When envisioning the CEO of a billion-dollar firm, it’s simple to fall sufferer to the clichés: a well-manicured businessman adorned in designer garments, jet-setting from one worldwide assembly to the following, a group of assistants in tow. However not each entrepreneur enjoys the spoils of their success with a glitzy way of life—some are merely grateful to repay their pupil loans.
Serial entrepreneur Sami Inkinen has based and scaled three totally different corporations—together with two unicorns—all through his 20-year profession. Whereas the Virta Well being CEO has constructed wealth due to his enterprise success, he isn’t involved together with his internet value. In reality, Inkinen solely seen himself as rich when he was capable of repay the $100,000 of pupil debt that was burning a gap in his checking account.
“There’s one second in my life that I felt wealthy. After which after that, I’ve by no means considered cash,” Inkinen tells Fortune. In 2008, three years after Inkinen cofounded actual property search firm Trulia, he offered off a batch of secondary shares value $500,000 pre-tax. “I had sufficient cash to pay all my pupil money owed. I used to be capable of purchase no matter I needed, and it was a really costly bicycle buy, [and] furnishing my tiny house in San Francisco.”
The immigrant entrepreneur first made his foray into entrepreneurship with cell software program firm Matchem again in 2000 when he was nonetheless residing in Finland. After two and a half years serving because the cofounder and VP of enterprise improvement, Inkinen offered the group for just a few million {dollars}, and uprooted his life in Europe to go to the U.S.
The Gen X entrepreneur attended Stanford’s MBA program, graduating in 2005 with a complicated enterprise diploma and $100,000 of pupil debt. Consulting big McKinsey floated him a six-figure job provide, flush with a $10,000 signing bonus. It was an opportunity for Inkinen to shortly repay his loans, however he skirted the chance and returned to entrepreneurship.
For the following decade, the entrepreneur helped scale Trulia into an business staple, earlier than Zillow acquired the corporate for a whopping $3.5 billion in 2015. Now, Inkinen is 11 years into his third stint as a founder, serving because the CEO of $2 billion healthcare enterprise Virta Well being. His pupil loans are squared away, payments are lined, and housing is totally furnished.
Inkinen will all the time keep in mind the thrill of economic safety he felt again in 2008, however stipulates the fun was fleeting. It’s not in his nature to be “money-driven,” the manager says.
“This sense of cash bringing happiness disappeared in lower than two or three days. I used to be like, ‘Okay, effectively, it’s good that I’ve no debt,’” Inkinen explains. “Cash isn’t going to make my life or break it, and it’s not going to convey happiness.”
The CEO is ‘proud of little or no’ and doesn’t consider cash
Many could scoff at the concept cash can’t purchase happiness, however for Inkinen, a superb high quality of life is what he’s actually in search of.
Rising up in Finland, he had a litany of social companies at his fingertips. The nation’s healthcare system is basically free, funded by public tax {dollars}; and all ranges of training, from major college up via school, comes for free of charge to its pupils. It could be a part of the explanation why Finland constantly ranks as one of many happiest international locations on this planet and took the highest spot final yr. Inkinen says that tradition instilled an inclination in the direction of non-material happiness.
“Personally, I’ve by no means been money-driven [because] in Finland [we have] free training, free healthcare. I’ve all the time felt I’ve had every thing I would like. I used to be proud of little or no,” the Virta Well being CEO says. “I’ve all the time felt like I’ve had sufficient. I used to be 37 years previous after I purchased my first automotive. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I should purchase the best automotive and drive round in circles.’”
And his mindset didn’t budge when a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} flowed into his checking account. It’s regardless of if he scores huge by promoting his shares, or triumphs and opens the New York Inventory Change. Inkinen all the time has his eye on the prize: rising as a serious contender in Silicon Valley.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, it’s offered, now every thing modifications.’ The cash and one-time ringing the bell on the IPO wasn’t actually something for me,” Inkinen continues. “I fortunately acquired to expertise that I will pay my pupil debt with a single verify. After which after that, I actually haven’t considered cash.”
The enterprise leaders who consider cash doesn’t purchase happiness
There’s a number of consolation that comes with wealth; the ultra-rich don’t have to fret about making lease, saving up for retirement, or repaying tuition debt. However happiness maxes out previous a sure level—which consultants have estimated to be round $500,000 in annual earnings. And founders who’ve escaped dire monetary conditions and got here out the opposite facet victorious are including their two cents.
Shark Tank investing icon Barbara Corcoran admitted that the previous adage that “cash doesn’t purchase happiness” is definitely true. The entrepreneur, who offered her actual property firm Corcoran Group for $66 million, mentioned she’s completely suited to talk on the problem: “I do know as a result of I’ve been poor. And I’ve been wealthy. And I’ve been in between. So I can converse to each.”
“You begin wanting towards the following factor that cash’s gonna purchase,” Corcoran informed CNBC in 2023. “I’m no happier in the present day than I used to be after I was grime poor. You assume one thing would have modified? No, I’m nonetheless insecure about the identical issues. I’m nonetheless nervous about the identical issues.”
Equally, investing legend Warren Buffett could also be value $146 billion, however his spending habits aren’t practically as outrageous because the determine in his checking account. The Oracle of Omaha famously nonetheless lives in the identical modest Nebraska residence he bought for $31,500 again in 1958; Buffett additionally drove a 20-year-old automotive round city in lieu of a sportier possibility. The previous Berkshire Hathaway CEO clipped coupons and took his billionaire friends out to McDonald’s whereas sitting atop a multi-generational fortune.
“I don’t assume that way of life equates with price of residing past a sure level,” Buffett mentioned at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders assembly in 2014. “My life wouldn’t be happier…it’d be worse if I had six or eight homes or a complete bunch of various issues I may have. It simply doesn’t correlate.”
