‘Never understand burnout, worked 80-100 hours from teen’: Blue-collar worker turned millionaire founder of Airwallex

Jack Zhang, co-founder and CEO of payment platform Airwallex, which turned the startup into an $8 billion business, says burnout is a concept beyond his understanding.

To talk CNBC AwesomeZhang said: “To be honest, I don’t understand this terminology (burnout) at all. I worked 100 hours a week.” [the] “I’ve been 16 for over 20 years.”

Zhang stated that he worked 80-100 hours a week while studying and said, “You have to survive in this difficult situation, you don’t actually think about burnout. So you either survive or you don’t, right?”

He added that he still works 80 hours a week today, even though he is in his late 40s.

Airwallex co-founder works blue-collar jobs

Sharing her experience of financing her education abroad through blue-collar jobs, Zhang told the publication that she moved from Qingdao, China, to Melbourne, Australia, on her own at the age of 15. Zhang, who lives with a host family and speaks limited English, said his parents were experiencing financial difficulties and he had to pay for his computer science degree at the University of Melbourne and daily expenses.

“I had two options: either go back to China and try to get back into the education system there, or stay in Australia and figure out how to pay tuition and live on my own,” he said.

Jobs included washing dishes at a restaurant during the day, bartending in the evenings, and working the night shift at a gas station. He was also packing lemons in a factory to earn money during the summer months.

Jack Zhang describes finding his passion for Airwallex

Zhang graduated in 2007. His LinkedIn profile shows that his first job was as a software engineer at insurance provider Aviva. His next job was in the banking industry, according to the profile.

Zhang said CNBC While he made a million through banking and businesses, he said his desire to find his true passion led to the founding of Airwallex. The birth of his daughter at the age of 30 was the turning point.

“I remember just looking at him, feeling like I hadn’t done anything to make him proud. And I think that’s when I (decided) that I needed to stop doing these side hustles and retire from my full-time job and do something properly big. Even though I always wanted money, I realized that money alone doesn’t make it.” [me] “The highest level of happiness,” he said.

“I always wanted to find something that wouldn’t require anyone to wake me up, and … every day I feel extremely passionate, obligated, and willing to dedicate my entire survival to it,” he added.

On your journey with Airwallex

According to the Airwallex website, the idea for the firm came from Zhang’s “side hustle” with future co-founder and college friend Max Li, in which the duo imported coffee beans from Brazil and China and needed to send money abroad.

he said CNBC“Why can’t we create a payment system parallel to SWIFT and fundamentally change the way money moves around the world?” we thought.

In 2015, he recruited two other college friends, Jacob Dai, Lucy Liu (who invested $1 million in the startup) and Ki-lok Wong. As of December, the company generated $1 billion in annualized run rate revenue (ARR).

By mid-2018, Airwallex’s trading volume soared and investors flocked in, raising $80 million to support a $450 million valuation by the end of the year. By 2022, the momentum of the Series E-2 fundraising had pushed the fintech’s valuation to $5.6 billion and pointed to its expansion into China. Airwallex was the second foreign company outside of China to do so, according to the company’s website.

The company now has 2,000 employees in 26 offices worldwide, but Zhang doesn’t see this as time to stop. “I’m still very excited about what’s ahead. I think we have tons of opportunities ahead of us… [at least] 10 billion dollars [in] “We’ll have revenue by 2030, so that’s our next goal.”