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Founder's Story Going From Zero to a Million
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00:01Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30And it's going to give you a chance to discover the real person behind a familiar name, that of a
00:34famed French entrepreneur.
00:36So I'm sure you're going to have lots of questions for this session, which is great because you can share
00:41them with us via the app.
00:43You go to the VivaTech platform and then select the tab in the drop-down menu entitled Interactive Sessions with
00:50Slido.
00:51Go to stage three and type away your questions as you listen.
00:54We can't wait to hear your thoughts and queries.
00:57Having said that, please join me in welcoming journalist Marion Moreau and our very special guest for this session entitled
01:04Founder's Story Going from Zero to a Million.
01:35Hello, everyone.
01:38That's good to be here at VivaTech.
01:42How are you?
01:43Fine?
01:45You know, my name is Marion.
01:47I'm a journalist, but I've always dreamed to be a psychologist, always.
01:52You know, asking the soul of people what they have in mind, how they, yeah, what were the dreams of
02:02the very beginning.
02:04I was, yeah, it was like a vocation I was very, very interested in.
02:10But, well, that's maybe the day that everything is possible with that great moment.
02:18And I'm really delighted to have that time capsule special moment, and I would like to say hello to Mr.
02:26Elon Musk.
02:26Sorry, Cyril Schisch.
02:28Sorry, excuse me.
02:30Cyril Schisch.
02:31Hi, Cyril.
02:32Hi, Marion.
02:34How are you?
02:34Sorry, I made a mistake because, you know, everybody is listening to Elon, so we're so sorry.
02:40And I'm happy to see that it was so full of there that you decided to come here.
02:45Thank you to every single member of Marion's family.
02:48It's a great pleasure to meet you.
02:51Yeah.
02:52You know, Cyril is the PayPal French mafia, in a way, so everything is linked today.
02:58We synchronize.
02:59But with you, Cyril, I would like to have a psychologist interview with you, okay?
03:06Let's go.
03:06Oh, let's go for the exercise, and let's go to the past, to the very beginning of you were a
03:14child, Cyril.
03:17And we're going to, yeah.
03:20Oh.
03:28Oh my God, Cyril.
03:30Is it you?
03:32It's me, but as you can tell, I already looked quite old as a child.
03:36How old are you?
03:38I'm 21.
03:3921.
03:41What was your feeling?
03:43Where are we?
03:44We are on a plane.
03:46Yeah, we are on a plane between Los Angeles and San Diego.
03:51And I'm traveling around the world for a year studying.
03:58You know, coming out of my city of Marseille, south of France, very close family, caring, loving family.
04:07We spend all the summers and all the holidays together, and all of a sudden, I have the opportunity to
04:14travel the world from the U.S. to China to Japan, and all this in 1993, 1994, which is a
04:25very different time than today.
04:27And, yeah, it really, like, changed the way I see the world and what the kind of people I meet
04:36and the kind of thing I'm facing.
04:41A lot of emotion.
04:42We feel an emotion when you see the picture, right?
04:45I'm almost crying.
04:47It was, so you were 21, you were actually a student, weren't you?
04:52And I could start drinking in the U.S. as well, which, you know, always helped to make friends.
04:58Any nickname at that time?
05:00Cyrilou?
05:01No, they actually call me a lot of nicknames, depending on where.
05:06So, at home, they will call me Shishu.
05:10In the U.S., they will call me Chai-Chi, but they didn't do it as a nickname, it's just
05:14they couldn't pronounce my name.
05:16And more recently, someone called me on stage and said, it's a pleasure to welcome on stage Mr. Quiche.
05:23So, you see.
05:24Mr. Quiche.
05:25Ah, yeah.
05:25Not so easy.
05:26French cuisine.
05:27Yeah, yeah, I understand.
05:30Okay.
05:31Any interest about technologies at that time?
05:36Not really.
05:37I was more interested in what are the next stupid things I could do, spending my parents' money, mostly.
05:46And I have to say that I've been pretty brave at doing it.
05:52A lot of creativity and technology come really later.
05:57It's just a way to do more stupid things.
06:00Did you have a mobile at that time?
06:04I guess no one had a mobile in 93, to be honest.
06:09Not anyone I knew at 21.
06:13Yeah, it was a time.
06:18We got to be here a little bit personal.
06:20A girlfriend at that time?
06:23Yeah, a fresh girlfriend I just met just before leaving for this year abroad.
06:31And sometimes it works beyond frontier.
06:36Because 30 years later, we're still together.
06:40She's my wife and we have two amazing boys together.
06:42So yeah, definitely a girlfriend.
06:47If you had the possibility to leave again, to go back to the old days, will you be ready to
06:55go back to the past?
06:58Oh yeah.
07:00Oh yeah.
07:01Oh yeah.
07:02Probably.
07:03Okay.
07:04Now, Cyril, we would like to go back to the current time, to the present.
07:09So, turn a little bit.
07:24Cyril, we are not anymore on a plane.
07:28We are at Vivatech on stage.
07:30Wow.
07:30We are at Vivatech 2023.
07:32It's been fast.
07:36And you are now the CEO of Lidia.
07:39Lidia is a fintech, very successful.
07:43Let's go back maybe to the current numbers, which are, I think, quite great.
07:48How many users?
07:51We have now like a little bit more than 7.5 million users in France alone.
07:57which is a significant number compared to the population.
08:01But what's more interesting is how this is really comparing to the age group between 18 and 35 years old.
08:10And today we've like 48% of every French person in that age group, 18 to 35 years old, do
08:19use Lidia, which is mind-blowing, I'd say.
08:23How do you feel when people, and I would like to say again about the day when you've heard, I'm
08:33having a Lidia, you know, okay, let's go for a Lidia.
08:37Wow.
08:38This is amazing.
08:40So rare.
08:41Tell me the day that you've heard about that.
08:43Honestly, it is insane.
08:45Especially if you haven't prepared for it.
08:47And God know we were not prepared.
08:51We launched Lidia in 2013.
08:52So we're celebrating the 10th anniversary this year.
08:56And two years later, I'm lucky enough to be called to participate in a class at the University of Paris
09:02Dauphine.
09:03And I walk in the hallway and there is two students going out and one tells to the other, pay
09:10for it and I'll Lidia you.
09:12And so I stop that person and say, what did you say?
09:14And because I'm so old, he said, no, I didn't say anything, sir, like I was his teacher.
09:19I said, no, don't worry, just say it again, please.
09:22I said, buy the sandwich, I'll Lidia you.
09:25He said, Lidia you?
09:27I said, yeah, everybody say that.
09:28But I knew that everybody was a very small group of people.
09:33We had 50,000 users at the time.
09:35And it was just 12 employees.
09:37So at that very moment, we knew we've hit something that is really deep.
09:43That is the product market feed.
09:46If you want to use the jargon of the tech world.
09:52But honestly, you know, you touch a social cord.
09:56You fill a gap.
09:59And so because you created something new, it didn't have a name.
10:03And your brand is not a name for that action.
10:07Which honestly is very rare for such an early stage.
10:15No, I've been super happy and excited and proud about that for the last eight years.
10:23And I have to say, Marion, you're not the first one to ask that question.
10:28No offense.
10:31But since last Friday, I discovered something even bigger.
10:37I was attending the birthday party of a friend.
10:40And that friend was as old as I am, brought a daughter.
10:44And that daughter said, Cyril, I have something to ask you.
10:48Do you know what being Lydia means?
10:52Be Lydia.
10:53Being Lydia.
10:54And I'm like, what do you mean?
10:56Being Lydia?
10:57And I don't know of any brand that goes with being something.
10:59And she would go, that's like, that refers to situation.
11:03Like that situation is Lydia or is not.
11:05And I'm like, yeah, what kind of situation?
11:07And she said, you know, like, playing pétanque in between sidewalks in Paris, it's so Lydia.
11:14And I'm like, wow, what else?
11:16Like, playing Mulky and drinking rosé, very Lydia.
11:19So, in case you don't know, this person and a group of her friends, they do have a WhatsApp group.
11:25When they ask themselves whether this is Lydia or this is not Lydia.
11:30And apparently, there are a lot of Lydia situations, which, from what I understand, but I need to dig a
11:39little deeper,
11:40can be referred to being a Parisian bobo or something like that.
11:44Yeah, it seems like.
11:45So, be Lydia.
11:46Yeah, that's a social phenomenon.
11:48I don't know if I'm Lydia or if you're Lydia or Marion.
11:51Who knows?
11:51It's unbelievable.
11:53You're a CEO entrepreneur, which was not so, I mean, so planned, if we're regarding to the past.
12:04You were not targeting to be one CEO one day.
12:07Am I right?
12:09I don't know about that.
12:10I believe it's a lot of situations and encounters and people you talk and meet that help you clarify the
12:19way.
12:20But somehow you, and I don't like to be pretentious or anything, but still I have to quote Nietzsche on
12:27stage.
12:27It's always a little classy.
12:30So, you can only become what you are.
12:33And the best you can do is the best version of yourself.
12:36You can't be someone else.
12:37So, I guess, I could not say I was not meant to do that or it was not in me.
12:45It was in me.
12:46But for sure, at the time of the plane, I didn't know it.
12:51What is your feeling at the moment we're talking right now?
12:57Just how do you feel?
12:58Extremely privileged.
12:59Yeah.
13:00On so many levels.
13:03Life treated me pretty well so far on every level.
13:08But look at this.
13:10I mean, two people that didn't know each other and that stupidly decide that they can do something like a
13:17new way to pay in 2011.
13:21And, well, a few years later, we hear talking about the possibility of becoming, I don't know, maybe the current
13:32account of millions of people in Europe.
13:37It wouldn't have been possible 50 years ago, no matter how smart you were, no matter how lucky, no matter
13:44how wealthy.
13:44I mean, you couldn't do it.
13:46Period.
13:46So, it takes a lot to be here today in terms of, of course, investment, efforts, sacrifices, good decisions, good
13:56people around you, everything.
13:59But also a lot of luck to be at the right place at the right moment.
14:02And you can only feel blessed and privileged and recognize that, acknowledge that, and, you know, enjoy every minute of
14:11the journey because we don't know what the destination is going to be.
14:15So, let's really enjoy it.
14:18And also, being face to face with Elon, he knows I'm winning.
14:24Still motivated at the right time?
14:26After eight years of execution?
14:29Still motivated?
14:32Can I say no?
14:34Nah.
14:35I mean, look, it will be on social network.
14:39It will be, you know, broadcast again and again and again.
14:42Imagine if I said no.
14:43Come on, Marion.
14:45I'm even more motivated than ever.
14:48And so is my co-founder Antoine.
14:51I mean, honestly, as I said just before, how many people are lucky enough to be in that position?
14:58And if you insult your luck, I mean, you must be crazy.
15:03You should be doing something.
15:04If you're an entrepreneur and you're in this position now, you only want more and more and more and more,
15:11because we just scratched the surface of how we can change financial services and finally make money and people going
15:21along together,
15:22not as a topic of stress and misunderstanding.
15:27Let's talk about, once another, about personal life.
15:32You have two boys.
15:34Your father and two boys.
15:36What about your relationship with them?
15:38Are they like, wow, Dad is like God?
15:41Or are they just, yeah, that's nice?
15:44Same as you, Marion.
15:46They believe that Dad is Elon Musk.
15:47You know, they're confused because of the timing and everything.
15:54I'm extremely lucky on that level as well.
15:57I have two boys.
15:59They're 21 and 17.
16:00None of them want to be CEO of Lydia, of course, because they know from the inside what that means,
16:07right?
16:08They've seen it.
16:10And so the older one is learning Japanese language and culture.
16:16And I can tell you that he really doesn't care about Lydia, except when he needs more money.
16:22The second one always needs more money, so he cares a lot.
16:27And we're having very open discussions every day at home.
16:32I'm explaining what's happening inside the company when we have good, bad moment when we're launching stuff.
16:37And I have to share something with you that happened to me a few months ago.
16:43Of course, we reorganized.
16:45We changed a lot of things.
16:46We changed the strategy of the company's positioning from super app to becoming the current account, the main primary account.
16:54And that's a big change.
16:56And we also changed a certain number of people, including members of the executive committee.
17:01And my younger son would come to me and say, Dad, that's quite a few senior people that you had
17:08to remove recently.
17:11How come?
17:12I said, you know, we're making a lot of strategy changes, so we need to align the people, the executive
17:18committee, the senior people with the new strategy and new execution.
17:22Maybe they were not the right people.
17:23And they would go, do you, do Antoine and you still interviewing every candidate that you hire in the company?
17:32And I say, well, Solara, I'm sorry, but we don't do that anymore, not for everyone.
17:37And I say, maybe you felt a little too much like, yalla, you got the unicorn and that's cool, right?
17:43Maybe you should go back to it and interview everyone you hire.
17:47I'm like, okay, thanks for the lesson, dinner time.
17:51Right.
17:51So now, Cyril, let's go to the future.
18:08Not so bad.
18:09How do you feel?
18:11Well, I feel I can definitely handle that.
18:13I was wondering what the picture is going to look like, but honestly, I didn't see it before.
18:18He hasn't seen it before.
18:19No, and I was like, if it's really terrible, maybe I don't want to get to there, but maybe I
18:26do.
18:27Okay.
18:28We are on 2033.
18:31Okay.
18:34How many users on Lydia?
18:3910 years, I hope 20 million.
18:4220 million.
18:43Right.
18:44Any other feature on the app?
18:46Well, I guess at that time, we'll be one of the dominant financial partners for these 20 million European users.
19:00So a lot of more features and most of them, we don't even know what they're going to be because
19:05let's be realistic.
19:07Although I do love this future idea.
19:1410 years ago, I would have been totally clueless of what would be Lydia today.
19:21And it will be extremely arrogant to believe that I can tell you what it's going to be in 10
19:26years.
19:27But one thing I can tell you for sure is I'll be as and even more excited as today to
19:35keep on fighting that battle for a healthier relationship with money and a simpler way to interact with it.
19:45What about AI at that time in 2033?
19:51Any implementation of AI into the solution?
19:59Also, we're going back to the past now.
20:03At Lydia, we've been using AI for the last five years in several, not necessarily large language models like the
20:10generative AI we're talking a lot about these days.
20:13But AI for sure, in fraud fighting, in customer support, in many of the departments we have at Lydia, it's
20:24going to be a lot more in the future.
20:27That's obvious.
20:28And we have a lot of projects on this.
20:30But there's something that we're definitely not going to be doing using tech.
20:37Never, ever.
20:38And that I can promise in front of you all, and you can mark these words.
20:42We're never going to be using tech to make people act like machines.
20:48And we're never going to ask tech to behave like humans because we believe humans are extremely good at being
20:53humans.
20:54And tech is good as being tech.
20:56And I believe at the moment, there are a little bit of blurred lines.
21:00And we do use tech to make people behave as machines.
21:06And I don't believe we're good at that.
21:07And we also have chat bots that say, hey, I'm Julia.
21:12And God knows you're not Julia.
21:16How many people into the company?
21:18More than 200 right now, but in 10 years?
21:24Same or more?
21:25No, it will be a lot more.
21:27It will be a lot more because the more the intensity of the relationship you have with your customers, the
21:37more it requires care and support and guidance.
21:41And I believe that this role that has been for sure more and more abandoned by the banks is something
21:51that is really important to people when they interact with their money.
21:54So we're going to be investing a lot in this.
21:56So I believe, yes, if we're there, we will be talking thousands.
22:01What could be the panorama of fintech at the time we're talking at large?
22:10I don't believe we'll be saying…
22:12Maybe the world will disappear, fintech, you know?
22:14Maybe we don't say fintech anymore, yeah.
22:17That's better.
22:19But banking still, we're okay.
22:22Well, it reminds me of that quote from Bill Gates a while ago.
22:28We don't need banks, but we need bankers.
22:35Imagine, yeah, we imagine that the Cyril of this time, 233, yeah, is having a dinner with Elon Musk.
22:48You know, it's very, you know, current.
22:51You always meet Elon just to have some advice.
22:55Can you tell us more about your last dinner with Elon?
23:02Definitely, I will remind him of this episode of today where he lost that audience battle, for sure.
23:10We'll start like that.
23:11And, you know, it's maybe time for me to say I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk.
23:21I've been disqualifying a lot of candidates when I interviewed them, and they told me that they're…
23:29the person that inspired them the most was Elon Musk, because usually if you dig a little deeper into this,
23:38you understand that they like him because he's the richest man in the world, or stuff like that.
23:44And being inspired by the richest man in the world is certainly a very lame way to be inspired.
23:51And therefore, I believe we're going to have that very bad conversation to start with, to break the ice.
23:57And then we'll talk about sports, because that always brings people back together.
24:03Thank you so much, Cyril de Chiche, co-founder of Lydia.
24:07Thank you so much for that wonderful conversation.
24:10Thank you, dear audience.
24:12I think you were right to listen to us today.
24:14Thank you very much.
24:15Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Marion.
24:17Thank you.
24:27Thank you.
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