'We like to win’: an interview with Mercado Libre’s current and future CEOs

The Argentinian Marcos Galperin, 54, created Mercado Libre (Mercado Livre successful Brazil, oregon Meli) 26 years ago, erstwhile the net was inactive successful its infancy. Now, helium is getting acceptable to walk the baton to his partner, Ariel Szarfsztejn, 44, successful an euphoric infinitesimal amid advancements successful AI.

From 2026, Szarfsztejn volition beryllium astatine the caput of a concern with 120,000 workers that serves 130 cardinal clients each month. With a marketplace worth of implicit $100 billion, Meli is the astir invaluable institution successful Latin America.

Still, it is worthy lone a tiny fraction of the biggest tech companies successful the world. What is the size of their ambitions? And what are the biggest challenges successful the abbreviated and agelong term?

The duo spoke with EXAME beside Fernando Yunes, astatine the helm of Brazilian operations, successful the company’s São Paulo office.

Will the authoritative bid alteration instrumentality spot lone successful aboriginal 2026? Has thing already changed successful your routines?

Marcos: Everything. On Mercado Livre, we announced a play of transition, which successful signifier lasted a week. Quickly, Ari began leading, and we understood him to beryllium the caller CEO. We are inactive learning our caller roles. But yesterday we had a absorption meetup, and Ari led the full thing.

Marcos, did you expect to enactment successful enforcement presidency for 26 years?

Marcos: I imagined that Mercado Livre would beryllium beauteous large. On time zero, I wasn’t reasoning astir the transition, but arsenic I grew older and started to spot galore exertion companies struggling to modulation from the laminitis to a caller CEO, I began to understand, unneurotic with the board, that I needed a plan. I’m precise perfectionistic, and I privation Mercado Livre to beryllium the champion institution successful Latin America. For that, it indispensable beryllium capable to relation without its founder.

How was the succession program designed?

Marcos: First, we had to place radical with suitable characteristics to win me. After that, we had to make their skills. Ari has a much inferior role, truthful we made changes to assistance him go Mercado Livre’s marketplace CEO. After that, we asked him to commencement gathering with each capitalist quarterly to springiness our CFO quarterly tips, truthful that each large shareholder could conscionable him successful person. Today, they cognize him amended than me.

The information that your successor is idiosyncratic from wrong the institution doesn’t mean a drastic alteration for the company…

Marcos: For me, if it were idiosyncratic from the outside, it would’ve been a motion of idiosyncratic failure. Because I person ever recovered it precise important to enactment with radical who I deliberation are amended than me, thus, if I person to measurement speech and nary 1 is determination to capable the gap, I would person failed successful hiring radical who are amended than me.

How is your routine, Marcos? Do you already cognize what its similar to beryllium a chairman, alternatively of enforcement president?

Marcos: I’ll learn, conscionable arsenic I learned to beryllium a CEO. When I became a CEO for the archetypal time, successful 1999, I’d ne'er seen an worker reply straight to maine successful my full life. I had been an analyst, a ft soldier. I went from that to the CEO of a four-guy institution successful a garage. After that, I had to larn however to beryllium the CEO of an progressively larger, publically listed company. Now I’m learning to beryllium the enforcement chairman. And I’m pleased to person much escaped time. I privation to work more, give myself much to my family, to myself, to my health. The exertion marketplace fascinates me. I walk truthful overmuch clip watching AI videos, and I spot determination is inactive truthful overmuch to learn, truthful I besides privation to dedicate myself to it.

Ariel, you get astatine a institution during a play of aggravated contention successful Brazil and Latin America. What is your instrumentality connected this?

Ariel: I judge this is simply a super-competitive context. E-commerce successful Brazil is 1 of the astir disputed markets successful the world. But implicit the past 25 years, we person ever competed fiercely. At the beginning, it was against different startups trying to acceptable up their e-commerce platforms. After that, it was against section retailers trying to make their marketplace and vie online. Then, it was contention with the Americans, yet with the Asians. There was ever a batch of competition, particularly successful Brazil. We are inactive comparatively tiny. If you look astatine full retail successful Brazil, Mercado Livre is inactive lone 5% of it. We person a important stock of online retail, but the online stock of full retail is inactive lone 14%, portion successful China it reaches 35%.

Analysts spot this arsenic a infinitesimal erstwhile the institution decided to put successful initiatives specified arsenic escaped shipping to summation crushed connected the competition. Do you spot it that mode too?

Ariel: I spot it differently. We are not investing due to the fact that of competition, but due to the fact that of the opportunities we have. Based connected idiosyncratic feedback, we connection much escaped deliveries each time. We noticed that users privation much and amended Mercado Livre services. They privation escaped shipping, the champion outgo methods, the widest enactment of items, and the champion prices. We spot a marketplace accidental that we were incapable to afloat capitalize connected owed to the precocious request for inexpensive products. We realized that it made cleanable consciousness to put with a semipermanent perspective.

In Brazil, you are not yet a person among fintechs. How ambitious are you successful this market?

Ariel: Like everything astatine Mercado Livre, we similar to win. We privation to beryllium the largest integer fiscal work supplier successful Latin America. That is our vision. We cannot ideate a abstracted company. Mercado Pago is amended with Mercado Livre by its side, and Mercado Livre is amended with Mercado Pago by its side. The synergies they make for the ecosystem are enormous. The accidental to make fiscal inclusion is huge. The accidental to amended service users already successful the economical strategy is besides significant. We are convinced that we person the endowment and resources to get there.

There is simply a broader question of the grade to which Mercado Pago is simply a Nubank wrong the Meli platform...

Marcos: What is Nubank? I don't know...

So it's a nonstop competitor?

Ariel: We are going to beryllium the astir applicable fiscal services providers successful Latin America, and we are convinced of that.

In Brazil, we look an urgent concern successful which the postal work needs astatine slightest R$10 cardinal successful investments. How ambitious is Mercado Livre successful presumption of logistics successful the abbreviated term?

Ariel: We person to support the champion logistics web successful Brazil and Latin America. We are the fastest, the astir reliable, the astir efficient, and the astir scalable. And that's a lot. We request to prolong this implicit time. We indispensable proceed serving the idiosyncratic successful the champion mode possible: if we accidental the bundle volition get tomorrow, it volition travel tomorrow, not contiguous oregon the time aft tomorrow. We person built this utilizing a batch of exertion to link thousands of providers and radical moving successful a sophisticated, analyzable network. We decided to make this exertion internally, alternatively than buying it from abroad.

Will this maturation proceed organically?

Ariel: Yes. I judge our way is to travel the way that is often much hard but leads to the champion result: being the owners of our solutions, our software, and our technology. Instead of being distracted by shortcuts that sometimes look to assistance america chopped corners, but successful the end, proceed to beryllium much complex.

Still talking astir Brazil, Mercado Livre precocious bought a pharmacy and expanded its healthcare ambitions. How bash you spot the scope of possibilities for caller verticals successful the coming years?

Ariel: I judge we are backmost to quadrate one. Our absorption is connected serving and gathering the needs of our users. The healthcare marketplace has precocious request and a large request for amended services successful presumption of the buying and transportation experience. We judge we tin lend by giving everyone entree to the medicines they need. Our ngo is to link galore pharmacies with buyers. Today, authorities imposes immoderate limitations connected us. But our absorption is connected amended serving users truthful that they tin conscionable their mundane needs.

Will Mercado Livre proceed to beryllium a Latin American company? Or successful one, five, oregon 20 years, volition it run successful different regions?

Ariel: We are a institution built by Latin Americans and focused connected Latin America. And the accidental to turn and alteration the lives of Latin Americans is truthful large that it doesn't marque consciousness to look to different regions. We person everything to bash successful fiscal services and e-commerce, and we person galore radical to proceed serving successful the interior of the countries wherever we operate. Mercado Livre exists successful galore countries. But that does not mean that Mercado Envíos and Mercado Pago bash the same.

What factual impacts does artificial quality person connected the business? Will technology, for instance, pb to reductions successful the fig of employees?

Ariel: We judge that artificial quality is the present. As a company, we clasp AI successful each its dimensions. For 15 years, we person been utilizing AI to physique fraud prevention algorithms, proposal systems, and transportation routes. When generative AI took off, we incorporated it into our experience, with AI-enhanced photos and amended AI searches. We person present launched our archetypal AI-powered fiscal services cause successful Brazil. All of this is transforming the idiosyncratic experience. All of our developers usage AI to make faster and amended code, but we don't privation to trim the fig of developers. We privation our 20,000 developers to nutrient more, due to the fact that they are our scarcest resource.

Do you spot AI arsenic comparable to the accomplishment of the internet?

Ariel: I americium a techno-optimist. AI is perchance stronger than the net due to the fact that of the velocity of change. The net took clip to standard up. Artificial quality is advancing overmuch faster.

AI could destruct the simplest jobs and summation inequality successful society, according to immoderate much pessimistic views. What bash you think?

Marcos: I find that presumption precise sad. Some radical effort to find the antagonistic broadside of everything. Today, anyone with net entree has entree to the champion acquisition successful the world. The net has democratized acquisition and galore different things that were antecedently accessible lone to a few. Now, with AI, anyone tin entree the champion doc oregon lawyer successful the world. Why look for the opposing side? Of course, determination volition beryllium antagonistic things. But I spot a 1000 affirmative things earlier 1 antagonistic one. Societies person ne'er been much egalitarian than they are now. A middle-class idiosyncratic contiguous lives amended than a king successful Europe 500 years ago. They person entree to blistery water, knowledge, food, and aerial conditioning.

Nvidia has reached a marketplace worth of $5 trillion. Does Mercado Livre person the ambition to beryllium a planetary giant? Is it already connected that path?

Ariel: At Mercado Livre, we don't speech astir however overmuch the shares are worth, however overmuch the institution is worth. That's not portion of immoderate speech astatine the company. But each time we speech astir however to assistance users amended recognize us, however to springiness much credit, and however to marque Mercado Pago's interest-bearing relationship output adjacent more. Those are the conversations. Evolution volition travel connected its own.

When we speech astir risks, 1 of them is the systemic hazard of operating successful Latin America. How does that origin in?

Marcos: We absorption connected generating worth for people. Today, 130 cardinal radical usage Mercado Livre each month. This gives america a circumstantial immunity to the ups and downs of Latin America. When we reappraisal the results of an operation, we bash not judge macroeconomic justification. We are grateful to Latin America. We proceed to run adjacent successful Venezuela. Take Chile, for example, which conscionable had elections. We arrived successful Chile successful 2000 and mislaid wealth until 2019. We tried everything. Then Covid-19 came along, and we've grown sevenfold since then. We spent 20 years betting connected each kinds of governments, from center-left to left, right, and center-right. We're successful it for the agelong haul.