When envisioning the CEO of a billion-dollar company, it’s easy to fall victim to the clichés: a well-manicured businessman adorned in designer clothes, jet-setting from one international meeting to the next, a team of assistants in tow. But not every entrepreneur enjoys the spoils of their success with a glitzy lifestyle—some are simply thankful to pay off their student loans.
Serial entrepreneur Sami Inkinen has founded and scaled three different companies—including two unicorns—throughout his 20-year career. While the Virta Health CEO has built wealth thanks to his business success, he isn’t concerned with his net worth. In fact, Inkinen only viewed himself as wealthy when he was able to repay the $100,000 of student debt that was burning a hole in his bank account.
“There’s one moment in my life that I felt rich. And then after that, I’ve never thought of money,” Inkinen tells Fortune. In 2008, three years after Inkinen cofounded real estate search company Trulia, he sold off a batch of secondary shares worth $500,000 pre-tax. “I had enough money to pay all my student debts. I was able to buy whatever I wanted, and it was a very expensive bicycle purchase, [and] furnishing my tiny apartment in San Francisco.”
The immigrant entrepreneur first made his foray into entrepreneurship with mobile software company Matchem back in 2000 when he was still living in Finland. After two and a half years serving as the cofounder and VP of business development, Inkinen sold the organization for a few million dollars, and uprooted his life in Europe to head to the U.S.
The Gen X entrepreneur attended Stanford’s MBA program, graduating in 2005 with an advanced business degree and $100,000 of student debt. Consulting giant McKinsey floated him a six-figure job offer, flush with a $10,000 signing bonus. It was a chance for Inkinen to quickly pay off his loans, but he skirted the opportunity and returned to entrepreneurship.
For the next decade, the entrepreneur helped scale Trulia into an industry staple, before Zillow acquired the company for a whopping $3.5 billion in 2015. Now, Inkinen is 11 years into his third stint as a founder, serving as the CEO of $2 billion healthcare business Virta Health. His student loans are squared away, bills are covered, and housing is fully furnished.
Inkinen will always remember the excitement of financial security he felt back in 2008, but stipulates the thrill was fleeting. It’s not in his nature to be “money-driven,” the executive says.
“This feeling of money bringing happiness disappeared in less than two or three days. I was like, ‘Okay, well, it’s nice that I have no debt,’” Inkinen explains. “Money isn’t going to make my life or break it, and it’s not going to bring happiness.”
The CEO is ‘happy with very little’ and doesn’t think of money
Many may scoff at the idea that money can’t buy happiness, but for Inkinen, a good quality of life is what he’s really looking for.
Growing up in Finland, he had a litany of social services at his fingertips. The country’s healthcare system is largely free, funded by public tax dollars; and all levels of education, from primary school up through college, comes at no cost to its pupils. It may be part of the reason why Finland consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world and took the top spot last year. Inkinen says that culture instilled an inclination towards non-material happiness.
“Personally, I’ve never been money-driven [because] in Finland [we have] free education, free healthcare. I’ve always felt I’ve had everything I need. I was happy with very little,” the Virta Health CEO says. “I’ve always felt like I’ve had enough. I was 37 years old when I bought my first car. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I can buy the coolest car and drive around in circles.’”
And his mindset didn’t budge when hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed into his bank account. It’s no matter if he scores big by selling his shares, or triumphs and opens the New York Stock Exchange. Inkinen always has his eye on the prize: growing as a major contender in Silicon Valley.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, it’s sold, now everything changes.’ The money and one-time ringing the bell at the IPO wasn’t really anything for me,” Inkinen continues. “I luckily got to experience that I can pay my student debt with a single check. And then after that, I really haven’t thought of money.”
The business leaders who believe money doesn’t buy happiness
There’s a lot of comfort that comes with wealth; the ultra-rich don’t have to worry about making rent, saving up for retirement, or repaying tuition debt. But happiness maxes out past a certain point—which experts have estimated to be around $500,000 in annual income. And founders who have escaped dire financial situations and came out the other side victorious are adding their two cents.
Shark Tank investing icon Barbara Corcoran admitted that the old adage that “money doesn’t buy happiness” is actually true. The entrepreneur, who sold her real estate company Corcoran Group for $66 million, said she’s perfectly suited to speak on the issue: “I know because I’ve been poor. And I’ve been rich. And I’ve been in between. So I can speak to both.”
“You start looking toward the next thing that money’s gonna buy,” Corcoran told CNBC in 2023. “I’m no happier today than I was when I was dirt poor. You think something would have changed? No, I’m still insecure about the same things. I’m still nervous about the same things.”
Similarly, investing legend Warren Buffett may be worth $146 billion, but his spending habits aren’t nearly as outrageous as the figure in his bank account. The Oracle of Omaha famously still lives in the same modest Nebraska home he purchased for $31,500 back in 1958; Buffett also drove a 20-year-old car around town in lieu of a sportier option. The former Berkshire Hathaway CEO clipped coupons and took his billionaire peers out to McDonald’s while sitting atop a multi-generational fortune.
“I do not think that standard of living equates with cost of living beyond a certain point,” Buffett said at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in 2014. “My life would not be happier…it’d be worse if I had six or eight houses or a whole bunch of different things I could have. It just doesn’t correlate.”
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