Shakil Khan

I mainly tweet about Food, Music, Coffee and Technology, None of which I really have a clue about, but so far so good.

[David Senra @davidsenra]

Nik Storonsky is one of the most hardcore and competitive founders I’ve ever talked to. He’s the founder of Revolut, a $115 billion company, and wants to be the number one bank in 100 countries.

When someone asked Nik if he was coming for Jamie Dimon's lunch, he said “I’m coming for his dinner.”

“We want to dominate, otherwise what’s the point?”

He removed every VC from his board, and when one investor pushed him too far, he started his own fund to compete with them.

Nik has a lot of ideas on talent, product design, marketing, constraints, and what makes founder-led companies special.

This is a fascinating conversation about competition, speed, and building a machine-like company.

0:00 Coming for Jamie Dimon's dinner
2:04 Building the #1 bank in 100 countries
6:12 Why founders beat professional CEOs
8:45 Revolut's biggest mistake
12:47 Why legacy banks can't innovate
17:20 Running a company like a machine
20:28 Funding winners and cutting losers like a trader
23:31 How AI is changing Revolut's team structure
25:23 50 direct reports and spreading innovation fast
29:59 Hiring self-guided missiles
33:31 Too much money makes founders weaker
37:38 What Europe's constraints taught Revolut
41:08 Why VCs are like football cheerleaders
49:28 Starting a fund to compete with VCs
54:28 From zero marketing to buying Europe's airports
1:00:21 Funding moonshots like a global tech company
1:03:58 Building an unstoppable machine

Includes paid partnerships.

[Shakil Khan @shak]

@HarryStebbings Nice Jacket 😎.

[Alexis Ohanian 🗽 @alexisohanian]

21 years ago I named "Reddit" and everyone said it was a horrible name, but I insisted one day people would say "I read it on reddit" and used my CEO-privilege to overrule everyone + kept the name. Now the company twitter account (unbeknownst to them) is making the joke. Heh.

[DHH @dhh]

You must learn to reverse the polarity of the negative energy your best ideas will inevitably generate and turn it into positive, forward momentum.

[Shakil Khan @shak]

@mpawlo @eldsjal @HjalmarNilsonne @Neko Please don’t give him ideas, he has his agent telling me off these days for being too slow in replying to messages.

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

Rarely do you see a company have so much positive influence on an ecosystem as Foursquare did on the NYC tech scene… especially to have it end like this.

Kudos to @dens for writing an eloquent post-mortem that takes on that impact, and its sad final chapter, head-on.

[Shakil Khan @shak]

@molly_alter 1 of your finest tweets ever, aside from Pimlico being Tribeca.

[Hjalmar Nilsonne @HjalmarNilsonne]

When we launched @Neko in the UK two years ago, it took us 10 months before expanding to our second city.

The US demands a whole new pace of execution.

Just three months after launching our first US clinic in NYC, we’re bringing Neko to Miami.

This location is very different from anything we’ve done before! Sharing more soon.

[Shakil Khan @shak]

@awilkinson This tweet deserves an award.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Angel investor lifecycle:

1. Invest $25k in random friend's company

2. Friend's corp random sells in 1 year, make $500k

3. Think you're a genius

4. Throw $5M at 20 random companies

5. None sell, illiquid nightmare

6. 20 yrs pass, feel like an idiot

7. It all hits, repeat

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

Tesla's Roadster flying stunt is all over your timeline today.

But Neko Health CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne says the Roadster already provided a key lesson for founders: startups are selling a vision to consumers.

"I think companies and founders get too much credit," Hjalmar says.

"The biggest change force that exists in human society is the consumer's willingness to have one future versus another future."

Paint a compelling enough vision, and consumers will vote with their feet, their interest -- and their money.

Which brings us to the Roadster. Nilsonne's previous startup was in climate tech. The focus was on politics, lawmaking and "boring" improvements like biofuel tanks, he says.

"And in all these places, there was always this little, little, company. They were making sports cars for rich people, and everybody thought, 'That's so silly.'"

That company was Tesla, pitching the original Roadster 🚘

"They were the laughing stock of all the climate people, and they ended up having a bigger impact than all these other things put together, and the way they did it was showing consumers a better future, saying, 'Hey, let's live in a future where your car is super fast. It looks awesome. You're gonna be proud to drive it, and of course, it's sustainable.'"

That pitch resonated with consumers above all. And according to Nilsonne, "forced a whole transportation industry to change."

Catch the full interview on The Upstarts Podcast (link below).

[Shakil Khan @shak]

@pushinpixls @Neko Thank You for visiting.

[Karin Nielsen @pushinpixls]

Holy shit the @Neko experience is awesome. The bar for public and private healthcare in the UK is so low that I felt like I’d been teleported 100 years into the future.

Insane value at the equivalent of £25/m.

[sarah mcbride @sarahmcbride]

As cool as it is to skip work for an hour to get a @Neko robe pic, the real value of what we're building is the behavior change that takes place in people after a scan

If you have even the tiniest interest in the future of health & heathcare systems, then this convo between @HjalmarNilsonne + @alexrkonrad is worth a listen ✨

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

Neko CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne was licking his wounds after "crash landing" a climate startup. Then he got a fateful DM from Spotify's Daniel Ek

Together, @HjalmarNilsonne and @eldsjal co-founded @Neko, a $7B startup that calls itself "the most valuable hour you can spend on your health."

After years operating in Europe, Neko recently launched in NYC, where it's quickly built a waitlist of 50,000 people, and started work on 3 more locations. Miami, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. are next.

“People sometimes think that there’s some machine, and you go in, and you get a kind of paper receipt telling you if you’re gonna die or not,” Hjalmar tells me. “In reality, it’s the exact opposite.”

On The Upstarts Podcast, Nilsonne talks about the fateful Twitter DM from Ek that got Neko going; why the doctor visit hasn’t changed much in 100 years; and how to keep a startup team motivated while chasing a long-term “moonshot.”

Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: a bet-the-company pivot driven by an internal memo he wrote, “Free Is Not Enough.”

A big thanks to this season's sponsors @Atlassian and @chargebee for supporting unfiltered founder interviews like this 🫡

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:48 Mapping Your Body In One Hour
03:54 Why The Doctor’s Visit Hasn’t Changed In 100 Years
07:31 Building Four Businesses In One: Devices, Hardware, Software, Clinics
09:22 Breaking Down A Neko Visit First-Hand
12:58 Why Half of Neko’s U.K. Members Never Had A Health Check
16:59 ‘Brutally Efficient With Your Time’: Why Every Second Counts
19:04 Helping Human Doctors, Not Replacing Them
22:40 Delivering Outcomes For the 92% Of Members Not At Risk
26:47 A Climate ‘Crash Landing’ And A DM From Daniel Ek
33:12 Motivating A Team To Chase A Moonshot
37:42 Neko’s Upstart Moment: The ‘Free Is Not Enough’ Memo And Pivot
41:30 Pricing Neko Accessibly For The 99.9%
45:44 What The Tesla Roadster Can Teach Founders About Change
48:33 Space-Age Scan, Old-School Advice: Cut The Coffee

Thanks for watching!

[Ted Zhang @TedHZhang]

My @Neko health checkup by @eldsjal @HjalmarNilsonne was INCREDIBLE! This is the future of preventative health.

Hands down Neko health best experience I’ve EVER had in healthcare.

First off I was excited to go to for the last two weeks.

Second, the experience lived up to the hype.

Third, I bought another scan for a year out.

Fourth, Im happy to know so much insight about my body (53 blood markers, kidney health, liver health, skin health and more)and what I can do to continue to optimize my health.

Some pics and vids (think I will make a more comprehensive one later):

[Daniel Ek @eldsjal]

I had a feeling New Yorkers would embrace Neko Health, but 50,000 people on the waitlist in just two weeks? Wow!

Our second NYC location opens in January, with more on the way!

[Hjalmar Nilsonne @HjalmarNilsonne]

Just 2 weeks after launching @Neko in the US, our NYC waitlist has doubled – with 50K people now in line for a scan.

The good news is that more capacity is on the way!

Today we're announcing that location #2 in the city will open at Brookfield Place in Battery Park City in January.

Plus, we have 2 more NYC locations already under construction so that we can deliver even more scans next year.

[Shakil Khan @shak]

Satire at its finest.

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

Can someone fill me in on this guy David Senra’s lore? He came out of nowhere and just randomly does these PR interviews w all the execs. He doesn’t have any qualifications or experience in biz (which is fine!) but what makes him so popular?

[Nico Wittenborn @ncsh]

Did our first @Neko scans in London today:

Loved the futuristic design and experience, instant readout and concrete action plan.

We’ll be back, thanks for arranging it @shak!