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

Sebastian Siemiatkowski tells Steven Bartlett how his childhood as the son of Polish immigrants in Sweden, marked by poverty and a sense of being an outsider, shaped his drive to build something of his own. He recounts founding Klarna with two co-founders as a non-technical leader, the early conflict over giving away 37% equity to engineers who then left, and how he learned to evaluate technical talent he didn't understand. He reflects on company culture, the value of resistance and challenge, and how competition from Afterpay made Klarna stronger. The conversation turns deeply personal as he shares his father's descent into alcoholism, his death, and how Sebastian, a sober alcoholic of nine years, thinks about raising his own children and possibly not passing on his wealth.

• Klarna's founders gave away 37% of the company to engineers for the technology, plus 10% to a business angel, leaving the three founders with 17% each.
  00:38:10
• The engineers who built the original system sold their stake too early, when Klarna was worth around $10 million, missing the eventual $45 billion valuation.
  00:39:11
• Klarna got Sequoia to invest in 2009 and Michael Moritz joined the board, giving them contact with someone who had seen real tech-company success.
  00:43:18
• Sebastian declined to answer his father's call the evening before deciding to help him; by morning his mother called to say his father was dead.
  01:06:36
• His friend Mahmud (Boohoo) told him to 'stop whining' about Afterpay competition, which Sebastian credits with making Klarna a far better company.
  00:54:44
• Sebastian reveals he is a sober alcoholic of nine years, and that growing up he never reflected that he might have a drinking problem like his father.
  01:08:41
• Sebastian says he is more stressed when things are going well than during a crisis, finding adrenaline and focus in chaos.
  00:53:11

• Survey data from Stockholm School of Economics: in 2000 only 7% of students wanted to start their own company, versus 70% today.
  00:30:27
• Sebastian and co-founder Nicholas travelled around the world without flying, filming it intending to air it as a TV show.
  00:31:28
• To reach Australia without flying they took a cargo ship from Singapore to Brisbane, then onward to New Zealand and Mexico, plus the QE2 across the Atlantic.
  00:31:58
• On the round-the-world trip they averaged about $10 a day and Sebastian slept on the street at Piccadilly Circus in London.
  00:32:29
• The original engineers started coding in December and Klarna launched with its first customer four months later in April.
  00:37:40
• Sebastian cites the Toyota Way practice of making managers stand in a chalk circle on the factory floor all day to observe and learn.
  00:22:11
• As a child Sebastian became a disruptive pupil because he was under-stimulated, having already read the books the class was working through.
  00:13:24
• Sebastian half-jokingly considers putting his kids in 'the worst school in Sweden' for a few years to give them resistance and perspective.
  01:11:47
• During the forced month-long stay in Australia, Sebastian worked as a furniture mover for a company called City Move.
  01:14:22

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