On May 6, we welcome Pieter van der Does to Duna Conversations. Pieter is one of Europe’s most respected fintech founders. In 2006, he co-founded Adyen to simplify global payments — and spent nearly two decades building it into one of the most successful infrastructure companies in the world. Today, Adyen processes hundreds of billions in volume, serves enterprise giants like Microsoft, eBay, and Spotify, and employs over 3,000 people globally. Pieter led the company as CEO until 2023 and now serves as a strategic advisor to Duna.
In conversation with Duna's co-founder David Schreiber, Pieter will reflect on what it takes to build enduring infrastructure in regulated industries. “In the happy flow, everything seems easy. But you don’t build a business in the happy flow,” he says. “It’s the edge cases that drain resources.”
The two dive into why companies like Adyen and Duna exist — to take on mission-critical problems that almost no business wants to solve in-house. “Compliance is essential,” Pieter says. “But it’s rarely anyone’s core business.”
The conversation will explore what happens when companies try to handle mission-critical infrastructure - like payments or compliance - in-house, and how that often leads to bloated teams and unsolved problems. The two also talk about platforms, trust, and what it takes to build infrastructure companies that last.
Recording will be published shortly.
