We Left Finland and Sweden for South of Europe. One Year Later...

Phil, you've been living in
Hold on. Aren't we going to intro the podcast? Don't we have like a title? Like, let's get some stuff here. [laughter] Let's Let's
All right. Um, let's intro the the podcast. So, the podcast is a year ago, you and I Yes.
moved from You moved from Sweden to Limol where we are currently.
Correct.
And I moved from Helsinki, which is both our northern European cities, down to Athens.
Yes. And this was about a year ago, a little bit over a year ago. Let's say year plus one month.
Correct.
And so we wrote this whole farewell post. How we're gonna move into that? I wrote [laughter] that. We recorded
I sign off on it.
Yeah. Which is same as writing. Um and then you know a year has passed. Yeah.
So it'll be interesting to hear what was
what you imagined would be
uh what was different
and how is life here. Dude, I have opinions. Dude, you you have no idea what's in my chamber right now.
Oh my god. [laughter] I was just texting

to some people about what I think about Limos, but it's Let's Let's leave it to to the end. Like compared to Athens.
All right.
So, tell me about the first 30 days. Like, what happened?
First 30 days. Uh, a lot of surprises, man. Uh, so as one of the founders I work with here mentioned to me, pipes, it's just not their thing.
Pipes.
Pipes. It's just not their thing.
Like meaning like no hot water.
Well, so in many buildings in Cyprus, you still have to put toilet paper in the trash can. You can't flush it.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, it is. It is interesting. And that was not an expectation going in. That was a unwelcome surprise. [laughter]
Maybe like a plumber. unwelcome sometimes.
I will say that information was not voluntarily
gifted to us. That was a learning experience. So, I would say like that that shocked me.
But when you moved the first 30 days when you came into your apartment, it was all good. Just like in the pictures,

uh I think it was it mostly was I would say, you know, it was recently refurbished. The materials were not as high quality as I would have liked.
Uh there's been like some easy like denting on the wood. I don't know. I think the apartment's great. I don't have any complaints to be honest with you about that. I I have things things match my expectation there. I did I did my homework on that one.
And so so toilet was a surprise. At least you're not squatting, so you know, we're not that far in Asia.
Correct. [laughter]
We're firmly in Middle East. How about the weather?
It gets toasty here.
It does get toasty here. It is. I mean, you are in the Mediterranean. Yeah.
Yeah. And it gets it gets warm. Like
it's much warmer here than in Athens.
Yes.
This is a normal Athenian outfit and I'm overdressed.
Yeah. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Especially in the summer. Like it gets it gets hot, man. I don't know. I'm kind of It's It's all good, though. Like, it's 300 days of sunshine. Like, what else?
What else do you want to trade this for?
Are you surprised how little of Greeks there are in Limasol?
Just to for context for people, Cypress is the Puerto Rico of Europe. [snorts]
It's so Puerto Rico that you have to go

through passport control when you fly to Europe.
So, what shall we start talking about this? [laughter]
Yeah.
I've learned a lot about living in Cypress. I don't even know if you if you told me as an American I'd be living in Cypress nearly a decade later I'd be quite shitfaced.
You'd be like, "What's Cypress?"
Cypress.
Yeah. Is that a type of wine?
Uh, you know, you're looking at a country that is the most eastward in the EU that is essentially in the Middle East. It's 45 minutes from Israel. It's an hour and 30 minutes to Cairo by plane.
Mhm. And you you feel that here certainly in like the political conversation that like clouds that clouds this area. I would say that's been one component, but the far more interesting component is Lima itself, which is the city I've chosen to live in in Cypress. So for people who don't know, Cypress
has an illegal occupation in the northern part
and there is three cities really four cities that dominate the southern part, the the Criate part right now. And

Limosol is one of them. And I would say it's the one that is that that I live in that is the most international perhaps is one way to put it. The other way to put it is it's a it's a city that is struggling under the stress of its growth and not doing a good job at figuring out how to navigate that. Like I think that's one of the things we can talk about is like governance. Governance is big man. Governance can determine like success or failure. infrastructure is not holding up to the influx of new people and the demands of what the people are having. There's a lot of Russians here, a lot of Bellar Russians here, especially we're talking about more like on a wealthier part of the um of the spectrum.
Uh so business owners and now Israelis are coming in here. So you're you're having this rapid rise of service economy essentially. Uh there are these very tall, not skyscrapers but very very tall buildings like these apartment complexes almost like gated communities and the hills are being sprinkled with villas. Uh people drive expensive sports

cars. Uh and the roads are not built for expensive sports cars and just population just rising super fast.
I think you know one of the surveys was around a fourth of Cypress's population is foreignb born or something along those lines. I think in Lima I'd argue it's probably even higher than that. Um, you can tell by the incident of Georgian restaurants. That is like the signal the Russians are there.
Have you had Georgian restaurants? Were there Armenian restaurants here?
Yes, there there. [laughter]
I can show you a couple, but that's usually like the bat signal.
Yeah, Georgia restaurants. Very true. [laughter]
For Americans at Starbucks,
it's like the Lebanese food for for Arabs.
It fills the same role for like Mexican food. For Americans, I would say like that comfort like goto. Yeah.
Can't get it wrong.
Yeah. White people and Italian food.
Yeah. Yeah. But hold on. Tell me tell me about your first 30 days.
Um so, so we we came up with a with a little bit of different approach. So, uh you moved here. You have um
you have a girlfriend.

Yes.
Contractor wife as we like to soon to be fiance.
Soon to be [laughter] the contract has been drafted for for a full time.
Um esops are ready. Yep. [clears throat] And
docy sign baby. Fire up. [laughter] Uh, and on my part, I moved with two kids and and a and a wife. And
and my wife is uh she's like very much like quick decision maker.
Y
and so she bought a house before we moved in like
in Athens. In before you had seen it be no. So what happened was I was doing um it was her idea to move to Athens. She was like let's move again. So this is not the first time we're moving. This is the second time we're teaching country. We lived in Finland for about 7 years but before that we lived in the US. We're originally from Finland. Then we went to the US and we came back. 7 years in we're like ah too much. We need a change of pace and change of scenery. So um Eiffel Tower iconic Tower of London historic. The two towers simply epic.

But none of them tell you anything about mobile app intelligence, downloads, revenue, active users, and my personal favorite, weekly cohorted retention. Get the real story. Get the real data. Get Sensor Tower today. This episode is sponsored by Maloco. More than 2 billion daily active users, over 2.8 million independent apps globally. That's the reach Maloco ads unlock for performance marketers who don't want to stop at the usual gardens. It's all powered by caro's compound AI [music] system, continuously learning from billions of events and getting smarter with every campaign. Hop over the world garden. Check out malokco.com. That's m o [music] l o.com different options in Athens kind of came in as first. I was doing a talk at Google think gaming event in Athens uh a

little bit over a year ago and during that talk she went to saw a couple of apartments and just ended up making a deal on the spot. Wow.
So so yeah. So we we essentially had house.
There was no conference with you. There's no She She asked me to quickly come in to see it how it's like and it was already decision was made. Not like there was it was rubber stamp.
I said I'm not going to even go and see it cuz my decision doesn't matter. She's like you have to see it.
So I went in, I saw it. Cool story. We got it.
Classic Eastern European.
Yes. And uh and when we came in like the apartment wasn't fully ready. So Okay. Uh we live in the northern parts of Athens in a in a like um I think there's five families in the entire apartment building. So a pretty small in like it's a big size but small size of a population and our apartment wasn't ready. So our first week I think a month went by as we're really like our furniture is not coming in. So we kind of had only a bed
and we had like this camping table and we didn't have a fridge. The kitchen wasn't ready. So we were kind of living

off a Yeti cooler and bold deliveries the local Door Dash. Um, but you know, the school kicked off, so the kids kids are wearing school clothing, so it's pretty easy. Uh, but but that sort of a living,
it wasn't like I don't consider it bad. It wasn't the first time I moved in and sort of I don't know. I have this always like a like I always think about like how much worse people have it than me living in a new apartment and I don't have a kitchen ready. It's like come on. Like it's just come like food deliveries. Like this is not bad. Like objectively this is amazing.
It's just a lot of trash. Yeah, it's a lot of trash and you don't have a fridge. You have to constantly be, you know, ordering stuff and so forth. But in the grand scheme of thing, pretty lucky.
So, uh, so our 30 days went by like that. I think it took us like 45 days to get an internet and we have a fiber inside the house, but just to get a guy
45 days.
45 days. And it's still sucky because the internet we got was not even It's a whole different story. It's a never ending.
Why didn't you just go Starlink?
Star because of the way it's set up.

Like I've constantly looked at like we have these sort of like a shadowings so you can't have the direct shot at the sky
and um we're we're two lower floors. So
were you just hanging out at cafes for 45 days?
Uh I had like this it was painful. I had an uh rental office and so forth. So
that's right. Okay.
Yeah, dude. That is very painful.
Yeah.
Yeah. But but in the grand scheme of things like again kids went to school, they didn't speak English. We don't speak English at at home now. We do more. Um, so they had to learn essentially a new language. We already had prep courses for them, but it was like everything was kind of like a whirlwind. It went really fast. It wasn't like, you know, super comfy, but I think it went really nicely. Like apart from the internet, I have no complaints.
But what hit me
that was different uh is Athens in many ways the I see it as like I'm living in the future of Europe. So for those who maybe don't don't know I mean we have

the game economist here himself but but uh the economic background is is that Greece went bankrupt in like 2009 I think like it was it was over
we're not going to go to the details but let's say Goldman Sachs played a role in creative financial bookkeeping verif [laughter and gasps] heights and from like from a red-hot economy to just like we don't have money to pay civil services and since then it has been clawing its back and sort of restructured everything. So it has the longest working days in Europe. Um the tax rate is is exactly what IMF recommends. So everything is kind of like rebuilt by force. There's no negotiation on economics anymore but infrastructure has collapsed uh and not much has been built since then. So you you might see a big park that is just not maintained. Yeah.
And it has turned into a forest. Pavement is luxury. Like if we don't do pavement [laughter] like like trees come

out of a out of a payment and it's clearly that this tree is like 15 years old already.
And one thing that is very heartwarming for me is deep distrust towards government. Coming in from a Soviet Union, I also feel deep distrust to any government and I bond with Greeks around that is like and that can be seen in everything basic such as all cash payments because we ain't about paying taxes to the crooks.
Do you really are you still using C? You're using cash and
cash all the time.
Wow. Everyone here is hard.
Yeah. No, no, I I I pay with cars and cafes and so forth. Let's say I'm having a private lessons in swimming
through a gym and whatnot. They would ask like, "Okay, you can pay us this plus tax or you can pay us this." And then I would pay that and they'd be like, "Do you want an invoice?" And and then the invoice would be third of what I actually paid.
So uh so creative bookkeeping.
Interesting. Okay. Okay. Can I ask you about uh We are a gaming podcast. Yes.

Uh did you have any bureaucracy boss fights?
No. No. Setting up a company was surprisingly easy. Okay. That that part was easy. I connected with a local accountant already before we moved. She gave me a couple of different options.
Accounting is cheaper so forth and so forth. So everything is like smooth sailing though the accounting software is not a thing that they use in Greece like other ones.
So you have to kind of upload your stuff through Google Drive which was
very annoying until Grockpot.
Yeah.
Just like it's even better.
So Grobbot handles like all the accounting. So accounting it became later easier with the Janeic uh approach. Uh, but everything like the setups was was pretty easy and the accounting like she did everything for me like from from the expat taxes to like getting all your paperwork. But there is that normal case of where you're trying to open up an internet and it's like well you have this number but you don't have that number and then this number. But luckily my wife also moved and she moved uh well luckily she moved but [laughter] but it

would be boring to be alone but um she moved with her company so she relocated. So she has she works for a big American uh platform company and they handled everything for her. So she already had kind of all her numbers and things. That's why the internet was on her because she was the person. I can't change it. But I remember we went I went to pick up my permanent residency card. Yep.
From the police station
cuz you still need that by the way. People don't understand like even if you're traveling with inside the EU, you still need to apply for permanent residency. It's not just like the United States.
Yeah. Because I'm like part of social security. Do I need to use it? And there uh like of course in in the police station I can't pay with card. That would be crazy. Um and there like the police station just was in such a bad condition.
And I was like Jesus Christ. Like I would imagine the police station in like Siberia would look like that.
Uh but where bureaucracy was the most difficult was getting a bank account.
Yeah.
So in order to operate in any European country, you need to have a local bank account for people to understand. Like

it's not like you can have your revolutes and your wises for sure, but to make all the payments to kind of like authenticate agency. Yeah. Authenticate yourself everything. You need to be in. And so being a member of Alphab Bank
was a tough cookie, but I nailed it. Alphab Bank does not mess around. [laughter]
I don't know why it's this painful. Like I understand it's all like AML stuff and and a bunch of regulatory requirements,
but there's still something that was just like a hangup here. And in Sweden, everything's unlocked through your person ID. Everything is that single key.
Here, there's like a different series of arrows that connect things together.
But the challenge was always, okay, I need to change my phone number on my account cuz everything's connected to like this phone number. Oh, I had a temporary phone number when we got here cuz we didn't subscribe cuz we weren't residents, which you needed to become to get a full-time phone number. So, then we had to change the number. And then I email her and then she's like, "Oh, you got to message in the app." So then I message in the app and they say, "Just go to the building. I could have had the building if I just
The advice for anybody who's moving like

make keep your phone number from the country that you're coming for a little bit longer than you think because things that I've gotten locked out from is like my PlayStation account. Like
that's true. And I say but you do need to get a local number ASAP because so many problems come from
Yeah.
truck drivers not understanding
Yeah.
how a country code works.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just keep one and get a new one. Um, I'm actually curious to to hear how's how's the language barrier?
What language barrier?
Not not much, you know.
Not much to be honest with you.
Yeah. In terms of business, like how is it being here? Because you have so many gaming companies that are significant and and the nicest part whenever I come to to to Cypress for events, the the cool part about it is that the game industry is booming here. There's no doom and gloom.
Tik Tok or Meta or Google

any it has that Istanbul vibe
for sure. I mean even if you see it at like the national level Cyprus doesn't have the that Greece has. It's in a pretty good place. Like unemployment here is pretty close to what the United States is like 6%. Like youth unemployment is like 11 which isn't bad for your cruising but Spain is like 22 and they're doing great. GDP growth is like north of 2% real rate like
the things are good. I think that's like important to point out like a lot of things are looking good. I think the question is like is like how you do the accounting really matters here you know where's the money coming from there's a lot of foreign nationals bring in money okay is it GDP or gross national product that's something that's also used is actually produced here
yes yes I think I think there's there's some questions there but like there are as people call me American when I say this there are boots on the ground here like there's real development
footprint and that's been the most interesting to see is oh okay we've Uh, Skull Warriors, which is here, and Lima,

which is like down the street. They're the only company standing up to the Chinese and 4X and are still in like the top 10 regular
total, I believe.
Oh,
4X. They're just
they're just them in this one tower.
You've got Say games, which is here.
You've got the Striker Z team, which is doing the UFFL game, which is here. Uh, you've got a Nicosia, the Wargaming Guys, which are here. You've got Owlcat, which is doing a did a Warhammer 40k game.
So, there is like a ton of development going on. There's
uh a bunch of puzzle studios that are here. Like, there is there's just a lot of activity that's really interesting.
And so, I' I'm fortunate to have clients here. I would say
the [clears throat] clients I have are are are Russian. Like, that just is the case.
And I guess Bella Russian
or Bella Russian,
two different things.
Another another cultural learning I've had. [laughter] I I I I would say just for for listeners, I would never judge a people by its government. I think that's

really important. Like there's been a lot of like really tragic and harrowing stories of people like getting out of Russia and trying to like set up a life a new here.
Uh and I would just encourage people for that's a lot of their stories here.
Yes.
Uh is trying to escape something. Um that's that's not so great right now.
How have you found Russian companies? because um the perception of people who have never
talked or seen or worked with a Russian company is that they're incredibly hierarchical. Like they reflect the government to the way everything works.
Yes. So yes, I would say I've worked with enough Russian companies now to have an opinion of this. So I think you've got North America and kind of Western Europe as one style of development and then I think you've got the East as kind of another style of development. And then I think there's this sliver of kind of like west or Eastern Europe, excuse me, which people don't talk enough about like games like War Thunder, Gajene Entertainment, which does enlisted. Like there's all these Eastern European companies that have made tons of money and don't get the credit.
Tart guys,
my games guys, like doing War Robots,

Escape from Tarov Guys. They just don't kind of feel like they're in the limelight in the way they should. And so I'd say I'd say that's just an observation I would have. And so this is a very different style of development. The thing I will say is that they're very ambitious. I I just they really want success in a way that really I would say unites them with Americans in many ways is like they really just they want to win. They want to win. They they definitely want to win. And I think that's that's really admirable. They also have a ton of grit. The Russian people will suffer to make this happen. They will work 99 96. They will do what it takes to push through a bill that isn't working to get it across the finish line because the company asked them to. I would say on the other hand there are some struggles.
Mhm.
I would say the intellectual curiosity leaves a lot to be desired. Like I don't think people understand that the enlightenment and the liberal arts was awesome for the west and like it's ingrained in our education system and

how we think about problems. It's ingrained in Silicon Valley. It's about challenging the status quo. Oh, there's a lot of this that comes out of that culture and I don't think that's kind of seeped in.
How do you see that?
So, I think when I see a lot of problem solving or things that don't turn out the way that people might expect, there's a quick motion to dismiss them rather than understand what happened. So, okay, I didn't get the topline read I wanted from this experiment. Let's push it to the side rather than, oh, we ran an experiment and didn't get an effect. Well, the whole point of the experiment was okay, if you didn't get an effect, that's an interesting learning. what more could we learn about the game to extend in the future or to have a follow-up test? And there's just a a more ruthless pursuit of results quickly. And I think that can that can sometimes leave people shortsighted.
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I I wouldn't I wouldn't like fully dismiss the sort of a curiosity aspect because I'm thinking [clears throat] about like
the scientists and and like that background like there's definitely a very much like a problem-solving

mentality.
I agree. Um, but again, you you run such a different thing with your with your clients than me. What I've noticed with the Russian clients um or former Russian clients is how less of a hierarchical they are in the sense of how many less levels they have in their organizations than others. But nevertheless, it is very centralized decision-m.
Yes.
So less levels,
information carries faster, more focus on the product itself by the leadership of the company.
Yep. much more. There's no like, oh, let's, you know, go through this level and that level and they can solve it, but I'm not gonna I'm just here to build a culture. Come on.
I'm here to build the products. Product build the company. There's no word culture here.
No,
culture is something you get from a theater.
Yes. [laughter]
I think that's a great way to put it.
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I I Yeah, like I would I would say I've seen basically none of none of that. Like it's like if you were to walk into King's office in Stockholm, you would see the Got Leaves. It's like a forest. It's magical. If you were to walk into Playick's office, [laughter]
I'm sure there's like one or two fun things, but I just don't think it's the same as King's Office and stuff.
Up, Done, Up would sell zero copies.
It's a It's a liberal arts question,
but it's the same in Turkish founders as well.
Yep. I would agree with that.
Yeah. Just all about results.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep. the the Chinese probably similar something about something about the cold war man uh
something about being results driven the other part that is interesting with these companies that they're very much bootstrapped and so there's this sort of a profitable growth focus

it's it's a different it's a different capital market I mean that's that's very much apparent they almost never share western investors some of the money some of the money is a little shady
comes from like individuals
it comes from individuals it's like okay where did this money come Um there there there is some of that, don't get me wrong. There there is some of that.
Um it's more opaque.
Yeah,
I guess would one way.
Well well coming back to like your reasons to move. Like why did you move?
Why did I move?
What's wrong with Sweden? Sweden is goddamn amazing. It's it's a paradise.
Well, so so both of us talked about frozen paradise.
So both of us both of us the reason we gave last time is that we felt like we weren't progressing.
So I think the question of both of us is like okay well do you feel like you're progressing now? Right.
Yeah. Yeah. I
you feel like you're progressing now?
I definitely I definitely don't feel that I'm progressing. Okay.
And there's a but it has nothing to do with uh location.
Okay.
And it has everything to do with the amount of uh work that I've been doing

and that has taken away from all the sort of a strategic work.
So all sort of like uh growth of you know deconstructor fun or anything has been on sideburner almost. It's fun. I enjoy it, but client work has been
just sucking up all all possible time. So, there's no progress, but hopefully the clients are having good progress.
Interesting.
What about you?
Uh I I I feel like I'm progressing.
That's good.
I feel like I'm progressing for sure. Uh I feel like I have a very clear goal in mind and it's like, okay, let's go execute.
Yeah,
let's go execute. I think this is definitely like my three years of execution execution phase. I thought, you know, there's definitely fun to be had, but this is I feel like the the setup I'm in right now, you know, particularly with how cyber taxation works means you get to keep a lot of your gains.
How tell tell me more about this. So, Cypress, Puerto Rico of Europe. Tell me about this taxation.
So, they have a particular visa here called the Nom visa
called the the European crook visa.

What are you talking about? This is a normal visa
called the tax evator visa.
Not at all. says, "The man who went to Greece for his own tax visa."
All right,
I'll tell them about that.
So, the nom visa you apply for gives you it gives you a 10-year license for this. And what it means is that you pay you pay what is now 14.5% corporate income tax and then what you're able to do is take 0% dividend tax with the as if you're an entrepreneur. That's a pretty amazing deal. There's no cap on that. You can also take interim dividends. You don't have to like wait till the quarter to take them. You just need to file it with your account, sign relevant papers. You do have to pay yourself a salary here, which you can do and keep it under the deduct from from
Yeah. tax.
If you had they have this thing called this IP box scheme thing, which is also another way that if you're making a game here, you can get even more of a tax advantage. I mean, it's it's incredible.
So, basically, out of every euro or dollar you make, you keep about 85%.
Yeah, I think that's that's probably a good way to put it. Okay. Yeah. Just
And how much do you have to be here to be uh doiciled?

60 days. 60 days consecutive.
No, no, no. You just have to be here 60 days.
So, you have to be 60 days on an island in Mediterranean,
correct?
To be taxed at 15% total.
Correct.
But you cannot be a tax resident anywhere else.
Yeah. So, you have to under six months.
Under six months. So, you could be four months in Barcelona.
Yep.
Then we four months in uh Berlin.
Yep.
That gives you eight.
Yep. And then maybe like the rest of it here. So you kind of exit during the summer.
So So here's the thing. Like I mean I knew going in that that was probably unrealistic strategy.
People dude moving moving sucks. Moving sucks. Moving is expensive. Moving is emotionally
series of turmoil. Cats.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Got cats. It's like
dog got cars now. Uh yeah, I know dude. It's it's just not something that's viable. So like it is nice that that exists. So, like for instance, you know, the the girlfriend got a contract in Abu

Dhabi and
shout out to Abu Dhabi.
Shout out Abu Dhabi. A lot of reasons. Shout out to Abu Dhabi very soon. Uh got a a contract, went there for a couple months, was great. Like no issue. Just cool to have stuff like that not be a concern.
Yeah. Yeah. And direct flights to Abu Dhabi.
Direct flights to Abu Dhabi.
Okay. So, talking about flights.
Yep.
Uh do you want to hear about the taxation in in Greece?
Oh, please. People say like you went for taxation. First of all, from Finland, if you go anywhere, the taxation is going to be better anywhere. Literally anywhere apart from maybe another Nordic country. Maybe maybe even then it's it's equal at least not not not better. So in that in that sense like you're always going to be better. The weather is going to be better and taxation is going to be better once you leave Finland. So no offense, but that's how it is. Uh Greek taxation works at the exact recommendation of IMF. So they recommend 5% dividend.
Yep.
They recommend 15% capital income gain.
Wow.
And they recommend up to 40% of um taxes

on your labor.
Oh.
But uh as you come in as a guest to the country who receives a little bit of a different um because you essentially you're not using the social services. We pay for schools, we pay for everything, private healthcare and so forth. So with the discount that we get for 10 years is basically having
uh those y
uh so your your salary caps at 20. Um I haven't benefited from the taxation at all. Finland has not let me go.
She likes me so much
that she keeps me from the maximum length of time. The maximum length of time that I'm paying taxes to Finland is 3+ one. So that plus one is the year that you move. And after that three hard years,
anything that I make is I have to declare to Finland.
And they do not joke around. They like if like you can do a lot of nasty things in Finland and you won't get punished much, but taxes.
Yeah.
They're going to hang you. [laughter]
I I remember the story of like some guy

who drove a sports car in Finland for a little bit or was it Norway and just like
the story was a guy who was living outside of Finland. He had a Ferrari and then he drove that far for whatever x amount of days. And because the day amount went something something over, they basically taxed him the tax amount and he came in as a $522,000 to the tax man in Finland because he dared to drive his Ferrari in Finland during a summer vacation.
Yeah.
One day over or something like that. Anyway, the the tax man is very very keen and because I h still have a Finnish company that pays Finnish taxes for all the for the income that it gets uh in addition to having now a Greek company then I can't the the government was like what are you talking about? You haven't moved.
You're just in Greece for a good time. So, we'll keep you the max level. And then if you have an apartment in Finland, they're kind of like you didn't really move. So, uh I didn't fight Finland. I was like, you know what, tax person?
Yeah,
that's fine. I'll pay my dues.
Yep. more finished kids to college.
Yeah, exactly. I'm happy to to uh to

push my ROI even higher [laughter] than than it has been till this day. But nevertheless, once I once I fully uh doiciled in Greece, essentially Greek um um corporate income tax
corporate income tax is about 22, which is very high, higher than in Finland.
And then after that, the dividend is five. So, it's not crazy, but let's say it's it's in the range of like 70 cents. In Finland, the amount of money that I'd be getting out of my company
is somewhere maxing at 50%. So, every
Oh, no. I think it's much lower. I mean, I I don't think we're telling viewers like I mean, it's
it's incredibly brutal. Let me just I can actually open up how brutal it was. Like I didn't even know this when I when I became an entrepreneur how bad it is to be an entrepreneur in the north like in a socialist country like a purely socialist uh welfare state. Uh I
like the you make let's say you make 100k for your company
out of that you have to pay the

government up top. So that would be uh you give 20%. Now you're at 80.
So you're like okay I'm at 80 should I pay myself salary? The progression of the taxes is brutal. like at the time you're hitting like in that 50 range, you're already paying like 40% of of sal. So that doesn't mean you'd be like, well, let me take some dividends. Dividends a whole different story. In Finland, dividends are based on the balance sheet of your company, which is the weirdest concept ever. So you have to be making a lot of gains and keeping the money inside the company to grow your balance sheet. And then then you can take 8% of your balance sheet at an 8% tax and everything above that comes at 34% range. But if you take too much then they consider that's a salary and then they're going to hit it with a 50%. So eventually what was happening is I would have to sit up sit with the accountant after every year to figure out like what are we even doing? And no matter how much you made like the most optimal way was was basically leave the money in your company. Yeah. take dividends at the maximum 8% take about

20 40 30k salary max max and um and just you know leave live a modest life.
Yeah.
No, I I hear you man. It was the same same.
Yeah. So
maybe 20 cents on the dollar.
Yeah. And then the last thing that kind of broke the camel's back on my part was they instituted this new thing which is um pension payments but we don't have a pension fund. So it was a pyramid scheme where you move money to a person who is currently on pension and that amount how much you have to pay was based on the revenue of your company not IBIDA not how much you're taking but let's say your company's making half a million a year
600,000 800,000 a year we're where I was kind of like hoovering around
then they would be like oh you're a CEO of a company that makes $800,000
I think the way we're looking at it you you're getting paid like about 200k uh a year.
So, we're going to put a pension payment

based on that money that we came up with that you're not paying yourself, but we say that you would be
and now you pay that money and that money goes to a pyramid scheme.
I see how it is. They're basically compulsory saving.
Compulsory. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not safe to a fund which made it very uh not nice to anybody who understands how funds work and how pyramid
very it was. No, it's very socialisted. very socialist.
You can make your little fun investments.
For people who don't understand the uh the the concepts of Nordics, let's say there's uh four houses
at the end of the road.
Yep. Gryffindor, Slytherin.
Yes, exactly. Nordstroms. [laughter] Uh and they look quite the same. One is clearly the most expensive one.
Yeah.
And that's at the end of the street, and that's Norway.
Okay.
And they're rich rich.
They're kind of in the same park. They but they they had the money from from the parents. We know they made a lot of money.
Yeah. So they look like us. They act like us, but we know that they're filthy

rich.
Yes.
And they know it too. Yep.
And they don't really work.
To see that opera house.
Yes. Exactly. I would say
then we have two very identical like old beautiful houses.
Uh that's Denmark and Sweden.
Yep.
And they're kind of they they inherited some money too. Yep.
They're doing pretty well.
I would agree.
They've had some internal problems. They married into different families, but they're they've gone through some divorces and so forth, but they're but they are classic and they they have their money and they're, you know, they're doing well.
And then you have Finn that looks exactly the same,
but unlike the the doctors and the engineers that live in the Nordstroms and and um and loons, uh these one Finnish is uh she's um she's uh workingass.
Yep.
Uh but lives exactly like the their their their neighbors. Yeah.
So, Finland has been keeping up with the Jones
and uh and we're broke and it's pretty bad.
So, you still say we're we're getting broke.
Yeah. Uh that's the only passport I have.
Okay. But but a passport is many things. Uh is so you're still Finnish.

That's is an interesting concept. So, I don't think like with European nationalist states.
Yeah.
With most states, you cannot become they will never consider you Finnish. So, I'm born in USSR. I moved to Finland when I was five. I've gone through the schools, the militaries. I'm asking what's in your heart.
In my heart, it's it's um I would like to be Finnish. Okay.
But I know that I'm never fully accepted.
Okay.
Even though I speak fluent Finnish, my kids are Finnish.
Yeah.
Everything.
I've paid my taxes, set my companies,
you just don't think it'll it'll ever happen.
No. If I'm in Finland, they would normally people talk to me in English first.
Oh. Oh, interesting.
Yeah. So you always feel like like you're not quite there yet. But it would but I'm not blaming Finland for that. That would be the same thing if I would be in Sweden. Be same thing in Denmark. It would be same thing in Poland. It'd be same thing in in France. It'd be same thing in Spain.
What do you think it means to be accepted though? Like what you talked about the language. So that's one thing in US. If I My sister has lived in the

US for 26 years. She's a US citizen. She's an American.
And there's nobody who would say you're not an American.
Yes. I I do agree. Yeah,
I I mean we talked about this last time, but
I would I will give another example. If I move to UK,
yeah,
I become British.
I won't become English.
Yes.
But I will become British.
Okay.
What does what does that involve?
It's a but it invol like it I get the distinction.
But those are different types of countries. They're not nation states. So uh so it's a it's a weird and I don't I don't know. I'm I'm kind of like a nomad in that sense that I don't have
um an like I love many countries and I could see myself living in many countries but um but it is what it is and that's why maybe it's easier for me to leave.
Yeah. So like does that make you a Ronin then? Like you're just kind of like wandering.
I'm coming in for the good time, not for the long time. [laughter]

Okay. So Wait, so you're you're you're in a what? A monogous. But like Hold on. You switch you switch countries. So it's just like
dating. You're dating. You're dating.
I I like long-term relationships, but I'm never committing.
Okay. Okay.
Like a forever bachelor.
I mean, I
I could see myself with few different countries.
Okay.
Interesting.
I'd like to I I see the beauty in Finland. I see the beauty in Spain.
But do you see yourself as Spanish? Like potentially?
Like Spanish? Yeah.
I would never be a Spanish. Do I see myself living in Spain? 1,000%.
Okay.
Okay. So you're not going to you're not you're going to like die without like a flag on your grave or something. What do you vote for in Eurovision?
I who I vote for I'm never I would never watch Eurovision.
You vote for Cypress, right?
Oh, what?
You vote for Cypress. You're supposed to be a good Greek.
So I I love Greece and I love how like how they love their country. I could never be Greek. And I realized we were coming back from whatever trip we were. Maybe we were in Spain. and we're coming back to Greece and we're like, "We love

it here, but this is not home because we don't know Greek language and it's very hard to to be there." And you'd be like, "Just learn." Oh, just the Greek language is the hardest one I've ever seen.
But I I think you I don't I don't know if you can become Greek, but I do think you could be accepted here in a way you wouldn't be accepted in the Nordics. For sure.
Yeah.
There's a warmth here.
That's a that's by the way, that's an excellent point that you mentioned. So Greeks, people kind of think that they're offputting. M in a way, but they are the warmest people. Like after a while, like they always invite you in. Every kind of interactions with a Greek takes enormous amount of time because they like to talk to you. It is crazy. Yesterday evening, yesterday evening, we ran out of those uh dishwasher pills and I went upstairs
to pick one from our neighbor.
It took me 52 minutes,
because I have to be invited into the home,
dude.
Then a conversation,
wife, kids. Yeah. Whether
he was alone, he was alone.
Cousins,

it was just everything.
And that's the difference, by the way, between Nordics and um and and Greeks or South Europeans is that it is it's incredibly rude to have the interactions that Nordics have with each other.
Yeah.
But in in Nordic countries, that is perceived as
um polite. It's like I'm not going to waste your time
by having a conversation about, "Hey, Phil, have you gone there? Have you tasted this? How was your evening going? Would you like this? Let me tell you about that. You tell me about this. And we're going to do you want a coffee? Do you want a this?" I, by the way, I came for one pill. He insisted I take two. And [laughter] like all that stuff. And we're just talking about this and that. In Finland, I would be like, "Jesus Christ. What is wrong with this guy? It's like I'm just here to pick up one thing. just give it to me and leave me alone and nobody would keep you out that long. That you'd be seen as problematic. But in Greece, the other type of behavior if I would be like, "Hey, I'm I don't want to waste your time
would be seen as incredibly rude." I

would give another example of the child in Europe. Like my um
I can just mention my name, but I met her a week after she moved to Finland.
Okay.
And she said she was
shocked the first Friday that nobody invited her for for a dinner.
Yeah. Yeah, but in Finland that would be so aggressive. And she said like if that would happen in Israel after the first week on Friday at work if people don't invite you that means you're going to getting you're getting fired like nobody wants to get No. So like these type of a cultural differences are very interesting where one uh culture tell like acts politely.
Yeah.
And the other culture sees it as incredibly rude.
Yes.
And vice versa. I I the the thing I will find I will say that's interesting is that they're very trustworthy people though like at least what I found is that crime on this island is very low.
You don't always see it cuz it can look I mean to be honest with Yeah. Like this place can look pretty third worldly. I don't know if we want to get it out.
It looks I mean Lima looks rough man.

There's no doubt about it. There's some weird going on with the land use cuz like every third building
doesn't have occupancy. Like it's in some dispute. I mean, I don't think it's the there are 10 cousins inheriting it. There's got to be something else that's preventing turnover. It's just too weird. It's too weird.
Yeah.
Uh infrastructure sh I mean, it looks it can look pretty shocking sometimes.
Uh but there isn't there isn't like
visible poverty at people, which is interesting. Like, you know, I you know, I've seen a couple homeless people, but not
not anything that would strike you. It's just kind of the dilapitation in the building, some of the pipe stuff, just lower economic development for a longer period of time. But yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. [snorts]
All right. Hold on. Let's let's let's get back Let's get back on track. Let's get back on track. You had some questions here.
I can start with with with Athens. Is is um like what's better? What's worse? What's better is is Let's start with the obvious. Saturi, it's the Japanese Zen Buddhist

term for sudden enlightenment. That flash where everything clicks. We're told that Heroic Labs team had theirs when they realized that most studios run live ops like a horoscope. Vague, kind of [music] generic, same advice for everyone. So they built Sattorii, realtime experimentation, player level personalization, events that actually respond to player behavior. Say Sanonara to your old live op stand and Konichiwa to Sattorii from heroid labs in sickness and in health in soft launch and in live ops through every meta shift and every platform policy change. That's the kind of loyalty vibes built between your game and your players. AI powered targeting, a real meta [music] layer, rorowass optimization that actually compounds. That's what makes Vibes the fastest growing loyalty platform in

mobile games. Till churn do us a part. Vibes. Vybs.co. [music] the climate. Y um I don't I can't take winters. Even when I was 17, even living in Finland, I remember I froze off one day I just, you know, going to school or high school and I froze off my nose, which is quite big. [laughter]
It was white.
Whoops.
And and my finger I'm always cold and I froze it off. And I remember at 17 I told my parents, I'm moving to Australia. Like I I can't I hate winter. I don't hate this country. I just hate winter in general. And I want to choose when I go to win. But it took a while before I got to California. And so, yes, the the weather is phenomenal in Greece. It doesn't come to a surprise anybody. The second part where Greece is is better is the food.
Food the the produce is unrivaled. I get this from Turks all the time. Turkish

food is better. It's like it's not about Turkish food or the recipes that they have.
The produce in Turkey doesn't stand against Greek produce. The produce is just so good. So, the food tastes extremely good.
[snorts]
um schools. So Finland is known of having a brand of great school. That result is old. It is from 2008. That's when Greece had money. So since then schooling system has gone significantly down in Finland and we experienced it and that was one of the key reasons why we left because the schools in Finland are
average at best.
That's right. and they're average and and that is the fact by by by all the studies. [snorts] Um so schools in Greece again Finland doesn't have private schools. Greece like many other countries has
phenomenal private schools and much cheaper than in in in other locations. Cost of living I would say is cheaper in Greece. Taxes are better than in

Finland. Yep.
Um the uh the the the geographical position of Athens is better than in Helsinki in terms of travel.
Uh Russian border is closed. So from Finland, it used to be very easy to travel to Asia. It was like the prime location if you want to fly anywhere to Asia. Now it is not and it is very long to travel anywhere. Uh from Athens, I can travel very easily. No, no, Asia is far, but I can do Middle East super easily, super fast, as well as to any location. So, it's 4 hours max anywhere and and even direct flights to the US. So, that's the part. But then where Finland is much better is like the the uh the the infrastructure is phenomenal in Finland. It it truly is. It like everything is built so well. Everything is lit, everything is perfect. It's it's a very trustworthy culture. It's like everything works. Everything is digitalized. Everything is is easy to deal with. Poverty is very small in Finland. Everything because it's a

social welfare state. So people are taken care of. Um it's a it's a very in many sense very polite country. You're giving your space and and I there's there's ton of great things I could say about Finland.
So you don't regret it?
I don't I don't regret it. If our kids would have had a great time in the school or my youngest wasn't in the school, she was in daycare. But if my daughter wouldn't have had problems in school, uh the bullying and so forth, then I think it would have been much harder. Now she loves going to school.
Uh and so that is such a big bonus. And they really enjoy life in in in Greece, which is great. They've been asking like, "Please let's not move. Like we really love going to school."
Great to hear.
And and there's something about the climate that people don't understand how tough the winters are. Yes. They're dark and they're depressing. When you're in a normal place, even though the infrastructure is not so nice,
but we can be outside.
We walk around outside. We spend time outside as a family. We go to

restaurants which in Finland are like mainly chains just like in the US and others. Uh very like not interesting in Greece like the tiveras and everything. So it's like it's the outside culture is big. You I think people have to understand like we joke about the weather a lot and there's there's certain reasons why the Swedes always fantasize about California and Miami
and why as I learned the Russians love Santa Barbara which is now a 10 plus season
sitcom show that's in English but the Russians love the Anyways
we can talk about Santa Barbara I learned a lot about it
the feeling you get at the end of April into May when it's still dark and the winters won't retreat is just crushing. You get sicker when you're indoors more, which I think people don't understand. There's like these waves of sickness you get in the Nordics and going to work and it being, you know, maybe 2 or 3:00 and it being dark, waking up in darkness,
having to put on your coat, the the song and dance of having to put on and off your coat everywhere you go, trying to

trying to get rid of all the snow, which is everywhere. And remember, in at least in Stockholm, it's not nice magical snow. No,
it's disgusting slush. It's slush because you're on an archipelago which has water coming in from everywhere. You've got it. It's It's just not
cool to visit, but if you're in it for 4 months straight, it's not fun.
Reprieve. Reprieve. Reprieve. Reprieve. And this is like the ultimate, you know, 360 you can take.
Well, how about you? Like are they are the things of course school is not something you care about. [laughter]
You're done with that. But and taxes we know it's much better. But what else was what's like what do you miss about Sweden? To be honest with you, there there's quite a bit there's quite a bit we miss about Sweden. I mean, you were talking about the fact that, you know, you can be elsewhere under this visa. And we've talked about potentially like taking more time back home. I think there's a I mean, we've talked about beforehand there's a warm hug to Sweden that is like just really tempting. You know, there's just like this warm hug of

knowing that people are gonna stop at the stop lightss, that the that that people are gonna queue when they're going to queue,
that the the flights semi-run on time, the trains semi run on time. Uh there there's just like a warm comfort
to the the public transportation system. There's an infrastructure. I just there's something
to the level of economic development they have. There's a lot going on that I wouldn't say we ever took for granted, but it becomes more apparent when you're here. And you contrast kind of like the dysfunction and the problems that are happening here versus the Nordics, which just feel more together, more problem solving, better governance, all those things.
Very rule- abiding.
Yep.
Which is which is phenomenal for for, you know,
building um a state. But at the same time, like I think there's a lot of cultural with the rule abideness because if you live up north, you got to play by the rules or you die.
Yeah.

If you live in the south, you'd be like, "Ah,
it's sunny."
Yeah.
Do we have to build a a house like [laughter] is it if the house is kind of there, that's enough. In the north, it has to be perfect. Yeah.
Or you will die in the in the winter.
I mean, there's there's a lot of game developers in Sweden, you know. [laughter] sunlock or something.
Let's do uh let's do the uh the the quick one on on like Athens versus Limol.
Lightning round. Internet, coffee, healthcare, schools, traffic, bureaucracy, food, friends, flight. Are you want to make this like a rapid round and like start to get to to close this one? All right.
Lightning or how do you want to
How do you uh internet? You want to go quickly?
Yeah, internet is is tough. If you can get fiber going.
Mine's dog I I think I might even give this to you. Sitta.
Yeah. Okay. So Athens is better
if but they downgraded our internet by themselves. So anyways, Athens can be better.
Yes. Coffee
coffee is the same but Athens is half price to Limol which is crazy. Athens is over 3 million people and it is twice cheaper than Limos.

Yep. Uh healthcare that's us easily.
Really?
Yeah, I think it's easily. It's easily
there's a lot of private places. I haven't really used Greek healthare.
Great hair clinics.
Ah, who would need a hair clinic though? [laughter] Put it away. Put it away. Park. Uh, [gasps] schools.
Uh, great.
I don't know how they are here. Athens has has very very good ones.
They they have overcrowding problems here, particularly with the private schools and just the wave of Russians coming over money.
Yeah.
Uh, traffic easily give it to you as being easier on traffic.
No, no, no. Athens is horrible.
Athens is one of the worst traffics. you. We were today driving in in Phil's modest car and um and he was like, "Oh my god, I can't stand this traffic."
Yeah.
And he like, "Please, when I have traffic, I stand
Yeah.
I like
I I mean it was just it was Sunday. It was like it should have
still it's a last weekend our daughter and my wife walked pretty much in the

same amount of time from the mall home. Then I drove with our youngest one.
Walked with a child.
That's rough. That is Athens. It was 6:00 p.m. shops closed
and the infrastructure was like we're about to collapse right now.
And you don't live like in in like Manhattan, so to speak.
Do I see the Acropolis? No, I live right next.
Okay. I [laughter] mean, so I live uh very close to the Olympic Village.
You do not?
Yes.
I've really wanted to go there. Fun fact, if you win a medal in Greece,
yeah,
you get free entry to all the museums.
Well, it's a pretty modest prize. [laughter]
Greek museums. Let's just say that uh that the the free you British museums are much more powerful.
Fair enough. Fair enough.
What do you Museum of Archaeology? Oo. What What do we have left that others

haven't looted?
It's like 20 bucks. Uh okay. Bureaucracy. Um, not bad.
I I I'll probably give it to you because my visa is not actually approved yet. Buuda is good.
I have every everything has been approved. Lawyers are really cheap.
Yeah. Food.
Food is Athens is one of the best food food capitals in the world.
Improved. It's improved a lot. I mean, there is good high-end stuff here because of the hotel, the hotel culture.
The potatoes here, by the way, people don't understand potatoes have won multiple competitions. They're unbelievable to taste. They're unbelievable to to absolutely have. Hence, you have all the Eastern Europeans just here for the potatoes.
Yep. [laughter]
Athens has like if people haven't visited, there's not a lot of ethnic food. Y
uh that's not a thing. Uh and and but you can have like
it just the quality of food compared to the prices. It's not like super cheap, but if you get to a restaurant in California, that same restaurant would be 650.
Oh, easy.
Uh in Athens, it would be like 150.
Yep. Easily. Easily. Athens. Athens is

like a really hopping place. Most most improved European city.
Friends.
Uh friends. Um this is this is like in my to-do list all the time.
Yep.
I'm really bad with friends because I work so much and I every month I promise myself I will hang out more with friends.
Yeah.
And I try to and then I get so much work on me and then it's not like I just work. I have also have a family. So that takes its own part. Y
and then everything extra is like I try to go on conferences pretty much just to hang out with friends.
Yep.
So, so I think this is a very interesting topic. I don't think people particularly viewers who have like a a more traditional corporate job understand that a lot of the friendships you make are through your work in one way or another.
And so when you move, first of all, you're instantly severing the friend groups you had made previously and you're moving as an entrepreneur. So when you arrive here, you don't get this built-in network. You were just talking about GM who if they didn't get an

invite on the on the weekend might not be in a great place. But
so she's she's now getting all the invites. That was first week.
But but now there there is no one to invite you, right? If you move here and then usually your spouse doesn't, you know, sometimes does not have a job either. And so your entire network on even how you start to make friends collapses. And so sociologists say there's I think there's there's three main principles to making friends. Frequent unplanned interaction. Yes.
And so like where are you going to have frequent unplanned interaction to make friends? And that just and again if you're an entrepreneur dude you're grinding man dude you're you're after 5:00 you think you're done with work when you talking about that's that's when the Americans wake up when the west coast
wake up 6 p.m. is work starts.
The idea that I would have an event during a work week that that is before Friday that I could make is laughable. Maybe maybe I I can commit to one thing that's it. Yeah.
So that puts you in a precarious situation. I would say it's certainly a lot warmer here, but it's always you end up in these expat circles

precisely because it's like kindergarten. Everyone else is looking for the same thing. And again, it's not like Sweden where people's friend groups are
precluded, but you you will be an outsider. The language barrier is there. It's just the reality of moving internationally in places like this.
Yeah. And I didn't pick up the best hobbies for that either. like swimming ain't exactly like you know the sport where you have a conversation with somebody.
I would I would agree with this. I I mean like I do I do have people I talk to and I would like to develop in the friendships. It's just dude
we're we're guys like in our 30s and 40s. It's hard to find
like how do you do this?
No.
It's it's through sports and like that's that's at least for me. But even when people visit Athens which is more often these days they're like hey do you want to like meet? It's like, that would be my whole workday.
Yeah.
You know how much behind I will be tomorrow.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I I agree. I agree. It's like you're always gonna put those other things first,
I think, in many regards. So, that is that is just something that's tricky. I

would say this is also why it's kind of our last two raw.
Yeah. you know, in terms of moving, it's just it's too hard to continually reement your life and all of your connections and and not cuz cuz all the other thing is like, you know, if you invest that investment is only [laughter] three years of return cuz you're going you're going potentially somewhere else or you know who who knows.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, friends. Uh last thing, let's go with flights.
Cypress is a joke.
Yeah, Cypress is bad situation. Elimol is an hour away from an airport. It's expensive. Take a cab. It's 100 bucks easy.
Uh the the airport doesn't fly everywhere.
This is this is crippling. I would say this is one of the biggest problems with Cypress that I think to make it more attractive to international business. So we have to remember they won't fly into Istanbul.
Yeah.
So that removes a major Mediterranean hub.
Turkey has invaded Cypress and taken half of it. It's
very complicated topic, very sensitive. And so the flights into mainland Europe

are very long. Usually connecting through Greece, which by the way is not in Shenhen, which means you're going to go through security again. You're going to go through immigration. So your lead times for flight, it's it just takes a really long time to get anywhere. You do have access through
Abu Dhabi, through Emirates, excuse me, through different parts of Asia, which is nice. But you remember you're going down 4 and a half hours. You're basically burning time. Yeah.
And so it's an inconvenient place to live. I would argue far more than I expected. It's been very expensive, by the way, to get back home to the United States. That has been probably the biggest downside moving here. Not only that, I mean, you know, we we were at the airport today, but like coming back from Lima is like 55 minutes to an hour. It's a $100 taxi. The public option is not reliable. There's traffic. It's
a really bad situation.
Athens airport is fantastic.
Yeah,
it is.
Huge. Tier one city.
Tier one tier one airport. Um
Yeah, tier one airport. It's lounges are great. I'm
I The only challenge was that I was in the one world alliance.

Yeah.
And I had to switch to Star Alliance. I was on platinum rolling. I was on a level where when I traveled with thin air.
Yeah.
I would be personally greeted by the staff.
It was so uncomfortable. And then at some point, it's so weird that I'm sitting here in the airport and nobody from the staff has come in personally.
Where's my champagne? You know,
no. They would come in, they would be like, "Mr. Katkov, it's so great to have you back here with us."
And people would be like, "You're you're on a flight to like with your kids to Spain." And like, you know, like the normal people are turning like,
"Is he like a captain?" It's like, "Why? Why?" Like, they never seen anything like this. This is how much money I spent with thin air. Uh so so now I started from the beginning. I'm finally gold tier AGN. Like that's the entry today.
The airport um security system took me 6 minutes. So I'm getting there
going towards platinum.
Let's see what doors it opens up in this

Lufansza alliance.
I I could not be more envious of you. Can't be more envious of you
with the airport.
Well, also my my relationship is with British Airways. I can just say like the deterioration of the UK economy can be told through British Airways.
Yeah.
Expensive
emerald or like they have these like different stones.
I just want to remind you M it is 2026 and for an earlier part like for their vast majority of their history their mobile app was a web view.
Nice HTML 5.
Yes. Pretty well I would maybe HTML like that's inhumane. Inhumane. Uh and when you travel a lot it does matter. Okay. Anything we should close with? What else? What else we got here? What else we got?
This is not our first move. This is not our last move. Yes.
Um if somebody asks like should I move uh I have wife and kids or I'm I'm I have a girlfriend.
I don't know it's so personal
for me uh and for our family. It has been great. We are very happy.
Yep.
But we were happy in other places. A lot of the things that people tell me they they want to do what I did like I also

want to do it but
and that but is
oh but my family I also have family and I miss my family dearly. my my parents uh who live in Finland.
Um
but it's also my my life.
Yeah.
And I and I'm I'm not a caretaker. I do take care of them, but I'm not a caretaker. And uh and I think it's uh I'm seeing how much better it is for my daughters
uh and how happy they are
and how international they're growing up. I love it because I'm international in a sense. So they don't have allegiance soon either. Their allegiance is to the people to the different places of the world. I want them to be living in China if they want to and then US and then I don't know Australia. Like I don't care. Just be happy. You're not tied to the piece of land and the government that might be at that point. And um I love it. I I love them getting this value. I love them. We're being in a school.

Yeah.
That is not multicultural. It is international
and that's awesome. like they saw like that everybody's different. She has Chinese friends, uh, friends from all the Arabian countries, Greek friends, UK friends. I love that part. So, I'm very happy.
So, let me let me just twist the question because I thought this was an interesting one. What would you tell someone who's 30 years old right now about where to go? Would you tell them to go to
depends on their their financial situation?
Game game devs, by the way. Games, where would you tell them to move? Because I was thinking about this. I'm like, if you were into games, where would you want?
If you're into games, it it depends. If you have a job, then I would say Barcelona would be probably pretty good. If you want to move there and work like Scopia and other type of studios that have there, you get the the bet taxation, which is pretty fair. Yep.
Uh but again, it only works if you're not American. If you're American, you're saddled with debt.
Y
from your schooling. If you're European, you don't have debt. So Americans don't allow you to leave US. You have to work in the US because they're US salaries.
Yeah.
If you are European, this is what I did. Y
I went to the US.

Okay. and I'm getting the US salary without having the US debt. So, that kind of builds your your uh your net wealth. Yep.
Uh and then you're kind of cheating the system. If that's an option for you, do that. I
I I was thinking about this question.
I would move to LA to work in Riot, for example.
I I I almost disagree. It's unfair, but I disagree with the premise of the question because I think the answer is you should be ready to move wherever the job is, right? You should be shooting out applications if you're 30 years old looking for people say the place where you can learn the most. I think the salary conversation I disagree with Eric Eric our Ferd and Eric Seurn on this who we talking about like going where you learn the most. I definitely think you want to cash in ASAP because there's something called compounding growth which is amazing and to be honest with you you do learn a lot working in a corporation. You do learn more in a startup you can have both experiences. There'll be a time and a place for everything.
Uh but I would say you should go wherever the the opportunity is. Like if you're in the games industry you have to be ready for that. You have to be ready to move. And I think you have to be excited about that. like you had to be excited about like, okay, the next opportunity is in Sweden. The next

opportunity is in Berlin. The next opportunity is here.
It's very hard with kids.
I I first of all, I totally respect that. That's why I think when you're young, you need to be ready to pack up the bags and and chase the opportunity. I think if you are doing this and you have kids, this is becoming a much harder industry to be involved in. There's just
I mean, let's ask a quick. Where would you go? You said Barcelona. I think that's a that's
if I would have kids, I would move to like if I would have kids and I would live somewhere in Europe.
Yeah.
And I would work in gamedev. I would choose Barcelona and I would work for sculpting. I
I honestly think the answer is Sweden.
I I think I can't think of a better place.
I can't stand this. The winter. I said I
I I agree. But I think in terms of career, raising kids, the insuranceances you get, I actually think Sweden is a remarkable place for the games industry. You don't have job lock. people people are now the Swedish game industry I think has been getting healthier and they've been treating more employees. I think Embark
splitting off part of DICE has been a huge part of that and I think Arrowhead has been another really good part of

Sweden's growth.
Phenomenal places
and I I think like the only other place I was really thinking of is maybe Poland I think is starting to come around.
Poland has excellent taxation great companies. I just think it's a little too early and you're a little too CD Project Red or take like a 50% pay cut at like
Yeah, but the tax rate is 12 and the cost of living is super small.
I I don't me wrong, I think it's getting there. I just I couldn't
You better like Poland though if you if you intend to be in Poland. [laughter] Would you take a place other than Sweden? You say Barcelona? I think Yeah.
I mean Sweden I would choose uh Sweden is great. Um, if you want to work in in PC, uh, London used to be cold. I would not live in London. Like, I dread I dread living in London. It's always like there's always a reason to be there and I just don't The weather is bad. The It's too expensive. It's kind of dangerous.
Uh, it's just not worth it. Um, fun to visit, not fun to live in. Um, Barcel I I would go back to Barcelona. It's such a nice city to live in. you know, nice

is a different like depending on the neighborhood, but Spain is is is wonderful country to live in. I think if you find a good employer, there's plenty of great employers in Barcelona. So, if I would be employed, I'd probably be in Barcelona.
I I actually don't think here's that bad. I think the problem here is you need to be Russian speaking if you really want to be
Cypress. I would never I would not move here.
I Yeah, no. I
This is too too much.
Yep.
This is uh No.
No. I can't even
uh you go crazy also on this small island.
Yeah.
It's uh it's it's everybody here who's from Brussia or Bellarus is like cramming in Greek so that they can move one day.
Yeah.
So they can Yeah. So this is this is not this is for the good time, not for the long time.
True.
Barcelona is for the long time. Like you could settle your roots and be like, "My kids speak Spanish and Catalan. We're we're doing this, baby."
I think they got their own growing pains over in Barcelona. I I don't feel like I

mean I
we we've been talking about the disappointment thin Finland. I actually think Barcelona is a huge area of disappointment. Like despite all this investment, they still have basically nothing to their name that's original. I mean what what are you excited about that's made by a you know a true Barcelona company, a Catalon company? I can't think of a single one.
I I can't I don't know. I would have to study.
What Catalon founders are you excited about? What is the the the VC ecosystem? It's nothing. It's
they don't do VCs. They just do employment.
And I don't say this disparaging you. I say this in like Barcelona. Like get your together. Like you have an opportunity. But
it's too good.
It's too like why would you why would you you know do startup when you can just be like
I mean
Dynamo Barcelona was famous. It was like oh
4 week 4 day work week like at the beach
you know. Yeah they shipped some some like below average hybrid casual game in in like 5 years of making. Hey, sangria is great.
Uh, pinchos are are phenomenal.

You know, you can have some little football in the office. Let's go, baby.
Maybe.
So, so I I would still put Barcelona. Like, I'm not There's plenty of interesting development. There's the new Overwatch game is coming out of there. Call of Duty bought the studio out of there back in the day. So, so there's there's cool stuff. Um, I've worked with uh with with Spaniards and Catalans. They are,
you know, hardworking people. um much more hardworking than the reputation would would put them to be. Uh it's just the uh the people who come there to work
get mellowed down by the Gatalan sun, [laughter]
get drunk on it.
Yeah.
Uh should we close it here?
We close it here. People, if you have opportunities to move, just consider it.
Uh hit us up with questions. If you're interested in how is it impractical to move to Limasol or anywhere in Cyprus, hit fill up. If you're interested about Greece or my experience of moving to the US, getting visas, that kind of stuff, hit us up. And um hope this was useful

and apologies for the background noise that started from this broken ecosystem of this place. So um
now Georgian food.
Yeah,
peace out. That was long.
We got to the end of the episode.
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