The Kogan.com founder says his family’s migration and early experiences shaped his entrepreneurial approach.
Ruslan Kogan, who founded online retailer Kogan.com in 2006, invited a journalist to lunch at his parents’ home in Melbourne’s Toorak. He prefers a meal cooked by his mother Irene to a restaurant and says it is what he craves after traveling.
The family moved from the Soviet Union to Australia in 1989, when Kogan was six, arriving with $90 and first living in public housing. His father, a major-projects engineer in the Soviet Union, worked as a delivery driver, at a market and in a factory. His mother, who had medical qualifications, worked in cafes and as a cleaner.
Kogan remembers first seeing a computer at a relative’s home and playing Space Invaders. After working at Telstra and Accenture, he started his online retailer in 2006 using credit cards, after failing to find a television he wanted. As a child, he also earned money collecting and reselling golf balls.
He applies the same attention to cooking. His brisket takes ten hours, and probes and alarms help him monitor the smoker. He describes running without a phone as a kind of meditation. He says cost-of-living pressures make consumers more price-conscious.
The article estimates his wealth at about $300 million, down from $575 million during the pandemic shopping boom. It also reports that he cut his salary by about $800,000 under a share-incentive scheme.