Starting over after a unicorn exit. Meet Clove’s Christian Owens

Christian Owens dropped out of school at 16, built Paddle into a unicorn, walked away and is now starting again from zero.In this episode, Harriet sits down with Christian, founder and CEO of Clove, founder and former CEO of Paddle – and also her other half – for one of the most open conversations we’ve had on Basis Points yet. Christian talks about discovering entrepreneurship at 12, teaching himself to code on YouTube, making a £100k bet as a teenager to convince his parents to let him leave school and spending 11 years building Paddle into a $1.4bn business.He explains why he stepped down as CEO, and why he’s now building a new financial institution at Clove.The conversation pulls no punches – education, ambition, risk, money, UK culture, AI and what it means to start again.In this episode:Why Christian dropped out of school at 16Building Paddle from nothing to unicornKnowing when to leave your own companyWhat Clove is actually building and the future of financial adviceThe UK’s problem with ambitionHow education fails high-agency kidsWhy freedom – not money – is the real goalA direct, unfiltered look into how a repeat founder thinks.Check out Clove:https://www.clove.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/clovefi https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianowens/ More on Basis:https://www.buildbasis.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@BasisCapital https://www.linkedin.com/company/basiscapitalltd/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrietsgreen