesting also was there's entrepreneurship in the very classic way. You start from zero. You like find your co founders. You go through that whole journey, but something that, there's other forms of entrepreneurship that they also pushed a lot in terms of for example, search fund. Entrepreneurship by acquisition. Or or even there were entire courses, which I didn't take, cause it's not relevant for me, but there were entire courses on like how to run your family business, how to like take over older generation and put a twist on that business. So there's like a lot of different flavors of entrepreneurship, which I thought was quite interesting. But that's like a huge, huge part of it.

So I took a class called a startup garage, basically, simulating that experience of going from nothing to ideating, to finding your team, to executing and testing your MVPs and MBTs and all that. And so, that was like a very interesting class. And that's like the hallmark, one of the hallmarks of kind of one of my classes core experiences of Stanford. In terms of the authentic leadership thing, oh, that's huge, huge, huge. Like I don't know if people are all like that when they go in, but they all lean into that culture very aggressively. And it's very like considerate. It's very personal. It's all about being vulnerable with whoever you're working with and being always authentic to yourself, always telling the truth. It's like no games in any of this. Like the human connection is the most important thing. It's like that, which I think is really, I mean, of course there's pros and cons of every approach, but I think that it's very kind of enlightening in a lot of ways, because I think at that age, it's not like people naturally come in with that confidence to just be themselves, no matter what, to always be vulnerable, to always tell the truth and whatever it is.

And so having that, I think changed a lot of people. For me, I would say it just really increased my sense of confidence, my own sense of self confidence. And so, that's very real. I'm sure it's a little bit different from HBS as, at least as far as I can tell from hearing people, it's a little bit of a different experience but yeah, I mean, I think, two sides of the same coin really, but it does seem quite unique in a lot of ways in that matter.

(13:21) Jeremy Au:

And what's interesting is that, after this GSB experience, you started exploring kind of like, entrepreneurship, but also Southeast Asia. So could you share a little bit more about what was happening there?

(13:30) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. So, I mean, the context being I grew up in America my whole life. I'm an American. I have an American passport. And so I never really thought about, it was never really on my radar that I'd be in a different country after I graduated. I did go into business school being super open as I alluded to earlier, like super, super open about whatever happens, I'm willing to change. I'm willing to have unique experiences. That's what my soul craves in this moment. I want to do something different, something unique. And what happened was in pretty early on in my GSB experience, I met my now wife at Stanford. She is Indonesian. And so she also wanted to move back. Maybe not immediately, but she definitely wanted to be back. And of course I wanted to stay. So, I knew that if we were going to be together, there would be a compromise. She would spend a bunch of time in the US. At some point in our life, let's say we live together 60 more years. At some point in that 60 years, she will spend some time in the US and some point of that 60 years, I will be in Jakarta.

And I remember thinking to myself oh man, I mean, I feel like Jakarta is a young man's game for sure. And so if we're going to do 30-30, I think the first 30 being in Jakarta seems much more palatable for me. And I was also super excited. By the end, I would say that I was the one who was pushing for me to move. Cause I think from her point of view it's a big burden to try to put on someone and we're trying to figure out what is the right geographical mix. And at that point, there's no, my preference, your preference. It's just what works best for the two of us together. And by the end I was pushing, yeah, I want to move. I want to see what's up over there. And I was hearing some very interesting things about what was happening in Jakarta. So, that's like short story of how I ended up moving to Indonesia.

(15:00) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, incredible. And, I think what's interesting about all this is that you made a decision to move. I'm just curious because I've noticed that in your writings, you have a little bit of a philosophical bent in terms of thinking about Mark Manson, obviously as well as, other philosophers. So I'm just curious, how are you thinking about this? Were you reading a lot? Were you reflecting? I mean, it's not easy, right? I mean, if you're dating somebody who wants to go back to Indonesia, I mean, I think the answer could be like sorry, but it was a wonderful time. It's time to break up. I got my Bain Capital career in the US and I'm going to go crush it and make partner, so many ways to take that. So how, how did you come to make that decision? Yeah.

(15:34) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. No, it's a good question. And you're making me think way back. I mean, I do tend to be a little bit philosophical or maybe a little bit overthinking in some ways. But I think the overall way, just super long story short, because it was not an easy decision for me, but the way that I thought about it was what would make my

Future me proud, right? I think that's how I've always chosen to, or I've always wanted to live my life in terms of thinking about it from that lens, what is something that I would be proud of having done? And I think it was just such an interesting opportunity for me to move to a different country. I've always wanted to live abroad, but I never got to. And this time I would be able to, with the resources, right? It's not like I would be moving alone. I would be moving with my wife. And all the resources that she has that I could take, I could try to take advantage of. And not only that, I mean, the sparkle of Indonesia is, it's bright.

The economy as a whole, everything that's happening here is super, super interesting. It's very different from the US where, yeah, it's interesting in a different way too, but it's not like that growth story that you're really seeing here in Indonesia. So, I remember thinking to myself, Come on. Who would I be if I turned down this type of opportunity or this type of journey for my life? And it's not permanent. I can always come back if I really hate it or whatever. But what would make myself proud in 50 years? Let's say, is it better that I've done this journey or that I gave up and I went back to my cushy job and just did that life, which I already knew about. I knew that I was always yearning for something. I did a lot of reflecting, a lot of reading, of course, and a lot of talking to people. Everyone had a very different point of view, but I would say almost nobody was like, Oh, that's such a bad idea. Everyone was like, Oh, that's cool. I respect the hell out of you for doing that. You should definitely chase that. You should do something. And so, a lot of different things going on in my mind, but I for sure feel like I'm very, very, happy that this is the fork of the road that I decided to take because it's been super, super rewarding in a lot of different ways so far.

(17:15) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, and I think what's interesting is that you're making this tough decision, obviously to move. And then in parallel, you're doing the classic, you're moving geography. So you're exploring a new industry, exploring your role and along the way, decide to become a founder as well. So you're like, taking on all the risk simultaneously. I mean, you could have joined a private equity fund in Southeast Asia. Make it easy. Only do one hop at a time instead of doing a triple hop. So how did you learn yourself? I become like you move countries, you change industries and you change your role as well. So how did that come about?

(17:45) Jesse Choi:

It's definitely something I thought about. I would say there's two high level answers. One is when we were thinking about moving, actually something that I considered is like, what if I spent let's say a year in Singapore? Just to kind of transition to living in Asia, because Singapore is a lot, I think, more comfortable and much easier for as an American to do than than Jakarta. And every time I had a decision like that, I always thought but I'm already, I'm in the pool, like I'm already halfway in the pool. I've jumped into this cold water. Why would I just go hang out in the shallow end? Just go in the deep end. I'm already 99% of the way there. Why wouldn't I take that last step?

And so that's how I kept, there were like key decisions like this, like, where am I going to live or where am I going to work or what industry I'm going to be or what role or whatever, like all the things you said. And it was always kind of like, yeah, but you're already doing all this. Just do another 1%, it's probably not 1%, but anyway, just do a little bit more in that way. So I would say that was like the first main way that I thought about it.

The second way that I thought about it was at the end of the day, the risk that I'm taking. Yes, I'm taking a lot of different risks. In terms of if you break it down like that, you're taking a risk on can you adjust to where you live? Can you do this role that you've never done before? You know, all these different things. But the main risk at the end of the day that I'm taking is actually just the macro risk of the country. I mean, separating. Let's put aside the personal stuff, right? But the main risk I'm taking is if I'm in Indonesia, no matter what I do, at the end of the day, my success will be driven primarily by the success of this country. If this country, like for some reason, becomes infamous for having done something really bad. And I have a horrible time and I can't find career success, and I moved back then at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I did. It was that I spent a lot of time in Indo, which was in that scenario, not a good use of time. On the flip side, if Indo is like the next China, for example, and it's booming, the economy is booming and I spent a lot of meaningful time building the resources or building the network, doing interesting things there, it doesn't really matter what it is. I will get credit for it and I will have an interesting experience and I will probably find some kind of professional success. So, when I thought about it in those lines, it made the decisions easier, and just a little bit more straightforward in my mind.

(19:46) Jeremy Au:

And what's interesting is obviously, like you said, there's both the country risk, which is, I think, interesting weightage there. And then also there's personal risk. There's a relationship and sort of building a new life together. So you're putting all this together and I'm just curious about how you landed on this first idea of yours, which is building a company that you're currently running.

So how did you land on that?

(20:04) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. The way that I thought about it was a handful of ways. One is as I'm very interested in investing. So I wanted to do something in the investment space, but at the same time, I wanted to do something techie, not me being a investor, but how can I bring investing as a whole to Indonesia where I think the literacy and the exposure to personal investing is much lower. And in Indonesia, I don't know if quite as many people see it as one of the key avenues to financial health and financial freedom like they do in the US, that was one of the big kind of stark contrast that I noticed pretty early on. So I think that there was a little bit of this kind of founder market fit where it was a space that I was passionate about that had personal or I had professional experience in directly, in a slightly different form, but how do I bring some of that thinking, that literacy the getting used to being an investor to the Indonesian people.. So that was one, like a good fit for me from the problem founder fit.

Secondly, the way I thought about it was what is an industry that is already similar maybe to what I'm used to because I'm already taking this big move. For example, if I started a company where like I'm servicing like SMEs, like the warungs on the street, for example, I'm trying to provide them like lending services, I have zero, no experience in that space at all. Anything very localized I could not do. But if you're talking about investing or you're offering US stock products or crypto products. That's a global thing by nature. I know all about that. So that felt much more kind of addressable for me and much easier.

And then the last thing I would say is the thing that I hyper focused on was strong unit economics in my business. I think that there's a lot of companies, especially when I first came in 2021, there's a lot of companies in that heyday where there was a lot of user growth, a lot of funding, it's based on this growth story. You're selling the story of this incredible, we're collecting all these users and we're going to monetize them in the future. I think that's great. I didn't know that it would or would not be successful at that time. It seemed like all the signs were pointing to like, this is the way to run a startup.

But for me, I mean, maybe it's because of my private equity background or whatever it is. I just wanted to know that I don't want to take any risk on that user economics model or the unit economics model. I want to know that it's a strong business model. And I think like something like an exchange, you have a lot of volume happening on your platform and you take a small cut of it. That's probably like the purest and most straightforward and healthiest business models that I can think of. So there was definitely that element of optimizing for really strong unit economics and a business model that I actually knew worked here in this country. So those three ways are the main ways I thought about it.

(22:22) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. And I think what's interesting is that, obviously crypto exchanges, even though it's like you said, I think it's stable. It makes sense. I think it's a no brainer in terms of the business. But obviously, there's been a lot of faith being broken, right? Because a lot of exchanges, were not exchanges, effectively. And so they were kind of like, not playing by the rules of what they were defining it to users and so forth. So I'm curious, like, how has it been for you to continue being in the business during this crisis of faith?

(22:48) Jesse Choi: .

It's tough. I mean, it's I think the people in this industry, whether it's crypto, whether it's any asset class, I think a lot of asset classes go through these ups and downs and it is very much an industry that is propped up by faith. I mean, and credibility and trust and. And all of these when that was so aggressively broken because of what happened in, in this space with FTX, and with before that with Luna, the kind of the algorithmic stable coin and all these things, I mean, it was like a perfect storm of, of disasters in this industry, it's tough because people in this space, I don't think they lose faith over that.

They, at least for me as an operator, where I am, I know if I'm doing something right in my business and I'm not doing those things that FTX did. I feel more confident and it's still my job to provide the safest exchange, the most proper, most compliant exchange. And that is what we try to do. Having said that, when everyone else, especially, the investors are losing faith because of What's happening, it does definitely suck the energy out of the room, even if you might believe in it deep down. And so for me, I really learned a lot about perseverance. I don't think it I don't think it really changed my mind that much because I was never one of these guys who like, follow these trends. I never thought that these markets are very predictable. It's not really my job to predict that or to try to game it or whatever. My job is to provide access in the safest and most efficient way. That's, that's all I'm here to do of this asset class and yeah. It just helped me to build that perseverance in terms of our mission and really focusing on what's important, which is, okay, let's be heads down. Let's build the right product that we need. And let's try to push out the noise because at the end of the day, the faith will, if we're doing the right things, the faith will come back.

(24:17) Jeremy Au:

And recently, you've released the access to US public equities. Could you share your thinking and your reasoning and your principles behind that?

(24:24) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. We're super excited about that launch. In this market in Indonesia, US equities is still a small market. we expect that the vast majority of our business will still be run on by crypto. The revenue will come from the crypto business, and it will probably stay that way for a long time but I think you're seeing interesting movements in different countries. You're seeing a lot of Investing into US equities in Europe, in India and kind of adjacent countries. And for Indonesia that exposure and access is quite small today, from what I can tell, there's no reason why it couldn't be a lot bigger, especially if you compare it to the Indonesian capital market. The Indonesian capital market, it has been around for a while, but it's not quite as robust and quite as strong as the US market. And yeah, the liquidity is tighter. There's more what people would call inside trading and that the regulations are different. And so, I see it as a little bit of a less fair game into a game that's already not as quite as robust as the US market. I think that's undeniable. And so, in my mind, there's no reason that this isn't an industry that will continue to grow really aggressively at, because for all these things, it's a higher quality market and there's companies like me who are providing easy exposure, easy access.

The US equities market, of course, is a super high quality one. It's I think in the last a hundred years or so, it's grown like 10, 11%. Kager. So it's, I mean, I don't know if there's any other investment class that you can boast those kinds of numbers. It's both the stability and the returns like that.

And then for me personally I am a big investor in the US equities market. Of course, most of my passive income or most of my money is there in an American account somewhere. And especially during business school, because I went to business school during COVID. So we got closed down and like kind of nothing to do. And we had a group of friends who were really interested in trading. Some guys went super hard. All kinds of crazy options and stuff, but some guys, we focused on interesting theses and just trying to learn more and educate ourselves. And that is how I spent a good chunk of time at business school. Also just learning about that and taking those experiences and bringing it here and bringing, hopefully bringing some of that joy and that kind of positive return to our users is what I'm trying to do.

(26:19) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. Could you share about time that you personally have been brave?

(26:22) Jesse Choi:

Time I've personally been brave? Oh man. I mean, for me, the biggest thing by far is moving here. I know we talked about already, but to me, it was not a straightforward decision at all even though things are working out now. And even though people might say, Oh, but you had all the resources, yes, but it was not an easy decision. I talked about this a little bit in my blog too, but the thing that really made it hard that we haven't talked about is on the personal side. The guilt of leaving my parents and kind of all the, maybe social repercussions of moving out here and facing the fact that I'm going to lose all my friends. I'm going to be very far from my family. If something ever happens, I'm not there. I've missed a lot of weddings from a lot of my closest friends. So for me, that jump, as much as we can try to intellectualize and talk about the risks of this and that and whatever, that jump is a big jump and something that I had no choice but to be, I think, brave. And yeah, I think that's the defining, brave, the moment of bravery, I would say, in my life in the last 10 years or so, let's say.

(27:11) Jeremy Au:

Choose a new geography, choose a new job track, choose a relationship. All seem pretty tough for sure to do at the same time. I was just curious were there any books or things that you read that resonated with you during that time?

(27:22) Jesse Choi:

Good question. I think the main book that really resonated with me actually was Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the Nike founder. Traditionally, I would say maybe it's not about like geographical movement or something like that. It's about finding this company. But the way that he writes this book is really incredible. He goes into a lot of depth into, for example, his trip to Japan, which is where he found his first factories and his first vendors to build these shoes. And he goes into so much depth about how he's thinking about it and what the move means to him. And he'll talk about when I visited 20 years ago, there was a hotel there and now it's not there. And it makes me think about the transience of life and what it means to like to be stable and have plans. And it's kind of like that. It's very philosophical. And he talks about it in that, and he talks about company building and traveling and such a deep and introspective way, especially with the hindsight of all the experience that he has.

And I remember being super inspired by that book, actually. Maybe a little bit untraditional in terms of that book being the inspiration for me to move or to me to think about these things. But yeah, I mean, I just wanted so much to share those experiences and to have the gratitude of the journey that Phil Knight does and all the giant moves that he's had to make, including all the traveling that he had to do and all the things that he learned from it. Yeah, I mean that was a very kind of like poignant book for me in a lot of different ways.

(28:35) Jeremy Au:

Yeah, I read the same book and I found that very inspiring as well, probably converted me closer towards being a Nike lifelong consumer as a result.

(28:43) Jesse Choi:

Of course that's the main goal, right?

(28:45) Jeremy Au:

The main goal, right? It's like, ah, before that my ASICS guy and and now I'm like, ah, I'm a Nike guy. I had a flirtation with all birds because that's what every startup founder instead of gone Valley had one. You know, I think, you made this move and, obviously it's been kind of like couple of years since that move. Any advice that you would give yourself perhaps, I don't know. You're the protagonist, you're looking at the flights, on your trip planning app and you're like, ah, should I go through with this? Any advice you'd give yourself back then?

(29:13) Jesse Choi:

Yeah, I would say like the advice I would for sure give myself is don't rush it or just enjoy the process of learning too, because when I first got here, I definitely felt a lot of internal stress. I gave myself a lot of pressure to figure it out very quickly. And I think maybe some of the views that I solidified or some of the things or the ways that I spent my time was maybe not so optimal because I had all this like, it's just me, right? I mean, only my self burden, no one was pushing me, but I was just pushing myself. For example, even a very innocuous example, like, I took Bahasa classes, Indonesian language classes, four months, and then I stopped because I got very busy. But I think in hindsight, I've been here for three years, if I spent, let's say a year and a half, really like spending a good amount of time learning the language, I think that would have taken me in a totally different direction.

I'm not saying that's a better or worse direction, but I think that would have more comfortable. It would open a very different set of doors, I believe. And so just in my urgency to, okay, I need to start grinding. I'm done investing and adjusting here. Let's just go. And in that impatience, I think like even this little example of learning the language slipped by the wayside, which I have tried to do.

And then the other thing I would say more on a personal level is make sure to keep in touch with your friends. My existing friends in the U. S, I think I'm really bad at keeping in touch with my friends. And only after I moved, I realized how much I needed that, that support system really helped me in a lot of different ways and not having that sucked the life out of me for the beginning of time. Now I think I've gotten a little bit better. And I'm rekindling a lot of those things, especially my relationship with my parents is getting a lot better, which is a huge blessing in disguise of moving out here, but yeah, making sure that I stay close to them. I would, I would invest more time in doing that too.

(30:45) Jeremy Au:

And, maybe this is a little bit of an interesting one, but, I think if you were to fast forward 10 years in the future, what do you suspect your future self would give advice to your current self right now?

(30:56) Jesse Choi:

Interesting. I never thought about a future looking like that. That's a good one. I think I would probably, if I had a guess, my 10 year in the future version of me would give me advice primarily probably around my relationship or, for example, something that is on the topic, on the front of our minds for me and my wife a lot is like, when's the right time to have kids. And we have so many competing things going on. And that's what it feels like. Oh, I have this. I got my job and I have this going on. I don't have time for kids. I don't have times for, you know, but I think my 10 year later version of me would look back and say look, like your life is your life, right? You can make things happen. Don't feel like, the urgencies of these little things that are coming up right now. Don't make them feel like they're forever. And like living, making sure that you invest in your relationship with your wife, maybe with your kids, making sure that you're having that life on a social level that you want and surrounding yourself with the right people. Make sure you don't lose sight of that and make sure you're prioritizing that. I think that, yeah, that's probably what he would say.

(31:48) Jeremy Au:

Thank you so much. On that note, I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways I got from this conversation. First of all, thank you so much for sharing about your early career decisions all the way from running for student council and being the cool ones across the nerds to making a decision to be an investor and consultant and working your way through being a capital and learning how what it's like to be in a room full of really smart people who are really capable and learning from them. So I think a tremendous set of learnings there.

Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about your decision to move to Indonesia to choose your now wife to choose your now job, to choose your now sector. And so I think there's a lot of learnings about how you think about risk and how you think about dreams and how you think about regrets and, some of the twists and transitions about doing that along the way.

And lastly, thanks so much for sharing about Reku and about, some of the principles around building an investment thesis in terms of how you came to it, why you think it's valuable, and your recent decision to expand the access from crypto to also U. S. public equities. On that note, thank you so much, Jesse, for sharing your experience.

(32:48) Jesse Choi:

Yeah. Thanks for being a great host. Thanks, Jeremy.