Interviewee: Sam Thapaliya

Interviewer: Priyanka Shrestha

Date of Interview: 05/09/2022

Location of Interview: Stanford University

 

Priyanka: Where'd you grow up in Nepal?

 

Sam: So I grew up in this part of the town called Barunpur, which is 8 miles away from Bharatpur, which is the center of Chitwan. So when you think about Chitwan, you think about Bharatpur–I lived 8 miles away and 8 miles in Nepali standard is like 10, 15 kilometers away.

 

Priyanka: And you grew up there, you went to school there?

 

Sam: So I was probably 13 years old when I first left my town. Literally,  I didn't even leave Chitwan until I was 13, 14. The furthest I'd been until I was like 13, 14 years old was eight miles away from my house.

 

Priyanka: And where'd you go when you left at 13?

 

Sam: I went to Kathmandu for the first time with my dad. That was my first introduction to the big city. 

 

Priyanka: What did you think of it?

 

Sam: I was amazed at the tall buildings. The tallest house I had ever seen until that time was like 3 stories tall.And I go to Kathmandu, every house is like 5 to 6 and I'm like, shit, it must, it's so cool to live in that house.

 

Priyanka: Did that affect your future plans at all?

 

Sam: Not really. I don't know. My parents, you know, raise me like that or something, but I just always knew that I was gonna do something big. I had no idea what I would be doing. Whatever I was gonna do, it would be grand. I really always thought about this as a chapter 1 of a big story, right. I'm like, yeah, chapter 1 will look shitty, but the remaining chapter will look pretty cool. But now that I'm here, I still think that chapter 1 has not even begun. I think I'm still in the epilogue of this massive book of Sam, you know, that's how I hope my life is.

 

Priyanka: Yeah. So did you always know you wanted to come to the U.S?

 

Sam: To be honest, I actually knew that I was gonna leave Nepal, I knew that I was gonna go somewhere, right. But, it could have been England. I always wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge to study philosophy and classics. But somehow, I came to California and became an  entrepreneur. 

 

Priyanka: Can you tell me more about that journey of coming from Nepal to California? Like how'd you get here?

 

Sam: This is very interesting, right. When I was 15  years old, I graduated from high school and there was a big earthquake in the fall. The one that killed like I think 17,000 people and I was in the center of Kathmandu. So I saw the horrors of a natural disaster. I saw a lot of people dying. I saw buildings crashing against each other. I got traumatized and I took 2 years off after that. At the same time,  one of my best friends committed suicide. So I had to take two years off and in those two years, I just read a lot of books. To be honest, at some point, I didn't even want to go to college. I was just like, you know what, I'm just gonna be a monk. But at some point I just was like, you know what? I gotta do something with my life. I got a flyer from this college called Menlo College. I didn't even apply, I emailed them saying, “Hey, this is me. I wanna come to your college.” And they were like, “Cool, come through. This is a scholarship for you,” and they paid for everything. And I'm like, “well they paid for everything”, got the cheapest flight that I could get and came to America. Yep. Menlo College, 2017 August.

 

Priyanka: Wait, where is it located?

 

Sam: Literally like two miles down here.

 

Priyanka: And so this was your first time in the U.S., right?

 

Sam: It was my first time leaving my country.

 

Priyanka: First time leaving Nepal. Yeah. How did you feel about that? Just going on such a long flight and I feel it's such a huge journey.

 

Sam: The thing was, there's no one in my family after you cross, I think Dubai or something. My uncle, from my mother's side, is in Dubai. That's about it. So literally coming here, not even a 20, like 18 year old kid all by myself. It was very, very traumatizing because I didn't even know how the cab system worked. I had no idea about Uber. I took a train. 36 hours of no sleep, took a train with a suitcase, a backpack, and a handbag. It was 1 mile from Menlo Park Station to my college. By the time I came to my college, my mouth was dry and I was half dead. Yeah, that was very interesting. I still remember the first person who gave me a glass of water.

 

Priyanka: It was after you came to college?

 

Sam: I came to college, and my mouth was dry, and this person felt so bad, they gave me a glass of ice water. I hate ice water. But you know, that was the first time I actually enjoyed ice water in my life. To this day, I have never enjoyed the concept of ice water, but that was my first time.

 

Priyanka: What was your first impression of the U.S?

 

Sam: I think I came to America in a very messed up way. I came here with no money, and I came to the most expensive part of the world,  Atherton, where all the VCs (venture capitalists) and all the rich people lived. I thought all of America looked like that. I was basically sheltered, because everyone I meet is a VC. Everyone has a Tesla, and everyone has a startup or everyone is at least 5 million dollars rich, right? Six months later, I went to Oakland and my brain was like, oh my God, America is more than this. It took me 6 months to go outside, and it just blew my mind that America is not this rich, like there's a part of America which is  poorer than Nepal. 

 

Priyanka: I'm sure you imagined what the U.S. would be like before you came. And do you think you actually saw that, or were you surprised?

 

Sam: Actually, funny thing, the one movie that I was a very big fan of was, there's two actually one was “Fight Club” and the other one was “The Social Network”. Right. So “The Social Network” part was perfect to the point, right? Every single thing that I saw was right there. “The Fight Club” was, I thought, that there would be some Americans, which would be like, depressed, would have their underground fight clubs, which are not there. But that was a joke, to be honest. But anyway, I imagined two Americas. One is the gritty and the one who has lost their cause in their life. They are like, you know, just trying to find a meaning. And there's another one, which is just like, I gotta change the world. That was 50% right, because at least the part of America that I landed in, everyone was, you know, a slightly sociopathic person. Everyone thought that they were the best person in the world, and they could change the world. You gotta be there to see it. No amount of movies can enable the experience of going somewhere, and not hearing your mother language that you've been speaking for the last 18, 19 years of your life. Going to a place where driving around, like, oh I'm gonna go back home. You come here and you, you just realize the concept that I cannot go back home. I'm here now, and I have to make it work. So, the moment that thought comes to you for the first time, you just cannot comprehend–you cannot process things properly for a while.

 

Priyanka: Have you gone back since you've come here?

 

Sam: No.

 

Priyanka: Do you still talk with your family and your friends in Nepal?

 

Sam: I literally just spoke with my mom, right before I came here.

 

Priyanka: How do you maintain communication? And maintain those relationships?

 

Sam: Call them. I want them to text me–they can't because they're Nepali. We like to call people. We don't like to text. 

 

Priyanka: My parents also. Yes.

 

Sam: Yeah. I called my mom. Once a week is what I get. I want to call once a day, but my schedule does not allow me to do it. Because when I'm free, she's sleeping, and when she's free, I need to sleep.

 

Priyanka: Time difference. I wanna go back to talking more about your college experience. So what did you study in college? What clubs did you do, if any?

 

Sam: Well, when I first came here, I was a poor Nepali kid from Nepal, who wanted to do cool things, but had zero resources. Every one of my friends were the ones who never had to worry about money. Hence for the first three months, it was a culture shock for me going from one dorm party to another dorm party. This was not an inspiring experience for me. To be honest, I actually only went to one class properly. That was Behavioral Finance and Economics. And where I learned about Game Theory–that was the only thing I learned in my life from college. To be honest, no one has really been able to teach me anything. I hate the concept of someone teaching you. I only studied that class, but besides that, I had a startup going on. At some point I had three jobs, a startup and officially, I was taking 19 credits. Hence, I was not able to do anything. So, I really didn't have a social life. I never really made any deep friends in college, because you have a social code when you're in college. And when they invite you to their party three times, and you don't show up three times, you don't get invited the fourth time. And they don't understand your perspective, that you had your third job, that you had to go. So that's about it.

 

Priyanka: What were your three jobs and how did you get them?

 

Sam: I was a tutor at my school.

 

Priyanka: What did you tutor?

 

Sam: Math. I was working part-time for a startup–coding for them. And I was working at this store outside college, so that I could get my English better. So, there was that. I used to wake up at 6:30. By 6:45, I would be at the breakfast thing, or what do you call, cafeteria? I basically get the same thing. Yogurt, fruits, hopefully imagine that they have some vegetarian food. Finish that in 15 minutes, take my bicycle. Ride my bike to this place, work there for four hours. Come back at 1:00 PM. I had a 13 minute break where I could get food, and take a 10 minute, quick nap. Then go to class. When I was in class, it was because that was a place where I actually used to work for that startup. Then go to tutor work, come back around 5:30 to get dinner. From 6:00 to 11:30 work on my own startup and, and hopefully pray to God that your neighbors are not gonna be loud because tomorrow morning you have to wake up at 6:30. So that was my, that was my life.

 

Priyanka: How did you get involved in the coding first startup? Did you already have coding experience when you came here?

 

Sam: Yeah. When I was thirteen, I started coding at my school and just realized that I can build cool things. I also realized that, when you know how to code, you can make money.

 

Priyanka: How'd you start your own startup? Did you start that as soon as you got here?

 

Sam: Soon as I got here.

 

Priyanka: So is that an idea you had in Nepal and you were waiting to implement it?

 

Sam: No. When I came here, I realized that. Also, if you're not from Stanford–you know that your end game is gonna be, you work at a startup or you go back home. And I didn't want to do any one of them. I didn't want to work with someone else. To avoid that, I had like hundreds of ideas and I was testing every one of them. What only sucks for us, is you don't have any resources. Your school does not support any of this stuff.So I had to go through a lot of that stuff–and most of your friends are there to party. That was like, you know, that was my, that was the real main problem.

 

Priyanka: So was it just you working on the startup?

 

Sam: Yeah.

 

Priyanka: Are you still working on it or what happened to that?

 

Sam: I raised a couple of million dollars and left the startup last year to start Zebec (Sam's Startup).

 

Priyanka: Did you eventually get more team members onboard?

 

Sam: Yeah. At some point I had like 20 people working in the company.

 

Priyanka: How did you find them? How did they get involved?

 

Sam: Just outrageous online DMing on LinkedIn.

 

Priyanka: So you graduated from college in-

 

Sam: Last year. 

 

Priyanka: I guess you said you didn't really go to classes. But your degree was in CS?

 

Sam: Well, it was in management information system. 

 

Priyanka: So yeah. Now that you're out of college, you're working on the startup now. What does your day to day look like?

 

Sam: I wake up around 6. From my bed, I like to look into every one of my messages. It takes me 1 hour and 30 minutes to finish it off. 30 minutes to take a shower, get fresh. 7 to 8, I like to answer all the emails. From 8 to 10, talk to the team. From 10, have the first batch of calls till 2 to 3. Hopefully I can have some time off 30 minutes to one hour to get food. I used to cook food, but now I can't. So thank God for Uber eats

 

Priyanka: Did you used to cook Nepali food or what kind of food?

 

Sam: I make amazing pancakes. Like my pancakes inspire people. I make people believe in God after they have the pancakes I make. And potatoes.

 

Priyanka: Pancakes, and potatoes!

 

Sam: I make amazing omelets too. I am your breakfast guy.

 

Priyanka: I was gonna say breakfast foods.

 

Sam: Breakfast food. But also I can make pasta and stuff like that. My secret dish is like a, cashew pasta. Vegan cashew pasta. And I can cook almost all Nepali food. Like any type of curry–like biryani, all that kinda stuff. But that is for a special occasion.

 

Priyanka: So on the day to day, you don't really eat Nepali food anymore.

 

Sam: I just can't because it takes a while. But now you know Uber eats for the win. But yeah, get food. Then work for another four hours. Hopefully get to go to the gym, or a walk. I used to go on a run back in the day, but now I can't. Take like an hour nap or just look in between all of that stuff on Twitter, and then probably just get food if you can. Mostly I like to eat like once a day now, so it doesn't work. It doesn't affect the food side of things. Work for another 3 to 4 hours. Talk to your team. Go to sleep around like 11 and hope that you can go to sleep quickly because you have to wake up in 7 hours.

 

Priyanka: Do you interact with a lot of Nepali people now?

 

Sam: Not really actually. Like you and Rachin and Uttam are the only Nepali people that I interact with. Mostly, it's just–I have my team in Nepal as well. That helps. But not really. Most of my friends are Americans, and that kind of helps you to change your accent. So when I came here, I had the thickest Nepali accent. And now, I sound like someone from Fiji.

 

Priyanka: Did you learn English in Nepal?

 

Sam: Like ABCDs, but I was not speaking English until I was here.

 

Priyanka: You mentioned that was one of the bigger culture shocks, is learning the accent here.

Sam: It's not learning the accent. I never really actively learned the accent. I still have some of the words that, like Z, are the hard part.

 

Priyanka: Because it doesn't exist in the Nepali sound.

 

Sam: Yeah, that was always like–you'll see that every once in a while. But no, I never really wanted to change the accent. It just happened.

 

Priyanka: Just happens. In college, did you have any Nepali friends, or were there any other Nepali people that you knew?

 

Sam: There was one Nepali friend of mine. But I never really got a chance to interact with him that often, because we had different focuses, and also, he went back to Nepal. For me, that was not an option. So, I had to do something here, and I was out there in the hustle room.

 

Priyanka: And was that a conscious choice that you knew once you came here, you didn't want to go back. Or you just weren't able to, even if you did want to.

 

Sam: It's like this. My family is like, my parents are farmers, right. They don't have a lot of wealth. Even if I go back, I would not have a lot of capital to start anything in my life. Either had to work for someone else–if I were to work for someone else, the economic freedom I will get is nothing. More than economic freedom. I just am not gonna be working for someone else, cuz that was another thing. So for me, the only option was to do something here. Because if I go back home, mentally I'll consider myself a failure. So I had to do something on my own here. So hence, the hustle mode activates.

 

Priyanka: Being here, what parts of Nepal do you miss, or what did you feel was the biggest change?

 

Sam: You know that I’ve one thing that I missed that I don't say that often to many people, but that is something I deeply feel emotionally, every once while thinking about. When I was at home, in Nepal, you could go out there all day, work, hang out with friends. Right. And you can come back home at 9:00 PM. And there's a mother who has cooked food for you. It's not the fact that you have food, you can buy food anywhere in the world, but there was someone who's put time, effort, love, and care to cook food for you. That is what I miss the most. And I don't think no, no Uber eats or no Nobu in the world can you know, fill that gap.

 

Priyanka: Do you think that that's something that you will ever have here?

 

Sam: No. Well, I need to get my mom here or find someone who loves me like my mom. I don't think I'll be able to get that. I don't think that can happen anytime soon. So it'll take a while for me to get that. So that's something that that'll, that will always be missing in my life for quite a while.

 

Priyanka: Do you want to bring your parents here? 

 

Sam: I want to, but the problem is, they're having a good life there. And just because I miss my mother's cooking, I can't just force them into American life. So, I'll bring them here at some point–show them around if they want to live here for sure. But no way I'm gonna force them to stay here.

 

Priyanka: I'm sure they have a lot of other things tying them there too.

 

Sam: Yeah, my mom–my parents are like 46. So, if they were Americans, this is the time of their life, where they're having a party.

 

Priyanka: Yeah. They're quite young actually.

 

Sam: Yeah. They're very young. And I'm the youngest.

​

Priyanka: You're the youngest sibling?

 

Sam: Yeah. I'm the youngest sibling. So now their only concern is like, when am I getting married? And that's their only thing. Like once I get married, I think they will retire.  

 

Priyanka: That is their goal. 

 

Sam: Yeah. That is their goal.

 

Priyanka: Their dream. And what's your take on that, are you looking to get married soon?

 

Sam: Not any anytime soon. I just like, I have some time–I'm like 23.

 

Priyanka: Your parents want an arranged marriage, like Nepali marriage.

 

Sam: Well, they used to be about that when I was young. Now that I'm here, their life's biggest goal is that I get married to a Nepali girl. And I'm like, no, that's not happening.

 

Priyanka: That's not happening. Why do you say that? 

 

Sam: Like, nope, that's not happening. I don’t know.I feel like I came here at the–I dunno. Just never found someone from Nepal, into the same vibe that I'm looking forward to.

 

Priyanka: But I guess, is it more like you're opposed to the idea of marrying someone Nepali at all, or just that you haven't found anyone Nepali who so far you think you could spend your life with?

 

Sam: Yeah, actually, that's very interesting. I have not met a Nepali girl in the last five years. So basically I went to, kind of like a boy's school for a while. So my adult life, right. More than half of it has been seeing American girls. And what do you expect from me?

 

Priyanka: Yeah, I think that's the main thing is that, especially for people like me who grew up here. I did not meet any Nepali boys, my age ever, even in my community. I was one of the oldest kids. And there was my younger brother, and then no one else. Right. So the exposure is just...

 

Sam: There we go. Yeah. Lack of exposure matters.

 

Priyanka: Do you think your parents will come around to it or they already have.

 

Sam: No, they have, but they just like to try to play their little games every once in a while.

 

Priyanka: Going back, tell me about your siblings.

 

Sam: I have an older brother. His name is Sachin, and growing up, we were best friends. I learned about how to win against someone without having to actually physically fight from my older brother. Because he was three years older than me. He's probably double my size, because I've always been a very frail person. That's the right word. And I've never really been into fighting. So now, when you have someone who's three years older than you–so they're that person who is smarter than you, that person is physically stronger than you as well. So whenever there were fights and stuff, I had to figure out a way to win against him. So using all the power of a little bit of manipulation with your parents or something like that. 

 

Priyanka: Mm-hmm. Mind games.

 

Sam: Yeah. Mind games. Mind games is the right word right here. We grew up together. He got into like other things–I got into computers. Later on, I brought him back to the computer world as well. So hence he runs a software development shop in Nepal. He's married. Hopefully they have kids soon. 

 

Priyanka: You're going to be an uncle!

 

Sam: Yeah. I feel like that goes really well with my vibe.

 

Priyanka: So you're excited for that?

 

Sam: Yeah. I'm like someone new in the family. That would be cool.

 

Priyanka: Yeah. That's nice. So you roped in your brother?

 

Sam: Yeah. He's having a good time now. Like he knows that no matter where he goes, I'm always there to make sure he's doing okay. So he lives his life, like a giant vacation. Just out there traveling.

 

Priyanka: Traveling around Nepal, or around…?

 

Sam: Like Nepal, India. Now he's in Canada.

 

Priyanka: Oh, wow. Has he come to the U.S.?

 

Sam: He wants to, but you know, the visa stuff.

​

Priyanka: The visa, yeah. 

 

Sam: Visa I think it's gonna come in, hopefully next year.

 

Priyanka: Okay. Well, that's nice. Does he have any plans of ever leaving Nepal or just traveling for work like that?

 

Sam: So like, if you have a 1000 dollars here that gets you what? Nothing. You have a 1000 dollars in Nepal, you look like a king. Yeah. So his idea is to make a couple of million. And just chill out in Nepal. To be honest, with a couple of million you would be able to chill out here as well, but you'll chill out as middle class–and you chill out there as descendents of the kings over there. 

 

Priyanka: And I'm assuming your brother, you guys did go to the same school growing up?

 

Sam: No, we went to the same school up until like 9th. But in 9th grade, he left school to go to another school.  I still went to that school though, and that’s cool. Like every one of my friends' families were at least 20 to 50 times more rich, powerful, or successful than mine. 

Priyanka: Was this school in Kathmandu?

​

Sam: In Chitwan there was a school called Small Heaven School. Which is basically one of the biggest schools there. Every one of my friends' parents were like either a doctor or engineer. And my dad was just a freakin’ farmer. I have so much respect for my dad, but this is that league that he added me into. He was not prepared and I saw that firsthand, what happens when you don’t have enough resources. And I went to school like on a scholarship, while my friends were just out there throwing money. 

That's the one thing, but the other part was, I think it's my mother. I was pretty smart even when I was young, like two to three years old, I used to read and write. When I used to go to school, my mom, even when I was two to three years old, she used to be like, “We're no one, we're gonna die as no one. But not you. Everyone in the world will know you.” She would say that every day. I don't know what they were planning to make, but thank God I'm not a crazy sociopath–that they experimented on. But that had the biggest impact in my life. Because it's really hard for a two to three year old kid to process what it means to be no one. 

Then you don't know what. You can't even comprehend death, but when someone very dear and near to you says that every single day, you start to think about it and over sometime you realize that, oh my God, life is horrible and if you don't have enough resources, if you're not motivated, you will be at the bottom of the barrel. And that is worse than death.

 

Priyanka: What in Nepal, and now, what kept you going? Like what motivated you?

 

Sam: I think that my mother, the path that my parents sent me was pretty powerful. I could not ask for better parents than that. They didn't give me money, they didn't give me any resources, but they gave me that if I work hard enough, I can get it myself. So that was it. But more than that I used to read a book for a week. I did that for 10–12 years.

 

Priyanka: Every week a book?

 

Sam: Yeah. And one of my favorite writers is named Nietzsche. I read when I was a baby, like 9–10 years old. In his book, what he says is that humans evolved from monkeys. But the form that we have right now is not the final form. We are actually gonna evolve way, way more than this, and we're gonna be something big, like superhuman. If we are gonna be there, like superhuman, we have not evolved enough. So we need to have someone who's gonna push society towards that direction. And I was like, that's what I wanna be. I don't want to be someone who's in the middle between a monkey and a human. So I always thought that I wanna create a world in which everyone is going towards becoming that superhuman instead of going back and becoming an animal. So I wanted to have enough resources so that I can inspire the generation towards going towards that direction rather than becoming an animal.

 

Priyanka: Wait, tell me more about that. Cause I know you mentioned to me before we met, but like your vision of the goal, overarching goal of what you're doing right now.

 

Sam: Yeah. I think that the overarching goal is just to have enough resources. Because with that, in the world there are only two things that matter.  One is influence, the other is capital. Capital gets you influence. And influence gets you power to do things that capital cannot. For me, even when I was young, I realized that I was not gonna be someone who's influential–I cannot be a movie actor. Never really been a big fan of movie acting and stuff. Not a singer. Wanted to be a writer. Didn't work out. I don't think I can be a good writer.

I don't have enough good stories to tell. And I haven’t lived enough. So hence I realized the only way for me to do it is acquiring enough capital in the world and building really great things that I'm able to acquire. I'm able to acquire influence in the world for the things that I have built into the capital that I have. And with that, you would be able to put things in the right direction. Like climate change, the rights of the people. How the people should be going towards AI (artificial intelligence) and all that kind of stuff. These are all different things that only people with capital can influence, right? 

People without capital and influence cannot do anything about it. That's what I think, moving generations towards the superhuman beings that we can be. Look at ourselves. 50 years, like 30 years ago, even when I was in Nepal. To consider having this thing where I can text people all around the world is impossible. For the Sam that grew up in Nepal, this Sam right now is superhuman. And I think that society should evolve even to a point, that Sam looks like a superhuman to this Sam. I don't know what exactly I'm gonna do. But the one thing I know is I'm gonna work hard enough towards building new, cool, and interesting things for the world.

 

Priyanka: Do you have any goals or any vision for–the classic question, like in 10 years, where you see yourself?

 

Sam: I don't know. I think the things that I will do with the resources that I will acquire are very arbitrary. But I want to see myself in 10 years to be happy. That has always been a goal in my life: to be happy. It's really hard for me to be happy. So my goal is in 10 years from now, I'm at a point where I'm content with my life and happy.

 

Priyanka: Did you always call yourself Sam or is that…

 

Sam: No, like it's like a nickname. My actual name is Sambhab.

 

Priyanka: Sambhab?

 

Sam: Sambhab. 

 

Priyanka: How do you spell it?

 

Sam: S A M B H A B 

 

Priyanka: S A M B H A B. Sambhab okay. 

 

Sam: Do you know what that means?

 

Priyanka: I don't.

 

Sam: That is a Nepali word. That means possible. My brother named me. But when I came to the U.S., I was in this class. That was the only one class that I like–not the first day of the class. I had to go there so that I could get the ID card. They look at my name. They're like, “look, it is very hard to pronounce. I'm gonna call you Sam”, because my first three letters of my name are Sam. And I'm like, “okay”. Also I realized that if I wanna do business here, it's easy to do business with someone who has a believable name. It's really hard to do business with someone whose name is Sambhab. Sam is like, you know a million Sam’s. I think it was very calculated on my end. But yeah, that was my name.

 

Priyanka: Does everyone call you Sam now? What about your family?

 

Sam: Even my brother calls me Sam. 

 

Priyanka: Really? 

 

Sam: Everyone in Nepal, everyone on my team in Nepal calls me Sam. My mom actually, no one actually–this is a very funny story. No one who might really care about me, calls me by my real name. My parents never called me by my real name. I have a nickname. My mom's family, they call me a different name. My dad's family calls me a different name. My hometown people call me by a different name. All the friends–no, not nicknames. Like I actually have a different name too.

 

Priyanka: Okay. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Sam: And I have like five or six names. 

 

Priyanka: Really? 

 

Sam: Yeah. Just no one to this day–the only people who called me by my name were in school, and in government documents. So no one besides them really called me by my name. Even here, that just became so much of reality. 

 

Priyanka: I mean, does it bother you being called Sam?

 

Sam: No, not really. Like my name means nothing. Like, yeah, it means that my brother named me, that kind of stuff. What do I care.

 

Priyanka: If you had kids, do you think you'd give them English or American names?

 

Sam: No, I don't think it's up to me to give names.

 

Priyanka: If you had to say it.

 

Sam: Yeah, for sure. I'll think about it. Then there are some names that look–I don't know. I have never thought about this question properly. So that's very much of an off guard question right now. I've never really thought about that.

 

Priyanka: I didn't mean to put you on the spot, I just think I think it's interesting because a lot of Nepali kids I know have Nepali names. And I know a bunch of Samrat's and others who are also Sam. Now, a lot of younger Nepali kids that my aunt and uncle know in their circles and that my parents know they have like

 

Sam: Justin.

 

Priyanka: Yeah. They have American names. And so I think it's interesting to see.

 

Sam: I think that's the same thing with names. Names are something that's very arbitrary and just changes right out of nowhere. The right answer is maybe. I don't think it's yes or no. I think it's maybe because

 

Priyanka: It's like a gray 

 

Sam: Yeah. Like I'm open to it. I'm open to it, but I think that should be the right answer.

 

Priyanka: Do you think your Nepali has gotten worse coming here? Or how often do you speak Nepali now?

 

Sam: No,  [speaks in Nepali] (I can speak Nepali well). I think the problem is I used to write poems.

 

Priyanka: In Nepali?

 

Sam: Yeah. I used to write stories and stuff. I can't do that now. Because my brain thinks in English. That's the problem

 

Priyanka: You think in English?

 

Sam: That's the real problem. My dreams, people talk in English.

 

Priyanka: Is it only in English, or is it like a mix of Nepali and English?

 

Sam: No, literally only in English.

 

Priyanka: Really?

 

Sam: Yeah. It's a pain because I only interacted with–so I'm 23, right. If I spent five years of my life, it means five by 23 is what? Almost 20% of my life here. And you know the memories. The older memory starts to fade away, it stacks up. So like, sometimes there's Nepali word here and there in my dream. But most of the ones that I remember are English.

 

Priyanka: Do you ever have dreams with like, friends from back home or like your parents where you speak Nepali with them?

 

Sam: No, I see them in the dream, but I don't hear them talk. It's just like–this is my brain forgetting. I think that's what it is.

 

Priyanka: So you said you wrote a lot in Nepal–used to write stories and poems. Did you stop doing that once you got here or did you already not do that as much as you grew up in Nepal?

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Sam: After I came here, I stopped. I just didn't have time. Just was not inspired by things. Like you write because you are inspired by things. And writing is, I think it’s like a way of meditation, right? Or it's like therapy. I always imagined writing as a way of therapy, and it just lost this therapeutic sentiment after I came here, because the Nepali words were not inspiring anymore.

 

Priyanka: Do you ever think you'll go back to writing or that you'll try writing in English?

 

Sam: I don't think I'll be a writer. I think my writing days are gone. I think I'm an entrepreneur, and that's the story that I have to play.

 

Priyanka: Well, you don't have to necessarily be a writer to write. Like you could just keep a journal or just write for fun. 

 

Sam: It's just like, I try to do it. I can't even write. It's just that life is so chaotic, right?

 

Priyanka: Means like you don't have enough time to, or time to think enough?

 

Sam: Well, what do I write about? That the customer didn't give me their contract. Usually, when you write things, you write about things like love, lust, loss, pain, and all these different things. After coming to the U.S.–no really the concept of pain has completely gone because in Nepal, you go out there and play soccer and all those different sports. When you cannot walk for days, that's when all of your saddest memories come out. Like the concept of loss doesn't exist in the U.S. Like you see someone, right. Kind of date them for like a week or two. If you stop dating, there's already 25 of them in the list. We grew up in an environment, at least I grew up in an environment where it was perfectly fine for a guy to mourn for loss, right? Here he is not. Because there's always someone in the list that you can literally just go out and find someone. In a week, or in a day, or in like literally in 6 hours. I'll say that's the time, especially when you're in college. 

 

Priyanka: Mourn for losses in relationships?

 

Sam: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or even friendship. But I think the relationship–I think that the part you mourn is not the anything else. I think you mourn the friendship more than anything. That kind of concept does not exist in the U.S.because of technology. There's so many people on your phone. In Nepal, you have 5 or 10 friends at max. And now, you have like 500 friends here and you can hit 'em up, and you can meet them right away. In Nepal, the concept of meeting your friends doesn't even exist.You meet them in school. So that's why there is the sense of loss on all that kind of stuff, which does not exist here. 

 

Priyanka: I mean, I think it's interesting. You were saying that you said the sense of loss doesn't exist here. And is that something that you just realized once you were here?

 

Sam: Yeah. It took me a couple of years to realize that part. 

 

Priyanka: I mean, what other things were there–maybe like moral values or realizations that you came to only once you came here, that has differed from the Sam you were in Nepal?

 

Sam: I used to care a lot for people. I used to be a very caring person. My parents raised me like that. You remember every single thing about someone else and if you could make someone else's life even 1% better, you'll do that. That was the family that I was raised into. That's the type of community I mean. And that's what it is. Here, the concept in Silicon Valley is if you're not making money with them, if they're not making money for you, or if they're not making money with you, they don't matter. That's the type of nature that is here. I think it's a little bit different in college. If you're not partying with them or if they're not inviting you to the party, they don't matter. It's kind of like that. But even in a more cynical way. In Nepal, you'll just hang out with them. It doesn't matter whether you are gonna make money with them or not. Just the fact that they're friends. Here that kind of does not exist. Like friendship usually starts from you having something to get from them, you know?

 

Priyanka: So you think this changes as a result of the community that you were put into here. So I think when we're younger, I know you said this too. Your parents have a lot of influence on you. If you have good parents, that can really affect your outlook on life, your moral values, and things like that. Do you think that since coming here, you've kind of gone off the path or you've changed from the way you were raised or grown up?

 

Sam: Yeah. I think I grew up being as less of a materialistic person as possible. After coming here, I started caring about things which I should not. The only thing when I was growing up–I never really cared about brands. I never really cared about money. I only cared about things I wanted to accomplish in the world. Here, you care about the watches, shoes, the cars–all that kind of stuff which honestly, I should never care about. And, to be honest, no one in the world should. Yeah, that's one of the major things. Also on the moral level as well, like Americans moral values are way more messed up than Nepalis. An example of that would be like, look at Black Lives Matter or what is happening with the whole abortion thing. It doesn't happen in Nepal. No one really bothers with someone else's life. We try to be caring for someone else. You might be of a different caste or culture and all that kind of stuff. Yeah we have the whole caste system and all that kind stuff, but it's changing. That's the closest situation we have with changing. But here, you see that it's not changing. It's just rooting inside people's hearts. And it's just like every once in a while, it just pops up. And that's one part. The second part is the concept of influencer marketing and it's coming to Nepal as well, but at least the Nepal that I grew up in, you didn't have one.

 

Priyanka: Do you consider yourself an optimist? You try to look at the bright side of things.

 

Sam: Well, I'm not a fatalist. That's for sure. Optimism and pessimism–it's a very arbitrary thing. I don't want to have wishful thinking. I'm very optimistic that I'm gonna be here tomorrow, working hard. And if I work hard enough, something's gonna change. But, as an entrepreneur, you should avoid wishful thinking. So a very optimistic person, without wishful thinking. Like no one prepared me to go to college. Especially coming from Nepal. Every time I think about it, I was really thrown into this. Like, no one is actually like you. Like sat me down and told me, this is what's gonna happen to you. 

 

Priyanka: Yeah. It's crazy. 

 

Sam: Every day you have to figure it out for yourself. It's like a pioneer. You go to a land, which is filled with trees, animals, and things like that, and you have to make yourself home. I felt like that when I came to America. Yes, I didn't have animals and nature to be fed to, but the American system is like that. You have to make enough money to survive, and you cannot depend on your family. So that was, that was it. Same thing.

 

Priyanka: Last question, do you think, if you were to do it again, what would you do differently? Or like what advice would you give the younger Sam that was about to come here? 

 

Sam: Honestly, I would not change anything, but the only thing I'll tell him is, just give it some time. Nothing in the world is too hard to bear. No chaos is too hard to bear and nothing lasts forever. So this too shall pass.

 

Priyanka: Is there anything else that you wanted to say or anything else you feel is important to your story that we didn't touch on?

 

Sam: Growing up, a lot of people liked to doubt me just for the fact that they wanted to, because no one likes an older head and younger body. It's a very famous Greek saying, and that was the same in Nepal as well. Because they knew that I was young. Right. But I had a lot of these ideas. And to be honest, I was pretty much like way, way better read than 99% of the people in my… to be honest, 99% of the people in Nepal. Because by the time I was like fifteen, I had grade five and plus books. So I was more well read on communism than a lot of politicians in the town. They will say some stuff, and I'll say something like, “You're literally imagining this, that no one has said this to this day”. And instead of defending their arguments, they would literally attack me. Like “you are a freakin’ 10 year old kid. You don't know shit about what you're talking about.” Yeah it was really hard because in America, you'll celebrate someone like that. In Nepal, you had to defend your intellect. And thank God I had loving parents because they're like, “Hell yeah, you say that to them.” 

 

Priyanka: Yeah. 

 

Sam: I think that's a very interesting thing. A lot of people still hate me in Nepal for that reason.

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Priyanka: Even to this day after like where you are now. 

 

Sam: Yeah. Because none of their kids are doing any of the stuff that I'm doing. And I told them this is what I was going to do in my life. And I did exactly the same thing. People don't like that.

 

Priyanka: You think it's like jealousy, resentment.

 

Sam: I think it's slightly resentment, and also people like to feel powerful.

 

Priyanka: Yeah. 

 

Sam: The people who used to go, to come to your house to ask for money and help and stuff like that. Knowing that they will never come to your house. You feel less powerful.