Klarna Founder: From $0 to $46 Billion: Sebastian Siemiatkowski | E98

1. 0:00 – 2:06

   Intro

   1. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski0:00

      He had a discussion with me. We were sleeping in the street. Dead scared, like- Be careful with who you're listening to. Have they really contributed to success? Have they really built success? Or have they simply been in a company that was successful? Afterwards, I've heard from journalists that like, a ton of emails were coming from banks, 'cause they simply, you know, they were threatened by our existence. And so the, kind of, articles and- and the writing about us shifted from, "They're here to screw customers over, to do bad things." And that was tough. I went home, I had dinner with my wife, and we talked about it, and then I was like, "No, this time around, I should probably help him," uh, I decided, and I tried to call him, and he didn't answer, and I emailed, he didn't answer. And morning, my mother called and said he was dead.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:45

      (Instrumental music) Sebastian Siemiatkowski. He's the CEO and founder of Europe's most highly valued fintech privately held company. His company is worth $45 billion. Sebastian isn't a guy that comes from a stable household or a silver spoon. It's very much the opposite. The stories you're gonna hear about his home life, his family, his father might just bring you to tears, because that's the effect they had on me. He came from incredibly, incredibly humble beginnings, and he's built a company in an industry where he was not qualified, where he didn't have technical expertise, where he couldn't code, that has completely revolutionized an industry. He is humble, he is honest, and he's willing to tell you the truth, and that's why it's such a pleasure to sit here with him today and uncover what it takes, and who it took, to build such a revolutionary, pioneering business. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (Instrumental music) Sebastian, um, one of the things that I've come to learn from speaking to a

2. 2:06 – 14:25

   Your early years

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:06

      wide array of guests on this podcast, from sports athletes to, you know, really successful CEOs, is- is how often our- our childhood and our early years shape our adult foundations.

   2. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski2:16

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:16

      And whenever I meet someone like you that's achieved, um, uh, really remarkable things, in any, you know, in whatever discipline they're in, my first question always becomes, um, what was it that made them remarkably unique in their early years? What- what was the experience, the cauldron that shaped them into who they are today?

   4. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski2:34

      Right (laughs) . It's kind of funny you ask that, 'cause like, I don't necessarily feel that I was remarkably unique in my early days (laughs) .

   5. SBSteven Bartlett2:41

      (laughs)

   6. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski2:41

      I, um... A friend of mine, uh, their son, uh, turned out to be blind. Um, but he has perfect, uh, perfect pitch, and he's now eight years old, and he's sitting and playing the piano and singing. And, um, that is, to me, remarkable. (laughs)

   7. SBSteven Bartlett2:55

      (laughs)

   8. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski2:55

      Like, and I- I was thinking about that. I was like, "That was me when I was a kid." Uh, look, I- I mean, my parents were from Poland. Uh, they moved to Sweden, uh, about a year before I was born. Um, I was born in the northern part of Sweden. Um, they were, you know, basically immigrants because they didn't see a- a future in the Communist Poland. Uh, at, you know, which was the case at that point in time.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett3:19

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski3:19

       And so, um, so, you know, they came to Sweden, but obviously, as- as it was back then, it was very hard to integrate into Swedish society, you know. English wasn't as profound as it is today and- and there was, you know, a lot of language barriers. At that point in time, there was also like, a lot of, I would say, skepticism about people with Polish name and Polish backgrounds. It was hard to get a job if you had a- a foreign-sounding name. There was a lot of these biases. So my parents struggled quite a lot to integrate. My- my mother was an early retiree, uh, and my father kind of jumped from job to job, was unemployed for quite a long period of time. Drove a cab for multiple years, did a lot of different things, right? And so I think that like, I do think that there's something to the fact that as an immigrant kid, with parents that still like, intellectually had academical backgrounds, and you know, had studied at universities and stuff like that, and never basically were ca- able to live up fully to their potential, I do think that that kind of creates some kind of like, you feel like, "That's unfair!"

   11. SBSteven Bartlett4:20

       (laughs)

   12. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski4:20

       (laughs) And then you're gonna like, try to fix that somehow.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett4:23

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski4:24

       And I was growing up among Swedish friends who just had better economical standards than we had, and I was obviously longing for what they had. Um, you know, I remember that, uh- uh- in- with my mom, like there were weeks when, you know, we were eating pancakes every day, and I thought that was great, but now I realize it was because there was nothing left (laughs) .

   15. SBSteven Bartlett4:45

       Necessitative.

   16. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski4:46

       That was the only thing we had, like flour and- and milk and so forth, so like... So I think that like, uh, I- I do think that that kind of setting, and there's obviously some research that suggests that in Silicon Valley, more than 50% of the companies are, you know, started by immigrant backgrounds. I do think that that kind of setting of, you know, having a lot of the intellectual capacity, and- and all these things, and then the kind of prerequisites, uh, potentially to do something different, and at the same point of time, this kind of drive of like, you kind of almost feel like it's unfair, you know what I mean?

   17. SBSteven Bartlett5:16

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski5:16

       Life isn't necessarily fair but like, you feel like, "This is not fair. We should've like, been able to have something different than this." And- and maybe also, to some degree, you- I don't know to what degree that's... On an emotional level, I don't think on a rational level, but on an emotional level, so like, your parents really sacrificed their lives. Like I think it's- it's hard for people that are not, have, are not immigrants to understand the consequences of not having the friends from school, not having the, you know, the understanding of how society works, which school is better, which is worse, how do you interact with government, you know, how does the system works, all these things. Like that- that total lack of understanding of a specific society, that it means to shift like my parents did in their, you know, uh, late 20s, early 30s. Uh, and how difficult that means for your own ability to kind of, you know-... do something with your life. I think that's something that's underestimated. So you have a kind of emotional thing that you wanna, you know, you feel that they did a massive sacrifice in some due regards for, for your behalf, right?

   19. SBSteven Bartlett6:13

       Yeah.

   20. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:14

       So-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett6:14

       And that feels like a tremendous privilege. I-

   22. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:16

       Yeah.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett6:16

       I wanted to ask you, um, 'cause I, I can relate a lot to that. I'm an immigrant myself.

   24. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:20

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett6:20

       Came from, born in, you know, Africa, in Botswana.

   26. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:23

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett6:23

       And my parents came over here. My mom can't read or write, and-

   28. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:25

       Fantastic country, by the way.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett6:26

       Yeah, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful place.

   30. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski6:28

       Mm-hmm.
3. 14:25 – 29:40

   Challenging your employees

   1. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski14:25

   2. SBSteven Bartlett14:25

      You're now the headmaster of a-

   3. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski14:27

      Great.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett14:28

      ... school that has thousands and thousands of employees in it.

   5. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski14:30

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett14:30

      And that, that point about making sure that the people that attend your institution are also-

   7. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski14:35

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett14:35

      ... challenged must, must, uh, still sort of be important to you, right?

   9. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski14:39

      Absolutely. I think it's like... Actually, you know, and in a way, especially in Swedish society, which I... You know, the, the Swedish culture is very much just saying that Är alla välkomna, which means that everyone should join, like everyone should be part of this. And, and that's a fantastic ambition and vision for a society, that like no, no man left behind is kind of a, a different translation of it, or, or no woman left behind. Um, but... And, and for a while, that was, that was creating a conflict because Klarna, as a company, we have very high aspirations. We wanna do something very different. We wanna, you know, really, as I say, sometimes play in Champions League. And then, you know, the problem is that's not true for everyone in the work world. Some people are fine with playing kids league and, and, and so forth, right? So, so it took us some time to dare to say that Klarna is not for everyone. That Klarna is actually a company that wants to attract, um, people that want to make a real impact, make a real difference, that wanna learn, that wanna be challenged. And that took some time. And it, it might sound odd, but for us, at least, in, in the Swedish cultural context, it took some time to get to that where we started saying, "You know what? Klarna isn't for everyone." Not everyone is gonna enjoy this environment because not everyone is wi... Like, a lot of people will say, "It's amazing to climb Mount Everest. Did you climb Mount Everest? They're fantastic." That's one thing, but it's a very different thing that like how many people are really willing to like freeze their fingers off, train for four years, like all the things that you need to do to climb that mountain.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett16:15

       (laughs)

   11. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski16:15

       Then like the number of people that like check the box and say, "I wanna do that," becomes massively smaller, right?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:20

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski16:21

       And so I think the same applies for companies. Like a lot of people will say, "I wanna, I wanna work for a successful growth company doing things that's really cool, like climbing Mount Everest." But then the question is like, are you willing to do all these things like that, that-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett16:33

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski16:33

       ... that, that re... That, that means that you need to do in order to be able to accomplish that, right?

   16. SBSteven Bartlett16:38

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski16:38

       And, and, um, so, so yeah, to your point, like I think the challenge today... I always tell that people like when they... You know, when I interview them or whatever, just like, just be like... Be aware, like this is... You're gonna be very challenged here. This is not gonna be a place where like it's just gonna go easy. You're gonna have... You're gonna be very, very challenged here. And that-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett16:56

       What's the perfect balance of challenge between being too challenged that they, you know (laughs) -

   19. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski17:00

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett17:00

       (laughs) ... they end up in... (laughs) They burnt out or something?

   21. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski17:02

       Right. Yeah.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett17:03

       Or under-challenged that they lose motivation like you did as a kid reading the book?

   23. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski17:05

       No, it's, it's super difficult, right? And I think that's why it has to... It has to be about encouraging them, uh, and, and, and seeing like each individual by individual where they are, right? So, so think about a great personal trainer, right? When you go to the gym, um, you know, how do they find the balance of, you know, how, how much to push you and when to kind of h- hold off a little bit, let you, you know, breathe-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett17:29

       (laughs)

   25. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski17:29

       ... (laughs) and so forth, right? Actually, I... You know, kind of interesting 'cause, um, my kids have this swim teacher. Her name is Petra. And, and I, I can sometimes just sit and watch her in... When she's training my kids swimming because she has that perfect balance. I've never seen a teacher that finds that perfect balance as well as she does. So she pushes my kids exactly to the point where they are like...... dead scared, like, almost, like, they're almost there where they're, like, gonna want to, they want to give up and get out of the, out of that. But they're doing it- Mm-hmm. And then they're proud of what they accomplished. Mm-hmm. And, and that, to me, to your point, like, that's almost like a piece of magic that a teacher has, like the best teachers can spot that in their pupils, can spot that, uh, and really find that perfect balance, right? But it's very difficult. It's obviously difficult in a company with 4,000 people, like, how do you try to put mechanism in place to ensure that you, that you find that balance, right? Mm-hmm. And that, that, that you really, uh, allow people to get to that perfect spot, um, where they develop heavily, but at the same point of time doesn't move, you know, ahead and just bang the heads to the wall and, and feel, uh, give up or, you know, so... To your, to your point then as well about, um, it took you a long amount of time to realize that you wanted to just say to the world and to anyone that was considering joining your company- Mm-hmm. ... "We're not for everyone." Mm-hmm. Um, the pandemic happened, and what I saw was, um, leaders were kind of forced in this wave of virtue signaling to say, "Everyone can work from home forever?" Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It became like if you didn't say that, now you're a bit of an asshole company. And as, as I reflect on that and as it, as it went through, I started to reject that narrative because I think that the culture of the company should be determined by the mission and, um, also, the other thing was, I actually think that companies, as you said- Mm-hmm. ... should have really clear communication at all stages about who we are, how we work, and what our culture is. Mm-hmm. And allowing it to be kind of, you decide- Mm-hmm. ... I actually think is, it's, it's, uh, for me, super weak as leadership. Mm-hmm. But I also think it will have an adverse effect- Mm-hmm. ... on the ability for the company to, to achieve its mission but also the company culture, people knowing, like, what's expected of them. Mm-hmm. But now it seems to have become really, like, accept, p- politically acceptable to just say, "Our employees will do whatever they want." Mm-hmm. How do you feel about all of that? (laughs) Yeah, I know. But, uh, but I think, look, I think that the, look, I can, uh, I give you an example, right, is that, um, previously, which you might found odd, Klarna was not really, uh, following kind of agile work tactics. Um, and then a few years into, um, Klarna's development, we realized that some aspects of agile, like daily stand-ups, weekly retros, working as small teams on specific topics, there were some aspects of these that are very productive and really ho- help productivity, help achieve our goals and so forth. Um, so then what we did is we said, like, "Okay, now all teams within Klarna should do daily stand-ups, should do weekly retros." And I think currently when we look at it, uh, our data, about 50% of teams are following this, right? So then the question is like, how do you then approach that? Because you feel yourself very convinced that, for example, the idea of daily stand-ups is helping to be productive. Um, but if you enforce that, if you simply go and say, "Everyone has to do this, period. Like, check the box," the problem is, like, you can do daily stand-ups in very productive ways where you're engaged, the whole team is engaged, you're discussing, "What can we do? How can we move faster?" Et cetera, et cetera. Or you can do daily stand-ups only to check the boxes, like (laughs) - Mm-hmm. ... there are different ways. And, and that applies to almost all such rules and concepts within companies. So I think that, like, what I'm still, and I still, I don't feel that I s- entirely figured this out, but it, there's a balance in an organization around, like, when are we prescriptive and mandat- mandating things? And when are we suggesting and highlighting? Uh, because in the end, the reason I believe in daily stand-ups so much is because of my own experience of that. But there was also something that I seeked up myself. There was a, a willingness to, I, I was interested in trying to find out better ways to working, I learnt about this, I saw it in practice being done in a good way, and then I, my conclusion was that this was, uh, that. So if you think about my learning process, my personal learning process in that si- situation, it was driven by my interest, my passion, and then I accomplished. That's a very different thing to if my board suddenly would have dialed me up one day and said, "Everyone has to do daily stand-ups, period." Because it didn't, it would not have given me the opportunity to learn and, and, and reflect on it. That's when I w- so a lot when I think about learning within an organization, I think about, like, the karate masters and the Japanese, that kind of thing. Do you remember all this, like, Karate Kid and everything? Yeah, yeah. Like, how they learn in those environments, it is, like, obviously at the beginning there has to be an interest by the individual self to try to learn. But then the master doesn't always tell you, like, exactly what to do. They, like, they provoke you to try to learn yourselves, right? There's a excellent example from the Toyota way on that topic where, like, some of the, like, masters of Toyota Way within Toyota would, like, take a lot of their senior managers and they would draw a circle on the factory floor within the Toyota factory. And then the, the managers would have to stand there and observe, uh, the manufacturing of the cars. And then by the end of the day, you know, the totally silent teacher would come and say, "Okay, so tell me, what have you observed?" And then the, the senior managers within the circle who had been standing there the whole day had to say, "Well, we saw this, we saw that." And then, uh, he would look at them, the senior, you know, senior kind of Shenzen like da-da-da-no, the senior. (laughs) He would be like, "No. Another day." You know? So they'd have to do another day. Really? (laughs) So they, and as he, like, provoked them because I think that's the, you know, and, and it's very, the learning is such a difficult thing, right? Because you don't, as much as we, we, we think that learning is sitting in a room and listening to somebody, um, that is, you know, a very inefficient way of learning. We learn by doing, uh, by doing things ourselves, right? Uh, that's really, uh, that's the truth. And I think that COVID is such a good example of that because we had a lot of experiences that we've never had before- Yeah. ... and they taught us a lot about our life, our priorities. A lot of people talk about that today because we were forced to do things differently. Mm-hmm. Not because we read about COVID and we read about, you know, how things can be different because suddenly we had to experience it. And when you experience, that's when you truly, that can impact your behaviors, can change your ways. So the, the, the, kind of, it's a very difficult balance in these companies consistently from a culture perspective, like, how do I...... how do I encourage and kind of push people to go and find out? Like, you know, try to experience that and learn from it. But I ... but not trying to enforce it too much. And, and that's a balance game, right? You cannot be entirely without rules, to your point. Because like, if you join a soccer team, like, there are some rules. Like, you come in to exercise every morning. If you just don't come to exercise, we're like, "Okay, look, uh, you know, maybe you have a different philosophy about how you're gonna become a great soccer player, but like, I just don't believe in your philosophy."

   26. SBSteven Bartlett24:21

       Yeah. (laughs)

   27. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski24:22

       Like, like, like, it's not gonna work. So like-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett24:24

       (laughs)

   29. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski24:24

       ... if you wanna go and believe that you never have to exercise to become a great soccer player, you do that, but you can't do it on my team.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett24:28

       Mm-hmm.
4. 29:40 – 48:41

   The start of Klarna

   1. SBSteven Bartlett29:40

      one of the things that really intrigued me, and made me feel a lot of respect towards you, was that you're not technical-

   2. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski29:45

      Yes.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett29:45

      ... as a co-founder.

   4. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski29:46

      Unfortunately, no. So you-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett29:47

      So you built this mega tech company, but you're not technical. And I know-

   6. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski29:50

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett29:50

      ... I tried (laughs) when I was 18.

   8. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski29:52

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett29:52

      That, that was my first failure. Um, but I found that really just horrifying and (laughs) respectful.

   10. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski29:57

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett29:57

       So tell me, so how did it start? And, um, and, and where did you find the courage? (laughs)

   12. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski30:01

       Sure. No, so look, as I said pre- previously, like ...... it's kind of ironic. I always had tons of business ideas, and I even remember, like, when I, uh, when I was, like, probably 13 or something, uh, in Sweden was the first time we had private radios, private radio stations. And I thought the one in my home city of Uppsala sucked. So I kind of wrote the business plan for them, how they should change the shows and things like that. And I actually called them and tried to convince them to change. (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett30:25

       At 13?

   14. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski30:25

       Yeah, at 13. Like, I can imagine they were, like, laughing their guts off.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett30:28

       (laughs)

   16. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski30:28

       Like, this 13 years old is calling us, like, "You should do this programming instead. You should have a show about this and that."

   17. SBSteven Bartlett30:33

       I bet they're gutted now. I bet they-

   18. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski30:34

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett30:37

       ... should have listened. (laughs)

   20. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski30:37

       Exactly. So for whatever reason, I always had this, like, in- inclination to wanting to do something. And then, um, I did two years at Stockholm School of Economics, which is one of the, like, top schools, uh, in Sweden around, uh, if you're, you know, want to study at an economical direction. Everyone at that point, this is 2000, everyone wanted to work at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey. That was really the, the vibe. It's actually interesting 'cause they had this survey where they said, like, at that point of time when they asked p- students, 7% wanted to start their own company. Today, it's 70%.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett31:04

       Wow.

   22. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski31:04

       So it just gives you, like, how much of a shift there's been during that period of time. But anyways, and then in 2002, because I went directly from college to university, I was like, "Okay, I just gotta do something else." I mean, every- m- all my friends had, like, backpacked and stuff like that. So, um, ended up, me and actually what became my co-founder, Nicholas, we went backpacking, which at that point in time, because we always wanted to do something that was a little bit different, uh, we ended up going around the world without flying, uh, which was a lot of fun. So if you wanna go to YouTube, you'll find the videos when we were, like, from the trip.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett31:33

       Oh really?

   24. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski31:33

       Yeah, yeah, you can find it.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett31:34

       You're really confident 'cause you're a YouTuber.

   26. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski31:35

       Yeah, because we had this idea that we were... This was just at the beginning of all these, like, you know, Big Brother and all these, like-

   27. SBSteven Bartlett31:39

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   28. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski31:40

       ... you know, docu- documentaries and stuff. So, so we thought that we're gonna, like... We, we recorded the whole thing, and we did li- we thought we were gonna, like, air this as a sh- TV show. (laughs) That was a very funny day.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett31:49

       I need to ask you one question about that.

   30. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski31:50

       Yeah.
5. 48:41 – 1:00:48

   The painful moments of Klarna

   1. SBSteven Bartlett48:41

      um, it's why it's called The Drive of CEOs, I wanted to show, um, I wanted to really give a f- a fair impression of the other side of entrepreneurship. It's been super glamorized. It's probably why, you know, that stat you, you shared where it went from 7% to 70%, that's probably why. It's now seen as a very s- sort of glamorous thing, and I wanted to create a bit of a f- a platform to share some of the harder parts of business. And, listen, you've built a company worth $45 billion, like I know that it was painful.

   2. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski49:06

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett49:07

      (laughs) So talk to me about the, the pain and the unexpected pain that might have put you off starting this had you known it, had you been, had you not been naive enough to, to realize how painful it is at times.

   4. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski49:19

      Well, I think that, like my, a lot of my pain, I would feel equals when I see athletes, you know, trying to throw or trying to jump, and then failing, and the frustration that you see in them when they cannot achieve what they want to accomplish. I feel that's a lot of the pain that I've experienced, so like, my, a lot of my frustration and pain has been associated with like, "Oh, you know, I know we can do this, I know we have the opportunity to do this, and we're just not getting there. We're not getting there. It's not getting through, it's not happening the way it could be." I think that's a big piece of, uh, pain for me, is that lack of like, "Ah, so frustrating to feel like you're so close, something could be there, but it's not there." Um, I think that, that's one part, and I mean, another part is obviously, um, you know, when things go wrong and you're frustrated because, you know, you wanted something to be better and it didn't work out and, and stuff like that, so you're very like, uh, you're challenged by those situations.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett50:24

      In terms of stress-

   6. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski50:25

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett50:26

      ... how do you feel about it and how have you dealt with that?

   8. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski50:28

      Um, I am not that stressed, to be honest. I don't know why. It's almost like to some degree, I'm almost more stressed when things are good. (laughs) No, because like, like when we have some crisis or something happens, right, like, you know, we had an incident with some breach of data, uh, for example, um, a few months ago, right? In those situations, as much as it's painful that something's happened and I'm sad about potential consequences for individuals that we might have made some mi- errors, I feel like it all becomes like execution mode. We bring everyone into a room, it's just like, "What do we do? What do we do now?" And I kind of in a way enjoy that work. It's very concrete. It's very like, you know, focused, and you're like, "There's nothing else, you have to do only this now, let's see about what can we do about this problem, how are we gonna fix it, who's doing what," you know, and so forth. In those situations, I don't feel that stressed actually. I can even feel an adrenaline in that situation. As much as it's painful to me to see the consequences, I give an adrenaline and like, "Let's get this to work, let's do this now. Let's, you know, let's take on this challenge that has suddenly arised."

   9. SBSteven Bartlett51:38

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski51:39

       Um...

   11. SBSteven Bartlett51:39

       It's funny, the best leaders, and I'm sure you'll find this even in your company-

   12. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski51:42

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett51:42

       ... all seem to speak to that. They all seem to be really emotionless in those, the, the, the absolute chaos moments.

   14. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski51:47

       Right.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett51:47

       And it becomes a c- a s- you know, a methodical process of how to solve the problem-

   16. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski51:51

       Yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett51:52

       ... versus-

   18. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski51:52

       And, and I do think, again, as much as, you know, I don't wanna... Obviously, I feel a lot of pain from the perspective of like if we've done a mistake or s- done something wrong as a company that might have had implications for our customers or whatever, that's very painful. But at the same point of time, those incidents or the situations when you've gone through something that was very chaotic or very challenging are the moments that have created the strongest relationships within the companies, have shown, you know, has shown some amazing talents stepping up to re- Like, it, it's a little bit like if you go on a vacation, it's just sunny, you don't really remember it, but if you had like a, you know, a thunderstorm, you'll, you'll talk about it for-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett52:30

       (laughs)

   20. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski52:30

       ... for, for years. Right? So like, there's something to that. Um, so I think my stress may actually more come from sometimes when I feel like we're all kind of happy, we all feel it's going well, like, "It cannot be true. There must be something that's wrong."

   21. SBSteven Bartlett52:43

       Yeah.

   22. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski52:43

       Yeah, and I think Alex sitting over there will, will, um, will kind of smile now. I can see, I think he will recognize this.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett52:48

       (laughs)

   24. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski52:48

       But like, uh, um, so I think that, that's where I can, I actually more get stressed from like, "Are we doing fast enough? Is this good enough?" Like...

   25. SBSteven Bartlett52:55

       That's really interesting. I, I, uh, it kind of also relates to your point about bit- needing to be challenged-

   26. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski52:59

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett52:59

       ... you talked about in school when you'd read the book and you got bored.

   28. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski53:02

       Mm-hmm.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett53:02

       And that, it's funny because I, I was writing my book and I finished writing my book recently and it was published, and one of the paragraphs in it talks about how I used to believe that my life was a p- um, the pursuit of trying to get to stability-

   30. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski53:13

       Yeah.
6. 1:00:48 – 1:03:18

   Your relationship with money as a billionaire

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:48

      you very wealthy. And it's something... Wealth beyond probably you ever imagined-

   2. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:00:52

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:52

      ... don't, I don't even... How ambitious you were. But, um, what role does that, that play now in your life in terms of, uh, your relationship with money? It was thing that, as you say, you thought might have been liberation from a lot of pain and heartache, and what role does, does the financial, um, side of it, success come in your life?

   4. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:01:09

      I think it's an interesting topic and, and, you know, I've been asked sometimes, like, the classic question, like, "Does money make you happy," right? And, and, you know, I, I, I understand why some people try to say, "No, it doesn't."

   5. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:22

      Mm.

   6. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:01:22

      Because to some degree, like, you're the same person even if you have a different income level and wealth-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:28

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:01:28

      ... than you used to have. So you're the same person. You still get angry at things and sad at things, you know, still things happens. You, you lose a relative or something happens in your life, you know, you go up and down. So from s- from one perspective, I can understand why people... But I've stopped saying that because I actually think that it's slightly out of touch. I mean, there are elements in my life I don't have to worry about. Like, I mean, I can still remember the feeling of like, you know, I used to go into 7-Eleven and I would be like, "Oh, I would just love to have orange juice but I can't afford it," or, "I would just love to have a Snickers," or I would just like, like... And I remember the day coming in, into 7-Eleven like, "It doesn't matter. I can buy whatever I like in this store. It will have no impact." And that is the difference. And I, I just, you know, I think it's a little bit like out of touch to say that that doesn't impact you. I don't have to worry. I never worry about finances. Like, it's all taken care of, right?

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:21

      Mm.

   10. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:21

       And that obviously creates a different life.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:24

       Mm.

   12. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:24

       It gives you a different thing. Then I'm not a big... Like I'm, I, I don't like have 10 cars or anything like that. I'm not a big interested in cars. Like I don't-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:31

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:31

       Like say, I'm not necessarily the person I... I have a couple of things. Like I have, for example, my... I'm very, very proud that I bought a Steinway piano that is self-playing.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:40

       Oh, perfect. (laughs)

   16. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:40

       Yeah, so you, you actually have this like app, like Spotify, and you can go in and select-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:44

       Perfect. And you can sit there, do the video, and pretend like you're playing-

   18. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:45

       Yeah, exactly.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:46

       (laughs)

   20. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:46

       Pretend that I have learned to play piano as well. So, like, I have some, like, luxuries that I've really-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:51

       Yeah.

   22. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:02:51

       ... afforded myself that I think... And we have a beautiful house and, and, and things like that. But, but it, you know, but I still think that like the, the key thing is I don't worry about it, and I know that most people, and I remember myself worrying about it-

   23. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:03

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:03:03

       ... right? Worrying about next month, end of, you know, end of these things and, and that is the difference in life obviously, right? So that has changed.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:11

       I read something which was, um, was quite difficult to read actually-

   26. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:03:14

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:14

       ... which was about your father-

   28. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:03:15

       Mm-hmm.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:15

       ... and his response to your success.

   30. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:03:17

       Yeah.
7. 1:03:18 – 1:10:04

   The death of your father

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:18

      being, not being particularly proud necessarily of your success.

   2. SSSebastian Siemiatkowski1:03:22

      Yeah. But that also comes back to alcoholics, like, because... So what ended up happening in my, uh, my life, right, is that, uh, my grandpa unfortunately drank himself to death and then when I was growing up, my father was very conservative and I never saw alcohol in our house and h- he barely had a bad glass of wine. And unfortunately, that started changing in my like teens. So I started discovering bottles of vodka at home and so forth and then over time, uh, there were instances where I would come home and Dad would be quite drunk and, and act in a very irra- irrational way and he became more aggressive and, and so forth. And, and, and this was at a point of time where I was still out partying and drinking and so forth and it was interesting because at that point of time as... And that just tells you about, you know, the problems of alcohol, uh, um, addiction. I never reflected that maybe I have a problem as well. All right, that was like out of f... Ah, of course not. Like, it was my father who had an issue, right? And, but he unfortunately found himself in a spiral in his life where... And I think it's almost like people find themselves in a positive spiral or negative spiral. The positive spiral is like, "You know what? I can actually affect my own life and now I'm gonna try it a little bit. Ooh, things got better. You know what? I can maybe do even more. I can do even more." And then some people are on that positive spiral. While other peoples find themselves in the negative spiral where it's like, "I have found myself in this. It's not my fault. It's everything else's fault," and then, you know, things get even worse and they look... And they just found themselves in a very negative spiral. And obviously I'm simplifying. People are different in all these situations but there's something there. And, and Dad found himself in that spiral where it was everyone, everyone else. And alcohol tends to extrapolate that and make it even stronger that you, you basically blame everything else and you take not, don't take the responsibility. That's the beginning of the 12 steps of the Anonymous Alcoholics is actually to take responsibility for your own actions. And so unfortunately, and it, it, it, it went as far as, as, um, you know, he, he lost his job, he, he lost his apartment and, uh, and I found myself in a very tricky situation because at same point of time, my economical situation was improving heavily and I was trying to figure out what, what do I do now because he could call me and he would ask for money and I would be like, "Well, of course I want to help my father." And so I would help him and then if I did, I, I didn't hear from him for a couple of days and then he would call me super drunk or text me something very, you know, nasty. And so it was very difficult because... And then I started seeing counselors and understanding that like maybe actually in this situation I needed to put like limits, you know, and, and ask him to not, um, uh, to, to say, "Look, I'm not gonna do this unless, you know, you do this," and stuff like that, which was kind of the right way to deal with it but very, very obviously tricky. And unfortunately in my situation it didn't, uh, it didn't work, so at the end, there was a situation where, you know, um, he was, um, uh, he was about to lose his apartment and he'd had a discussion with me and I was very like ambiguous. Should I help him? Should I not help him or not? And, um, and then I was... It was an evening in, in the office and suddenly I see my phone's phone number, he's calling me on the phone.... and I was like, "Oh, I don't know yet what the right answer is. Should I help him or no? What should I do? It's difficult." So I was like, "I'm gonna call him later." So I didn't answer the phone. I went home, I had dinner with my wife, and we talked about it, and then I was like, "No, this time around I should probably help him," uh, I decided, and I tried to call him, and he didn't answer, and I emailed, he didn't answer, and I was like, "Okay, fine. Maybe he just, you know, whatever." And then in the morning my mother called and said he was dead, right? So it was a... So that was like a very, very, obviously dramatic moment in my life, and very difficult, like, uh, you know, from that perspective. So, um, he, he was so smart. He was so thoughtful. He had gone to... At the, the places we had worked, he had tried to do things better and so forth, but he had been in normal places where if, you know... I remember him working for the municipality, for example, and he integ- you know, like, he created some Excel systems that would rationalize everybody's work, and nobody wanted to rationalize their work because that meant that they would have less to do (laughs) and then maybe somebody would lost their jobs.

Episode duration: 1:17:33