Xperienceships Thought Leadership Series: The Changing Face of Work for Our Students

Walid Al-Saqqaf is a serial startup founder based in London, who founded (among others) TrustedPlaces.com, Mobile Payments Ltd, and BabyHuddle. He is an Industry Associate at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies, and he also runs the successful podcast Insureblocks, about revolutionizing the insurance industry using blockchain.

Last year, Walid came as a keynote speaker to present to my secondary students at our international school in Spain. He started out by asking the assembled 14-17 year olds: what jobs did they have, if they had any? The usual answers came in, gradually: waiting, babysitting, shop assistant, dish washer. And then he asked them to reflect on whether those jobs represented the careers they wanted to go into or what they “wanted to be”. And of course, the answers from the students came in as resounding “NOs”. They all had much more that they wanted to do. And there we saw the problem with talking about career exploration from the perspective of their limited worlds. How can you know what you might “be”, “do”, or “know” in the future when your life experiences are still limited and safeguarded?

Walid’s keynote was entitled “Working in a Web 3.0 World.” As a serial startup founder, businessperson, technologist, blockchain expert and incredibly engaging podcast host, I wanted the students to meet and understand that successful people like Walid are multipotentialites: that is; they have held a shedload of jobs, changed roles often, and they know how to adapt to new and emerging trends and technologies. No two days of Walid’s working life have been the same, and he is utterly energized by that.

At Xperienceships, we are always interested in meeting thought leaders and industry game changers like Walid. We want to know what makes them tick, and how they define their careers. Often, we’re pleasantly surprised by their other interests and passions, or their “squiggly” career paths. In collecting their stories in this series: the Xperienceships Thought Leadership Series for Educators, we hope that you too may be inspired, and engaged, to take bolder leaps, help your students explore their potential and design the career that will make them happiest, most fulfilled, and most productive. You can watch a video excerpt of our interview with Walid here. The full-length interview is below.

Xperienceships: Tell us what was your first job, Walid? 

Walid: Working at KFC was my first summer job when I was 18. And yeah, it definitely did not define who I am. My first career started off in corporate banking at Barclays within a graduate program, and that, again, did not define my career. These are just life experiences that contribute to who you are, but they don't define who you are, you are who you are. And that is part of a whole range of experiences. Some come from work, some from your family, from your friends. We’re a product of our environment.

X: What would you describe as your job being today?

W: Wow, that is the hardest thing for me to answer because it changes on a regular basis. My background is I build startups and I'm an entrepreneur. And because of that, we are constantly having to adapt ourselves to opportunities, and to how the market changes. If I were to say what is closest, I provide an education service, which is where I educate the world on what is blockchain and how it's being used in industries around the world through a podcast, while the other one is more as a boutique consultancy firm, where I take all this knowledge and I advise our clients on how to use this technology for them to reach a certain number of purposes.

You know, beginning, when I started off, it was just literally a hobby where I was interviewing people in the evening in my weekends about insurance and blockchain. And then by the end of the year, I left and I was doing that full time interviewing people from all around the world from all different industries.

X: So my next question is how well your studies prepared you for the job that you're doing today.

W: I'm not sure a whole lot that is practical for me today. But it did things which are by-products of those studies: that it created curiosity. It made me curious about certain events in history, it made me curious about certain international law treaties that were signed, and that curiosity has become a skill. You know, why are we doing business in a certain way? Why can’t we do it in a different way? And that kickstarts entrepreneurship. The other aspect about high school or universities is both the framework and some of the great teachers that exist in those places to actually encourage you to develop skills. So when I was 15, I went to an American High School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and my teachers encouraged me to create what at that time was called the Red Leaf Society, the first ecological society in an American School in the Middle East.

The whole point is that world provided the safe environment for me to be able to test out ideas and some individual teachers that empowered me to do that. So I guess I would look at studies from a much more holistic point of view. And also there is just life. Life in itself is a great teacher. I did Economics and International Relations at Warwick University, again, simply because that was something I was interested in. But did I apply any of that in my work after? If I say 1% I'd be lucky. Alright, it's fulfilled an intellectual curiosity, which when I read the news, or watch the news, you know, enables me to take a more critical point of view, which helps you in business as you form relationships with people as well.

X: Can you tell us what your hardest professional learning curve has been?

W: Well, I would say every time I start a new startup, it's definitely one of the steepest learning curves, because very rarely did I ever start a startup in an industry which I had much knowledge of. When I started playing Roblox, I put ￡1500 to do three things I had never done before: Podcasting, no clue. Blockchain, like what is that? Insurance? I still don't get it. Let’s put ￡1500 and see what happens. I started self teaching myself. You'll be amazed what YouTube and blogs can teach you. So I read, I listened, I watched, I questioned, I interacted with people and it was okay to sound like an idiot and to make a ton of mistakes.

But coming back to the question about does your job define who you are? No, neither does your mistakes. Your mistakes don't put you into the naughty corner for the rest of your life with a dunce’s hat, you know, saying you're a failure. Your mistakes are like boy scout badges or girl scouts badges, you know, signs of what have you learned. So, every single startup I've built has been the steepest learning curve, but it is also the place where I learned the most.

X: And what do you think is the best piece of advice for people starting to explore their careers?

W: I can't put one single piece of advice. Everyone has an opinion about how you should do things. And most of the time it's meant with good intentions, but circumstances change, people change and so you can't always take them on face value; you've got to understand that was very useful for that person at that point in time. Because I've got a startup background, it was more of the startup community I was surrounded by in North London. There were a bunch of us who would meet, have a drink, and share top tips. But tenacity is definitely something I would say is important. Curiosity is definitely important. And not to be able to not be afraid to challenge things, not to be afraid to make a fool of yourself, you'll make a fool of yourself now and then you'll move on. These don't define who you are. They build on it.

X: It sounds like exploration and trying out different things and being able to fail are key?

W: Yeah, this whole thing about fail fast is definitely something that has been embraced, you know, by the startup world from the beginning and something that the corporate world keeps talking about, but they still don't get it. Fail fast. No, don't fail for the sake of failure. But you know, another very common word in the startup world is pivot. If something doesn't work, shift one way or another. As long as you have this very strong focus on who your customer is and what they're telling you, then adapt yourself.

X: What do you look for the people that you hire or that you work with today?

W: So a lot of things - I’m very demanding! (laughs.) They’ve got to have a sense of ownership. If they’re given a piece of work, don't be expecting for me to dictate to you how things need to be done. Don't expect me to tell you exactly how to do it because I'm not here to get drones. I'm here to get people who can think on their own, who can make mistakes and who are curious, who are open to constructive feedback and so on. But also one other skill I look for, which is harder to find, is people who are willing to take initiatives. If I give them a task, and they'll be like, “you know what I think you should do, it's smarter for these and these reasons,” - perfect. I'm human, I don't have all the answers. I have an end perspective. It's not because you're an intern that it means I'm not going to learn from you. 

One of the things for example, I love when I mentor other entrepreneurs is their energy, the curiosity, the willingness to fight against battles. I can share some wisdom, some energy, hopefully, so there is this nice kind of Yin-Yang kind of value that exists between mentor/mentee. When I look for potential employees, ideally they need to be self starters, they need to be able to take initiatives, they need to have a sense of ownership, not afraid to fail, and quick learners. If they're more of the senior type, you know, domain expertise is definitely needed.

X: So how do you mentor others? And then who mentors you?

I'm very lucky that I have two colleagues within my team. And in our day to day interaction, they mentor me. I guess we all mentor each other in a way because, as I said, I don't have all the answers. I'm human, and I've got limitations. So I'm always looking forward to learn from them. There is a bit of overlap in terms of our skill sets, but there's a lot of filters which are very different. So whilst I'm the CEO of Insureblocks, I'm more than happy in a meeting, for example, to put one of my colleagues at the forefront, and I just sit in the back, because you know what, they're better at this than me. From that perspective, I don't have an unofficial mentor, which is something I guess I'd love to have at some stage but haven't gotten around to it.

I guess I provide support in terms of knowledge from growing to scaling a startup while the other one is sometimes they just need supporting. “Can you make introductions to some of the people you've had on your podcasting show? Or can you share some of your domain expertise within blockchain or AI or with the web?” So that's the kind of relationships that people come up towards me for a mentor mentee kind of relationship. As a mentor? The Prime Minister of New Zealand, she's awesome. My heart beats for Jacinda for sure! She demonstrates you can have compassionate empathy as leadership skills you know, you don't have to be a rock hard bastard. You can do things in a human, empathetic and compassionate manner. 

X: What do you value most now at this stage in your career? Would you say it's been more useful the work experience that you've built or any of your formal learning?

W: I'm afraid it's about 95 to 99% work experience and life experiences. So I would put in the former learning as a contributor to the life experiences. But coming back to a previous comment I made earlier on: you don't have to do business in a rock hard way, you can also do business in an empathetic and compassionate manner. And that's why people that you admire around the world can influence the way you work.

X: How about your industry, and what the future of work looks like? Do you have any tips or visions for the future that you can share with us?

W: So I'm in mainly two industries, maybe one more than the other. I work within the blockchain space; blockchain is considered, you know, one of those emerging new technologies that can transform the world in a significant manner as much as the Internet has done. But I also have an industry knowledge that comes from insurance that started in 2017. And it's interesting because one is actually going to be completely revolutionising the other. So one is a very old fashioned, tie and jacket, white male, middle-class dominated industry, while the other one is a bit more dynamic, let's say even a bit more curious. But if you replace the word insurance and you put more traditional companies, all these are going to get revolutionized, and COVID-19 has accelerated that.

What COVID-19 has done is that we can't continue the way we work today, when we are faced with a pandemic that requires us to work from home. That requires us to build business relationships, through zoom or other kinds of things, and we have to work in a much more digital manner. It has brought digital transformation to the forefront, instead of US companies traditionally talking about digital transformation from a lip service perspective, right, whilst the people who've worked in blockchain (and you can replace blockchain with a artificial intelligence, internet of things or robotics), they know where the world could be heading towards. And they know it's radically different. 

So what does that mean for a 12 year old or 15 year old child: what should I be thinking about? Well, I would say still have fun and enjoy life day to day, but the main skills you want to have are some of the ones I was discussing earlier on: that is curiosity, and self-ownership. You've got to be willing to own: I'm gonna learn about that. You know, being able to take initiatives; a lot of people nowadays will learn stuff from YouTube, will learn stuff from blogs, from an article they saw on Twitter or whatever. The academic world still has a place. But it's very rarely as up to date with what's happening simply because the world is changing so fast. And to create a curriculum that is adapted to that is incredibly difficult. 

I'm a startup founder, this is my sixth startup. I can't keep up with the 20 year olds, you know, I don't have that same energy my brain is slowing down, but yet I'm trying as much as I can. So you're young, you're curious, you have this time: use it, to learn whatever you can. Information is freely available on the web, go for it. You have no excuse.

X: The final question is how can educators be thinking about how to make this transition smoother and easier? Because as you just identified: it's hard for schools to keep up.

W: So there's two levels: the formal framework of the infrastructure of a school, no matter their best intentions, is going to have a hard time to move at the pace. The best thing they can do, I would say is decentralize; distribute power down to the teacher level. I know the problem there is you may have inconsistencies. But if a teacher is willing to embrace the speed of what's happening in the outside world and bring it straight into the class, for example, and say today, “what is it that any of you have heard that you thought was interesting on YouTube or on Twitter or on Instagram?” 

I've got an insurance community I built and we invite members of our community and we ask them simple questions. “Tell us what you saw in the news that you thought was interesting. And tell us what you thought we should see that makes you wonder.” So I would think there's an opportunity for educators to bring this outside perspective in, so that the kids are bringing that information in, and they discuss it as a class. Right? And that is developing some great skills, they're researching information. They're negotiating, they're discussing, criticizing and analyzing, and I'm sure that teachers are gonna learn a ton at the same time. So it's a win win for everyone. And you can have fun with it. You can say okay, imagine the class of 20. Each of them brings a piece of information at the end of the class, or whatever time to dedicate to sharing information, and there's a vote: should we investigate for the class? Or should we create a little project team, and then you have an elected leader or whatever, and you run with it, and you create a project. So there's so many things you got to do, but just try, you know, if you think about the class as a mini startup, I mean: think of the teacher is a venture capitalist, and his students, all entrepreneurs, and they've got to dish out money, right, and the money is not money, it's actually time. 

Imagine a teacher saying: “I'm going to give each of you guys one full day or half a class, to come up with a project. And if you hit that certain milestone in the class, then I'm going to give you more time to investigate this. And if you hit certain milestones, and you can present it to the whole school or to a European level or whatever."

I'm saying experiment, try different things. And I think actually that’s a pretty good idea - if the teacher sees themselves as a venture capitalist ?