There aren’t a ton of people in the world who can say they founded a billion dollar company. There are far fewer that can say they did it twice.

YC Group Partner Tom Blomfield is one of them.

Rarer yet is just how real Tom is about all of it. Listening to his stories from the early days of GoCardless and Monzo feels like riding a roller coaster — because that’s what building a company is. The highs are high, the lows are low, and the transitions between the two can be so sudden they leave you spinning.

Each episode of our series Backstory will introduce you to one of YC’s Group Partners and the path they took to get here. This is Tom’s story.