Interview with Tether CEO: The Obsession Behind Five Hours of Sleep Is to Make Tether Grow Another 100 Times

Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO & Bitfinex CTO

Host: Kevin Follonier

Podcast Source: When Shift Happens

Original Title: USDT Founder: Bitcoin, Gold, Stablecoin, & Tether, the Most Profitable Company in the World | EP 143

Broadcast Date: October 16, 2025

Key Takeaways

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and CTO of Bitfinex, shared how he built one of the most profitable companies in the world—where each employee generates about 100 millions USD in profit on average.

Tether launched USDT, the most widely used stablecoin globally, providing financial support to around 3 billion unbanked people worldwide, especially in countries facing extreme inflation and financial crises.

Against the backdrop of increasing global economic instability, Paolo founded a company dedicated to bringing stability through “democratizing finance,” achieving extraordinary success. Last year, Tether’s revenue reached 13.7 billions USD.

Highlights Summary

• I usually sleep at least 5 hours every night. But the problem is my sleep is fragmented, because I always keep notifications on, waking up every hour to check them before going back to sleep.

• My hometown is a small village with only 600 people, so entertainment was limited. I started learning programming at the age of 8, and this passion continued through my university years and up to now.

• I personally have almost no hobbies. In fact, my only hobby is thinking every day about how to fulfill my mission and bring stability to the world.

• The existence of USDT is precisely to provide financial stability to people in emerging markets facing extreme economic instability.

• Tether is not just a stablecoin company, but a stability company. This is Tether’s mission and the true meaning of a “stability company”—a company whose ultimate goal is social stability.

• What we need to do is make access to finance and technology more democratic, allowing more people to participate directly through peer-to-peer technology and decentralized finance.

• Tether is a once-in-a-century company. Unlike other companies trying to build closed ecosystems, Tether’s platform is open to the entire world. This is a completely different business model and the key to our success.

• Everyone should have their own mission, no matter how big or small, as long as it makes you happy.

• People usually use art to express emotions and ideas, but I realized my way of expression is through programming. I can create my own world and invite people into it through code.

• Stablecoins are actually the ultimate social network.

• We hope to show the world through this round of financing (20 billions) that Tether’s mission goes far beyond this. Our goal is to achieve 100x growth. Tether has the capital, philosophy, and technological innovation to do anything it wants.

• If you create a product that solves real-world problems, it has the potential to truly change the world.

• Football is a global sport that reaches people of all classes, rich or poor. Therefore, investing in a football club is a simple way to reach global users. We hold a 10% stake in Serie A’s Juventus club.

The Motivation for Continuous Effort

Kevin Follonier: Many of my guests have one thing in common—they’ve experienced something in life that created a sense of imbalance in their hearts. So, is Tether’s mission today related to something you lacked in your youth?

Paolo Ardoino:

I think I’m very lucky. Although my family wasn’t wealthy, I learned the most important lesson from them—hard work. I remember my grandparents, who have passed away, ran a small farm in Italy. They focused on producing high-quality olive oil and tomatoes, paying great attention to detail. Whether it was tomatoes, sage, rosemary, or asparagus, they strove for the best, and this passion ran through their entire lives.

My grandfather would get up at five every morning, take a nap at one in the afternoon, and then continue working in the evening. This simple and fulfilling life kept him happy. Although he only had a primary school education, he was very good at math. My parents were also diligent role models. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, and my father was an ordinary employee who worked at Italy’s national energy company and later retired in Israel. They are both still alive, and I feel very fortunate. After work, they would take us to exercise and then help out on the farm. You could say our life from morning to night was getting up, working hard, and completing tasks. But all of this was filled with passion. I never heard them complain, because for them, this was their mission.

Everyone should have their own mission, no matter how big or small, as long as it makes you happy. So when someone says to me, “Oh, you work so hard,” I say, no, the meaning I see in hard work goes far beyond that. I’m definitely not just working hard.

My schedule is also very special. I usually sleep at least 5 hours every night. But the problem is my sleep is fragmented, because I always keep notifications on, waking up every hour to check them before going back to sleep.

Kevin Follonier: You’ve been doing this for 11 years, sleeping 5 hours a night and waking up every hour? Do you nap during the day?

Paolo Ardoino:

No. If I nap during the day, I feel groggy. So I never nap.

Started Programming at Age 8

Kevin Follonier: You started programming at 8? How did that happen?

Paolo Ardoino:

My father worked at Italy’s national energy company. In the early 90s, Italian public enterprises began introducing computers to improve efficiency and modernize. As is well known, Italy’s bureaucracy is very complex, and many tasks were time-consuming, so the introduction of computers was significant for improving efficiency. My father was passionate about these new technologies. I remember when I was 7, he brought home a computer and told me it was very expensive, costing the equivalent of two months’ salary. Although I didn’t understand what two months’ salary meant at the time, he told me it was very expensive and to be careful not to break it.

As the only child in the family, I was naturally curious about the computer. We had floppy disks for games, but due to financial reasons, we couldn’t afford many games. Also, in 1991 Italy, it was hard to find game resources. My hometown was a small village with only 600 people, so entertainment was limited. Over time, I got bored with the existing games and wanted to make my own. I asked my father to buy me a book on how to program games. He said, “Okay, Paolo, I can buy it, but the book costs 60,000 lira.”

At that time, Italy was still using the lira as currency. He asked, “Are you sure you want to buy this book? Because it’s expensive.” I said, “I want to learn.” Then he brought the book home, and I started learning programming. This passion continued through my university years and up to now.

The Infinite Possibilities of Programming

Kevin Follonier: You mentioned that programming is a unique form of expression, different from other art forms, that can unleash human imagination and allow us to create entirely new worlds full of infinite possibilities. Can you elaborate on your views?

Paolo Ardoino:

Of course. Frankly, I’m not good at traditional art forms. Although I used to be a decent guitar player, I haven’t played for years. In other artistic fields, I can say I have no talent at all. For example, in school art classes, whether it was technical design or other hands-on projects, my work always looked messy. I remember when I drew, my arm would swing too much, the pencil would move randomly on the canvas, and the result was always unsatisfactory. I couldn’t color, nor could I sing—I couldn’t even do the most basic artistic expressions.

But people usually use art to express emotions and ideas, and I realized my way of expression is through programming. I can create my own world and invite people into it through code.

What Is a Stablecoin & Why Are Stablecoins So Important?

Kevin Follonier: You use programming to create stablecoins. What is a stablecoin? If you had to explain it to a mother, how would you do it?

Paolo Ardoino:

Simply put, a stablecoin is a digital currency, just like the digital balance you see in your bank account. But the difference is, stablecoins use blockchain technology for transfers, not the bank’s system. You can think of it as a “digital dollar” that can circulate freely around the world like cash.

Blockchain is a decentralized technology, similar to a large borderless database, with servers distributed all over the world rather than concentrated in a single bank or institution. We use the best form of database—a decentralized database—to move dollars.

Kevin Follonier: Why are stablecoins so important in our world?

Paolo Ardoino:

The significance of stablecoins is that they provide solutions for billions of people worldwide who lack financial services. These people often live in countries with high inflation—for example, Europe’s inflation rate is between 30% and 34%, Turkey’s is 50%, Nigeria’s is even higher, and Argentina’s sometimes exceeds 200%. In these countries, high inflation causes local currencies to depreciate rapidly, severely affecting people’s purchasing power. Now, in 2025, everyone is interested in stablecoins.

In developed countries like the US and Europe, the financial system is already very efficient—you may have a bank account, credit card, and payment tools like Cash App or PayPal, with almost no barriers to daily transfers. But in some developing countries, the efficiency of the financial system may be only 5%, and many people can’t even open a bank account. Stablecoins, through blockchain technology, can raise financial efficiency in these regions to 60% or 70%. For people living in remote African villages, this change is huge—it not only allows them to participate in the global economy but also brings them more opportunities.

The internet started to make this connection possible. In fact, the internet is a way to invite people into a global context, but without financial services, the internet is meaningless. I think stablecoins are actually the ultimate social network, because the currency of a social network, in my view, is the ultimate social network—it involves interpersonal interaction, peer-to-peer interaction, and it inherently contains value and the information you want to transfer.

Tether’s Mission & Becoming a Stability Company

Kevin Follonier: So what is your mission?

Paolo Ardoino:

My mission is to bring stability to the world. In a world that is becoming increasingly restless and chaotic, I think stability is especially important. This may sound strange, but Tether’s success is actually closely related to the worsening of many global problems. If the financial system were fair, resources accessible, and everything worked properly, there would be no need for USDT. The existence of USDT is precisely to provide financial stability to people in emerging markets facing extreme economic instability.

As a developer, I think we are making Tether a leader in technology, not just in finance, but also in telecommunications, social media, and energy. Our goal is to use decentralized technology to make these industries more open and accessible, just as we have done in the dollar and financial sectors. This is Tether’s core mission. It’s worth mentioning that most of our profits are not distributed to shareholders—about 95% of profits stay within the company, invested in new things and new ideas to support our mission.

I personally have almost no hobbies. In fact, my only hobby is thinking every day about how to achieve this mission. I’m obsessed with this issue—I’m the kind of person who gets deeply involved in a field, and it basically takes over my whole life.

Kevin Follonier: You mentioned in Docker Times that as global instability increases, Tether will continue to invest part of its profits in safe assets like bitcoin, gold, and land. So, what is a stability company?

Paolo Ardoino:

I often think about what a true “stability company” is. Once, a reporter asked me to define Tether in a few sentences, trying to say Tether is a stablecoin company. My answer was, Tether is not just a stablecoin company, but a stability company.

In my view, access to technology and finance is key to social stability. If people can easily access technology and financial services, they will have less motivation to create chaos and instability. Often, the root of social unrest is people’s dissatisfaction, which usually stems from extremely difficult living conditions.

Of course, there are other reasons for social instability, but overall, I think global stability is closely related to the huge gaps between countries and regions. In the past 20 to 30 years, although technology has tried to narrow these gaps, it has actually further exacerbated inequality. The same thing has happened in finance—about half of the world’s population cannot reliably access financial services, not even the opportunity to open a bank account. This isn’t because they’re untrustworthy, but because their poverty makes banks uninterested. This phenomenon is especially obvious in some African or Central American countries, causing severe instability in these regions because the distribution of technology and financial resources is completely skewed toward a small wealthy group.

What we need to do is make access to finance and technology more democratic, allowing more people to participate directly through peer-to-peer technology and decentralized finance. I believe that when people’s lives, families, communities, and countries become more stable, they will have less motivation to create chaos. This is Tether’s mission and the true meaning of a “stability company”—a company whose ultimate goal is social stability. We have already proven that such a company can be built. And, gratifyingly, the more we move in this direction, the more profitable the company becomes.

This is also why I define Tether as a “once-in-a-century company.” This is not bragging, but because Tether’s uniqueness lies in the fact that the more it promotes open source, openness, and decentralization, the more it attracts a broader user base. These users use the tools provided by Tether to achieve financial freedom and freedom of speech, and the wider this process, the more value the company’s data can create. Unlike other companies trying to build closed ecosystems, Tether’s platform is open to the entire world. This is a completely different business model and the key to our success.

Tether: The Company with the Highest Profit Per Employee in the World

Kevin Follonier: You mentioned that Tether is one of the best companies in the world, with a profit margin as high as 99%. How did you build a company where each employee generates about 100 millions USD in profit per year? Have you thought deeply about this?

Paolo Ardoino:

Frankly, I haven’t thought much about such data. We always focus on optimizing efficiency. Whenever we do something, I ask myself: why do it this way? Is there a better way? How can we further improve efficiency? Two years ago, Tether’s team was only 40 people, but as the business expanded, our current staff has grown to 250–300, including a large number of developers, as we are expanding into new areas like AI. However, the team responsible for core stablecoin management still remains around 100 people.

Of course, the current high interest rate environment has greatly helped our profitability. Before 2022, global interest rates were low, and this change was hard to predict. In addition, the impact of the pandemic was also unexpected—these factors together drove our profit growth. However, we believe that by continuously expanding into new business areas, we can help maintain high profitability in the long term. Optimizing efficiency and seizing opportunities are the keys to our success.

Why Raise 20 Billion USD?

Kevin Follonier: You recently announced that you are considering raising 20 billions USD and valuing the company at 500 billions USD. If these funds were available tomorrow, how would you use them?

Paolo Ardoino:

Last year we achieved 13.7 billions USD in profit, and this year’s performance is expected to be similar. But I want to emphasize that our purpose in raising funds is not just to make money, but to send an important message. As the Joker said in Batman: “It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message.” We want to show the world through this fundraising that Tether’s mission goes far beyond this—our goal is to achieve 100x growth.

Once, in public, I mentioned that I am a big fan of Peter Thiel and am reading his book “Zero to One.” However, it’s no longer the era when startups can make huge profits through simple data growth. I prefer to say our goal is to move from the current foundation to the “zero to one hundred” stage. I once vividly called it “0.25,” because we’re just getting started.

I say this because it’s not about how much money we make, but about the potential we think needs to be seized, to express our view of this opportunity.

I define Tether as a once-in-a-century opportunity because I believe every company needs three things: philosophy, direction, and capital. First, you need a philosophy or belief, to clarify what kind of company you want to be; second, you need the ability to innovate, whether in technology or other fields; third, you need capital. Most companies only have one or two of these. You can be a large-scale innovator with the right philosophy, but if you don’t have funding, you need to raise money and go to venture capital firms. However, the incentive mechanism of VCs is to make more money than they invest in you, which may deviate from your original project, philosophy, and ideas.

I think in this case, Tether has capital, philosophy, and technological innovation, and can do anything it wants. Therefore, the message we’re sending is that we have a lot more to show, we want to grow significantly, and our vision is amazing. We hope to have partners join our company to help us realize this unique and powerful vision—we don’t want to mess it up.

Why Did Tether Invest in @Plasma?

Kevin Follonier: Tether recently invested in a company called Plasma, whose founder Paul was previously on our podcast and helped us build this platform. So, why is Plasma so important that Tether decided to invest in them?

Paolo Ardoino:

I think Tether’s USDT is not just a digital currency, but an important part of blockchain technology. Stablecoins are essentially digital dollars based on blockchain technology. However, over the past few years, the development direction of blockchain technology has deviated. Many developers are more focused on quickly launching hype-driven blockchain projects, such as meme coins like Dogecoin. While this approach may work in the short term, it doesn’t really drive the industry’s long-term development. Nevertheless, such projects have indeed made some teams a lot of money.

The success of USDT proves one thing: if you create a product that solves real-world problems, it has the potential to truly change the world.

Therefore, I believe that blockchains based on stablecoins or focused on a specific use case can make stablecoin transfers very cheap and easy to use. For example, if you have stablecoins on Ethereum now, you still need to buy ETH as gas to transfer USDT, and this user experience needs improvement. I think, although the blockchain industry has developed for many years, the quality of user experience is still low because we’ve focused on the wrong things, only paying attention to our own “ecosystem,” whose members are basically geeks and those with time to learn new things. However, for most ordinary people, this approach doesn’t work. That’s also why USDT is so popular globally—because USDT is not catering to speculators.

An interesting statistic shows that 67% of USDT transactions are simply for transferring funds, while for other stablecoins, only 10% to 20% of transactions involve transferring other assets. This shows that most USDT users just want to get the stable value of 1 USD. In contrast, 80% of other stablecoin users are also transferring other assets, meaning they are more inclined to trade assets in DeFi. Therefore, I prefer USDT to serve tens of millions of ordinary users in Africa, rather than just meeting the needs of 10,000 bankers in New York.

Why Does Tether Own 10% of Juventus Football Club?

Kevin Follonier: Tether recently invested in Juventus Football Club and holds about 10% of the shares. This makes people curious—why would a company focused on stablecoins choose to invest in a football club?

Paolo Ardoino:

First, both Giancarlo and I are loyal Juventus fans. Giancarlo is from the Piedmont region of Italy, where Juventus is the representative team. I myself grew up near Genoa, about 80 to 100 kilometers from Turin. Many people from my hometown vacation in Piedmont, so Juventus’ influence is huge. My father is a Juventus fan, and I inherited his preference, as did Giancarlo.

Another reason is that we believe Italy’s football industry needs modernization. In Italy, football clubs are often used by entrepreneurs as power tools—they usually own both media and clubs and use these resources for political activities. In contrast, we see countries like Saudi Arabia investing in football, and clubs like Chelsea, Manchester United, and Paris Saint-Germain already have hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. Football is a global sport that reaches people of all classes, rich or poor. Therefore, investing in a football club is a simple way to reach global users.

We hope Italian football clubs can build closer ties with fans, spread positive values, and achieve profitability through modern management. The success of a club should be based on team strength, match results, and interaction with fans. However, in many Italian clubs, this model hasn’t really been realized. Through our investment in Juventus, we hope to promote change in Italy’s football industry and make Juventus more international and forward-looking.