Review of “The Delivery Man” by Sebastien Taveau

A bold and reassuring tale from a veteran payments innovator

I’ve met Sebastien alongside several other newfound friends and passionate fintech practitioners in Hong Kong in 2017 — where Visa sponsored a major fintech event, Fintech Finals, organised by another entusiasm full entrepreneur, Rob Findlay.

We have since then occasionally exchanged thoughts over the years since, me passionately tracking what he has been up to while at Early Warning — a builder of Zelle, an interesting commercial P2P scheme enforced by a cooperative of solid US banks gathered around a processing platform, and then propagating the message at numerous startups he advised.

I was completely in awe of his stories — where one believing he is the original inventor of a thing — can benefit from a dozen of stories about the very same inventions being tried before (sent into oblivion by happenstance of poor execution, malice of corporate skullduggery, or just chance)

I remember his presentation on the importance of “Integration not Innovation” at, if memory serves me right, one of the Matteo Rizzi’s organised conferences in Europe — validated in numerous historical examples.

Quoting a famous economic historian Joel Mokyr:

“If inventions were dated according to the first time they occurred to anyone, rather than the first time they were actually constructed, this period may indeed be regarded just as creative as the Industrial Revolution.”

“But the paddlewheel boats, calculating machines, parachutes, fountain pens, steam-operated wheels, power looms, and ball bearings envisaged in this age — interesting as they are to the historian of ideas — had no economic impact because they could not be made practical.”

Sebastien’s book “The Delivery Man” is a well told personal recollection of these precise rules of the innovation trade: it’s not so much about the individual genius that finds the flame, but about the team that carries it.

The numerous stories about NFC, mobile payment tokens or other endeavours — it is very hard to imagine doing in a corporate setting, where it’s not just the external pressure — but the rigidity of the corporate skin that adds to the weight of carrying the torch.

It’s a good read shared by a passionate professional who believes in the mission — as to how one should be prepared — and prepared for what — while innovating inside a big ivory tower.