Top Level CEO Reveals How He Escaped The USSR
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
239.34612
Summary
In this episode, we talk to the founder of a multi-million dollar company that started in the Soviet Union. We talk about his life growing up in the USSR and how he managed to make it to Canada. We also talk about the trauma of leaving the USSR when he was 9 years old.
Transcript
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And it's really cool because this is a multi-million dollar brand that you created from nothing.
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Okay, can you tell me a little bit about your background?
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So it's actually really funny that happened, like the way that the mind shift has happened in society is
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everybody always called me like a Russian guy, even though I was from Ukraine.
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Why? Because I was nine years old when I moved.
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And you still had no, I'm surprised you don't have a little bit.
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Well, because it's now my, it's my native language now because that's what I grew up in.
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Like I finished high school, university, everything, you know?
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And then, so I lived in the Soviet Union until 92 and then the Soviet Union collapsed and we got on an airplane with a suitcase.
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And there was a rule when you left the Soviet Union.
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And the rule was you're allowed one suitcase per family.
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Because they made it really, like, they, you know, Soviets...
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So my parents didn't tell me we were leaving the country forever until the day we left.
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Because what, yeah, because there was a big risk of being robbed.
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So what would happen is, like, if you're telling people, oh, I'm going to North America and it's like, cool.
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And then they would just, like, come and rob you.
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It was just mafia and corruption and, like, inflation.
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So my dad, I remember, he's like, hey, we're going to stay at grandma's house.
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And I was like, I was just like, what's happening?
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You know, Canada to me is, like, an imaginary place.
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Because back then, you didn't have the, like, internet.
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You didn't have, you know, hundreds of channels on TV.
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They're all Soviet propaganda, government channels, right?
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So I don't know anything about the outside world.
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Like, the world that I live in and, you know, the Soviet Union in 92 versus, like, let's
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say Canada, there was about a 30-year gap in development.
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So everything that, like, the Canadians and Americans had in 92, right?
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That was, like, the Soviet Union was what North America had in the 60s.
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Like, the technology, like, we had the road, you know, the dialy phone with the big ringy
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We had to call the operator sometimes to connect us.
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So it was just, like, a very strange experience, obviously.
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Because it's, at the time, it was, like, a different planet.
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Like, I mean, I'd imagine you had a whole group of friends that you just left.
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What was traumatizing, I would say, is, like, realizing when we arrived in North America how
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Well, in the Soviet Union, everybody's just poor.
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Like, it's just normal for your grandma, you know, to wake up at 5 in the morning to go
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on the bread line because she has to, you can't get bread if you're there at 8 in the
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So, you know, the grandmothers, the retirees, would get up super, super early, go to the
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store, and then wait in line for two hours to get a loaf of bread because they would
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sell out because there was always a food shortage.
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So I remember, like, you know, I'm on the airplane, and I remember that very, very clearly because we're
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flying from Moscow to Montreal, then we change planes.
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And on the airplane, they give me, like, this little Etch-a-Sketch toy.
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Like, you can draw on it and then, like, pull it, and the thing disappears and draw again.
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Like, I never, I just, it didn't exist in the Soviet Union.
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And then the other thing I remember when we landed in Vancouver, I needed to go pee,
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Like, I just remember thinking, like, what is happening?
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So would you say, I'm curious, this kind of sounds like a dumb question, it might be,
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but were people happier in the Soviet Union versus Canada?
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Because it's interesting, because, like, I asked this question to someone, like, an Uber
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driver the other day that was from, like, a third world country, and he said that people
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I would say, but I'd imagine it was so corrupt, maybe not.
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I would say it was a really, so this is something I was actually thinking about this morning,
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because I woke up literally thinking that question, so I started researching it this
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I just needed to know for myself, because I was thinking back to that, right?
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Like, I will introspect, and I'll say this, people in North America are happier.
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People back there were happier, but they were less unhappy than the people in North America.
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So, the reason, what I'm trying to say is a very difficult thing to kind of comprehend
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is, like, people in North America have a delusional degree of unhappiness.
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Like, the unhappiness, you know, because you have, like, a pretty comfortable life, and
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then you're creating problems that don't exist.
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So, yeah, people in North America are probably both happier and unhappier at the same time.
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Like, there's just, like, this degree of unhappiness within what should be perceived as happiness.
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Would I say people in the Soviet Union were happier?
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They'll probably go back into, like, the 90s were pretty nuts.
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My dad, 100%, would say they were happier back there.
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Well, I remember, like, we went to a supermarket, and it was full of food.
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I just, I hadn't seen cereal before, so I was like, whoa, cereal.
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And cartoons, like, we got, like, a cartoon every week, you know, delivered on Soviet propaganda TV,
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and it was, like, some same cartoon my parents grew up on.
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Because in the Soviet Union, you know, when you kill capitalism, when you kill innovation, nothing's new.
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So, it's like we're literally watching the same cartoon our parents watched.
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Like I said, I realized very quickly that we were poor.
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That was a difficult thing, because, again, back in the Soviet USSR, everyone's just.
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But you felt different from everyone else because you were.
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Well, I got made fun of because I dressed different, right?
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Like, my grade grandmother, who lived into, like, the early 2000s, would, like, repair,
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if I, like, had a hole in my classy, you know, Soviet sweatpants, which is a slobs, it's what we wear.
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You know, I had the track suits and the sweatpants.
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And mine had patches on the knees because my great grandma would stitch them up.
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Like, everybody in the Soviet Union learned different skills because nothing would get done that you needed done.
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Like, if you wanted something fixed, you just had to do it.
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Is it hard when you come on shows like mine and these girls talk about their trauma?
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It's just, you actually came from the Soviet Union and they're talking about how hard it was for them, you know?
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I mean, look, I think I'm privileged in the sense that my parents, like, raised me in one home and they stayed together.
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And obviously, there's disadvantages some of those girls had because, like, they were raised by a single mom.
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That has, like, profoundly negative consequences on them, like, through their adolescence, as we see now, like, actualized through statistics and data.
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Yeah, they're pretty stupid, but you can't tell them that.
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So, you went to Canada and then where'd you go to school?
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So, I went to high school and elementary school in Vancouver and then UBC, University of British Columbia in Vancouver for university.
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So, again, this is kind of getting into what Canada looked like and maybe still looks like.
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I don't remember it as well, but he said he took me to the career, like, not career day.
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He took me to, like, initiation at UBC, like, to check out the campus and stuff.
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And, you know, we're driving my dad's 89 Camry and we pull into the parking lot.
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And Vancouver was an interesting town in the early 2000s because in 2000, Hong Kong seceded from the British Empire and it went back into Chinese rule.
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And so, all the wealthy people in Hong Kong, it's one of the wealthiest cities in the world, they moved their families to Vancouver because there was more sort of certainty in a democratic country.
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So, you know, I'm, like, a whitish-looking guy, obviously.
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And, like, at that time, the university is probably 90% Asian.
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I mean, that's just the demographic of Vancouver.
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I don't know the total area, but I know that, like, at the university, there's many times on group projects where, like, I have the best English and I'm the one that wasn't born in the country.
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Yeah, so, like, I grew up on, like, Chinese food.
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And so, you know, you get into UBC, and it's a very wealthy school, very wealthy area for, you know, this demographic.
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And the parking lot's got, like, Lamborghini, like, straight-up Lamborghinis and, like, Bentleys in it.
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And my dad tells me this story, and I don't remember it, but he told me that.
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He's like, when we went to the initiation day, when we're in the parking lot, my dad said, you looked at me and you said, I'm going to drive a car like that one day, but I'm going to buy it for myself.
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Because, obviously, the kids there were getting this stuff.
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And, by the way, that's a very typical Vancouver experience.
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You'll see a lot of 19, 20-year-old kids driving Lambos.
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As many of you know, I was just banned on TikTok, and we are demonetized on a daily basis on this platform.
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