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

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 0:00 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.

Steven Bartlett 0:45 (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

Steven Bartlett 2:06 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.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 2:16 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:16 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?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 2:34 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) .

Steven Bartlett 2:41 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 2:41 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)

Steven Bartlett 2:55 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 2:55 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.

Steven Bartlett 3:19 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 3:19 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!"

Steven Bartlett 4:20 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 4:20 (laughs) And then you're gonna like, try to fix that somehow.

Steven Bartlett 4:23 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 4:24 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) .

Steven Bartlett 4:45 Necessitative.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 4:46 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?

Steven Bartlett 5:16 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 5:16 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?

Steven Bartlett 6:13 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:14 So-

Steven Bartlett 6:14 And that feels like a tremendous privilege. I-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:16 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 6:16 I wanted to ask you, um, 'cause I, I can relate a lot to that. I'm an immigrant myself.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:20 Came from, born in, you know, Africa, in Botswana.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:23 And my parents came over here. My mom can't read or write, and-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:25 Fantastic country, by the way.

Steven Bartlett 6:26 Yeah, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful place.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:28 Um, but I moved to the southwest of the UK, where-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:30 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:31 ... I was in an all-white school of 1,500 white kids-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:33 ... and it was, was me. And I c- and we were also, like, the poorest people in a middle-class area.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:39 Right.

Steven Bartlett 6:39 So you had, y- y- I felt different all the time.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:42 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 6:43 And, um, did you feel that way? Did you feel-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 6:44 Yeah, absolutely. Very much so. I mean, um, even the fact that we were Catholics. Now, I'm not a very religious person today necessarily, but we were Catholics. And my, you know, my parents, we went to, to, uh, to church every Sunday and stuff like that in a very non-religious society like Sweden, that was in itself very odd. Uh, and I remember people, like, saying, you know, Jesus wasn't, you know, the son of God and stuff like that, which at that point in time, now today I wouldn't necessarily...

Steven Bartlett 7:09 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 7:09 (laughs) But g- coming to that, to be, but at that point in time, it was like, you know, somebody was like, you know, saying things like that. And then also the Poli, like, the, the view of Poland at that time was that there was this country behind the Iron Curtain that was spewing out, you know, uh, toxic waste into the Baltic. And so there was a lot of like, you know, Polish and jokes about Polish people and stuff like that. So I mean, all of this, like, I took hard. I wouldn't say I was bullied. That would be, in my opinion, to take it too far, because people, I know people that have been bullied for real, and I don't, I don't think I was. But there was like that, you know, the sense of being different, of not necessarily, um, you know, both not having the same prerequisites, but also getting some, like, uh, kind of like sometimes getting quite a hard time over these things, right?

Steven Bartlett 7:50 And when you were a kid, 'cause, 'cause I know I did, I developed a very naive thesis as to how I would escape this scenario.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 7:56 Oh, what was that?

Steven Bartlett 7:57 Money... (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 7:58 (laughs) Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:58 ... and success.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 7:59 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 8:00 Because it was the pain in my household, the lack of-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 8:02 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 8:02 ... so I thought, "Well, that will fix it."

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 8:03 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 8:03 Did you develop your own thesis of how to?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 8:05 No, I, I think yes, very similar to yours, right, because also what happened in my, my, uh, in my life was that my parents divorced when I was about eight years old, right? Um, and so, and they had a lot of conflicts, right? O- on different topics. And, and I think to your point, like, as a child, an interpretation of the reason for that conflicts was the lack of money. Like, because that was what they were talking about all the time, you were hearing that. Now, I do today probably have a slightly different view of whether that was the only (laughs) explanation for their inability to, you know-

Steven Bartlett 8:34 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 8:35 ... to be a couple and, and, and be together. But, but at that point in time, I agree with you, that was like one of my interpretations, was like, yes, it would be nice to, um, to have, you know, monetary success in life, and that would solve some of these problems. For sure.

Steven Bartlett 8:47 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 8:47 For sure. I do agree with that. But, but I also in, at least in, in my life, there was, in addition to that, something else, which I cannot really explain, which was that I was always, I was always intrigued and then like thought it was interesting to kind of do business. Like, I, it's very nerdy and I c- I can't explain it. Like, I remember reading, like, Richard Branson's book when I was like 13 years old, like, and I think it was like super interesting. Or the founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, who was a big, big thing in Sweden obviously, because he's a Swedish guy.

Steven Bartlett 9:14 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 9:14 So, like, I remember reading up on these stories, and I also remember, like, trying to start businesses very early. So I had like, I, I did a lot of different things in, like, trying to start. It was everything from like gathering some of my friends and we would go to the apartments where we were living, uh, the kind of the, the story buildings. There was this bus stop where all the people were coming, and we would go there and like offer us to carry, you know, groceries and stuff like that for-

Steven Bartlett 9:35 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 9:35 ... return from, and like all that kind of stuff, like just finding different ways of like, you know, trying to do things, so.

Steven Bartlett 9:40 Th- is there, there's something in, really intriguing about that in my mind, because, um, as, as you've highlighted, immigrants tend to be more entrepreneurial generally, um, and in the situation you're brought up in, and I reflect on my own situation, because of the circumstance, I had made this connection that if I was to have anything or become anything, it would be a direct consequence of my own actions.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:01 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:01 And then I think maybe entrepreneurship appealed to me because it was, I knew I wasn't gonna do great in the conventional route, but then this b- it was this really nice route to potentially huge success.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:12 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:13 Um, um, and it was all kind of centered on what I did.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:18 It was b- gonna be me.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:19 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:20 And I think, you know, from hearing about the, the scenario you were in with your parents and your upbringing and being an immigrant, entrepreneurship, uh, was something that maybe you could control, if, if that makes sense.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:29 No, but I think you, I think you're right in the sense that like I think definitely in that environment and growing up in that setting, you know that like there's nobody who's gonna help you. Like, there's nothing, you're not gonna get anything from anyone, right? It's just gonna be-

Steven Bartlett 10:41 Hm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:41 ... either you do it or it doesn't happen. Those are the two options.

Steven Bartlett 10:44 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:44 Like, it doesn't happen or you do it yourself. Like, those are the options.

Steven Bartlett 10:46 Okay.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:47 I think, uh, if I look at my own kids, there's a lot of things that happens in their lives that (laughs) fit into a third category, it happens because dad and mom helped out and you know, whatever.

Steven Bartlett 10:54 (laughs) Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 10:55 (laughs) There's a lot of other things that happens. Uh, but here it was like, you know, if I wanna have an adventure, if I wanna go and see the other part of the city, I bike there. I have to go there myself. Nobody's gonna drive me. Like, you know, there's like...

Steven Bartlett 11:05 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 11:05 And I do think that there's some, some lack of like healthiness to that as well, right, where it's like it, it, it kind of educates you, and I haven't thought about it, but now as you're saying it, I actually kind of thought about it, that, that it does help you. But I would also say on the immigrant side, what you said, like, they are more commonly among, um, entrepreneurs. But I also think that like when I look at like, you know, when we have problems in neighborhoods with a lot of immigrants and so forth, I think that, uh, to me it's almost like I wish that society would realize that like there's gonna be a lot of frustration, a lot of people with like, you know, energy, they want something different, they want something, a change, they don't want things to be the way they are.

Steven Bartlett 11:42 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 11:42 That's kind of where you're coming from. And then it's just society's ability to try to showcase that that energy-... can be used to become Zlatan Ibrahimović. It can be used to become, you know, a music artist. It can be used to become an entrepreneur. It... That energy. Or, if we fail to offer those opportunities or showcase that, those alternatives, they may come out as burning cars-

Steven Bartlett 12:05 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:05 (laughs) And doing other things that are less-

Steven Bartlett 12:06 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:07 ... less, you know, less productive, right?

Steven Bartlett 12:09 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:09 So I think it's, uh, really that, you know, to me, today, I would just, like, wish that society would really see it as, like, how do we help showcase and show that there are these great options for that, like, build up energy of wanting something to be different, right?

Steven Bartlett 12:23 And for that, you need a sort of great empathy and to understand that-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 12:26 ... people are different shapes and sizes.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 12:28 And that kind of brings me nicely to the, the education system-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:31 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 12:31 ... and your, your personal experience with the education system. And do you think it, uh, did... It served you well or did it fail you, or?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 12:36 Well, I think it did... One thing that, to your point which you were describing as well in your own history, is that I, I... One thing that I do worry for today, compared to me, was that I was in a school with mixed. I would still say 70, 80% were Swedish, 20% at that point of time were... Had different immigrant backgrounds. If they would have been only immigrants in there, I would not have anything to compare to, right?

Steven Bartlett 13:00 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 13:00 So I do think that the school system at that point of time was less segregated than it is currently, at least in Sweden. I'm not that familiar with the UK current situation. But I think that was, that was a case. So in that case... Now, were the teachers that amazing and like (laughs) , you know, like, pfft... You know, there was a mix. Like some were good, some were bad, right?

Steven Bartlett 13:18 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 13:19 Um, so... And I remember like, you know, I, I was one of the kids who had very easy at school. I learned to read quickly and, and so forth, right? And I believe to some degree, then I became slightly bored because, uh... The, the Swedish school system at that point of time was very much set up as like everyone equals. So if you were like ahead in math or ahead in reading or whatever, I, I, I literally still remember from like, you know, second grade, which is eight years old in Sweden, when you're eight years old, you know. Um, we were having like reading, which meant that everyone was reading from a book. And like some kids, unfortunately for them, like they were still struggling reader, right? And I had already read the whole book, so I was quite bored sitting there listening to the story that I had already read, and then I started disturbing the lesson 'cause that was kind of the lesson.

Steven Bartlett 14:03 That's very interesting.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:04 So I became, I became a person that was quite problematic for the teachers (laughs) 'cause I was just like, I was so under stimulated. And that, I think, is a little bit sad, that I hope that like schooling has become better in like, you know, actually, you know, understanding that all pupils are different and need different support and, you know, can get a different challenge 'cause you all need to have like a continuous challenge, right?

Steven Bartlett 14:21 And those, that lesson there you learned about that need for challenge.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:24 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 14:25 You're now the headmaster of a-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:27 Great.

Steven Bartlett 14:28 ... school that has thousands and thousands of employees in it.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:30 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 14:30 And that, that point about making sure that the people that attend your institution are also-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:35 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 14:35 ... challenged must, must, uh, still sort of be important to you, right?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 14:39 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.

Steven Bartlett 16:15 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 16:15 Then like the number of people that like check the box and say, "I wanna do that," becomes massively smaller, right?

Steven Bartlett 16:20 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 16:21 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-

Steven Bartlett 16:33 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 16:33 ... that, that re... That, that means that you need to do in order to be able to accomplish that, right?

Steven Bartlett 16:38 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 16:38 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-

Steven Bartlett 16:56 What's the perfect balance of challenge between being too challenged that they, you know (laughs) -

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 17:00 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:00 (laughs) ... they end up in... (laughs) They burnt out or something?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 17:02 Right. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:03 Or under-challenged that they lose motivation like you did as a kid reading the book?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 17:05 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-

Steven Bartlett 17:29 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 17:29 ... (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."

Steven Bartlett 24:21 Yeah. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 24:22 Like, like, like, it's not gonna work. So like-

Steven Bartlett 24:24 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 24:24 ... 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.

Steven Bartlett 24:28 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 24:28 Like, cra- ... So there is obviously some selection criteria we have to decide within our ecosystem, within our company, these are the rules that will apply, and because we just feel that they're so fundamental and so important. But once you're beyond that level, then it's more like, how do I intrigue you? How do I challenge you to develop that insight for yourself?

Steven Bartlett 24:48 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 24:48 So that you really come to embrace those ways of working and really make them your own and really expedite them. I think ... And I haven't solved all of this, to be very, you know, honest. I think we have lots to learn still with Klarna, but I think that, that just, uh, is a very interesting-

Steven Bartlett 25:03 About it.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:03 ... intake. Sorry, it was a long answer, but-

Steven Bartlett 25:05 No, it was amazing.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:06 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:06 It was really, really thought-provoking, and I was, I was thinking, yeah, I th- I don't think a lot of people would have given that answer. But I, I feel it's the, the right one for so many reasons.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:12 Especially as it relates to the process of learning. I think the things that I was most successful at in all facets of my life were things that started with, with interest.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:19 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:19 And the things that I had an allergic reaction to in terms of topics-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:23 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:23 ... in school-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:24 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:24 ... were the things that there wasn't that fundamental curiosity.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:26 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 25:26 So I was kicked out of school.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 25:28 But in ... If you look at business and psychology, like I was, I would have gone to more lessons.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:33 I was 30% attendance in these other subjects.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:35 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:35 And that's, and that's so true. So it's, um, it, it provides a different way to, I think-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:40 A- and I would say one more thing on your p- specific, like, work-from-home thing, which is also another thing to take into consideration, is that what ends up happening ... And this is not a problem when you're 10, 20 people in a startup. But when you start becoming 4,000 people, the, what, what ends up happening is you have obviously, um ... Unfortunately, that's the only way to describe it. Layers of management, and then you have the people actually doing it, and that's just how-

Steven Bartlett 25:59 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 25:59 ... most organizations are, are structured. But what ends up happening is, "Okay, how are we gonna do this work from home? What are the rules that are gonna be set?" And there's a tendency for people to go and say, "Management team, the top people, have to tell us what the rules are." And if you write those rules, the problem is like ... Look at Klarna. We're active in like 40 offices across, you know, 20 countries.

Steven Bartlett 26:21 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 26:21 Each one which will be in a different phase of COVID or not-

Steven Bartlett 26:24 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 26:24 ... and stuff like that, right? So try to write a rule that is applicable for each team. And then you're gonna have individuals. Maybe some individuals have immune diseases and are extremely wary about, you know, moving into that environment, are more careful than others. Maybe you're gonna have like, you know, some people that have religious concerns somehow tied to this. You know, the ... You're gonna have a flora, because you have so many people, you have so many different individuals with different perspectives. So what you then sometimes need to do, in my opinion, is you need to say, "Look, you will decide for yourselves." And what then ends up happening is the, uh ... In my opinion, what happens is that the people actually doing the work, they usually find that quite attractive that they can take that decision. So the managers of those people, they may find it more difficult, because to them it's nicer that the top management team has written a policy-

Steven Bartlett 27:10 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 27:10 ... and they can say like, "This is the rules." "But why? Why these rules?"

Steven Bartlett 27:15 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 27:15 "Because it was said so." Right? And so then they can hide behind that, right? And if you don't allow them to hide behind that, they will actually have to motivate, "Why are we gonna do like this? We've decided in this team that we're gonna work in office, so we're gonna do this." And that forces them to do that, which is good for them. They need to do that.

Steven Bartlett 27:32 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 27:32 They need to provoke that. But there's always a risk when you write too strict rules on the top, is that they're being used, and then there's just, "Management said so." And that is just so bad for the culture and everything.

Steven Bartlett 27:42 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 27:42 You wanna provoke an environment where people feel like the rules are there, they were well-intent, they had a good purpose, but they also need to be challenged if, if they, on a specific individual and a specific situation, do not apply. There needs to be a mechanism where those rules comes back and say, "Let's ... What if we were in this?" And in the end, rules can never be an excuse for not thinking for yourself, right?

Steven Bartlett 28:02 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:02 That, that never happens. There always have to be ... There's gonna be exceptions in a large company. There has to be exceptions, 'cause those are healthy signs of the fact that people are thinking for themselves and judging by themselves, and not just hiding behind the rule set.

Steven Bartlett 28:14 I always reflect on the, um ... That, that made me reflect then on the example of the ... Uh, someone told me a certain country, I think it might be Germany, where pilots were having a huge amount of crashes.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:24 And it was because the, the culture was you don't challenge the pilot.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:27 So even when the co-pilot knew there was-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:29 I think it was South Korea, actually.

Steven Bartlett 28:30 Was it South Korea?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:31 Yeah, yeah, I think it was, yeah. The planes were crashing-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:33 ... but because the, (laughs) the co-pilot didn't feel like a challenge. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 28:35 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 28:35 And I think that's a, and that's sort of a- an analogous to what you were saying there. (page turns) I talk about Huel a lot in this podcast because of the transformative impact it's had on my life. Um, but there is such thing as the Huel bug. And the reason I started my Huel journey and became a Hueligan, as they call it, was because of a guy called Mike in my office back at Social Chain, who would evangelize about it all the time. And then once I tried it one day, and I saw the impact it had on me, I became the same type of evangelist. And even here at the Diary of a CEO studios, we have now three people that are stood currently in this room with me that have caught the Huel bug. Dominic Murray, Jack Silvester, and my assistant, Sophie Chapman. They're all now working out, and they're all addicted. I- I think addicted is a strong word. Um, they're all heavily reliant on Huel to plug that gap in their diet and their lifestyle that, um, a busy lifestyle and, uh, convenience food options sometimes create. So, I want as many people listening to this to try Huel. And if you catch the Huel bug, then I genuinely believe it'll change your life. (page turns) I, I have to go back and, and, and hear about the start of, of Klarna.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 29:39 'Cause, you know,

Steven Bartlett 29:40 one of the things that really intrigued me, and made me feel a lot of respect towards you, was that you're not technical-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:45 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 29:45 ... as a co-founder.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:46 Unfortunately, no. So you-

Steven Bartlett 29:47 So you built this mega tech company, but you're not technical. And I know-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:50 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:50 ... I tried (laughs) when I was 18.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:52 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:52 That, that was my first failure. Um, but I found that really just horrifying and (laughs) respectful.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 29:57 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:57 So tell me, so how did it start? And, um, and, and where did you find the courage? (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 30:01 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)

Steven Bartlett 30:25 At 13?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 30:25 Yeah, at 13. Like, I can imagine they were, like, laughing their guts off.

Steven Bartlett 30:28 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 30:28 Like, this 13 years old is calling us, like, "You should do this programming instead. You should have a show about this and that."

Steven Bartlett 30:33 I bet they're gutted now. I bet they-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 30:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 30:37 ... should have listened. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 30:37 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%.

Steven Bartlett 31:04 Wow.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:04 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.

Steven Bartlett 31:33 Oh really?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:33 Yeah, yeah, you can find it.

Steven Bartlett 31:34 You're really confident 'cause you're a YouTuber.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:35 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-

Steven Bartlett 31:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:40 ... 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.

Steven Bartlett 31:49 I need to ask you one question about that.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:50 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 31:51 How did you get to Australia without flying?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:53 Um, yeah, so you had to, um... We took a, a cargo ship from Singapore to Brisbane.

Steven Bartlett 31:57 Ah, okay.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 31:58 And then we had a cargo ship from Sydney over New Zealand up to Mexico. So that's how we did it.

Steven Bartlett 32:04 Wow.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 32:04 And then we actually took the QE2, the Queen Elizabeth II, uh, between New York and, um, and Southampton. So, so that was kind of, we did the, the... Those were the expensive parts of the trip. I mean, we, we did it on an extremely low budget. I think we, the... On average, we spent like $10 a day. Like, we spent... You know, we were sleeping in the streets. I actually slept on Piccadilly Circus on the street, uh, when we were in London at night. And, um, where we're passing through London, and then I went, we went to Hyde Park when, when the sun had risen and, and slept.

Steven Bartlett 32:30 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 32:30 Because you don't sleep really well on Piccadilly Circus at, uh, at 4:00 AM, I tell you.

Steven Bartlett 32:33 (laughs) Okay.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 32:34 So, like, uh, you can imagine how, you know, the vibe there at that point in time.

Steven Bartlett 32:37 Wow.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 32:38 Um, but anyways, so we came back, and then I missed to start my semester. And so instead, I was, like, on this second sabbatical year that I hadn't expected. And it was 2003, and I was looking for a job in my home city of Uppsala, and I couldn't get a job. I was actually on welfare for a time because I just couldn't get any job. It was l- it was a low economy, it was very hard. Eventually, I ended up working at this account receivables factoring firm, which was, like, the last place in the world I ever thought, as a sales guy.

Steven Bartlett 33:05 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 33:06 And, and I was like, "Okay, but now I'm here, I'm gonna do the most out of this, right?" So I started calling and trying to sell these services. And then I... It was very difficult to sell such services to companies because they're all like, "Yeah, you can save me 400 pounds a year, but I don't really care because we worked with this other company for 15 years, and they're great and whatever." But then I started talking to entrepreneurs, and these entrepreneurs were starting small e-commerce companies, because some of them had figured out at that point of time, you could buy Google AdWords super cheap because no one was buying them.

Steven Bartlett 33:30 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 33:31 And then you can get some traffic, and you can sell some stuff. And like, it was, like it was all kinds of stuff, right?

Steven Bartlett 33:35 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 33:35 So you start talking to them, and they were really keen, like, "Oh, I can save 400 pounds a month, a year? That's awesome. I'm gonna work with you guys." So then I started, like, thinking about payment services, and I was asking them, "What are your problems? What are the things that you would like to be solved?" So that was kind of where the idea came from. But then a year had passed, and I wanted to go back to school. So I came back to the Stockholm School of Economics to start my third year. I left my job, and, um... But there was an incubator at the school. And it was very early. At this point of time, now everyone has an incubator.

Steven Bartlett 34:01 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:01 But at that point in time, it wasn't that common. So I went to the CEO of the incubator, and I said, "Hey, you know, I have this idea. It's kind of payments offering buy now, pay later services. It would look like this." And you know, whatever. And she was like, "This is awesome. You have to do this." And when she said so, I was a little bit like, "Now I can't just, like, give up on this." You know? So, so I was kind of looking around, and then I stumbled into one old friend of mine, Victor, uh, who I knew a little bit, and he was like... Because I was sitting in the cafeteria of the school, and I was telling some friends like, "I wanna do this company that's gonna do this." And everyone was like, "Yeah, good luck to you, man." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 34:34 Kind of like patronizing? Did-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:35 Yes!

Steven Bartlett 34:35 ... was it condescending?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:36 Patronizing and like-

Steven Bartlett 34:37 That kind of like fake support?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:38 "You do that, and I'm gonna go to Morgan Stanley and make all my bonuses."

Steven Bartlett 34:40 Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:41 Like that's like... Th- that was like kind of the, the, the perception. So, so it's kind of... But Victor then was the only one who was like, "Wow, that's awesome. I'm with you if you do it," right?

Steven Bartlett 34:47 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 34:47 So I was like, "Okay, that's cool. Let's do it together." We didn't know each other that well. And I had Nicholas, who was an old friend of mine who I did the trip around the world with. So, so we kind of joined forces. But then... But it was still like a huge decision to us. Like, starting a company at that point in time felt like, wow, crazy. Are we giving up on careers? What's going to happen, you know? So it was only when we came to the conclusion, we were like, "Okay, you know what? Let's not think about this as a lifelong decision. Let's think about this as a six-month decision." I often tell this to people today. Like, we said, like, "We're gonna do this for six months. But if we do it for six months, we're gonna do like... All of our energy, all of our time is gonna be this for the next six months." So we even had like a rule. We had to eat breakfast in the office. We had to be there. We were counting the hours, whoever everyone else was there, so it's fair. So we were like... We were living in the office for the first six months, and we were just like focused on that and nothing else. And, and but it was when we decided it was going to be a six months and then we're going to evaluate, then we kind of was easier to take a decision because you're like, "Six months, whatever, that's fine." Right? Um, so, so we got off. Uh, and then what we did, uh, we realized that we couldn't code, to your point, right? We couldn't code. We needed a system, right? So we're like, "How are we gonna solve that?" So are we gonna raise money, try to pay some engineers and hire them? What are we gonna do? And eventually, we ended up... The, the incubator we were in, they had this, um, like Christmas drinks thing.... uh, where they invited some business angels, and they invited the companies that were in the incubator to pitch. And so Nick, that's my co-founder, did a, like a 30-second pitch, and after that, a woman called Jane Vollerud, uh, kind of approached us and, and, and she was like, you know, she almost like pushed me off to a corner. She's like, "This is awesome. Tell me what you're gonna do." She was like, she just heard that pitch and she was like, "I like this business idea." And she tell us, "Look, I have these engineers, and they're like the best engineers. This amazing." 'Cause she had actually done one of the few really successful exits during dot-com era-

Steven Bartlett 36:37 Right.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 36:37 ... where they had sold the company for 150 million pounds. Um, and so she had money from that, and she had the engineering team from that. So she said, "I'm gonna connect you with those guys." And so we sat down with those engineering guys, and they were much more senior than us. They were like in their 40s, and, you know, we were 20s. And, and there, unfortunately, a misunderstanding arose, right? Where our understanding was that these five engineers, or four engineers they really were, they were gonna join us full-time and work on this, and continue developing the company with us, right? Their understanding was they were gonna give us some source code, some code, and a system that works, and then they're off and doing something else. And so, (laughs) but, you know, as it is, and I now try to tell other founders this today, like, if you find friends and you wanna start a company together, don't only talk about all the amazing stuff you're gonna do and everything you're gonna accomplish.

Steven Bartlett 37:28 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 37:28 Also sit down and ask, like, "How many hours per week are you gonna spend on this?" Versus because you love exercising and you love, you know, hanging out with your friends and so forth, just so like, not that, you know, you can do it on 30 hours a week or you could do it on 80, but just so you're aligned.

Steven Bartlett 37:43 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 37:43 It can't be too big disalignments. It can be one person doing 30, another one doing 80. Make it super concrete exactly what expectations you have on each other, because otherwise there's just such a big risk of, like, misalignment and conflict.

Steven Bartlett 37:53 Resentment comes quickly, doesn't it?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 37:55 Right. So then what we did, so we, we brought those engineers on board, and they started coding, and they were excellent. They were amazing engineers. So they started coding the system in December. In, in April, four months later, we launched with the first customer. So it's four months, and they put together a lot of the fundamentals that actually still, you know, today are part of what Klarna offers as a service. So there was

Steven Bartlett 38:16 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 38:16 ... a grout, but then, you know, after that, they were like, "Good luck, guys. See you later." And we were like, "No, no, that's not what we agreed." And then we looked into the contract, and we had given off 37% of the company to them for the technology. Uh, and then we had given 10% to Jane, uh, as a business angel, but she gave us 60,000 pounds, right?

Steven Bartlett 38:37 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 38:38 And so, um, and then so each one of us then had equal. So we had 17% each.

Steven Bartlett 38:43 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 38:43 Um, and so that was kind of the setup after that. And then we had basically given away now all these percentages to these engineers, and they just left us. And so that became a quite tough conflict, obviously. But legally speaking, they had followed the contract, so there was nothing for us to go into contracts and say, you know, whatever. 'Cause the contract was, we just, we, we just had hadn't talked about this, and we were under different assumptions of what it meant. The contract was just there. Like, we didn't think about, you know, this consequence. So they ended up leaving us, and it was kind of funny because in that room at one point of time, uh, in the boardroom, one person said, "Well, you know what? Just so you know, Sebastian, you have to calm down on this topic. Klarna is never gonna be the size of a company where it's gonna need four great engineers like this." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 39:26 Christ.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:27 It's kind of funny. I always laugh at that.

Steven Bartlett 39:28 Famous last words.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:28 Yeah. It's kinda funny now as I think back about it.

Steven Bartlett 39:31 Did you ever resolve that?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:32 Sorry?

Steven Bartlett 39:32 Did you ever buy, buy them, buy it, buy them out or-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:35 No. So what ended up happening is, to some degree, I think, just because they didn't understand the potential of what they had built together with us, they also sold much too early. So as a consequence, I mean, they sold at a very early day where maybe the company was $10 million worth or something.

Steven Bartlett 39:49 Oh, God. That's awful.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:50 So, yeah. So, so I mean, I mean, well, it's not awful in a sense, 'cause to me it feels a bit fair.

Steven Bartlett 39:54 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:54 'Cause they got the upside of what they did.

Steven Bartlett 39:56 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:56 If they would have participated longer and so forth, they would have seen a very different upside.

Steven Bartlett 39:59 True.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 39:59 And they would have built the company with us, but, you know. But this was a challenge for us as a consequence, to your point, because at least what it allowed us to do is very quickly get a system live and get something going.

Steven Bartlett 40:08 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:08 But then as they left, I needed to figure out, "Okay, I need to hire engineers, and I have no clue how to code, and how do I evaluate a good engineer from a bad engineer? I have no clue in, like, architecture? What is that?"

Steven Bartlett 40:21 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:21 You know, like, there was, like, zero knowledge, right? So you... And that is one of the biggest challenge, I think, for a lot of people. Like, managing people that do the same thing that you know yourself is one thing. Trying to manage somebody that does something that you have no clue how to do is very, very difficult.

Steven Bartlett 40:36 How did you... I was in the same place. I was, I knew I needed to build a website, not technical, went on Google, just started looking at their own websites-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:42 Right.

Steven Bartlett 40:42 (laughs) Trying, using that as a, yeah, this, this is cool. This animation looks good.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:46 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 40:46 (laughs) I will hire them to build my-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:48 Right, right.

Steven Bartlett 40:48 You know. So how did you solve that problem of not knowing what good looks like?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 40:51 Well, first and foremost, I think, unfortunately, um, you know, in... What ended up happening in our situation was that, um, one of the guys from this engineering team stayed on because they were still shareholders for a period of time, right? So he stayed on as an advisor. And we started hiring some engineers, and some of which were better, some which were worse, some, you know, as you will always have a mix. And we also got a CTO eventually who came in. Um, and the C, he, he as the CTO was an amazing programmer and developer, but he wasn't necessarily the CTO that would, you know, hire the right talent-

Steven Bartlett 41:28 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 41:28 ... build it. He wasn't business oriented. He was very much, like, technically interested and wanted to build, like, really beautiful code bases and stuff like that-

Steven Bartlett 41:36 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 41:37 ... which, you know, some engineers tend to have more of that tendencies. And what was the frustration to me is that for a long period of time, uh, and this was a challenge in Sweden, in Stockholm at that point in time, the advisors that we had around us, uh, none of them had built a $45 billion company like we are in there today. None of them had that experience. But they were senior in our opinion. Compared to myself, they had done great corporate big jobs. We had, like, you know, advisors and board members that had corporate backgrounds, and been in big institutions, and, and so forth.And so they were giving us a lot of advice on topics like, "Is this ... The system that you're building, is this fast enough? Should you be able to build it faster or slower?" Like, the progress and things. And so when they were giving us that advice, it was bad advice. But we were too young and too inexperienced to be able to recognize that. And so unfortunately, it took us some time, and it created a lot of frustration, because I was always sitting there, I was like, "Does, does it really need to take this long time to build something?" Like, and is it really unfair of me to expect that the engineers are, like, a little bit interested in the product they're building as well and the business side of it? Or are they only and always gonna be interested in the coding itself and the technical challenge? Like, uh, shouldn't I be able to engage with them on the product side as well? Like, and, and a lot of times, we were like, they were like, "Oh, we wanna build this product. You need to give us more clear specifications." And I was like, "But if I write those specifications, what's left to do?" Like, that's part of the creative process is to sit together and create these. So, you know, you're getting stuck in a lot of these things. And then, and then eventually, I remember I was very frustrated because, uh, one day, when Sequoia invested, and that was why Sequoia was so important to us, because in 2009, we got Sequoia to invest in the company. Michael Morris joined our board. And one of the ambitions we had with that was to get, get a, some kind of contact point to somebody that had actually seen large tech companies grow, had seen real success of a tech company, and start understanding their mindset. And at that point of time, I unfortunately concluded that, like, it was not gonna work with our CTO because he didn't have that right mindset for it, and he was interested in something very different. He's a great guy in many ways, but he wasn't the person that would be able to allow us to build our engineering organization and, and bring us to become a true tech company and be really technology-driven. And, and I remember going to the board eventually and saying, like ... And, and, and at that point of time, uh, the representative of the engineers that built the original system, who was on my board, he had been telling me all, over and over again, like ... I was like, "I'm a little bit worried. Should it really be this slow?" And he was like, "Yeah, you know, it's different. There's this and that." And then eventually, I came to him one day and said, "Look, now I've made a decision. Unfortunately, I have to change the CTO." And he was like, "Good decision." And I was like, I almost wanted to smack him in the face.

Steven Bartlett 44:17 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 44:17 I was like, "For four years, you were telling me that this is okay. And now you're- I'm doing this change, and you're saying good decision." Like, that's not f- like, you should've said, "You're wrong." That would have been respecting him more, right? So there was, in that setting we were coming up for, there was a l- i- it really nowadays, I appreciate much more, like, how I have to really look through a person to ask myself, "Is this a believable person? Is this somebody I should really take advice from?" And I think a lot of entrepreneurs that will listen to this and startup people, 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? (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 44:52 Oh, gotcha.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 44:52 Like, those are very different, different aspects, right? So being very careful about who you get advice from. So, but that, that's kind of how we solved it. So it was just like, we had to learn and test. And then the last piece of very practical advice that we did, which was one of the best things I ever did, was, because I was so mixed up, like engineering, whatever, what does it mean? And then I said to my CTO, a very practical thing, I was like, "Hey, can you show me how you fix a bug?" And so we sat down together by his screen. And he basically took one bug that we had, and he started searching in the code. And then he wrote, you know, the fix, and then he wrote a test case for the fix. And just sitting and watching him do that made a huge difference for my understanding of like, you know, how long to ... So I think as much as sometimes you may feel like very, whatever you're managing that you don't understand, you may feel like, "Oh my God, so difficult, and they talk about all these technical terms," and so forth. Sit down next to them. Sp- spend half a day, spend a day, just look at when they're doing it.

Steven Bartlett 45:50 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 45:50 A designer, or whatever it is, something that you don't know how to do yourself, just sit next to them, see them do it. And that already will at least put you at a different level of understanding of, you know, the job and so forth.

Steven Bartlett 46:01 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:01 So there are practical ways in which you can try to gap that-

Steven Bartlett 46:04 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:04 ... you know, bri- bridge that gap.

Steven Bartlett 46:06 So important, 'cause again, you s- comes back to communication. And I had the exact same thing, uh, and, uh, I- I think in my first tech business, I wish I had done exactly that. I wish I had taken the time to go and s- um, build empathy towards the, the role of my, my CTO and, um, understand what his job was and I guess how I could make it easier. But also, to, uh, I really also should have had a, a s- objective outsider come in and do an assessment on how he was working, how I was working, and everything in between, I think-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:33 ... e- entrepreneurs don't do that. They, they, they, they, I think because they don't know what they don't know.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:38 Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 46:38 You don't know that y-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:39 Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 46:40 So that's the biggest curse in business, and-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:41 It's not only entrepreneurs. It's great managers and leaders-

Steven Bartlett 46:43 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:43 ... and people as well, I think to a point. I- the really tricky thing is to know what good looks like.

Steven Bartlett 46:48 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:48 Right? What does good look like, right?

Steven Bartlett 46:50 Oh, God, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:50 That's diff- like, when you judge some work, like, what would great look work- work look like?

Steven Bartlett 46:54 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:55 And it's when you've established that understanding, whether it's in communications, marketing, you know, whatever-

Steven Bartlett 46:59 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 46:59 ... and you know what good looks like, then your job becomes so much easier.

Steven Bartlett 47:01 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 47:01 But, but the only way to find that out, obviously to your point, is introducing external people, talking to people, comparing, you know. Uh, we also did that actually with my CTO at that point of time, which was one of the things we actually did that led me to conclude that I had to let him go, was that I s- 'cause I was having a lot of dialogue, like, "Should this take this long time?" and so forth. And so one thing I eventually said was, "You know what we do?" We booked meetings with five other CTOs in five large Swedish companies. So among them were, like, Ericsson, the more traditional ones, but there was also, like, a gambling company that was doing fantastic. There was a gaming company, Dice.

Steven Bartlett 47:35 Oh, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 47:35 Um, you know, stuff like that. And we went and had meetings with them. And in those meetings, I started raising my concerns and stuff like that. And I was listening to the, the other companies' CTOs answering to the same discussions-

Steven Bartlett 47:46 Oh, wow.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 47:47 ... comparing it to the answer of my CTO. And in that conversation, I really saw the difference-

Steven Bartlett 47:52 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 47:53 ... in how they were attacking these problems and what their philosophy is and the, you know.

Steven Bartlett 47:56 And the level of optimism in which they approach problems as well.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 47:58 Yes, for sure.

Steven Bartlett 47:59 'Cause that's, for me, has been the biggest differentiator between the really exceptional CTOs I've worked with in San Francisco-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:04 Right.

Steven Bartlett 48:04 ... when I was there-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:05 ... versus bad ones, is they have a everything-is-possible attitude, right?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:09 Right. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:09 And those people are an absolute joy to work with. Speed and optimism in a C- in a CTO is just-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:14 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:14 ... makes your life-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:15 For sure. And again, I just want to highlight here that, like, my CTO wasn't bad.... he wasn't bad, he, he was totally fine and okay, but he wasn't the right person-

Steven Bartlett 48:25 For this-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:25 ... to build a $45 billion company. (laughs) Like-

Steven Bartlett 48:27 Right.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:27 ... I would just say those are two different things, right? So give me-

Steven Bartlett 48:29 There's not many of those. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:30 No, no, no, exactly, right? So he wasn't exceptional and didn't have the right mentality-

Steven Bartlett 48:35 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:35 ... to, to do what we're doing now.

Steven Bartlett 48:38 Pain.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 48:39 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:39 Part of the reason I started this podcast was because,

Steven Bartlett 48:41 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.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 49:06 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:07 (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.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 49:19 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.

Steven Bartlett 50:24 In terms of stress-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 50:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:26 ... how do you feel about it and how have you dealt with that?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 50:28 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."

Steven Bartlett 51:38 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 51:39 Um...

Steven Bartlett 51:39 It's funny, the best leaders, and I'm sure you'll find this even in your company-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 51:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:42 ... all seem to speak to that. They all seem to be really emotionless in those, the, the, the absolute chaos moments.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 51:47 Right.

Steven Bartlett 51:47 And it becomes a c- a s- you know, a methodical process of how to solve the problem-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 51:51 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:52 ... versus-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 51:52 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-

Steven Bartlett 52:30 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 52:30 ... 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."

Steven Bartlett 52:43 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 52:43 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.

Steven Bartlett 52:48 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 52:48 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...

Steven Bartlett 52:55 That's really interesting. I, I, uh, it kind of also relates to your point about bit- needing to be challenged-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 52:59 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 52:59 ... you talked about in school when you'd read the book and you got bored.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:02 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:02 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-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 53:14 ... but in fact when you look at when people arrive at a point of stability-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:16 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 53:16 ... everything is fine.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 53:18 When they've won the gold medal, then they descend into chaos-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:21 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 53:21 ... then they get depression and they-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:23 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 53:23 ... get, they lose their sense of purpose and then they, they get irritable. So I, I flipped it and thought, "Do you know what? My life is actually the, the, the pursuit of s- of staying in chaos because chaos is my stability-"

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 53:33 "... and if I ever get to stability, completed goals, nothing to strive for, then I descend into chaos."

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:37 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 53:37 And it sounds exactly what, like what you've described there.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:39 Well, aspiring and working for things is so motivating and important.

Steven Bartlett 53:42 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 53:42 And I think to some degree, as much as Klarna had a lot of success in Europe, there's a kind of funny story around this topic because, um, you know, we were doing really well in Europe in developing our services, but there wasn't necessarily that much fierce competition from one perspective, right? And then as we were moving into the US market, there was this company in Australia called Afterpay run by Nick-

Steven Bartlett 54:02 Oh, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 54:02 ... and they are competing head on with us, right? And they were doing really well, this is back in like 2018, and...... I was like, "Ugh, this is so annoying. Like, they're coming in here, they're taking our market share, they're doing our product, they're copying us." You know, all this frustration building up. And the funny thing is, I happened at that point in time to be visiting with Mahmoud, who runs Boohoo, right?

Steven Bartlett 54:22 Oh, a good friend of mine.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 54:22 So, yeah. So I'm sitting down with Mahmoud and I'm, like, complaining to him, and I'm like, "Look, Mahmoud," it's a little bit like, you know, you know the Olympics when there's this guy who's been like, this is his fourth Olympic, and everyone was like, "Now finally he's gonna get the gold medal because he's been training." Like... And then this young (laughs) guy comes from nowhere (laughs) , and like, "But that's not fair. This is my fourth Olympic," and this guy comes in. And Mahmoud looks at me, and he's just like, "Sebastian, shut up."

Steven Bartlett 54:49 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 54:49 "Stop whining. Stop whining. And, like, this is gonna make you so much better. You have been not having proper com- competition. You now have proper competition." And it is so true. Klarna, in the last three years, thanks to the competition with Afterpay in the US, has become such a much better company. It has helped us so much to improve, to get focused. Like... And it was just so funny when he was just like, "Stop whining."

Steven Bartlett 55:13 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:13 And I can't... You know, he will speak 'cause he's Manchester. I can't do that, won't be able to try to-

Steven Bartlett 55:17 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:18 ... to replicate how he expressed this, but I thought it was really funny.

Steven Bartlett 55:20 Well, that's Mahmoud. I remember the first time-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:22 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 55:22 ... I met him. Um, I was in his office four days that week, and he insulted me several times-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:26 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 55:26 ... but in the most loving way.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:27 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 55:28 Like, you remember him smashing his pen on the desk and telling me how (laughs) stupid I was-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:30 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 55:31 ... (laughs) because of a decision I was gonna make?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:33 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 55:33 And we've been... I've been, like, good family friends with, with the whole family for-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:36 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 55:36 ... for a very, very long time.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:37 Yeah, music.

Steven Bartlett 55:38 What was-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:38 Very interesting guy.

Steven Bartlett 55:38 Just on that point, then, what was-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 55:40 ... the toughest moment in your Klarna journey? A moment you think, "That was f- that was the worst fucking day"?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 55:45 Similar to there's been some media scrutiny of us in the UK, we had a similar experience in, in Sweden but a few years earlier, which was in around 2012 and '13. And, and, like, it started off with this, like, media inquiry about what we were doing, 'cause we were, you know, at first just like, "Oh, it's an amazing, successful company," and then there was people like, "Oh, we're actually doing credit, and what does that mean?"

Steven Bartlett 56:05 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 56:05 And stuff like that. And so there started to be quite a lot of, like... An- and it actually started with a mistake that we had done internally. It was an operational mistake. We had done a, a stupid thing, um, and, and that had resulted into a lot of customer complaints and stuff, which was our own fault. But that was the beginning of it, and, and I think through that process, when the papers started writing about us in a negative way, um, I kind of jumped in. And it's kind of funny, 'cause I was actually... At that point in time, they had comments fields on the articles, so I would go into the comments field and write my responses in real time, and then other consumers and readers would answer and then I would answer them. And even the newspaper started writing about it, like, "Look, Sebastian, CEO is on our forum discussing the topics." So I was very engaged. I was sitting, like, working 24 hour, and I was thinking about, like, how do we give... Because l- quickly the media went, you know, out of control, and there was a lot of bias and, and, you know, i- inaccurate reporting and just, like, a lot of things. Some were accurate and some was fair, but a lot of it was also, like, out there. And then obviously the banks, because we are a big threat to the establishment banks, so... Even, you know, afterwards I've heard from journalists that, like, a ton of emails were coming from banks saying like, "Oh, you know, they're bad, they're this, they're that," or whatever, 'cause they simply, you know... they're threatened by our existence. And so, um, so there was that going on. But I remember what was the hardest thing to me to point is that that situation itself was fine, but at some point in time, the, um, uh, the kind of articles and, and the writing about us shifted from, "They're bad, they've done these mistakes," to, "They have bad intent. They're here to screw customers over, to do bad things," right? And that was tough. That was really tough because I know that wasn't true, and I know that we have good intentions and we're trying to do that. We have done mistakes and we can fix things, but being judged and questioned on your intentions of what you do-

Steven Bartlett 57:56 Your character.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 57:57 Yes. That hurt a lot, and I took that very hard. I took that to heart. Um, so that was very, very challenging to cope with.

Steven Bartlett 58:04 When those things happen, what kind of partner do you become to your... your romantic partner? Your wife? You've got a wife?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 58:10 (laughs) Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:11 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 58:12 She knows that I'm, like, extremely passionate about Klarna and the company, and, and I think that she's, um... She knows that, like, a lot of my thought process... (laughs) We'll be here all the time, right? So I think that... But, but, you know, I'm very lucky in the sense that Nina is an amazing, uh, person herself, she's done amazing things, and now she's running a startup with 30 people.

Steven Bartlett 58:33 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 58:33 Um, so that helps because she has her own, like, things, and, and, and actually we can come together at dinner table and we can, you know, um, we can talk about the challenges and the things that we, um, uh, that we face.

Steven Bartlett 58:47 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 58:47 And we can exchange thoughts about that. So, it, it... Well, we have three kids as well, right? I have a four-year-old and a six-year-old and a seven-year-old. So, um, so I actually... You know, as much as I live my life, I try to work really hard and then come home, turn off the phone, be very present with the kids, and then they go to sleep and I get to work some more.

Steven Bartlett 59:05 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 59:05 And then me and my wife has a very, like... which is, I think, maybe most families with kids our age, but we have a very strict... You always thought that that was not gonna happen, you're gonna stay spontaneous and all that-

Steven Bartlett 59:14 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 59:15 ... but you end up having an extremely strict calendar where it's like, Wednesday is dinner night, me and Nina have-

Steven Bartlett 59:19 Yeah, yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 59:19 ... dinner together, Tuesday we're working, like, nights and so forth. Just extremely strict calendars to make that work. (paper crinkles)

Steven Bartlett 59:26 Quick one. As you probably know by now, I'm trying to make my life a little bit more sustainable, and I consider myself to be on a bit of a sustainability journey in the same way that I'm on a health journey, and it's a privilege to be able to share that with all of you. And you, you will know, if you've listened to the last podcast, that I traded in my Range Rover Sport in... for an electric bicycle, which is now my only ve- vehicle, and next year, hopefully, I'll have my electric car too, if Tesla hurry up with the Cybertruck. And that's where MyEnergy comes into my life and my sort of sustainability journey. It makes your life, if you are on that sustainability journey, ten times easier. This is one of their... If you can't see this, I'm holding it in my hand if you're listening on Spotify or Apple. This is one of their renewable energy products. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll, you'll, you'll see this. This is called the Harvi. It's this very clever little device that allows the Zappi and the Eddi, which I've talked about before on this podcast, to be installed into your home without hard r- wiring or without batteries or without those, um, god-awful transformers that a lot of people have in their house. It's basically a tiny device that's going to save you both time and money. And for someone like me who doesn't have loads of time on our hands, it's a real lifesaver. If you're looking to make a conscious switch and you need a quick fix that's gonna save you a load of time, then head over to myenergy.com to see this product and many, many more. (paper crinkles) You're, you're, you know, you grew up from very humble beginnings with an immigrant family, as you've said, and because of the success of Klarna, that's now made

Steven Bartlett 1:00:48 you very wealthy. And it's something... Wealth beyond probably you ever imagined-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:52 ... 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?

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:01:09 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."

Steven Bartlett 1:01:22 Mm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:01:22 Because to some degree, like, you're the same person even if you have a different income level and wealth-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:28 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:01:28 ... 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?

Steven Bartlett 1:02:21 Mm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:21 And that obviously creates a different life.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:24 Mm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:24 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-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:31 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:31 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.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:40 Oh, perfect. (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:40 Yeah, so you, you actually have this like app, like Spotify, and you can go in and select-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:44 Perfect. And you can sit there, do the video, and pretend like you're playing-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:45 Yeah, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:46 (laughs)

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:46 Pretend that I have learned to play piano as well. So, like, I have some, like, luxuries that I've really-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:51 Yeah.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:02:51 ... 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-

Steven Bartlett 1:03:03 Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:03:03 ... 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.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:11 I read something which was, um, was quite difficult to read actually-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:03:14 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:14 ... which was about your father-

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:03:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:15 ... and his response to your success.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:03:17 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:17 Not

Steven Bartlett 1:03:18 being, not being particularly proud necessarily of your success.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski 1:03:22 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