Merlin Egalite
Over 200 subscribers
I’m publishing this retro a bit late, but felt the need to do it, and I clearly don’t regret it.
Below is a gathering of all my learning, achievements, and thoughts on various topics ranging from startup to personal items. Hopefully, you will get some takeaways from it.
First, 2024 was a big year for Morpho:
Morpho went from 1.4 to 5.2B of total deposits in a year. This is clearly more than what I imagined and clearly more than what I could afford to lose, even if I could live for a thousand years.
We raised a series B of $50m with Ribbit Capital, and a16z did a follow-up confirming they believe in us reshaping the lending space.
The team has grown from 15 to 35 team members, requiring us to tighten a bit the different processes.
Competition has never been as virulent as this year. We may be smaller than our competitors, but we strive to move faster and smarter.
culture = grandma soup
Culture is harder to define than what I expected: it’s a mix of mood, people, behavior, etc. It’s like trying to guess the ingredients of a delicious soup where many ingredients have been blended together.
Of course, you can identify the main ingredients, but the subtle ones—those that distinguish grandma's soup from yours—are the hardest to detect, yet they're precisely what makes the difference.
Is the trait that you consider just like adding pepper or salt to the soup to make it a little bit more tasty, or is it grandma's secret sauce of reusing chicken broth to pimp the soup and bring it to the next level?
My advice is just to ask the question to your team members: what do you think is very unique to the company? You’ll be surprised by the answers.
For instance, at Morpho Labs, people often tell us they love working there because everyone loves to share what they’re passionate about and what they’re learning. Another is that people join us for the tech or for the values but not for the money. This is part of the culture, and if the people we’re hiring do not present these traits, this is likely not to end well.
hiring = hard
Hiring is hard, like really hard. I made a few hirings that took a lot more time than expected. We’re working in the financial world. Many people are coming to Finance for the money appeal. This is not bad per se, but if this is the only motive, this is not enough to join Morpho—hence, the importance of knowing your culture for recruitment—. So searching for profiles having experience in TradFi but who are not solely chasing money is hard. Having them meet our skills requirements is even harder.
My guess is that, if you can, being patient is worth it. Hiring someone who does not match your culture will create many problems that will be hard to fix and be very costly (e.g., a manager who’s not good at human relations will undermine the team’s mood). Especially if you’re being lazy to fire them (see next point).
It’s easy to be lazy in this kind of situation. Hiring can be unpleasant sometimes (you’re taking calls, but only half of those people will go to the next phase, sourcing can take a lot of time, etc.), and you want to cut the pain as soon as possible. Lowering standards is not an option, in my opinion, and you’d rather endure the pain.
team = fruit basket
One must see a team as a fruit basket. If one is rotting, you’d rather remove it quickly so it does not affect others.
Firing can be hard but is necessary. Not doing so can be very costly: prevent the whole team from moving forward, for instance.
PS: Firing does not make you a tyrant or a bad person as long as communication has been well performed:
The person has been warned in advance what’s wrong (fit, skills, values, etc.).
The person has been given enough time to fix it.
The layoff is clearly communicated to the other team members.
I’d even say that not doing it when it’s obvious is being lazy or selfish: it’s not having the courage to do it and killing your team's efficiency and motivation at the expense of your own mental health (or whatever is holding you back).
XP ≠ ownership
Having a lot of experience does not mean the person is an owner.
You expect people with a lot of XP to be owners of their tasks, adaptable, etc. That’s not always the case. This must be tested and looked at in the early days during the testing period (make sure the person is preparing the calls they own, clearly defining specs for a project, etc.).
We faced this issue thinking that by hiring senior people, we were buying ownership by default. This might be the case on average, but one must stay vigilant.
candidate = normal humans
On closing people. Sometimes, when you think there’s no chance a very talented will say yes to the offer (usually because she has received many offers), just send an email showing how and why you’re excited about meeting the person IRL and keeping the relationship warm can make the difference. A HUGE difference.
We’ve done this, notably Paul, and it proved to be very successful. It shows that you care about the person and the impact she can have on the project.
Candidates are not robots; they are humans, and as humans, we like to be considered and valued honest.
acquihire = ?
I’m not super sure about whether acquihiring small companies to speed up the recruitment of talents is a good thing or not.
In my view, it seems appealing on paper, but once you scratch the surface, it seems as costly as hiring individuals one by one; you need to do a lengthy process anyway, assessment of the opportunity but also the skills and culture fit of each team member, etc.
Perhaps we’ll do some in 2025 but I think it’s important to remind us about all the pitfalls. It’s not a simple cheat code as you’d use in GTA.
a16z has written a great resource on this here.
customer support = parenthood
Although I think everything went well, managing top integrators’ relations (risk curators, to be specific) has proved to be a challenge.
We must provide them support while not doing too much so that they can distinguish themselves, be creative, better learn how to run a vault, create their own BD arm, etc.
We must push them to cooperate on some markets to avoid liquidity fragmentation, but at the same time, they’re competing against each other or might disagree on the risk, etc
So we need to find a fine balance between all those things, doing enough while not too much, asking questions but only the right ones.
I’m not a dad, but this seems very close to what being a parent is: taking care of the child while letting some freedom so they can grow.
LLMs ⇒ scale
We whipped up the Integration team at the beginning of the year. This is the team I’m leading. It’s a mix of engineering, customer support, quant, ops, and a tiny bit of growth. It requires a lot of context-switching, but it’s fun. We’ve done many small apps and tools for integrators and us. We ship fast, scrappy, but very useful things that provide 80% of the value in 20% of the time. It has also been a very good move as we have been able to assist and help a lot of integrators on top of Morpho, especially risk curators who are very important to Morpho and require special treatment.
Based on integrators' feedback, we realized that we cared more about them than anyone else in the space. I’ll strive to ramp up this team.
As the number of integrators increases and we deploy on multiple chains, I need to think about ways to face the demand while limiting the number of recruitment. I don’t want to end up in a situation where there’s a linear correlation between the number of integrators and the number of customer supports. I guess LLMs can become a key enabler in this. For instance, we’re looking into automating the answering of common questions in the numerous chats we have with integrators.
people = resource
That might sound cold and cynical, but people are a sort of resource, and as is, should rather be allocated to where they’re providing most of the value.
People are adaptable. It’s not because they’re hired in a specific team that they cannot be moved to another.
Hence, moving people from one team to another depending on needs, appetites, and skills can be done as long as communication on “why” is clear for everyone. It’s even healthy for the company.
office = infinite garden
Having an office might feel old school, but this is actually energizing people like crazy.
As I wrote it here, having an office allows to:
Create a fantastic culture
Reduce team member churn
Boost ideation and brainstorming sessions (the protocol team loves whiteboards)
Cut inefficiencies (e.g., debugging code, debating, ideating, etc)
Detect human-related issues
I like it a lot, and I’d recommend it to any founders.
We still have a lot of people abroad. The reason is that we’re hiring for the best in the world, and they might not all be in Paris, obviously. We welcome everyone to spend time in the office though.
scale ⇒ write ⇒ scale
Once you’ve scaled, there’s a moment when you need to write everything, even the dumbest rules, because you can’t do a call to explain the same thing again and again to dozens of people. Writing then allows you to share context much faster, hence allowing to scale again.
I think we’re reaching that state, and we should not expect people to have all the rules and the context of the company since its inception.
you ≠ competitors
Don’t look at what the competition is doing. Since the beginning, the team, especially the protocol team, has been focused on what they think is best instead of what others, especially competitors, think.
We discussed this specific topic with some team members during lunch break. Like Peter Thiel is saying in Zero To One:
Rivalry causes us to overemphasize old opportunities and slavishly copy what has worked in the past.
At Morpho, we don’t want to follow what others do. We’re playing in a completely different category, and Morpho’s design reflects this.
I’m glad Paul and Mathis are very (very) good at it, as I think this is one of our most critical assets.
filler tasks = stress
Recently with my cofounders, we were discussing stress.
1 year ago, I was stressed by almost everything that should be done and wasn’t or things that weren’t right, spending weekends on things that I did not have the time to do during the week. This is good because it pushes you to act to solve problems. The issue is that often you just act for the sake of acting while not really moving the needle. Those are just fillers.
In those cases, you’d better rest, learn something else, or do sports so you can come back on a problem that really matters with fresh eyes or new ideas. Moreover, being stressed about everything is not good for health over time.
I’ve done a great job overcoming this and don’t feel the urge to work the same as during on weekends. You can learn more about how I managed stress here. Now, I take more time to think, learn things, and rest, which, I think, is bringing value to what I’m doing day-to-day.
PS: Of course, I continue working on weekends but only on really important matters or things that excite me, not on fillers.
trust = 1 / FUD
FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It’s a tactic often used in marketing, public relations, politics, and other fields to influence perception by spreading negative or misleading information.
It might not be clear that FUDing is detrimental to a company that’s engaging in it, but behind closed doors, when you start talking about business, it becomes evident. The more FUD you spread, the less trust people have in you—hence the formula—.
Some players in the space have been constantly FUDing us on socials and private groups. While it might seem a good tactic.
The consequence is basically the opposite of the intent. Our partners consistently tell us they prefer working with us, not just for our tech, but because we're honest and always rely on facts in our communications.
protocols ~= hardware
The funny thing is that when you deploy a new protocol, getting a PMF is far from being acquired from the start. It’s not like you’re adding new features to a website or launching a small new product, hoping clients will buy it. It’s something that has taken months for multiple teams to build and costs hundreds of $k, even millions, to secure. Once shipped, you can't update it anymore; it’s out there forever.
I have to admit that it’s not a comfortable position. If it does not work out, you’re going to do a full process again, taking 6 months to 1 year. So you need funding, keep team members' moods in check, etc. Something I think is hard to do.
beware of prod tunnel
We could have shipped some products faster, particularly those where we didn't need strong opinions about user functionality.
We delayed releases simply because we wanted everything to be perfect.
This is a classic engineering perfectionism trap that all new tech founders are warned about.
While the protocol cannot be iterated on as quickly, this is not true for offchain components on top of Morpho, so we should take advantage of this.
In my opinion, we would have been better shipping them as is, collecting feedback, refining the products, and then harmonizing everything if we ever get the bandwidth.
What we lose on making a huge splash, we earn on compounded improvements thanks to continuous feedback.
Last point, we’re not a company with hundreds of employees. We should continue to ship and iterate as fast as we can on things that matter whenever we have the opportunity—especially products where the security scope is limited.
sports ⇒ feel good
I’ve got back into sports.
Sports is THE thing that makes me feel good even during the worst and most stressful days. For several years, I was still doing sports but not as much as I wanted to.
I’ve started CrossFit in February/March 2024. The good thing about CrossFit is that it’s comprehensive and intense. The intensity reminds me of sprint training sessions when I was in high school. I loved being pushed to the limit. The other benefit compared to going to the gym is that you don’t need a plan, and it’s changing every day. No routine.
I think everybody should do sports for many reasons (especially body and mental health).
I had set a goal of reaching RX women in CrossFit. RX means that you must put the weights that are prescribed for the workout. As I’m quite light (54kg), the RX women can still be challenging.
I can do this level for pretty much every movement except a few ones, depending on the workout.
My goal for 2025 is to do RX women in all workouts and approach RX men for some of them. We’ll see how far I can go.
I did a half-marathon. I don’t remember why I did that, to be honest, but it felt good. I did it in 1’37 with a 200m drop, which is not too bad given I prepared myself only 2/3 months before. I might redo it this year, but I’m not sure yet.
I won’t do a full marathon for several reasons; it hurts the knees, plus the training sessions can last from 1h30 to 2h30, which is too much time. I prefer 1h sessions maximum so that sport does not encroach on the rest of my schedule.
Rather, I’m more looking into doing a Hyrox and attending a CrossFit competition just for fun. The training is more general, so you don’t overfit on a specific exercise (e.g., run), and sessions are smaller (1 hour max).
sleep = less stress
I’ve started using Whoop, a health/fitness tracker, since July.
It has helped me a lot on many fronts.
The problem with sports and me is that I hate taking a break. The Whoop pushes me to take some rest.
Also, it has taught me to sleep more and better, which is a great thing if one wants to stay efficient at work while maintaining a huge workload.
Before, I would wake up, go out of bed, and start my day doing sports or working, even if it was super early in the morning. Now, I’ve made sleep my priority, and if I wake up too early, I’m trying to stay in bed a little bit more so I can rest more.
I’ve written on how to sleep better here.
routine = less stress
As a consequence, I’ve strived to find a routine where I can work, do sports, and sleep well without burning myself out.
A typical day is the following: 7/7:30 wake up, 8:00-9:00 sport, 9:30 start working until 20:00, eat, work a little bit more, and after 21:30 quit screens. It’s cooldown time until I go to bed, read, and switch the light off around 22:30/23:00.
Obviously, there are always things that will disrupt this (urgent work, dinner, girlfriend, life basically). But sticking to this allows me to be on autopilot and not think about all those things. It basically streamlines my day and makes sure I’m well-rested.
For 2025, I’ll try to continue following this routine.
I think I hate getting older.
I’ve reached 27 at the end of the year (some will say this is super young). I feel I’m still 18 and haven’t learned much during my existence, given all the knowledge that humanity has created since its inception.
Will I fall into the longevity thing? Maybe yes. At least, I’d like to care for myself for the next decades so I can continue moving around and doing sports like I’m 20.
I’ve been reading a lot of different things this year.
I think the books that have changed the most how I see the world are Nassim Taleb’s books and David Deutsch’s.
The former's, because of his ideas about antifragility deeply resonate with me. I see the financial system as inherently fragile. Morpho, by design, is antifragile. We're working to transform the legacy financial system into something far more robust.
The latter's, because it provides an excellent explanation of how reality and knowledge are constructed. To be honest, I may have understood only about 10% of what he has to say, but I'll definitely reread his books this year. As Naval said, you just need to read the best 100 books over and over again.
I feel that I should allow more space to just think and write the things that I have in my head. We’re in a society where we’re urged to consume every moment, either food, news, knowledge, or whatever.
I suppose that I’ve been trapped in this. Each moment I’m not working or doing sport must be filled with something that teaches me something. I’m pretty sure that it has counter effects, especially on creativity and personal growth.
I’ll try to just take some time for thinking alone, without goals and I’ll see what goes.
Besides that, I’ve realized that I’m not really retaining all the information from podcasts or videos. Perhaps another reason to reduce their consumption.
E = mc^2
I’ve been reading stuff on the energy topic. Energy is the source of everything in the universe, although, in our contemporary world, it has completely been abstracted away. We switch a button and the lights are on, dozens or even hundreds of kilometers away from the plant producing that energy.
Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence principle means that mass is equivalent to energy (by one factor).
$E = mc^2$
This is known by almost everyone, but few realize the extent of this. The computer or phone you’re holding to read this is basically energy at rest. Everything that surrounds us is energy. THIS IS FASCINATING. If one day we can harness fusion energy production, we’ll solve many problems we’re facing today.
no sacrifice, no success
It’s quite difficult to manage a startup and keep seeing friends and family regularly.
Most of the time, I say no to my friends for the events they kindly invite me to. I fear it feels egoist, and they get bored to the point they don't want to invite me anymore. I feel that it’s the right way, though, as any ambitious project requires time and sacrifice. If any of the cofounders hadn’t made any sacrifices, I’m sure we would not be where we are today, and if we want to succeed in the long run, we must continue making sacrifices.
quality time > time together
People tend to over-index on time spent together while, in reality, it’s the quality of the shared experience that is the most important. Also, quality time is more scarce than just time, making them even more enjoyable.
So, I’ve decided to spend at least 1 quality time with my girlfriend every week (for instance, a good restaurant with good conversations without using the phone).
I think this is very healthy for any relationship.
parents = important
At the same time, I feel that I should spend more time with my family, especially my parents. I owe them a lot, but I’m never vocal about it. And I’m sure this is the thing you regret on your deathbed.
obsession = curiosity + determination
Something I’ve written about in The Obsessions Orchard.
I’ve been writing a bit more this year, although not as I’d like.
I struggle a lot to condense ideas and understand what I think about a given topic. I feel this is a good skill to learn in general and about oneself particularly.
I enjoy it and sometimes hate it. I’d like to increase the pace for 2025.
I feel that I could learn more from other founders. In 2025, I’ll try to reach out to more founders in the space to exchange our experience and grow faster.
I went to Asia for the first time for a conference (Devcon) in Bangkok, and then I moved to Cambodia for a month to join 2 friends who have been traveling Asia for the last year. I’ve really enjoyed this experience although it was exhausting.
The culture, the people, and the food were a stark contrast with Europe's. They are much less risk-averse than us, at least on motorbikes and transport means, but I think this is revealing their overall appetite for risk.
They have a very special relationship with plastic... Plastic is used everywhere and thrown out in nature without second thoughts. This is a bit sad, they're ruining the amazing places they live in.
The timezone is not ideal for working with European and US-based persons, though. I was waking up at 7 am and had calls until midnight+ to make sure I could catch up with US people. This was a bit exhausting so coming back to France allowed me to come back to a more sustainable routine.
I’d like to come back to Asia for sure. We’ll see when.
It's strange - while everyone around me seems certain of their political views, I tend to see things in shades of gray rather than black and white. This makes it challenging for me to form strong opinions on many topics. I'm unsure whether this is good or not, or if it's just a phase.
It’s funny and sad how people can spend a LOT of time insulting each other on socials and FUDing. People would rather waste their precious time instead of solving humanity’s biggest challenges to overcome, collaborate, or learn stuff.
I’m torn between fighting to improve everyone’s life on Earth and still improving my country.
For instance, staying in France might not be the best place to create a business, but I’d rather face more hurdles and stay there so that my country gets better instead of going abroad to enjoy better conditions.
This is because I’m attached to my country, but why exactly? Not sure yet… perhaps because I feel lucky to have had a good education and good life conditions here. I’d like every French person to have at least the same luck.
Time will tell I gues.
Doing this retro was inspired by Miguel Carranza founder of RevenueCat. I felt this was a great way to crystallize learning and move forward.
If some stuff resonates with you, feel free to engage on X.
Thanks to everyone that have been part of this year 2024!
