
Interview with GoCardless CEO Hiroki Takeuchi after paralyzing accident - robbiet480
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/18/hiroki-interview/
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andy-wu
This is really incredible. I'm a quadriplegic student and you don't really see
people in my position in tech, and definitely not in executive roles so this
means a lot in terms of proving it's possible.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Somewhat tangentially, the current governor of Texas is also paraplegic. I
suppose if you place his politics aside since they are quite disagreeable to
the typical HN reader you could probably find some inspiration in his success
as a paraplegic in the political spectrum as well.

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stretchwithme
I think we need to start designing our cities so that people walk and cycle on
a level above the street, sort of like the Highline in NYC. And cars and
trucks operate below that without pedestrians.

That would make cycling a lot safer. Expensive to do for existing cities, but
robotic construction may make it cheap enough to do in a few decades.

~~~
donjoe
Why not just simply ban cars from cities in general? Most of the cities in
Europe at least have a great public transport setup. Just imagine how much
space used by parked cars would be available to public again!

~~~
barrkel
Even without any cars, delivery, trade, construction and transit vehicles add
up to a significant fraction of current traffic in big European cities. You
can't remove this traffic without functionally harming city life.

London, where I live, has both congestion charging and emissions charging
(ULEZ) but still has loads of traffic. I'd estimate about 75% of it is not
private vehicles outside rush hour, and probably no more than 50% private
during rush hour, in central areas. My estimates come from riding through it
by motorcycle daily.

~~~
buro9
London has already proven, during the month of restrictions around the Olympic
Games, that it is possible to massively reduce motorised vehicle traffic
within zone 1 and zone 2 during the workday without causing harm to businesses
and the functioning of the city. Most people felt that the quality of life in
London dramatically improved during the games, and one of the major reasons
cited is reduced traffic, cleaner air, pedestrianised zones, increase in
cycling, smoother traffic flow for public transport, out of hour deliveries,
etc.

It's already been successfully done, there is just a lack of political will to
make such measures permanent.

~~~
zimpenfish
> cleaner air

Ride 100 provides an excellent demonstration of this even just by closing
-some- roads for -one- day.

cf this graph of pollution on Putney High Street:

[https://twitter.com/jwoLondon/status/892004529545379840](https://twitter.com/jwoLondon/status/892004529545379840)

~~~
barrkel
People simply do business on a different day to cycle takeovers.

~~~
zimpenfish
I can't really fathom what your point is here? No cars means no pollution ->
reducing the amount of cars reduces the pollution. Is that disputed?

~~~
wlesieutre
Their point is that the closing a road once doesn't just make all the
pollution not happen, it time-shifts some of it to other days when people are
driving again.

I expect there are some people who _do_ make other arrangements and take a
bus, so it's a net gain, but there are also those who take their car on Monday
since they couldn't on Sunday.

EDIT: I looked up how RideLondon works, map at the end of this PDF shows road
closures
[https://d1ffaecguugkl4.cloudfront.net/ridelondon/live/upload...](https://d1ffaecguugkl4.cloudfront.net/ridelondon/live/uploads/cms_page_media/19/Central-
Road-Closures-2017.pdf)

So it's not even time-shifting necessarily. People can drive around that and
just move the pollution from one street to the next. But yes, the pollution
measurements on one of the closed roads would look better that day.

~~~
zimpenfish
> closing a road once doesn't just make all the pollution not happen

Yes, I know, it was an illustration of how much pollution is caused by traffic
in London and how much could be gained by reducing those traffic levels
overall. I am baffled that this is causing confusion to people.

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dvdhnt
> Delivered without sugar-coating and designed to manage expectations, the
> prognosis from doctors wasn’t good. The aim of surgery was to straighten
> Takeuchi’s spine and fix his posture, not to enable him to walk again. If
> during the procedure the doctors saw additional work that could be done,
> they would do it, but he shouldn’t allow himself to think that he would wake
> up and be walking.

Wow. We are a community of people who enjoy the ability to dream and ask,
"what if?" It's very difficult to turn that off and accept that the impossible
is, in fact, impossible. That kind of realization can be, and almost would
certainly be to me, defeating.

Not for Hiroki - this guy is just wired differently.

I wish him the best.

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Baltoli
I did an internship at GoCardless last summer - Hiroki is an excellent leader
and I'm not surprised to see him bounce back in such an inspiring way

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jimbokun
Interesting how work can bea meaningful distraction after a crisis. Something
meaningful to think about other than adjusting to life in a wheelchair, in
this case.

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PaulRobinson
About 5 years ago I was CTO'ing for a firm upstairs in the same building as
GoCardless - both firms moved out of that abandoned shell in Finsbury Square
around 3-4 months after I left, I believe. At the time they were focused
entirely on validating direct debit payments were something people wanted to
do online (they do), and we were figuring out how to move private jets around
Europe (long story).

I only met Hiroki briefly, my main interactions were with others there. They
seemed like a committed and focused group, determined to build something of
value.

I have some empathy for some of this story: I couldn't walk in April of this
year and had to have surgery to remove an abscess that caused some quite nasty
neuropathy. It happened quite quickly - over a couple of weeks, not a car
crash speed, at least. And I was treated by Imperial down in Hammersmith, the
same trust who I believe run St Mary's.

Whilst my prognosis was not quite as dramatic - I was told that walking again
was "a nice side effect we see in 70%-80% of people in this sort of case" \- I
was prepared to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life. I told my GF that if
she couldn't handle that, I'd understand. The silly cow didn't take her
chance... :-)

That moment when you wake up in recovery, try and move your toes and realise
nothing has really changed: pretty devastating.

I was lucky. Physiotherapy and time have contributed to me walking pretty well
with a stick, and that might go soon. My spinal injury was no more than a
compression, in which the nerves will over time regrow mostly - unlike
Hiroki's which sounds more like a shear.

I can also empathise with the desire to get through physiotherapy quickly:
whilst I still receive weekly physiotherapy sessions (I have one in a couple
of hours, actually), I wanted to get off the inpatient unit ASAP: the normal
stay was 3-4 months for my sort of case. I got done in 5 weeks. I've heard
stories of people being there for years.

Also, being pushed around is stupid. I agree with him on that. My girlfriend,
bless her, she did well. But never again.

And yes, it does all make you rethink everything you are and do and value in
life, and in some ways accidents like this can be blessings in disguise. I
suspect he will now be more focused and determined to do the big things in
life that you dream about but never act on: I know I have become so since
leaving hospital. No more sitting around watching Netflix every night for
me...

I might be lucky in that I can walk again - and 6 months from now you'll never
know I went through anything like I have - but I'll always have a certain
appreciation for life that only people who have been through something that
traumatic can share.

Good luck to him, and to the rest of the GC guys - they're all going to be
fine.

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sleepychu
I don't think this is the first interview [1] but it's interesting. DSM is
worth a listen if you've not heard it before.

[1] - [http://www.wnyc.org/story/death-sex-money-rachel-
hiroki/](http://www.wnyc.org/story/death-sex-money-rachel-hiroki/)

~~~
mrspin
"the GoCardless CEO’s first with the technology or business press"

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zeristor
The 2012 Paralympic Games London were a huge triumph.

However London doesn't seem innately supportive to people in wheelchair users,
I hardly ever see them in central London, and not at the many Meetups I
attend; which I believe is a loss for us all.

The new Crossrail Line is being built with wheelchair access in mind, so
hopefully it just won't be the tough as nuts, extrovert wheel chair users who
can surmount getting into London.

Smaller towns may be easier to get into, but they probably don't have the
critical mass, and events.

Which is the best large city for wheel chair users?

