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Enjoy your fucking coffee
If I worked at Starbucks, instead of writing people’s names on their coffee cup, I’d write the following:
One day, you and everyone you love will die. And beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little of what you say or do will ever matter. This is the Uncomfortable Truth of life. And everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it. We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck. We imagine our own importance. We invent our purpose—we are nothing.
Enjoy your fucking coffee.
from #1 New York Times Bestseller:
Everything Is F*cked: A Book About HopePS I’m okay and in a good mood. Taking moments to ground myself helps me live a happier life.
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There are no really hard tasks
A lot of people realise this a bit late in life.
There are no really hard tasks.
When something feels big and complicated, it’s usually just a bunch of small, manageable steps hiding inside.
Break the big task into small, clear steps. Put them in the right order. Do them one by one.
And if you stay patient and keep your motivation, you can handle any project.
Just keep going.
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Love data, question everything it tells you
I’m obsessed with data, but I don’t trust it blindly.
Especially when the interpretation comes from a corporation or the media.Take this chart, for example:
You can truthfully say that China and India have either the least educated or the most educated populations.It all depends on which part of the graph you’re looking at. Left or right.
People crave confirmation.
They seek data that supports their worldview and ignore the rest.
They also tend to oversimplify both the data and the world.Just because it’s a fact doesn’t mean it’s not part of a bigger lie.
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My first fiction book since school
Even though I read a lot, this is officially my first fiction book since I was a teenager.
For a long time, I didn’t see the point of fiction. I preferred learning from non-fiction, something useful I could apply right away.Then I realized I was missing something important:
– a deeper understanding of how storytelling works,
– and the chance to see life through the eyes of someone who observes it professionally, like Backman, with his clear and gentle view of everyday people.
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Two Kobe’s quotes about focus and commitment
I played competitive basketball throughout my childhood years.
Like many kids, I looked up to the greats for inspiration, one of whom was Kobe Bryant.
I don’t fully share his mindset or the famous Mamba mentality (and maybe that’s for the best), but I deeply admire his focus and work ethic. Few could match him in those areas.
Once a month, I revisit these two quotes from Kobe:
“I had a purpose: I wanted to be one of the best basketball players who ever played. Anything else was outside of that lane. I didn’t have time for it.”
“I want to see if I can. I don’t know if I can. I want to find out. I’m going to do what I always do: break it down to its smallest form, smallest detail, and go after it. Day by day, one day at a time.”
From these quotes, two key ingredients of Kobe’s success stand out: laser focus and unbreakable commitment.
Once a year, I rewatch the full interview. It always hits differently.
Here I am next to the iconic Kobe Bryant mural in Los Angeles
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B.R.I.D.G.E. 🌉 How to say the hard truths and keep trust
Some things aren’t taught in an MBA.
Like how to say something tough, but necessary.Being brutally honest, while staying respectful and constructive, is a skill every great leader must master.
Here’s a simple framework that helps: BRIDGE.
💬 Background – What happened?
💬 Reason – Why now?
💬 Impact – What’s the effect?
💬 Decision – What needs to happen?
💬 Go – What’s next?
💬 Energise – End with optimism and shared commitmentExample:
Background: Our New Marketing channels are not performing well
Reason: I’m bringing it now because we’ve added only 20 new users this month.
Impact: It’s slowing our momentum and costing us leads.
Decision: We need to review the data and pivot or stop investing.
Go: Let’s align on a plan by Friday and set 30-day goals with weekly check-ins.
Energise: I’m confident we’ll figure it out — and get this rocket off the ground.It’s not tough conversations that damage trust… It’s the ones we avoid.
I am sitting on the oldest Dandalo Bridge in Georgia, built in the 12th century
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Good Day today
Today is an important day, as I’m starting to work on a project that, in my opinion, aligns deeply with my values, beliefs, and passions.
Let’s see where this journey takes me.
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MY 18 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ARE OUTDATED
MY 18 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ARE OUTDATED
A year ago, this disturbing thought came to me.
It’s a strange and completely new feeling. Over the last 18 years in tech, e-commerce, and digital, I always thought I was at the leading edge.
After 12 months of learning, applying new tools, and rethinking old patterns, I can now confirm:
MY 18 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ARE OUTDATEDNo conclusions here. Just sharing my thoughts.
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The environmental cost of being polite to AI
Sam Altman recently tweeted that OpenAI might be spending tens of millions of dollars on electricity… just to process polite messages like please and thank you in ChatGPT.
That got me thinking.
What’s the environmental cost of kindness in the age of AI?I dug a little deeper to get some rough numbers.
As of May 2025, major AI platforms—ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity and Claude serve around 250 million users daily.
Let’s say every third user throws in five polite words a day.That’s over 600 billion polite tokens per month.
Now for the CO₂ side of things…
Here’s how it adds up:- Total polite words per day
83.3M users × 5 words = 416.7 million words/day - Convert to bytes
416.7M × 5 bytes = 2.08 billion bytes = ~2.08 GB/day - Energy used
2.08 GB × 5 kWh/GB = 10.4 kWh/day - CO₂ emissions
10.4 kWh × 0.4 kg CO₂ = ~4.16 kg CO₂/day
Annual Impact:
4.16 kg/day × 365 = ~1,518 kg CO₂/year
= ~1.5 metric tons CO₂/year🌳 Tree Planting Equivalent ≈ 68 trees/year
That’s not huge. But it’s real.
Kindness costs carbon 🤔
- Total polite words per day
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Biggest threat of software business
For decades, business software was the dream of entrepreneurs.
You find a niche. You build a SaaS product.
You get an average 70% margin.
You take a portion of your profits, hire smart engineers, and turn those investments into a barrier for competitors.
Now you’re protected and life is good…Well, until AI rewrites the rules.
Today, SaaS is more vulnerable than ever.
Last August, I saved this tweet because I was already seeing the same signs in the market:
Now, I no longer agree with that tweet.
SaaS won’t be disrupted in five years.
It’ll be disrupted in just a year or two.The tweets below are from people who have already replaced paid software subscriptions with their own tools that they built surprisingly fast with AI.
To protect your business, build these new entry barriers:
A lovable product
with a loyal community,
a strong network effect,
and leveraging AI to build, test, analyze, and pivot or scale at lightning speed.
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Earned exhaustion: when you tired but proud
It’s a feeling I’ve had a thousand times, but I didn’t know it had a name:
Earned exhaustion.
It’s when you enjoy your tiredness.What is earned exhaustion?
It’s when you feel tired because you did something meaningful.
You worked hard, gave your best, and now your body says, “Okay, time to rest.”
It’s about doing something that mattered.Why does it feel good?
Because you chose it.
Because you finished something.
Because your brain knows: this wasn’t wasted energy.
Earned exhaustion feels like pride, not stress.
It’s your body saying, “Nice job.”Examples of earned exhaustion
- After finishing a big meaningful project
- After a long hike with friends
- After training for and running a marathon
- After helping someone who needed you
It’s the kind of tired that makes sleep feel amazing.
Like you really deserve that rest.I think that kind of tired makes life feel more meaningful and joyful… so I want to collect more of it.
I want to believe my dog knows that feeling too, after a good, tiring adventure.
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You choose how to use technology
Reminder to myself:
Post Topics:
Reminder -
It feels like playing Doom
Sometimes I feel like I’m inside the game Doom —
wandering through a maze of rooms.The more I work and deliver projects, the more doors start to open.
Some rooms lead nowhere.
Some hold tools you’ll need for the journey.
Some are full of monsters who fight you and drain your energy.
Others are just empty rooms — a waste of time.When you have a goal, you get a sense of which doors are worth opening.
Without direction, you enter every room, hoping for progress but finding confusion.That’s why having a compass — a clear goal — matters. It helps you choose the right doors.
And if one’s locked, don’t waste hours trying to force it open.
Just move on. Find the door that’s already open — the one that leads you closer to your target destination.I suppose I’m feeling a bit poetic today… 😆
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Reflections after finishing the book Sapiens
In four simple words: dot-connecting, eye-opening.
This was the first long book where I fully applied the principles of slow reading, which I described here. One of the core principles of Slow Reading is to invest time in choosing what to read and why. I’m glad I did. It was worth it.
Reading Sapiens at 43 felt like putting on glasses for the first time… and suddenly realizing how blurry the world had been. This book didn’t just teach me history. It reshaped how I understand humanity, progress, happiness, and myself.
Harari doesn’t just guide you through the timeline of Homo sapiens; he challenges the stories we usually believe.
Take the Cognitive Revolution.
It wasn’t just about brain size as I thought about it. It was about shared myths. Religions, nations, money aren’t real in any physical sense. They’re powerful stories we all agreed to believe.
The Agricultural Revolution, often seen as a huge win for humanity, turns out to be the opposite. Harari argues that wheat domesticated us, not the other way around. More food came with more work, more disease, and more inequality. Progress, it turns out, often comes with a hidden cost.
Also, a fascinating part of the book explores the modern spiral of progress driven by a combination of science, politics, and economics.
I also found myself questioning the very idea of happiness. Technological advances, capitalism and empires have shaped our world, but have they made us happier? Harari asks: if we’re not more content than ancient foragers, what’s the point of all this complexity? That’s a solid question.
I marked the last pages of the book with pink and yellow highlights. The idea that happiness is constrained by biochemistry and that meaning is often just a shared narrative. Not truth, not reality, just a story we choose to believe. And a pure biochemical process in our brains.
Harari shows how humans are shifting from products of evolution to products of intelligent design: bioengineering, AI, cybernetics. We sapiens are gaining godlike powers, yet we have no idea what we actually want.
We conquered the world but built no world worth celebrating, not for ourselves, not for the animals we dominate.
And I often find myself repeating the book’s final line:
“Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?”I like how the book made me feel uncomfortable.
And somehow, it brought me back to the oldest wisdom: I know that I know nothing.P.S. Fun fact: my highlights and notes from the book turned into a 33-page document:
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A wake-up call from a $1B CEO
I absolutely loved this email from Fiverr’s CEO (a $1B company).
It’s a brilliant message — brutally honest, and written with real care.
(Those are the two qualities I admire most in leaders)And every word resonates with my current mission — applying AI and new principles across every area of business.
The advice is sharp and spot on.A solid wake-up call.
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Most impactful training in my life
You never know which training might change your life.
This is the story of one that changed my mindset and the choices I made after.It was September 2023.
I sat in a sunny room in Lille, thinking it was just another corporate session.
Next to me, a group of colleagues from all over the world.
Total strangers, we had never met before.Honestly, I wasn’t ready for how that training began.
Within 15 minutes, the trainer had created a surprisingly safe space. People started sharing personal life stories.
Some were funny. Some were deep. A few were heartbreaking.
I noticed tears in some eyes.I thought, “What’s going on here? Come on, people! We barely know each other.”
That was the start of a training on Personal Values and Purpose.
It is designed to help people look inward, understand personal values, and reflect on what truly matters.The next three days were intense.
We worked a lot in pairs.
I found myself telling stories I’d never shared before, not even with my family. With a complete stranger.
And he opened up to me too.
The trainer pushed us to go deeper. To speak, to feel, to really listen.
And from time to time, something clicked in the process.
Then we took that new clarity and turned it into an action plan.It’s a well-known training at Decathlon, and I’d heard all kinds of feedback — from “It’s total nonsense” to “This might change your life.”
But no one felt neutral.And what struck me most was this: some people decide to leave the company after this training, and the company is aware of it.
I mean, seriously!?! My company is paying for flights, hotel, food, and professional coaches… so I can explore my inner world? And then I might quit the company? Is this actually happening? That sounded wild to me.
But later, I realised — it’s not just good for people. It’s also smart for businesses to invest in people’s clarity of values. If they stay — great. Their values align.
But if not, and they leave — better for both sides.As for me, it didn’t make me want to quit the company right after the training.
But I connected a lot of dots about myself. And it was the moment I realized: corporate life isn’t my final stop…Most importantly, it left me with one uncomfortable thought — I don’t know myself well enough. And I need to keep digging.
What if the best thing a company can give you… is that uncomfortable thought? And the courage to follow it.
Thanks, Decathlon
All photos from that training:
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My Top 3 challenges in building a business (after corporate life)
As someone who left the corporate world to build a business, I can honestly share my top 3 downsides of being an entrepreneur.
1. Financial uncertainty
In corporate life, every month you get that lovely SMS: DING – salary’s in.
As an entrepreneur, you get… invoices.
And no idea when (or if) you’ll break even.
Many people quit not because the business idea is bad, but because the stress of not knowing what’s next is just too much.2. Lack of human energy
Now you’re on your own.
No quick chats. No shared coffee breaks. No energy to borrow from a teammate’s smile.
In big companies, even on tough days, you’d come to the office and soak up some optimism from others.
But now, you’re the only one in the room and sometimes, your problems feel louder in the silence.3. No quick exchange of knowledge
Back then, I had smart and experienced people around me. If I didn’t know something, I’d ping someone or ask in a meeting.
Now? It’s either Google, books, AI, or paid consultants.
You spend more time searching and second-guessing.
You don’t even realize the luxury of shared learning until you’re on your own.But hey! I’m not here to complain.
Yes, it’s harder. Yes, it’s lonelier.
But you also grow faster, work on what actually matters to you, and define your own income limits.And it’s a lot of fun too.
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Slow Reading — A way to learn deeper and enjoy it more
Last year, I started using the Slow Reading method. To my surprise, it worked better than I expected.
Compared to my usual fast-paced reading, it gave me some real benefits:
– I could focus on the book better.
– I remembered more.
– I enjoyed reading more.Here’s how Slow Reading works:
- First rule: enjoy it.
Reading should feel like a treat, not a to-do list.
📖 Pick a book you’re curious about.
🛋️ Sit in a cozy spot.
🎧 Play music you love.
☕ Make your favorite drink. - Read actively.
🖍️Mark important ideas with a highlighter.
⏯️Take breaks to reflect, process, and remember the key things. - Engage your brain on 3 levels.
👀 Visual – Reading and highlighting help the brain save the images.
🗣️ Verbal – Talk about the book with someone to make your thoughts clearer.
✍️ Kinesthetic – Write or type notes to remember through movement.
These three together = memory magic ✨ - Make it a habit.
Add reading to your day. And keep going for 21 days straight.
That’s how habits stick. And this one might be your favorite.
So… got a book that’s waited long enough?
Time to enjoy it!
- First rule: enjoy it.
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How generations speak Emoji differently
Surprise: Gen Z isn’t the intern anymore.
They’re running meetings, pitching products, and maybe even managing you. They’re already in your office and your inbox.
You probably want to communicate with them without drama.
But here’s the problem: what feels friendly to you might feel passive-aggressive to them.
Your “Thanks :)” could accidentally start a digital war because you thought a smiley was just… a smiley.
Here’s how different emojis can be read by different age groups
(sometimes with completely different meanings):
Now enter the old-school keyboard smiles: :) ;) =)
Millennials see them as normal, polite, even professional. A nice way to soften a message.
But Gen Z might read it as cold. Sometimes even passive-aggressive.
Say “good job :)” and suddenly they’re texting their therapist.Emojis were made to help us feel closer. Now they sometimes push us away.
So next time you drop a 🙂, ask yourself — am I saying ‘thanks’ or starting a cold war?
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6 reasons why the world isn’t powered by Solar panels?
Our planet spins around a giant ball of energy called the sun 🌞. Every day, it sends us 6,000 times more energy than we actually need.
Sunlight reaching Earth equals 3.8 million exajoules each year.
With all our giant cities, mega factories, TikToks, crypto-mining, 4K cat videos, and nonstop wars, humanity burns around 600 exajoules every year.The whole world could run on solar energy using just 1.2% of the Sahara Desert covered by solar panels. It’s clean, cheap, and almost unlimited.
So… why aren’t we doing it?
There are 6 main reasons:
🔌 1. Energy storage
- Solar works only when the sun shines. But we need power at night, on cloudy days, in winter. Always.
- So we need massive batteries, pumped hydro, or other storage — expensive and tricky at scale.
🌍 2. Infrastructure
- Most sunny land is far from big cities.
- We’d need thousands of kilometers of high-voltage cables to move energy efficiently.
- Current grids weren’t designed for that much variable power flowing both ways.
⛏️ 3. Rare materials
- Solar panels and batteries need rare minerals (lithium, cobalt, etc.)
- Mining those creates other environmental and ethical problems.
💸 4. Money & economics
- Initial investment is huge.
- Many countries or companies don’t want to switch if profits are uncertain.
- Oil and gas are still cheaper in many places (thanks to subsidies).
🧑🤝🧑 5. Politics & power
- Fossil fuel industries have massive lobbying power.
- Some governments are heavily dependent on oil revenue.
- Switching to solar means changing jobs, supply chains, geopolitics. That’s scary for many.
🧠 6. Behavior & habits
- People don’t like change.
- We’re used to cheap, always-on fossil energy.
- Switching to a solar-based system requires re-thinking consumption, timing, even lifestyles.
So it’s not only about installing panels.
It’s about redesigning a global system that’s been built for 100+ years around burning stuff.It’s totally doable. But we need enough courage, cooperation, and cleverness.
I underlined cooperation for reason. Humans aren’t exactly known for being a united front. We’re split by borders, religions and egos — chasing personal or national interests, while the idea of a shared human goal collects dust.
Anyway, the sun still shines. It has 5 billion years left before fading away.
So yeah… we’ve got time.
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From hunger to obesity
Long ago, people feared one thing — hunger.
They worked hard on farms, prayed for rain, and still didn’t always have enough to eat. Food meant staying alive, not having fun. Hunger was one of the main causes of death.
Now the world has flipped.
Today, obesity is a major health problem and cause of many deaths in rich countries. Stores are full, and snacks are everywhere. People eat even when they aren’t hungry.
Here’s the strange part:
Each year, people in the US spend more money on losing weight than what’s needed to feed all the hungry people in the world.
Isn’t it weird and poetic how people fixed so well the biggest problem of the preindustrial age — hunger — and turned it into completely new big problem??
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How to identify a Smart Idiot? (Spoiler: cruelty)
Good speech by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think ‘Would an idiot do that?’ and if they would, I do not do that thing.”
“The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”
Nice!
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AI reshaped business rules
- Businesses that cost $100,000 to start ✨ now run for $25 a month.
- Small markets that were unprofitable ✨ now take off because starting costs are low and entry is easy.
- Rare, expensive skills ✨ are now handled by AI.
- Teams of 20 people ✨ are now outperformed by just one who mastered AI agents
Reminder to myself: The game has changed. Playing by the old rules is a losing strategy.
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Revenue ≠ Profit
To earn $1M, you need:
- $50M in sales from a Grocery store
- $20M in sales from a Restaurant
- $10M in sales from an Online store
- $5M in sales from Real estate
- $1.2M in sales from a SaaS business
Many businesses run at a loss for years. Sometimes by choice, like Amazon, Facebook, and Uber. More often, it’s due to ignorance.
My approach is straightforward:
Focus on profitability from day one and every day after — never push it aside.I don’t chase big sales numbers.
I focus on the profit that actually ends up in my pocket after all business activities.In my experience, scaling a business built on strong financials and solid foundations is far easier and less risky.
This may not be the path if you’re chasing a billion-dollar empire, but if you’re looking to build a healthy, profitable business in survival mode, it’s the best foundation to start with.
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How fragile the bank credit system is
A bank does not need $10 million to give $10 million in loans. It only needs $1 million, your trust, and a little bit of math.
When you deposit $1 million, the bank keeps a small part and lends the rest to the borrower. The borrower spends $1 million, and the money returns to the bank as another $1 million deposit. Now, the bank can lend again. This cycle repeats, making the same money work over and over. U.S. banks are allowed to multiply credit by up to 10 times.
So, with just $1 million, the bank creates $10 million in loans. Magic? No, just a system built on promises.
Of course, if everyone asks for their money at the same time, the magic disappears. That’s why banks really, really hope you don’t do that.
Funny how something so real and so important is based on something so fragile, right?
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