David Velez on Why Nubank Treats Everyone Like a Sequoia Partner

The Interview That Started at the Top

Most VC firms make you climb the ladder during fundraising. You start with an analyst, work your way to a partner, maybe get to the top if you're lucky. Sequoia flipped it.

David Velez walked into his first meeting and sat down with Doug Leone, the head of the firm. No junior associate screening call. No warm-up round. Just straight to the person who mattered most.

The first interview was with the head of the firm, not with the youngest analyst. In most firms, you start from the bottom and then you go up. At Sequoia, it's the opposite. You go from the top and then you go down.

— David Velez

The questions weren't about his CV. Doug wanted to know about his dad. His relationship with his mother. Whether she was strict. Questions with no right answer and no way to game the system.

When the meeting ended, Velez walked to his car. By the time he turned on the ignition, Mike Moritz had already emailed asking him to come back. Doug had taken one minute to brief Mike, who immediately wanted in. That's when Velez realized Sequoia wasn't just different—it was operating at a completely separate velocity.

Stanford by Day, Term Sheets at 30,000 Feet by Night

Velez was supposed to be enjoying his "2-year vacation" at Stanford Business School. Instead, he found himself waking up at 4 AM to prospect deals in Brazil, attending classes, then working Sequoia hours until 8 PM before starting homework.

Then came the Wednesdays. Doug would pick him up at 3 PM like a dad collecting his kid from school. They'd drive to San Francisco Airport, board Doug's plane, and fly 14 hours to São Paulo.

I remember just waking up almost like lost where I was and I was finding myself like flying to Brazil, about landing in São Paulo, pinching myself like, what is going on here?

— David Velez

They'd land, meet seven companies in one day, sign three term sheets, then fly back so Velez could make his 8 AM Thursday class. The entire experience was a masterclass in velocity, conviction, and what partnership actually looks like.

That partnership principle became foundational at Nubank. Velez started treating interns the way Doug treated him—as equals with a seat at the table. The youngest engineer gets asked their opinion. The newest data analyst has to have a point of view. It's exhausting, but it motivates the right people.

Hire for Spiky Talent, Not Well-Rounded Mediocrity

Doug Leone's superpower is reading people. Velez watched him deploy psychological profiling that went far beyond traditional interviews. The lesson stuck.

Today, Velez doesn't ask candidates about their resume. He doesn't care which school they attended. He's hunting for character traits and extreme strengths, even if they come with extreme weaknesses.

I'd rather have the people that have this incredible strengths and the weaknesses than the people that are okay in just certain areas. Those tend to be, if you manage them adequately, those are much more powerful type of hires.

— David Velez

In the early days, Nubank's office was a $500-per-month house in São Paulo with 20 people crammed inside. Candidates who cared about their LinkedIn profile would see it and run. The ones who sat on the floor and said "I'll be here Monday" after hearing about building Latin America's largest bank? Those were the keepers.

The team paid Michael Abramson from Sequoia $500 in monthly rent. His mind was blown. But Velez knew it was the perfect filter. Today, with 85 million customers and 30% of adult Brazilians using Nubank as their primary account, the challenge is maintaining that filter at scale.

Why 94 NPS on a Credit Card Beats an iPhone

The highest-rated consumer product in the world isn't a Tesla. It's not an iPhone. It's Nubank's purple credit card in Mexico, clocking a 94 NPS.

That metric reveals something non-obvious: financial services companies that become primary accounts build deeper trust than commerce or social platforms. When you're handling life savings, you can't fail. Every transaction matters. That forces operational excellence 24/7 and creates brand equity that's nearly impossible for a shoe delivery app to match.

Nubank now holds 15% market share in credit cards, but only 5% in personal loans, 2% in investments, and 1% in insurance. The white space is massive. More interesting: Velez is using that trust to build beyond banking entirely.

The company launched a marketplace with several million daily active users buying from 180+ partners. Not e-commerce—Nubank doesn't want to deal with logistics. It's a platform that tells merchants to stop spending on Google and Facebook and instead tap into 85 million high-trust consumers who already have credit lines ready.

You've seen Alibaba and Tencent go from commerce into finance. Velez is running the opposite play: finance into commerce. The thesis? Financial firms have better brand, better data, and better credit infrastructure. If you can price risk better than anyone in Latin America and you have the largest digital-native consumer base in the region, why wouldn't you become the platform for everything those consumers need?

The Biggest Threat Is Thinking You've Won

Nubank has 50% of Brazilian adults. Of those, 60% use it as their primary account. That's 30% of the entire adult population—more than any incumbent bank. The team could celebrate. Instead, Velez is paranoid.

When asked about the biggest threat, he didn't mention regulation or competitors. He said: thinking we've won. The company under-celebrates on purpose. Victories get 30 seconds, then it's "What's next?"

Some employees complain they don't celebrate enough. Velez thinks that's a feature, not a bug. The opportunity ahead—Mexico, Colombia, insurance, investments, marketplace—is so large that resting on laurels would kill the company faster than any external threat.

He's building for decades, not quarters. Soccer analogies dominate internal meetings. The refrain: we're in the first minute of the first half. Not the second half. Not even halftime. The first minute.