Sami Inkinen: "Why the Two Weeks Following Our IPO Were the Worst of my Life" | E1120

I could see six figures-

(cash register dings)

... in my checking account. The company goes public, I might have yelled, like, "I'm, I'm rich." Two weeks after that, something wasn't working in our apartment, the silliest and the stupidest thing, and then suddenly, I feel this sort of panic attack. I should be happy. I'm not. What the heck is going on? (instrumental music plays)

Sammy, I am so excited for this. I cannot believe it has been seven years since we last did this. But thank you so much for joining me today.

Well, Harry, thanks for having me back. Uh, time flies when you're having fun, right? Seven years. (laughs)

I, I mean, it totally does. You look freaking younger. I look older, significantly. But I wanna start (laughs) with a little bit of backstory, because I think so much actually goes back to childhood. You know, I always remember my father and, like, my family kind of instilling this, "You'll be good enough when you live in a certain place." (laughs) It was Chelsea for us in London. I'm just intrigued. Take me through your childhood. Where did you live, and how was that relationship with your parents?

Yeah. Well, I grew up in Finland, uh, about 200 miles northeast of Helsinki, very close to the wonderful border with, uh, Russia. Um, and so I, I grew up on a farm, um, and, uh, it wasn't a ... It was a gentleman's farm, I guess I could say, in that my parents were factory workers. Um, so we had a farm, uh, lots of manual labor. I was their manual labor. So very kinda humble beginnings, picking potatoes, feeding chickens. Um, and so, so that's kinda how, h- how I was growing up. And I would say two things about my up- upbringing. In some ways, it was very kind of romantic in that, you know, growi- growing up on a farm, I could climb the trees, and it was very safe, and, like, it was a wonderful, wonderful, um, uh, place to live. I would say that. That's sort of the one thing. But the second thing I would say, I absolutely had no professional role models. And the fact that I'm living in America today, you know, building a company, and I have been here in, in the States for more than 20 years, it, it, my family, mom, it's still like, you know, I'm living in the moon or in the Mars. So it's a very, very kind of unlikely sequence of events. Uh, so my parents didn't even go to high school. They weren't professionally trained, so I had absolutely no, uh, role models of what might be possible beyond being a factory worker and, you know, picking potatoes, uh, to, to feed the family.

What was it that opened your eyes to the world? Where did you get this sense of ambition and this desire to, to conquer more of the world than the, the, the farm in Finland?