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 16

• Building Paddle from nothing to unicorn

• Knowing when to leave your own company

• What Clove is actually building and the future of financial advice

• The UK’s problem with ambition

• How education fails high-agency kids

• Why freedom – not money – is the real goal

A 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