Veriff: The Global Identity Infrastructure

1. 0:00 – 1:52

   How Veriff Started in a High School Computer Lab

   1. GAGustaf Alstromer0:00

      [upbeat music] So today, I'm here with Kaarel Kotkas. He's the CEO and founder of Veriff. Veriff is an online identity verification platform. They power identities for companies like Instacart, or Bumble, or Uber. Kaarel started Veriff straight out of high school, and today, Veriff is one of the leading ID verification companies in the world. They have over 600 employees, uh, growing almost 100% year over year, and are profitable. Welcome, Kaarel.

   2. KKKaarel Kotkas0:30

      Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

   3. GAGustaf Alstromer0:32

      Kaarel, tell me about Veriff. What do you guys do?

   4. KKKaarel Kotkas0:35

      We enable any website and mobile application to match the person with a government-issued ID, and we are taking passport, driver's license, or ID card, and match it with a selfie we've taken within a single flow.

   5. GAGustaf Alstromer0:53

      Got it.

   6. KKKaarel Kotkas0:54

      We are working on building towards the future where the passport is issued by Veriff-

   7. GAGustaf Alstromer1:00

      Mm-hmm

   8. KKKaarel Kotkas1:00

      ... not only by the governments-

   9. GAGustaf Alstromer1:02

      Yeah

   10. KKKaarel Kotkas1:02

       ... to enable a borderless experience and-

   11. GAGustaf Alstromer1:06

       Right

   12. KKKaarel Kotkas1:06

       ... and make honest people trusted.

   13. GAGustaf Alstromer1:08

       How did this get started back in 2015?

   14. KKKaarel Kotkas1:11

       It was, uh, spring 2015, uh, when I got connected with, uh, TransferWise.

   15. GAGustaf Alstromer1:17

       Yeah.

   16. KKKaarel Kotkas1:18

       Now Wise.

   17. GAGustaf Alstromer1:19

       Yeah.

   18. KKKaarel Kotkas1:19

       And this was, like, one of the fastest-growing companies in Tallinn, Estonia. And so then I started to talk with them, and we got a couple of other topics sorted out that I found out that requires improvements.

   19. GAGustaf Alstromer1:33

       Mm-hmm.

   20. KKKaarel Kotkas1:34

       Then they said, "Kaarel, we'd like to leverage your skills. Maybe you can have a look on our identity verification."

   21. GAGustaf Alstromer1:42

       Yeah.

   22. KKKaarel Kotkas1:42

       "What can be done there to improve it?" And, uh, I was like, "Yeah, let me have a look." And this

2. 1:52 – 4:58

   Why Online Identity Is an Infrastructure Problem

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas1:52

      is an area where I thought, first time, after going through the flow, that let me try the tricks that I did.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer2:02

      Try to hack the system.

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas2:03

      Eventually, yes.

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer2:04

      Yeah.

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas2:04

      But it was, uh, something where I wanted to do when I was still living on my home island growing up on a farm.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer2:11

      Mm-hmm.

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas2:12

      And when I wanted to order goods that were delivered by the local shop-

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer2:16

      Yeah

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas2:16

      ... then it was eBay.

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer2:18

       Yeah.

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas2:18

       And then setting up an eBay account, um, was easy, but, but the payments globally were powered by PayPal.

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer2:26

       Mm-hmm.

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas2:26

       And debit account required, uh, uploading an ID.

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer2:30

       Mm-hmm.

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas2:30

       Within a week, they let me know that you're not 18 years old, you can't use those services. So then I felt it was like an instruction for a kid living on an island.

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer2:44

       Okay.

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas2:44

       So I changed my date of birth, uploaded the same ID, and all of my orders got confirmed.

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer2:48

       [laughs]

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas2:49

       And this topic, I didn't think of doing anything, like, wrong or hacking back as a kid. It rather felt like an instruction, and somehow it worked.

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer2:58

       Mm-hmm.

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas2:59

       And then 2015, I started to test the system, how, how-

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer3:05

       How, how old were you in 2015?

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas3:07

       I was 20.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer3:07

       20? Okay.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas3:08

       And for me, it was the thing, like, yeah, let me try it out.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer3:11

       Mm-hmm.

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas3:11

       Let me try out the things where I'm now having a skill set of Photoshop, Illustrator instead of a paint, and let me try to pretend to be somebody else online, and, uh, what I found out, that this problem still wasn't solved.

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer3:29

       Yeah.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas3:30

       After analyzing it all, it became clear that identity verification wasn't accurate, didn't scale, killed conversion, and the cost of doing fraud, having just pictures-

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer3:41

       Mm-hmm
3. 4:58 – 7:10

   Matching IDs With a Selfie

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas4:58

      if the person voluntarily, real time, with valid identity, is behind the screen.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer5:04

      So if I am trying to buy something on a website and require my identity, you will ask me to take a photo of myself, take a photo of the ID, or something like that?

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas5:12

      Something like that.

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer5:14

      Yeah.

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas5:14

      Majority, we are using today government-issued IDs-

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer5:18

      Mm-hmm

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas5:18

      ... but in very many markets, we are already able to leverage government registries without the need for an ID-

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer5:25

      Basically

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas5:25

      ... or using, uh, additional insight of

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer5:28

       So in the US, you, this is the experience, but in other countries, you have a different experience b- based on-

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas5:32

       Yes

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer5:32

       ... what the government is like, is-

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas5:33

       Exactly, because where government-issued identities are-

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer5:36

       Mm-hmm

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas5:36

       ... the best form today, and still, um-Every country is different with their identity maturity-

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer5:44

       Right

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas5:44

       ... and adoption, and you always would love to leverage the best tools for the task at hand.

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer5:50

       Yeah. What, what's the level of fraud in 2017? Like, how easy was it to fr- to fraud the systems that existed? If you wanted to fake your identity, either your age or-

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas5:59

       Yeah

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer5:59

       ... something else.

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas5:59

       The key part, what I noticed needed to be fixed was that globally, identity verification was only driven by the compliance demands.

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer6:06

       Mm-hmm.

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas6:07

       It was mainly financial services, and this also meant that companies did as much as needed and as less as possible.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer6:14

       Yeah.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas6:14

       Because complying with regulations don't prevent fraud.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer6:17

       Got it.

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas6:17

       And so eventually you need to go so much more in-depth.

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer6:20

       Mm-hmm.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas6:21

       And, uh, Estonia was actually a good example for me, where I noticed that digital identity infrastructure is actually powering every single service.

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer6:31

       Mm-hmm.
4. 7:10 – 10:53

   Fighting Fraud in Fintech & Marketplaces

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas7:10

      tackle the fraud via transaction monitoring after the fact, and identity verification layer was used more as a check mark. And over time, when we started to have more real time, real time payments-

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer7:22

      Mm-hmm

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas7:22

      ... then meant there was no time to do any transaction monitoring, and this pushed so much more emphasis on the accuracy of identity as well.

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer7:31

      Got it. Got... So this became a tool from, from being in compliance and you're required to verify people's identity.

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas7:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer7:35

      Basically, ID verification is now a tool to fight fraud, among other tools.

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas7:40

      Exactly.

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer7:41

      Yeah.

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas7:41

      I believe, like, the way how it started, uh, eventually on the market maturity as well, then all the fintechs back in the days-

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer7:52

       Mm-hmm

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas7:52

       ... that were mainly, like, growing and driving growth and seeing it as, um, compliance.

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer7:57

       Yeah.

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas7:57

       Then many told me that, "Yeah, Kaarel, you've just built nuclear-powered submarine going for island hopping." [laughs]

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer8:04

       Yeah.

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas8:05

       "We just need something more simple."

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer8:07

       Mm-hmm.

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas8:07

       So what it meant that actually first customers were, like, traditional banks in the Nordics-

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer8:12

       Yeah

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas8:13

       ... that actually were the ones that really needed to prove out that online identity verification done by Veriff is even more accurate than physical face-to-face authentication.

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer8:23

       So w- was your first customer, was that the banks, or was that Uber?

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas8:26

       It was actually banks.

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer8:27

       Banks. Okay.

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas8:28

       And then it was Uber, and...

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer8:29

       How did you get Uber as a first customer? 'Cause you had Uber when you applied to YC.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas8:32

       Yeah.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer8:32

       How did you get Uber as a customer?

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas8:33

       So when it started back in 2015-

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer8:35

       Mm-hmm

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas8:35

       ... it took six months to get the product ready.

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer8:38

       Yeah.
5. 10:53 – 15:44

   Scaling Verification to a Global Platform

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas10:54

      w- with a crisp plan, a topic that will, um, apply.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer10:58

      Okay.

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas10:58

      So it was actually an area when, um, we have had a, had a great discussion, and I felt like, "Okay, we might be, so I'll give it a shot."

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer11:07

      Okay. And then you applied, and then you interviewed with me and Michael, I think.

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas11:11

      Yes, exactly.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer11:12

      And I thought the interview went great. Uh, I was really impressed. You have basically a working product that you built yourself that was a problem that I was familiar with, that I thought a lot of companies here would use, but there were two problems. [laughs]

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas11:26

      [laughs]

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer11:26

      What were the problems?

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas11:28

      Oh, I still remember. I, I was in Mountain View, and then I got an email-

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer11:33

       Yeah

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas11:34

       ... where Michael called out that, um, "We truly believe in the market opportunity and the product you've built, but, um"-You are like a solo founder and your cap table is already messed up

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer11:48

       Yes.

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas11:48

       What is-

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer11:48

       What does it mean to have your cap table messed up? You had sold how much of the company?

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas11:51

       Ah, we need a longer story. [laughs]

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer11:55

       [laughs]

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas11:55

       But back when I got this message, I already thought I got it all sorted out.

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer11:59

       Yeah.

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas12:00

       But, um, it actually gets back to the level where I started on building Veriff and so getting to work with initial customers and prospects. Then, um, one of the banks said, like, "Yeah, we'll start to use-

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer12:15

       Mm-hmm

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas12:15

       ... this product, but, um, it requires additional s- security certifications and maturity-

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer12:21

       Yeah

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas12:21

       ... to be bank ready." And, uh, they asked how much does it take to actually build, um, and sort th- those topics out.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer12:32

       Yeah.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas12:32

       And then I said like, "Yeah, it takes 60K." And, um, all in all, I got pretty fast an investment from the bank-

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer12:39

       Yeah

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas12:39

       ... to actually be able to sort those topics out.

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer12:42

       Yeah.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas12:43

       And so the moment we kept on going forwards, then, um, in a year and half already more tech investors came on- on board.

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer12:54

       Yeah.
6. 15:44 – 20:31

   YC, Early Breakthroughs, and Hard Lessons

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas15:44

      Uh, ending up of me taking a one million euro personal loan, sorting and resetting up until getting it fixed, and, um, here we are 10 years later.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer15:56

      Within two weeks of getting the rejection, you have sorted out the cap table, you've added a co-founder, and then you were in YC. Um, is there a lesson that you wanna give to other founders who maybe feel like they're stuck in a similar position?

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas16:09

      Nothing is broken. Everything can be fixed.

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer16:11

      Yeah.

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas16:12

      Oh, boy, it was busy two weeks already before the batch.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer16:15

      And then you joined YC and you came up to SF probably the first time, and I was like, "Here are a bunch of intros to companies that I think need what you're building" And you met with all of them, and they all seemed quite excited, but not to become a customer. Like, some of them became customers, but others were like, "We want this in-house, and we'd like to buy your company." So you had more... [laughs] almost as many people saying, "We'd like to be your customers," saying, "We'd like to buy Veriff" in the batch.

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas16:44

      Yeah. I mean, we were able to grow and keep on getting, like, smaller companies.

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer16:48

      Yeah.

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas16:49

      But, uh, the bigger ones, after, like, having initial tests and topics done, they said, like, "Yeah, we are... We'd like to have and, and buy instead of service your company."

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer17:03

       Yeah.

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas17:03

       As some said, like, "Yeah, you're not big enough for our big volumes, and this takes a little bit more topics" and-

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer17:11

       Right

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas17:11

       ... and eventually it was pretty, pretty hard as I really wanted to get them as our customer. And, um, it also got to a level where some said, like, "Yeah, we are not gonna sign a contract otherwise."

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer17:25

       'Cause they knew that if-

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas17:25

       We'll go to Array

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer17:25

       ... if, if you would sign a contract, then you would have a very easy fundraise-

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas17:29

       Yeah

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer17:29

       ... off that contract with, like, some of those famous YC companies.

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas17:32

       Exactly. But overall, the key part for me was still the case that I just bought back my company fully.

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer17:38

       Yeah.

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas17:39

       I not sold it underneath any other company. I cangrow faster-

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer17:46

       Yeah

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas17:46

       ... than we could do independently. And the biggest part of Veriff is actually the fact that we are independent.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer17:52

       Yes.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas17:52

       We are able to actually deliver industry-wide c- cooperation against the fraud and, and move towards driving lease friction for the honest. So all what it meant was there was quite a lot of money.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer18:07

       Yes. I, I, I remember the opposite. Like, basically people offering you many tens of millions, uh, to, for the company, and w- which instantly would have, um, changed your life, but you've already done all this work to take over the company yourself to make it your company again. Um, and I think we had a conversation of, like, something like, will you have a, an idea this good again, or something like that, and you were like, "No, this is, this is the company that I'm running." And you said no to all of them. And then you grew 3x during the YC batch, and then you came to demo day, and it turns out that you and me were not the only people that recognized that this was a-

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas18:42

       Yeah

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer18:42

       ... real problem. What happened, what happened, sort of... Like, what happened sort of like throughout the batch, and then-

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas18:46

       Yeah

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer18:47

       ... remember coming at demo day?
7. 20:31 – 26:33

   Deepfakes, Signals, and the New Threat Landscape

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas20:31

      ... uh, I ended up having multiple term sheets on my-

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer20:34

      Oh, Series A term sheets?

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas20:35

      Series A term sheets-

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer20:36

      Wow

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas20:37

      ... that we started to discuss. And they said like, um, uh, "Who is, who is this crazy Estonian who doesn't care about money and wants to solve identity? So yeah, here's money, an investment." And we actually found a very, very good partner-

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer20:52

      Yeah

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas20:52

      ... that helped us. And, um, right after YC, we closed 7.7 million Series A.

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer20:59

      Got it. Got it.

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas21:00

      So going forwards, it was all about how we can make it scale now, how we can actually leverage the video-

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer21:06

       Mm-hmm

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas21:07

       ... that has a chance to work on all the low and, like, hi- high latency, low connectivity internet levels.

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer21:14

       Mm-hmm.

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas21:14

       And this is where, uh, Estonia with Skype engineers was the best.

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer21:18

       Interesting.

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas21:19

       And this was an area we started to have very solid, uh, infra team to really make sure the media analysis comes in handy. Then how we can actually make all the insights to work the best, and Starship has one of the, like, Skype co-founder was... Founded it being the best engineer on itself, but they had a very solid talent on how we can make the automations work with the insights. Then we got to the level that, um, blockchain.com was one of the, uh, companies in the crypto space.

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer21:53

       There was kind of two, two things that happened after YC. We'll talk about the COVID in a second, but first-

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas21:57

       Yeah

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer21:57

       ... there was a crypto kind of boom basically, and crypto is all... Like, it wasn't... Well, some of the companies were regulated, which means they all had to do ID verification.

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas22:05

       Yeah. But, um, why Veriff was, um, so much better fit for crypto-

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer22:10

       Mm-hmm

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas22:10

       ... was also the part that, um, fraud always follows the money-

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer22:15

       Yes

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas22:15

       ... and there was tons of fraud, and our product was delivering multifold better accuracy than any compliance tool out there.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer22:25

       Right.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas22:25

       And this was an area when blockchain.com came to us and said like, "Yeah, we are having $120 million worth of Stellar airdrop," which, um, was $50 promotion at sign up-

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer22:40

       Mm-hmm

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas22:40

       ... and how people are able to get it. And-

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer22:43

       When you give away free money, you have fraud.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas22:46

       Yes. And eventually, it was one of the areas where $50 was so much more worth actually outside US and Europe, where we had our automation experience.

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer22:56

       Oh, I see.
8. 26:33 – 32:48

   Building a Mission-Driven Team

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas26:33

      your success depends how successful your players in your team are going to be.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer26:39

      Mm-hmm.

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas26:39

      So you can't be in a position that you're going to actually, uh, run on your own-

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer26:44

      Right

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas26:44

      ... and try to actually be there.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer26:47

      Right.

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas26:47

      Now, you're a coach now.

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer26:50

      Yeah.

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas26:50

      But another area was also to make sure that how you can manage the organizational growth and design. Back at those times of raising a lot of financing, then it also got to a level where organization was getting very complex-

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer27:09

       Mm-hmm

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas27:09

       ... and despite us leaning in on investments, we weren't meeting our full potential-

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer27:15

       Mm-hmm

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas27:15

       ... by having the right structure in place.

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer27:19

       Right. Right.

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas27:20

       So I think it was always managing it out how we can be that-

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer27:24

       It's like-

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas27:24

       ... organization is not having, like, one manager for two or three people, and how we can actually keep-

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer27:29

       It's like multiple trial and errors and, like, perfecting the organization.

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas27:31

       Exactly. So this is something that has been always as a top task at hand-

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer27:36

       Right

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas27:37

       ... on how to make sure that the organization is as flat as possible.

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer27:42

       And you were there at, uh, at the Founder Mode event when, when Ryan Chesky spoke about founder mode. How did... W- when you were thinking about that, was there conclusions or were there learnings you dra- drew from that that you sort of applied to the comp- the business?

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas27:55

       So it was pretty interesting to have this talk that we all have gone through-

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer28:01

       Right

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas28:01

       ... similar, uh, tasks at hand.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer28:03

       It makes sense. Like, it's, it's like-

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas28:04

       Yeah

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer28:04

       ... n- no one had experience from scaling company before. You have to sort of, like, learn it as you're doing it.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas28:08

       It's been a learning experience.

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer28:10

       Yeah. Yeah.
9. 32:48 – 39:00

   The Digital Passport Vision

   1. KKKaarel Kotkas32:48

      of the platform. Imagine somebody is on a dating platform.

   2. GAGustaf Alstromer32:52

      Mm-hmm.

   3. KKKaarel Kotkas32:54

      And they are, like, on this dating platform, and, uh, they are, like, talking with someone-

   4. GAGustaf Alstromer32:59

      Mm-hmm

   5. KKKaarel Kotkas33:00

      ... that speaks their mother tongue.

   6. GAGustaf Alstromer33:03

      Mm-hmm.

   7. KKKaarel Kotkas33:04

      And within a week, there's a discussion, "Okay, you seem nice. Let's meet up."

   8. GAGustaf Alstromer33:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KKKaarel Kotkas33:09

      But eventually, the person is like, "Yeah, can you pay for my flight ticket because, uh, it's, uh, pay-

   10. GAGustaf Alstromer33:17

       Yeah

   11. KKKaarel Kotkas33:17

       ... pay day is gonna be, uh, three days out." They're going to pay this ticket, and eventually somebody just defrauded someone-

   12. GAGustaf Alstromer33:29

       Mm-hmm

   13. KKKaarel Kotkas33:30

       ... they thought is a real human being.

   14. GAGustaf Alstromer33:32

       Mm-hmm. But they were chatting with an AI the whole time.

   15. KKKaarel Kotkas33:34

       They were chatting with an AI, a person having 1,500 conversations at the same time.

   16. GAGustaf Alstromer33:40

       Mm-hmm.

   17. KKKaarel Kotkas33:40

       So what it means is that people still wanna date-

   18. GAGustaf Alstromer33:44

       Yeah

   19. KKKaarel Kotkas33:44

       ... but they wanna date with real human beings. [laughs]

   20. GAGustaf Alstromer33:46

       Of course.

   21. KKKaarel Kotkas33:47

       And, uh, if you also start to see across the board how important actually is for our platforms-

   22. GAGustaf Alstromer33:53

       Yeah

   23. KKKaarel Kotkas33:53

       ... the trust.

   24. GAGustaf Alstromer33:54

       Yeah.

   25. KKKaarel Kotkas33:55

       Like Airbnb changed the way how we can actually trust you sleep in someone else's home.

   26. GAGustaf Alstromer34:01

       Yes.

   27. KKKaarel Kotkas34:02

       We are not going towards the scale of Facebook Marketplace to do it.

   28. GAGustaf Alstromer34:06

       Right. Right.

   29. KKKaarel Kotkas34:07

       Airbnb showed it. Uber proved it-

   30. GAGustaf Alstromer34:11

       Yeah

Episode duration: 39:01