Here's something you don't hear every day: the CEO of a $2 billion company saying the moment he felt rich wasn't when he became a multi-millionaire, but when he finally zeroed out his student loan balance.
Sami Inkinen, who now runs healthcare company Virta Health, has founded three successful companies including two unicorns. But his definition of wealth has always been less about the numbers in his bank account and more about financial freedom.
The breakthrough moment came in 2008, three years after Inkinen co-founded real estate search platform Trulia. He sold a batch of secondary shares worth $500,000 pre-tax, and that money went straight to practical things: wiping out his $100,000 student debt, buying a bicycle, and actually putting furniture in his San Francisco apartment. That was the moment wealth clicked for him.
The interesting part? Inkinen could have paid off those loans much faster if he'd wanted to. He had a lucrative offer from consulting giant McKinsey sitting on the table. Instead, he chose the entrepreneurial path, according to Fortune. That bet paid off as he helped scale Trulia into an industry powerhouse that Zillow eventually acquired for $3.5 billion in 2015.
Inkinen grew up in Finland, where education and healthcare come free, which probably shapes his perspective on money. "Money isn't going to make my life or break it, and it's not going to bring happiness," he told the outlet. He maintains a minimalist lifestyle and doesn't obsess over his finances, even when his account jumps by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Bigger Picture
Inkinen's story highlights how subjective wealth really is. For him, being rich isn't about accumulating millions but about having the freedom to live on his own terms. His journey from struggling with student debt to leading a billion-dollar company shows that success and wealth don't always mean the same thing.
