The Economics of Trust

Trust is not something that can be bought or sold—it's earned and built over time. On this episode of SuiteTalk, Hugo is joined by Adrian Blair, CEO of Trustpilot, a global review platform headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a conversation about the market for trust, the differences between high- and low-trust societies, and the role of technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), in enhancing customer feedback.

Comments are edited excerpts from our podcast, which you can listen to in full below.

What attracted you to Trustpilot?

Adrian Blair: Trustpilot is a blend of a two-sided platform, with network effects and a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model. As the world’s largest independent customer feedback platform, Trustpilot connects consumers who leave reviews with businesses that engage with that feedback.

What drew me to Trustpilot was how well it matched my background. I was global chief operating officer (COO) at Just Eat, a two-sided marketplace, and later ran Dext, a pure SaaS fintech business. That mix of marketplace and SaaS is something I know well and something I wanted in my next role.

But what really attracted me was its mission. Trustpilot’s goal is to become the universal symbol of trust, and in an era increasingly shaped by AI, trust is only becoming more vital.

How big is the addressable market for trust?

Adrian: Trust is nuanced; it’s a mix of heart and head. And it’s something you build and earn. It’s not a commodity, not something you can trade.

I often tell the team, “If a sentence includes the word ‘trust,’ try swapping in the word ‘love.’” If it sounds weird, you’re probably thinking about it the wrong way. You can’t buy love, and you can’t buy trust either.

What we try to do is help businesses understand trust, engage with it, and earn it. So, how big is the addressable market? Well, when I ask CEOs, “How important is trust to your business?”, the answer is usually “It’s everything.” Without it, people won’t buy from you, won’t work for you, and won’t invest in you.

But then I ask, “How deeply do you understand trust in your business?” And that’s where things get quiet. They know their financials inside out. But trust? There’s usually no real owner, no measurement. In that sense, the addressable market is massive. Trust is relevant to almost every business on the planet.

What Trustpilot is doing seems like a great example of what technology was meant to do—resolve information asymmetry.

Adrian: Not only do companies want to understand whether they’re trusted and why, but they also want to be able to credibly communicate that trust to the outside world.

What frustrates a lot of people inside companies is they’re providing a great service, and they have internal tools such as Net Promoter Scores (NPS) or customer surveys that show people are happy. But they can’t put a billboard up saying, “Our NPS is 80,” because no one knows what that means, and frankly, no one would believe it.

What Trustpilot enables is a way to credibly prove trust. We help give companies a trusted, independent way to show the world they’re delivering on their promise.

Trust is nuanced; it’s a mix of heart and head.

Have you done research on high- and low-trust societies?

Adrian: There’s still a big gap between high-trust and low-trust cultures. I grew up in Lesotho—a country I’d describe as a very low-trust society—so I have a visceral sense of what that feels like.

Interestingly, Trustpilot was founded in Denmark, arguably one of the world’s highest-trust societies. So, even in a place where trust is relatively abundant, there was still a need for a platform like Trustpilot.

More broadly, while technology can help build trust, it also makes it easier to fake it. That’s why we’re focused on building a space where people can reliably gauge and communicate trust.

Tribes have always been built on things such as similarity or shared skills, but trust seems to sit right at the center.

Adrian: There’s a line in the book Sapiens by Yuval Harari: “Without trust, society collapses.” There’s also an old Chinese saying: “You have three things—food, weapons, and trust.” Which two can you give up? The answer is food and weapons because trust is the one thing you can’t lose.

Think about Great Britain during the Blitz. There wasn’t enough food, but there was enough trust to make a rationing system work and help people survive.

How do you think about growth? Is there such a thing as too much?

Adrian: It depends on the industry and the competitive dynamics. At Just Eat, the strategy was clear: scale fast and claim the No. 1 position in every market. Trustpilot is a different story.

Here, we can afford more patience. Our growth relies on brand reputation and business-to-business (B2B) adoption, not blitz-scaling or massive consumer marketing. Businesses invite customers to leave reviews, and as that behavior spreads, the brand grows organically.

But it’s a snowball effect, not a land grab. Unlike food delivery, we’re not in a space with 100 companies racing to do the same thing. For us, it’s about steady, sustainable growth that builds long-term value.

Your growth constraints don’t really seem to be about capital, but rather network effects, awareness, and onboarding. Is that a fair summary?

Adrian: That’s right. It’s about driving B2B adoption. Enterprise SaaS—our largest segment—isn’t built for blitz-scaling. Companies need time to understand the value, go through the sales cycle, and implement the tool.

How do you see AI impacting Trustpilot?

Adrian: We see AI more as an opportunity than a threat. For example, we receive around 200,000 new reviews a day, and most of the decision-making around their authenticity is done by technology. We’re also constantly experimenting with new use cases. It’s helping us work smarter, not just faster, and that supports revenue growth without a matching increase in headcount.

We see AI more as an opportunity than a threat.

Have you been more impressed or underwhelmed by AI’s capabilities and accessibility so far?

Adrian: Recently, I was preparing for a meeting with a customer whose annual report mentioned Trustpilot in the first line, highlighting their customer reviews. That got me curious—how many other public companies mention Trustpilot in their reports? In the past, I’d have asked an analyst to download and read through all the reports. Instead, I asked Gemini (Google’s AI tool) to scan them for mentions of Trustpilot, and it found more than a dozen U.K.-listed companies referencing us, all within minutes.

How useful are these tools across the economy?

Adrian: Here’s how I see it: this is the worst these tools will ever be. When you consider advances in semiconductor chips and their roadmaps, the improvements in processing power and capabilities are going to be extraordinary. I’ve worked in tech for more than 25 years, and this is the most exciting period I’ve seen. There have been many breakthroughs before, but this feels different.

As a business leader, how do you make decisions?

Adrian: I’m on the quick and decisive end—sometimes almost to a fault. So, I try to build in a bit of self-awareness and pause to see if the decision still feels right the next day.

That said, I’m a big believer in involving the right people. You can’t run a company as a democracy (though we do have fun inviting input across Trustpilot), but for key decisions, you must involve whoever knows the most about that issue.

Psychological safety is critical. As you get more senior, people might hesitate to tell you the truth, so creating a culture where people can honestly challenge your ideas without fear is vital.

I also encourage candid, robust debate. I’ll throw out ideas that might be bad just to see what people say, then use that feedback to shape the decision.

Finally, we clarify ownership on our executive agendas, so it’s clear who’s leading the discussion and who’s the decision maker. Sometimes it’s me, but most of the time, it’s a team member.

Is your quick decision-making just how you’re wired? Or do you think it’s rooted in your beliefs?

Adrian: It’s definitely both, but in that order. I’m naturally impatient, with a low boredom threshold, so the fast pace of tech really suits me. I couldn’t work in industries where decisions play out over years. But making the right decision matters more than making a fast decision. If it takes a few extra days to get it right, that’s okay.

Do you think it’s possible to balance accountability, psychological safety, constructive feedback, and genuine performance management?

Adrian: They’re all interconnected. One of my favorite books on this topic is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. At its core is trust. Without trust, you don’t have psychological safety, which is essential for honest debate. Only through open, honest conversations do people commit to decisions, and only with true commitment can you drive accountability and focus on results.

When you consider advances in semiconductor chips and their roadmaps, the improvements in processing power and capabilities are going to be extraordinary.

Have you gotten better at assessing people?

Adrian: Yes. It’s a muscle you build. Early on, your success is mostly about your own energy, talent, or academics. Then experience starts to shape things. As you become more senior, you realize success increasingly comes down to people decisions. Who you hire, who you promote, who you let go—those choices end up being some of the most critical you make. If your judgment in those areas isn’t improving, it limits how far you can go.

When you're thinking about succession for senior roles, is it usually a case of multiple strong internal candidates competing, or more a question of whether to go internal or external?

Adrian: At the C-level, it’s rarely a case of choosing one strong candidate from three or four equally strong internal candidates. More often, the decision is between one credible internal successor and going external.

Do you tend to carry the weight of the job with you, or are you good at switching off?

Adrian: I generally compartmentalize well. The one exception was during my time at Cera, which provides social care across the United Kingdom. I was directly responsible for about 7,000 caregivers supporting elderly and vulnerable people. That came with real life-or-death stakes, and I found that personally difficult. But it gave me huge respect for people in healthcare, and I realized that kind of responsibility doesn’t suit me.

In digital businesses, the challenges are serious, but they’re business challenges. And those don’t keep me up at night.