Finder founder Fred Schebesta calls for vaccine passport
Finder founder Fred Schebesta on vaccine passports, empathy for protesters, his new clifftop castle and why cryptocurrency is the future of finance.
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Working back of house at a Black Stump restaurant at the turn of the century, a young kitchen hand had an idea.
The restaurant was struggling and he’d found a solution.
At a staff meeting, he raised his hand.
“I’ve got an idea to make money,” he said. “We should salt the chips, we don’t salt the chips here.”
The boss asked why on earth they would do that.
“We’ll sell more drinks, put ice in them, make more margin and we’ll make more money. It will be amazing.”
The boss paused before replying: “Maybe you should get back to cleaning the dishes.”
Finding freedom
Fast forward to 2021 and the Black Stump chain is a footnote in history. That kitchen hand however, is worth more than $200 million, after co-creating comparison website Finder.com.au.
Sitting in his newly purchased $17 million clifftop castle in Coogee, dressed in trademark black with gold trimmings bringing out the bleached streak in his hair, Fred Schebesta is preparing to launch his new book, Go Live: 10 Principles to Launch a Global Empire; a collection of stories and lessons learned that he hopes will help others create something special.
He picks up a copy to sign for me.
“What’s your idea of freedom?” he asks, pen poised.
I mumble something about living life on my terms.
He scribbles his message: “Hope this helps you live life on your own terms”
Freedom has always been a big deal for Schebesta, specifically helping people gain financial freedom through creditcardfinder.com.au, which later expanded to Finder; comparer of “just about everything”.
But today, with more than 16 million Australians in lockdown, freedom means something more literal.
“Australia began with a very authoritarian approach and it worked, because it was an unusual time that needed strong leadership,” Schebesta says. “But now that’s unrealistic. People literally have to work to survive. They may work in a cafe, or are a contractor, they have zero work and are forced to stay home with no option. It’s unfeasible to conduct a society that way.”
Schebesta is one of a growing number calling for vaccine passports to revive the economy and boost livelihoods.
“Humans need hope,” he says. “Right now, we have none. Everyone is just waiting but there’s no out. If you’re vaccinated, you should have more freedom.
“We need a leadership policy that accepts a certain amount of people contracting Covid, but there’s a way out because we’re incentivising people to be vaccinated.”
Employing 450 staff in 80 countries, Schebesta is used to travelling for business.
“I’ve had two vaccines, yet I must isolate for two weeks, why?” He asks. “I’ve done everything to comply, I should be able to go and conduct commerce with (vaccinated) people and help create an economy for people to start to regain their life. And if you don’t want to do that you can stay home.”
And when people don’t stay home, like the thousands that marched in recent protests?
“When you have no out, it creates protests. I feel empathy for those people because their last option was to scream and shout, that’s all they had left.
“I feel for people trying to work, they need to work, and they can’t. I started a business from nothing. I know how important it is to go to work, get food and get money. I probably wouldn’t have survived (lockdowns).
“Humans, like any animal, if backed into a corner, will attack to defend themselves. Yes, some (protesters) tag along just for a fight, but a lot have been genuinely backed into a corner and don’t have a way to survive. People are being pushed so hard they’re going to revolt and if you think that was a big protest, if we keep going on this track, that’s nothing.”
Finding flexibility
People assume internet companies embrace remote working, but Schebesta thrives on face-to-face contact. Finder offices are configured accordingly.
“All our desks face into each other, all that energy facing in,” he says, adding that Zoom meetings just don’t cut the mustard.
“Creation is harder. In person, you feel my energy and take cues from me, but you can’t on Zoom. You lose context. Sometimes you need to just sit and talk with someone.”
During lockdown, he’s been calling staff and sending meeting invitations just to chat.
“Those spaces are normally serendipitously created, but now you have to actively create them,” he explains. “Last night, I’m on Zoom with a business manager, we’re just riffing and a public affairs guy came in and then we invited some tech guys in and started talking about a product. I went downstairs to the treadmill and just listened on mute. I just wanted to be part of it. Creation comes from unplanned serendipity.”
Finding fitness
That treadmill, in his home gym, reflects a transformation of sorts.
“Before 2006, I led an unhealthy life. I was working very hard and sacrificing my health,” he says. “If you want to operate at your peak, there’s a lot of pressure and I couldn’t handle it, I’d just lose it. I needed to get myself together.”
He went to a personal trainer who asked for 10 push-ups.
“I squeezed out two. It was so bad”
But as he kept training, he noticed he was performing and feeling better. He committed to exercise and carried on.
“It got me through my divorce and helped me deal with stress. If I didn’t do that, I don’t think I’d be here.”
And the room next to the downstairs gym? The giant, temperature controlled wine cellar?
“I’ll probably turn it into a sauna,” he says, having given up alcohol in 2018, again for performance. “Even if you have one drink, you’re still not 100 per cent the next day, you’re 96. I wanted the extra four.”
Another known performance enhancer is sleep, so does he get his eight solid hours a night?
“My sleeping is wild, I do segment sleeping,” he says. “Last night, I woke at 1.30am. I had to change The Wolf. That’s my son. And then I started working, until I got tired and went back to bed.”
Schebesta is often up at 1am for meetings with international teams, then works through until bedtime at 9pm, taking naps to recharge when able.
“I don’t see time as segments in the world, I see it as a continuum,” he says. “When I have the energy I play. This morning, I was writing a legal document and I was on fire. I’m not going to stop, I’m going to keep writing. And then I got tired. Let’s move on.”
Finding fatherhood
Food and family give Schebesta a break from work. He doesn’t diet. He loves a spicy chicken burger and chips, with salt of course. And he relaxes by taking holidays with extended family, including ex-wife Jessica.
“Jessica is amazing,” he says. “Two days after we got divorced we went travelling. I know that sounds strange. If you get divorced, there’s no reason to have negative energy towards someone and we have two children together.”
Portia (11) and Tsaatchi (8) are those two, while six-month-old “The Wolf” (Frëderick Wolf) is his child with current partner Brenda.
“I wanted my kids to have unique names, I really like unique things … like this house.”
Finding a fortress
Unique indeed, the home appears like a castle, integrated into the rocky clifftop landscape and presenting a Pacific Ocean panorama from Bondi to Lurline Bay.
Designed in the 1990s by Renato D’Ettorre, the stronghold was crafted from concrete, steel, stone and glass, with a 40 metre ocean frontage, rooftop terrace and infinity pool overlooking waves crashing on rocks.
“I like a castle, I like a fortress,” Schebesta says.
But the east is full of unique castles. Why Coogee and not Point Piper?
“I want to be where the action is, not isolated. My customers are everyday people and I’m serving them,” he says. “And when I felt the energy of this place, I knew it would be a great place to create.”
Finding the future
Schebesta believes cryptocurrency is the world’s future financial system. Finder’s homepage displays current crypto values and the Finder app allows users to trade Bitcoin.
“You’ve got borrowing, decentralised finance and stores of value in Bitcoin,” he says. “Stable coins, derivatives, insurance … same as our financial markets but not centrally controlled.
“We now have a store of value that people can control without a government, for the first time. It can’t be stopped. The train has left the station.”
In October, Schebesta will launch Finder Earn, an app feature offering consumers the equivalent of a 4.01 per cent return.
“You lend us your money, we take that into cryptocurrency and earn a yield by lending it to other places,” he says. “Then we pay back a percentage.”
Finder Earn aims to make cryptocurrency accessible to everyday people.
“Did any of us get offered Google stock or Facebook stock when it was listed? No, they went to the bankers and funds,” Schebesta says. “We should decentralise that. Allow people to build wealth and leverage cryptocurrency to gain financial freedom.”
There’s that word again, freedom. Time to ask Schebesta his own question. What’s your idea of freedom? He pauses to think.
“I can put as much salt on my chips as I like.”
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