A founder reflects on the moment he knew his business decisions mattered. During Russian privatization, he gave employees shares instead of keeping them. An elderly shareholder later told him the payout saved her life.
If you're doing something right, then the universe supports you. If you think of magnetism, you don't see them, you don't feel them, right? If you try to push a metal ball this way or another way, the speed will be different because of something that you don't see. But if you do something right, that means you are moving your metal ball in the right direction. And these magnetic waves, let's say, supports you as well. So I purchased the shares, of course, from the shareholders. And every employee had shares. That's the way how the privatization Russia work. Like if the company is bankrupted, then it's nothing, right? I was able to to purchase it using the money from from investor. It was a story that I remember one older lady, she's about retirement age. She came to me and took me aside and said, I want to say something to you. I said, what? She said, you literally saved my life. Said how? Why? She was a lonely person, like almost retired age. And the pensions in Russia were so low that you cannot sustain if you're not supported by kids, by family. And she thought to commit suicide. She said, you literally saved my life because now I got this money for the shares and I calculated how many years it will give me. And that was the moment I thought, yes, I'm doing something right.
