Having come to Japan initially as an 11-year old on a school exchange program, Arne has been an admirer of Japan all his life. An illustrious career as submarine officer, shipping executive, FinTech founder & investor later, he has just spent a week in Tokyo, joining a Nordic delegation also including members from Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and Finland, to take a closer look at the startup & investment ecosystem. 

We discuss - of course - Arne's career, and very quickly get carried away on discussions about politeness and respect (still plentiful to be found in Japan), the need to look beyond our own selfish needs (defined by Maslow's pyramid) to becoming "Earth positive", how to create the future of democracy through the right incentives, what makes successful founders, and why any stock market downturn is an opportunity for founders in Japan and elsewhere. 

We would have liked to dive much deeper into many of these topics, and will certainly do so at a future Tokyo FinTech Meetup when Arne is back in Tokyo. Thank you very much for this wonderfully engaging conversation. 

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

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