Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 1: Episode 12 with Moses Lo: the founder of the first Y-Combinator-backed Indonesian startup dives into his pilgrimage to Silicon Valley.

Moses Lo is a survivor. But the co-founder and CEO of Xendit didn’t get there by chance – he engineered his own luck. I first met Moses through Y Combinator in 2015, and he’s still as scrappy now as he was back then. He had just stepped foot into Silicon Valley, coming all the way from Australia to pursue his ambition. The six-week program changed his life forever.

From an office filled with flying cockroaches, Moses and his team would go on to raise over $238 million and cement themselves as an integral part of payments infrastructure in Southeast Asia.

I admire Moses a lot, especially his attitude to life. In our conversation, we discuss intentionality and the importance of making choices with conviction. We also talk about what founders can learn from cockroaches: their ability to adapt and survive. You’ll hear about how to make tough decisions, move forward, and design your own luck.

00:00 Intro
00:57 The Game of Life, tech and coming to the US
06:19 Berkeley hackathons and fin-tech
10:04 Untold Y-Combinator stories
16:52 ‘Just be a cockroach and survive no matter what’
19:55 Xendit’s first office - the ‘Senate’
28:32 Surviving COVID and shattering expectations
36:51 Finding mentors
38:51 Quest Fellow: Radi

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