Most "hardcore" 25-year-old in finance reveals his identity, has no regrets
When Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky participated in a podcast last month, he revealed his dislike for venture capitalists on the grounds that they are often not "operators who know how to do things", but board level meddlers.
Evidencing this, Storonsky said that at one point in Revolut's past, a VC who'd invested in the company tried to make him fire his best person. The VC said the person was too "hardcore," said Storonsky. He said he refused to oblige the VC, kept his best person on and instead removed VCs from the board at each investment round.
Storonsky didn't reveal who his hardcore operator was, but the person has since outed themselves. It was, unsurprisingly, Alan Chang.
Chang joined Revolut straight out of Imperial aged 21. He left again as a multi-multi-millionaire aged 28. During his time at Revolut Chang was everything from head of operations, to head of customer services, to chief revenue officer. Chang now runs Fuse Energy, a UK-based renewable energy supplier. When we spoke to Chang a year ago, he said he was still working 80-90 hours a week.
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Writing on LinkedIn, Chang said he learned about the VC's effort to fire him in 2020 when the drunken VC admitted it during the Revolut Series D closing dinner. "He apologised. Said he was wrong once he saw what I could do," said Chang. "Nik is 100% right. Most investors can't be trusted with any power over the company. They should cheer from the sidelines and count their returns."
Burned from this experience, Chang said he's written "constitutional docs" at Fuse which specifically say VCs can't fire him. This is probably wise, given that some Fuse employees have reportedly complained of a harsh working environment there too.
Chang is not about cosy jobs, though. Chang is about building companies and making a lot of money from stock. At Revolut, he said he asked to be paid minimum wage and took the rest as shares. He says this was a good decision given that his Revolut shares are now worth $10m+.
However Chang - who didn't respond to a request to comment for this article - also says that he and his co-founder Charles Orr have invested "nearly everything we had" in Fuse. If the company fails, Chang says they will both be "fcked". Presumably this encourages more hardcore working practices than ever.
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