He'd had a discussion with me. We're

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 cuz they simply,

you know, they're 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 didn't answer and morning

my mother called and said he was dead.

[Music]

Sebastian Sheami Kovski. 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 going to 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.

[Music]

Sebastian. Um, one of the things that

I've come to learn from speaking to a

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. And

whenever I meet someone like you that's

achieved um 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? Right. It's

kind of funny you asked that because

like I don't necessarily feel that I was

remarkably unique in my early days. I um

a friend of mine uh their son turned out

to be blind. Uh but he has perfect

perfect pitch and he's now 8 years old

and he's sitting and playing the piano

and singing and um that is to me

remarkable like and I I was thinking

about that 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 future in the

communist Poland.

Uh at you know which was the case at

that point of time

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 of time.

There was also like a lot of, I would

say, skepticism about people with Polish

name and Polish backgrounds. Was hard to

get a job if you had 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 multi-

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 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

and you're going to like try to fix that

somehow. 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 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.

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 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

life isn't necessarily fair but like you

feel like this is not fair we should

have 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 an

emotional level also like your parents

really sacrificed their lives like I

Because 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 the kind of emotional thing that

you want to you know you feel that they

did a massive sacrifice in some due

regards for for your behalf, right?

Yeah. And that feels like a tremendous

privilege. I

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you um cuz I I can

relate a lot to that. I'm an immigrant

myself. Came born in, you know, Africa

in Botswana and my parents came over

here. My mom can't read or write.

Fantastic country by the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful place. Um, but I

moved to the southwest of the UK where I

was in an all-white school of 1,500

white kids and it was was me and I and

we were also like

the poorest people in a middle class

area.

So you have I felt different all the

time.

Yeah.

And um did you feel that way?

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 of time, now

today, I wouldn't necessarily, but

coming to that, at that point of time,

it was like, you know, somebody was

like, you know, saying things like that.

And then also the Poli like the view of

Poland at Proan 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 heart. I

wouldn't say I was bullied. That would

be in my opinion taken too far because

people I know people have been bullied

for real and I 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

quite a lot like sometimes getting quite

hard time over these things. Right.

And when you were a kid because because

I know I did I developed a very naive

thesis as to how I would escape this

scenario.

What was that?

Money

and success because it was the pain in

my household the lack of. So I thought

well that will fix it. Did you develop

your own thesis of how to

No. I think yes. very similar to yours,

right? Because also what happened in my

my in my life was that my parents

divorced when I was about 8 years old,

right? Um and so and they had a lot of

conflicts, right, 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 explanation

for their inability to, you know, to be

a couple and and and be together. But,

but at that point of 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.

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 like thought it was interesting to

kind of do business like I it's very

nerdy and I 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 Ingva

Camprad who was a big big thing in

Sweden obviously because it's a Swedish

guy. 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 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 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 return from like all

that kind of stuff like just finding

different ways of like you know trying

to do things. So is there there's

something 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 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

and then I think maybe entrepreneurship

appealed to me because it was I knew I

wasn't going to do great in the

conventional route but then this bit it

was this really nice route to

potentially huge success.

Um um and it was all kind of centered on

what I did.

It was going to be me. M and I think you

know from hearing about 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

No, but I think you I think you're right

in the sense that like I think

definitely in that environment growing

up in that setting you know that like

there's nobody who's going to help you

like there's nothing you're not going to

get anything from anyone right it's just

going to be either you do it or it

doesn't happen those are the two options

like it doesn't happen or you do it

yourself like those are the options

I think if I look at my own kids there's

a lot of things that happens in their

lives that fit into a third category, it

happens because dad and mom helped out

and you know whatever. There's a lot of

other things that happen. Uh but here it

was like you know if I want to have an

adventure, if I want to go and see the

other part of the city, I bike there. I

have to go there myself. Nobody's going

to drive me like you know this like and

I do think that there's some some lack

of like healthiness to that as well,

right? Whereas like it it it kind of

educates you and I haven't thought about

it but now as you're saying it actually

kind of thought about it 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 to me it's almost like I wish that

society would realize that like there's

going to 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. 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 Slath and Ibrahimovic. 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 and doing

other things that are less less, you

know, less productive, right? So I think

it's the 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

buildup energy of wanting something to

be different right

and for that you need sort of great

empathy and to understand that people

are different shapes and sizes and that

kind of brings me nicely to the the

education system and your your personal

experience with the education system and

do you think it it did you served you

well or did it fail you? 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

been only immigrants in that I would not

have anything to compare to. Right? 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 you know

like you know there was a mix like some

were good some were bad right 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 at 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 in head in reading or

whatever I I I literally still remember

from like you know second grade which is

8 years old in Sweden when you're 8

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 really 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

because that was kind of so I became I

became person that was quite problematic

for the teacher because I was just like

I was so underststimulated 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

because you all need to have like a

continuous challenge right

and those that lesson there you learned

about that need for challenge

you're now the headmaster of a

great

school that has thousands and thousands

of employees in it.

Yeah. And that that point about making

sure that the people that attend your

institution are also challenged must

must uh still sort of be important to

you, right?

Absolutely. I think it's like actually

you know and in a way especially in

Swedish society which I you know the

Swedish culture is very much just saying

that alasad 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

different translation of it or or no

women left behind. Um but and and for a

while that was that was creating a

conflict because

Clana as a company we have very high

aspirations. We want to do something

very different. We want to 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 CLA is not for

everyone, that Cla is actually a company

that wants to attract um people that

want to make a real impact, make a real

difference, that want to learn, that

want to be challenged. And that took

some time, and it might sound odd, but

for us, at least in in the Swedish

culture context, it took some time to

get to that where we started saying, you

know what, Cla isn't for everyone. Not

everyone is going to enjoy this

environment because not everyone is will

like a lot of people would 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 then like the

number of people that like check the box

and say I want to do that becomes

massively smaller right and so I think

the same applies for companies like a

lot of people would say I want to I want

to work for a successful growth company

doing things that's really cool

like climbing my nervous but then the

question is like are you willing to do

all these things like that that that

that means that you need to do in order

to be able to accomplish that, right?

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 just

like just be like be aware like this is

you're going to be very challenged here.

This is not going to be a place where

like it's just going to go easy. You're

going to have you're going to be very

very challenged here. What's the perfect

balance of challenge between being too

challenged that they, you know, they end

up in burnt out or something or

underchallenged that they lose

motivation like you did as a kid?

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? 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 hold off a

little bit let you you know breathe and

so forth right actually I you know it's

kind of interesting because 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're are like dead

scared, like almost like they're almost

there where they're like going to want

to they want to give up and get out of

the out of that, but they're doing it

and then they're proud of what they

accomplished 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 and really find that

perfect balance, right? But it's very

difficult and 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 and that that that you

really uh allow people to get to that

perfect spot u where they develop

heavily but at the same point of time

doesn't move you know ahead and just

bang their heads to the wall and and

feel give up or you know

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. We're

not for everyone.

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. If

you didn't say that now you're a bit of

an [ __ ] 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 should have

really clear communication at all stages

about who we are, how we work and what

our culture is. And allowing it to be

kind of you decide

I actually think is it's it's for me

super weak as leadership. But I also

think it will have an adverse effect on

the ability for the company to to

achieve its mission but also the company

culture. People knowing like what's

expected of them. But now it seems to

have become really like ac politically

acceptable to just say our employees

will do whatever they want.

How do you feel about all of that?

It's a very complex topic

but but I think look I think that the

look I give you an example right is that

um previously which you might found odd

clana was not really uh following kind

of agile work tactics. Um and then a few

years into um cloners development, we

realized that some aspects of agile like

daily standups, weekly retros, working

as small teams on specific topics, there

were some aspects of these that are very

productive and really hope help

productivity help achieve our goals and

so forth. Um so then what we did is we

said like okay now all teams within CLA

should do daily standups 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 standups 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 etc etc or you can do

daily standups only to check the boxes

like 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 I still I don't

feel that I entirely figured this out

but But there's a balance in an

organization around like when are we

prescriptive and mandate mandating

things and when are we suggesting and

highlighting because in the end the

reason I believe in daily styles so much

is because of my own experience of that

but there was also something that I see

up myself. There was a a willingness to

I I was interested in trying to find out

better ways to working. I learned about

this. I saw it in practice being done in

a good way and then I my conclusion was

that this was that. So if you think

about my learning process, my personal

learning process in that 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 standups 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 so

a lot when I think about learning within

an organization I think about like the

karate masters and the Japanese and kind

of like remember all this like karate

kid and everything 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 a 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 have been standing there the

whole day had to say well we saw this we

saw that and then the he would look at

them the senior you know senior kind of

shenzen like senior he would be like no

another day you know so they have to do

another day so like and I like provoke

them because I think that's the you and

and it's very 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 u that's the truth and

I think that co is such a good example

of that because we had a lot of

experiences that we've never had before

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 not because we

read about co 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 kind of it's

a very difficult balance in these

companies consistently from a culture

perspective like how do I how do I

encourage encourage and kind of push

people to go and find out like you know

try to experience that and learn for it

but 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 when like okay look uh you know

maybe you have a different philosophy

about how you're going to become a great

soccer player but like I just don't

believe in your flu like like it's not

going to work so like if you want to go

and believe that you never have to

exercise to become a great soccer player

Hey, you do that but you can't do it on

it. Like right. So there is obviously

some selection criteria where you 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 be on that level then it's

more like how do I intrigue you? How do

I challenge you to develop that insight

for yourself

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 cla but I

think that that just uh is a very

interesting int sorry it was a long

answer

no it's amazing it's really really

thoughtprovoking and I was I was

thinking yeah 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 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 and the

things that I had an allergic reaction

to in terms of topics in school

were the things that there wasn't

fundamental curiosity. So I was kicked

out of school

but in if you look at business and

psychology

like I was I would have gone to more

lessons I was 30% attendance in these

other subject and that's and that's so

true. So it's um it it provides a

different way to I think

and I would say one more thing on your

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 the 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

most organizations are are structured.

But what ends up happening is okay how

are we going to do with this work from

home? what are the rules that going to

be set and there is 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 clana we're

active in like 40 offices across you

know 20 countries

each one which will be in a different

phase of covid or not and stuff like

that right so try to write a rule that

is applicable for each team and then

you're going to have individuals maybe

some individuals have immune diseases

and are extremely worry about you know

moving into that environment are more

careful than others. Maybe you're going

to have like you know some people that

have religious concerns somehow tied to

this. You know you're going to 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's more difficult

because to them it's nicer that the top

management team has written a policy and

they can say like this is the rules but

why why these rules 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

going to do like this we've decided in

this team that we're going to work in

office so we're going to do this and

that forces them to do that which is

good for them they need to do that they

need to promote about 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. You want to

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? That that never happens and they

always have to be there's going to be

exceptions in a large company. There has

to be exceptions because those are

healthy signs of the fact that people

are thinking for themselves and judging

by themselves and not just hiding behind

the rules. I always reflect on the um

that that made me reflect then on the

example of the someone told me certain

country I think it might be Germany

where pilots were having a huge amount

of crashes

and it was because the the culture was

you don't challenge the pilot. So even

when the co-pilot knew there was

I think it was South Korea.

Was it South Korea? Yeah. Yeah, I think

it was. Yeah. The planes were crashing

but because the co-pilot didn't feel he

could challenge

and I think that's sort of analogous to

what you were saying there.

I talk about hu a lot in this podcast

because of the transformative impact

it's had on my life. Um, but there is

such thing as the hule bug. And the

reason I started my hule journey and

became a huligan 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 hu bug. Dominic Murray, Jack

Sylvester, 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 hu 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

Hule. And if you catch the Hule bug,

then I genuinely believe it will change

your life. I I have to go back and and

and hear about the start of of CLA

because you know one of the things that

really intrigued me and made me feel a

lot of respect towards you was that

you're not technical as a co-founder.

Unfortunately, no.

Built this mega tech company but you're

not technical and I know I tried when I

was 18 that was my first failure. Um but

I found that really just horrifying and

respectful.

Yeah.

So tell me so how did it start and um

and and where did you find the courage?

Sure. No. So, look, as I said

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 GPS

sucked. So, I kind of wrote the business

plan for them how they should change the

shows and the internet and actually

called them and tried to convince them

to change.

13.

Yeah. 13. Like I can imagine they were

like laughing their guts. Like this 13

years old is calling us like you should

do this programming instead. you should

have a show about this. And

I bet they gutted now. I bet they have.

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 Stocken School of

Economics, which is one of the like top

schools uh in Sweden around 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, Mckenzie.

That was really the the vibe. It's

actually interesting because they had

this survey where they said like at that

point of time when they asked students

7% wanted to start their own company.

Today it's 70%. 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 got to do something else. I

mean every 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 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 want

to go to YouTube, you'll find the videos

when we were like from the

YouTuber.

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 you know do documentaries

and stuff. So so we thought we were

going to like we we recorded the whole

thing and we did we thought we were

going to like air this as a TV show.

That's very funny.

I need to ask you one question about

that. How did you get to Australia

without flying?

Um, yeah. So, you had to u we took a a

cargo ship from Singapore to Brisbane.

Ah, okay.

And then we had a cargo ship from Sydney

over New Zealand up to Mexico. So,

that's how we and then we actually took

the QE to Q Elizabeth second uh between

New York and um and Southampton. So, so

that was kind of how we did that that

those were the expensive parts of the

trip. I mean, we we did it on an

extremely low budget. I think on average

we spent like $10 a day. Like we spent,

you know, we're sleeping in the streets.

I actually slept on Piccadilla Circus on

the street uh when we were in London

that night and uh while we're passing

through London and then I went we went

to hide park when when the sun had risen

and and slept because you don't sleep

really well in Pika Circus at 4:00 a.m.

I tell you.

So like you can imagine how you know the

vibe there at that point of time. Um but

anyways so we came back and then I

missed to start my semester and so

instead I was like on the second

sbatical year that I hadn't expected and

it was 2003 and I was looking for a job

in my home city of Upsala and I couldn't

get a job. I was actually on welfare for

a time because I just couldn't get any

it was a low economy was very hard.

Eventually 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.

Yeah. 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 a

year but I don't really care because we

work 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 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 so we

started talking Um, and they were really

keen like, "Oh, I can save £400 a month

a year. That's awesome. I'm going to

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 want to go

back to school. So I came back to the

stock 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 but 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 want to do this

company. I was going to do this." And

everyone was like, "Yeah, good luck to

you, man."

Kind of like patronizing. Is it

patronizing and like kind of like fake

support?

You do that and I'm going to go to

Morgan Stanley and make all my like

that's like that that was like kind of

the the the perception. So So that's

kind But Victor then was the only one

who was like, "Wow, that's awesome. I'm

with you if you do it, right?" 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 of 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're 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 going to do this for 6

months, but if we do it for 6 months,

we're going to do like all of our

energy, all of our time is going to 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 who everyone

else was there. So it's fair. So we were

like we were living in the office for

the first 6 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 6 months and then we're going to

evaluate then we kind of was easier to

take a decision because you're like yeah

six months whatever that's fine right um

so so we got off uh and then what we did

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 going to solve that so are we

going to raise money try to pay some

engineers and hire them what are we

going to do and eventually we ended up

the the incubator we're 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

Nicholas, my co-founder, did like a 30

secondond pitch. And after that, a woman

called Yane Valerude uh kind of

approached us and and and she was like,

you know, she almost like pushed me up

to a corner. She's like, "This is

awesome. Tell me what you're going to

do." She was like, she just heard that

pitch and she was like, "I like this

business idea." And she told us, "Look,

I have these engineers and they're like

the best engineers. They're amazing."

Cuz she had actually done one of the few

really successful exits during

era where they had sold a 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 going to connect you with those

guys." And so we sat down with those

engineering guys and they were much more

senior than us than 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

going to join us full-time and work on

this and continue developing the company

with us. Right? Their understanding was

they were going to give us some source

code some code and a system that works

and then they're off and doing something

else. And so, uh, but you know, as it

is, and I now try to tell other founders

this today, like if you found friends

and you want to start a company

together, don't only talk about all the

amazing stuff you're going to do and

everything you're going to accomplish.

Also sit down and ask like, how many

hours per week are you going to 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. There can't

be two big misalignments. 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.

Resentment comes quickly, doesn't it?

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

clon offers as a service. So they were

super but then you know after that they

were like good luck guys see you later

and we were like no 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 the business agent but she gave us

£60,000. Right. Mhm.

And so um and then so each one of us

then had equal so we had 17% each 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 because the contract was we

just we we just hadn't talked about this

and we were under different assumptions

of what they 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. Cla is never going

to be the size of a company where it's

going to need four great engineers like

this."

Christ,

that's kind of funny. I almost laugh.

It's kind of funny now as I think back

about it.

Did you ever resolve that?

Sorry. Did you ever buy buy them buy it

buy them out or

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.

Oh god that's awful.

Yeah. So so I mean well it's not awful

in a sense because to me it feels a bit

fair because they got the upside of what

they did. If they would have

participated longer and so forth they

would have seen a very different upside

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. 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. You're like,

architecture, what is that? You know,

like there was like zero knowledge,

right? 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.

How did you I was in the same place. I

was I knew needed to build a website not

technical went on Google just started

looking at their own website and using

that as yeah this this is cool this

animation looks good I will hire them to

build you know. So how did you solve

that problem of not knowing what good

looks like? 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

adviser 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 a CTO was an amazing

programming and developer but he wasn't

necessarily the CTO that would you know

hire the right talent build it he wasn't

businessoriented he was very much like

technically interested and wanted to

build like really beautiful code bases

and stuff like that which you know some

engineers tend to have more that

tendencies

and what was a frustration to me is that

for a long period of time and this was a

challenge in Sweden and stock at that

point of time the advisors that we had

around us

uh none of them had built a $45 billion

company like we are in 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, advisers 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. 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

always going to 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 a lot of times we were

like they were like oh we want to 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 to sit together and

create these. So, you know, you get

stuck in a lot of these things and then

and then eventually I remember I was

very frustrated because at one day when

Seoia invested and that was why Sequoia

was so important to us because in 2009

we got Sequoa 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 going to 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

technologydriven.

And and I remember going into the board

eventually and saying like and and at

that point of time uh the representative

of the engineers that build 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. It's this and that. And then

eventually I came to him one day and

said, look, now I've taken a decision.

unfortunately I have to change CTO and

he was like good decision and I was like

I almost wanted to smack him in the face

I was like for four years you were

telling me that this is okay and now you

I'm doing this change and you're saying

good decision like that's not like you

shouldn't say you're wrong that would be

respecting him more right so there was

in that setting we were coming up for

there was a it really nowadays I

appreciate much more like how I have to

really look through a person ask myself

is this a believable person is this

somebody I should really take advice

from and I think a lot of entrepreneurs

ers 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? Like

those are very different different

aspects, right? So being very careful

about who you get advice from. So but

that's kind of how we solve 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. And 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're talking about all these

technical terms and so forth sit down

next to

spend half a day, spend a day, just look

at when they're doing it, 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. So, there

are practical ways in which you can try

to gap that,

you know, bridge that gap.

So important because again, you comes

back to communication and I had the

exact same thing and uh I think in my

first tech business, I wish I'd done

exactly that. I wish I'd taken the time

to go and 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 I really also

should have had a objective outsider

come in and do an assessment on how he

was working, how I was working and

everything in between. I think

entrepreneurs don't do that. They they

they they I think because they don't

know what they don't know.

Exactly.

You don't know that. So that's the

biggest curse in business. Not only

entrepreneurs, it's great managers and

leaders and people as well. I think to

your point, the really tricky thing is

to know what good looks like.

Yeah.

Right. What does good look like, right?

Oh god. Yeah.

That's different. Like you judge some

work like what would great look work

look like. And it's when you've

established that understanding whether

it's in communications, marketing, you

know, whatever. You know what good looks

like? Then your job becomes so much

easier. 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 said because I was having a lot

of dialogue like should this takes this

long time and so forth. 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 Ericson the more

traditional ones but it was also like a

gambling company that was doing

fantastic. There was a gaming company

Dice. Oh yeah.

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 company's CTO's

answering to the same discussions.

Oh wow.

Comparing it to the answer of my CTO and

in that conversation I really saw the

difference in how they were attacking

these problems and what their philosophy

is and the you know

and the level of optimism in which they

approach problems as well. for sure

because that's for me has been the

biggest differentiator between the

really exceptional CTOs I've worked with

in San Francisco when I was there versus

bad ones is they have a everything is

possible attitude right and those people

are an absolute joy to work with speed

and optimism in a in a CTO is just makes

your life

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

to build a $45 million company like that

was just like two different things,

right?

Many of those.

No. No. Exactly. Right. So, he wasn't

exceptional and he didn't have the right

mentality.

Yeah.

To to do what we're doing now.

Pain.

Yeah.

Part of the reason I started this

podcast was because and why it's called

the driver CEO is I wanted to show um I

wanted to really give a fair impression

of the other side of entrepreneurship.

It's been super glamorized. It's

probably why you know that stat you

shared where it went from seven to 70%.

That's probably why it's now seen as a

very sort of sort of glamorous thing.

And I wanted to create a bit of a 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.

Mhm.

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?

But 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 a 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

that. 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

in terms of stress.

Mhm.

How do you feel that and how have you

dealt with that?

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.

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 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 errors,

I feel like it all becomes like

execution mode. We bring everyone into

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 going to 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

can feel 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.

Um,

it's funny, the best leaders, and I'm

sure you'll find this even in your

company,

all seem to speak to that. They all seem

to be really emotionless in those the

the absolute chaos moments, right? And

it becomes, you know, a methodical

process of how to solve the problem.

Yeah.

Versus

and and I do think again as much as you

know I don't want to obviously I feel a

lot of pain from the perspective of like

if we've done a mistake or done

something wrong as a company it 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 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 talent stepping

up to like it's a little bit like 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

you'll talk about it for 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. And I think Alex sitting over

there will will um we'll kind of smile

now because I think you will recognize

this. But like um so I think that that's

where I actually more get stressed from

like are we doing fast enough? Is this

good enough? Like

that's really interesting. I it come

also relates to your point about bit

needing to be challenged. you talked

about in school when you'd read the book

and you got bored

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 um the pursuit of trying to get to

stability but in fact when you look at

when people arrive at a point of

stability everything is fine

when they've won the gold medal then

they descend into chaos

then they get depression and they get

they lose their sense of purpose and

then they they get irritable so I I

flipped it and thought you know my life

is actually the the the the pursuit of

of staying in chaos because chaos is my

stability and if I ever get to

stability, completed goals, nothing to

strive for, then I descend into chaos.

And it sounds exactly like what you've

described there.

Aspiring and working for things is so

motivating, important. I think to some

degree, as much as Clana 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 and 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's this company in

Australia called Afterpay run by Nick.

Oh yeah.

And they're competing head-on with us,

right? And they were doing really well.

This is back in like 2018. And I was

like, ah, 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 happen at that

point of time to be visiting with Mammud

who runs Bhoo, right? Oh, good friend of

mine.

So yeah. So I'm sitting down with

Mimmude and I'm like complaining to him

and I'm like look Mimmude 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

knows like now finally he's going to get

the gold matter because he's been

training like and then this young guy

comes from nowhere and like but that's

so unfair. This is my fourth Olympic and

this guy comes in and Mimmude looks at

me and he's just like Sebastian shut up.

Stop whining. stop whining and like this

is going to make you so much better. You

have been not having proper competition.

You now have proper competition and it

is so true. CLA in the last 3 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 me and I can't you know he will

speak his Manchester. I can't do that. I

won't be able to try to to replicate how

you express this but I thought it was

really funny. Well, that's my mood. I

remember the first time I met him. Um, I

was in his office four days that week

and he insulted me several times, but in

the most loving way, like you remember

him smashing his pen on the desk and

telling me how stupid I was because of a

decision I was going to make. And we've

been I've been like good family friends

with with the whole family for for a

very very long time.

Just on that point then, what was the

toughest moment in your cler journey?

A moment you think that was that was the

worst [ __ ] day.

Similar to there's been some media

scrutiny of us in the UK. We had a

similar experience in in Swedenbird 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 because we were you know

first just like oh it's an amazing

successful company and then where was

people like oh we're actually doing

credit and what does that mean and stuff

like that

and so there started to be quite a lot

of like and it actually started with a

mistake that we had done internally it

was an operational mistake we had done 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 paper started writing about us

in a negative way, um I kind of jumped

in and it's kind of funny because I was

actually at that point of 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 I would answer them and even the

newspapers started writing about like

look Sebastian CEO is on our forum

discussing the topics. So I was very

engaged. She was sitting like working

24-hour and I was thinking about like

how do we give because quickly the media

went you know out of control and there

was a lot of bias and and you know

inaccurate reporting and not 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 and or whatever

cuz 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 of

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 Yes, that

hurt a lot and I took that very hard and

I took that to heart. Um, so that was

very very challenging to cope with.

When those things happen, what kind of

partner do you become to your your

romantic partner? your wife. You got a

wife.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She knows that I'm like extremely

passionate about Clana and the company

and and I think that she's um she knows

that like a lot of my thought process

will 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. 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 um that we face

and we can exchange thoughts about that.

So it it 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 then I get to work some

more and then me and my wife has a very

like which is I think maybe most

families with kids our age but you have

a very strict you always thought that

that was going to happen. You're going

to stay spontaneous and all that you end

up having an extremely strict calendar

where it's like Wednesday is dinner

night me and Nina have dinner together

Tuesday we're working like nights and so

forth. There's extremely strict

calendars to make that work.

Quick one. As you probably know by now,

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more sustainable. And I consider myself

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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 all know if you've listened

to the last podcast that I traded in my

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bicycle, which is now my only vehicle.

And next year hopefully I'll have my

electric car too if Tesla hurry up with

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many many more. You you're grew up from

a very humble beginnings with an

immigrant family as you've said and

because of the success of Clana that's

now made you very wealthy and it's

something wealth beyond probably you

ever imagined. I don't know don't know

how ambitious you were but um what role

does that that play now in your life in

terms of your relationship with money?

It was the 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 can play play your life? 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 because to some degree

like you're the same person even if you

have a different income level and wealth

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 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 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 the store. It will have no

impact and that is a 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? And

that obviously creates a different life.

It gives you a different 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. I don't like 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 selfplaying.

Oh, perfect.

Yes. So you actually have this like app

like Spotify and you can go in and

select.

Perfect. And you can sit there do the

video.

Yeah, exactly. Pretend that I have

learned to play piano as well. So like I

have some like luxuries that I've really

afforded myself that I think we have in

a beautiful house and and and things

like that. But

but you know, but I still think that

like the key thing is I don't worry