#194 | Why Co-Founding with Your Brother, Detaching from Your Product, and Staying in the Code Makes You a Better Leader w/ Piotr Karwatka

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Hi, everybody. It is Alex. Let me ask you something.
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Do you know Mike? You know, the best engineer on
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the team promoted to lead and suddenly drowning? Nobody trained
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him to manage others. Nobody trained you either. This is
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exactly why I wrote From Code to People, the CQ
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leadership method that transforms technical experts into leaders teams actually
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want to work for. It's not another leadership theory book.
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It is the practical system that I use with tech
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leaders every single day. Built on three main tools that
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you can start using right away. Process communication model, PCM,
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three-level contracting, and the will of conflict. Real frameworks for
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real conversations with real engineers like Mike. If you're a
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technical expert who got promoted into people management and nobody
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handed you an app, this book. Grab it at from code2people. lemonskills. com.
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That's from code2people. lemonskills. com. Welcome to the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast.
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My name is Aleksandra Lemanska. I'm a former violinist turned
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management engineer turned organizational psychologist, speaker and PCM leadership mentor
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and facilitator. In this space, everyone is invited to the
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table where we have real eye-opening conversations about tech leadership.
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Two keywords, utility and real-life implementation. Knowledge, tools, frameworks, ways
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of working, do's and don'ts, taken from my personal experiences
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as a leader and the experiences of others, is what
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you are going to get from every single episode. This
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is the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Okay, so let's go.
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and take some action. Okay, and we're live in another
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episode of the Lemon Tech Leadership Podcast. Today, I have
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a very special guest, another guest from Poland. So we
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are switching gears a little bit. So Piotr Karwatka is
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with me today. Hi, Piotr. Thank you for joining.
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Hi, Ola. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure being
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here with you in this podcast. Thank you very much.
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Of course. I cannot wait. So we are not waiting
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anymore because we waited for quite a long. So let's
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get to your story. Because with every single guest, we're
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starting the conversation with a story. We have an extensive experience.
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So I'm going to ask you for a long story short,
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and we are going to dig deeper into some pieces
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of it afterwards. But where everything started for you, for
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everybody who doesn't know you yet, so far, I would say.
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where everything started, what happened over the way, and where
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are you now? Sure.
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So my story is pretty long, as you already pointed out.
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So everything started about 26 years ago. So it was
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1999 or 2000. And a few years before this year,
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like three years before, our parents bought me and my
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brother a first computer. And I got into heavy gaming,
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of course, as everyone with a computer. But then I
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started getting into development and building some desktop applications and
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so on. And then we started together with my brother.
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So we do business together for almost 26 years already.
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We started doing freeware software. It was a pretty cool
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period and I think it was a formative one for
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me because I'm now very much into open source. Open
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source wasn't a thing back in the day, like when
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you look at early 2000s. But free software had something,
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a spark of open source in it. So giving away
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your works was always important for me. Then we started
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building commercial applications, selling them out with a publisher on CDs. So,
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you know, not sure if people right now know and
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remember that the software could be on CD, right? Everything
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is over internet, but back then it was CDs, DVDs,
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and other clunky stuff. So we did it, and then
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we went into Web 2.0 straight away, building a blog aggregator.
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We sold it, and for the money we earned on
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this first exit in business, we I should build our
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first company called Divanta. And here a story like begins for,
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like professional story begins because it was like our first
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real company where we hired people and we grew it
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from one person to more than 300 and we exited
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four years ago. And during this episode of building this
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huge e-commerce company, we also built a few products. Allokai,
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formerly View Storefront, was one of the first. We got
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the VC funding, the biggest round in Poland by the
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end of the day, like five years ago. Open Reality,
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our second product. And we also invested as a business angel.
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The most famous investment probably is 11Labs so far, and
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30 others also doing very well. And right now, after
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the exit from Divanta, after the exit from Colstite, my
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second company I also sold, I'm really back to the roots,
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building something totally new, which is called Open Mercato. and
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it's a framework for building business apps, but built 100%
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by AI. This is our AI engineering playground, battlefield, and
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the project on which, because it's a pretty large one,
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we are teaching ourselves and other folks as well how
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to do AI engineering production grade in a safe way.
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It's also open source, so Yeah, that's me. That's all
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I'm doing. So I'm a builder at heart, sometimes entrepreneur,
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sometimes investor, always in tech. And now I'm your guest.
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You can add it to your LinkedIn as a new label.
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My next biggest achievement this year.
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I'm taking it, you know, as always. You know, multiple hats,
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many years of experiences in different areas, as you mentioned.
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So thank you for sharing that. Every single time when
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I'm listening to the episodes with yourself, with Tomek, or
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both of you, it is like, I know this story,
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and sometimes in details, but every single time I'm listening
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to it, it's like a completely, maybe not new story,
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but I'm always intrigued how you two grew up together
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and you built so many things together as well. And
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I would love to start with it because it is
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not like a... something that happens all the time, that
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you build business with family and it actually works, you know,
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because I think we both know that there were a
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lot of businesses in Poland, for example, family businesses that
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grew and are scaling themselves up, and then there's a
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huge disaster. And the question is, from your perspective, after
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20 years of working together, 20 years-ish, what... you need
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because this is something that founders sometimes ask me as
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well from the mentoring process alex is it smart to
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do business with your friends or your family because you
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know i'm you know i'm not sure if it's a
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good idea to mix it so from your perspective after
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all those years and you're doing things together today and
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you're not planning to quit as far as i uh
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i know What do you need from this relationship, from
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the business perspective and relationship perspective for that kind of
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cooperation over the years to work?
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Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So let me start
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with some getting to basics, I think. it, it really,
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it really matters who you are doing business with. And
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I would say that having good co-founder is the most
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significant factor of success or failure. Uh, and the overall
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like quality of life sometimes, um, that you can, that,
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that you have power over choosing, right? Because there are
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other factors that you're not always like, uh, are in control, but, uh,
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having like, uh, control over who you work with is
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usually something you can choose, especially if you are a founder, because,
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you know, this is you building the company, the co-founder
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building company with you, being with all those, you know,
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shitty moments and great moments together matters a lot. So
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let's make it like the entry point to this discussion.
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And then there is a very important factor of the trust, because,
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you know, having trust on a very, I would say like, uh, um, no, um,
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basic level and then, uh, grew over the years and,
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and not being like, uh, broken at any time. It's
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super important. And then build up. And, uh, if you
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are doing business with your brother, as in my case, it's,
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like removing all the risk from the table. So the
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trust factor is super important. And I had this lack
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to have always like we always trusted each other. And
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this is a very important factor. But then things are
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getting a little bit more complex because as you said,
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probably every, every one of the listeners and we too, like, uh,
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knew a lot of cases where somebody built a business
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with best friend or, or family member or, you know,
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a significant other and so on. And it failed, uh, like, uh, heavily.
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So why it happens, like, I think that, uh, and
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why it didn't happen to us and why we, we
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really like, uh, like to work together, like after all
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those years, I think that, um, because I was thinking
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about this quite heavily, many people are asking me this question.
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So I think that the answer is in the culture
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of the company we are building. And this is a
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very important factor. So we never took the company we
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are building, like any of those we invested or funded
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or building or working on, we never took them like
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as an extension of us, you know. It never was
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anything personal. And when you think this way, this company
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is your product. You are building a product with this company.
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So never mind it's doing services or products or whatever
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they're doing, this entity, this organization is a product itself.
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It should have processes, people hired, some culture. The culture
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is the most important part, of course. So if you
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look at this way, separating it from yourself, it makes
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things way easier because a lot of those conflicts that
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end up with, you know, failed startups and companies start
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with some ambition, like with some not fulfilled needs. Some
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founders like have, for example, strong need to fulfill their,
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you know, ego needs with the company they're building or
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they treat the company as themselves. So very emotional about
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every decision. We didn't have it. So we always felt like, okay,
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we need to make a decision for Devante, Colestag, you
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name the company because it's always the same algorithm. And
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what's the best for the company? Not for us, for
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the company. And, you know, going this algorithm, we treated
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our employees the same way. And, you know, the culture
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was always very I would say merit-based, meritocracy kind of.
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So we never, you know, we never put our, like,
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life costs on companies or anything like this. People sometimes
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doing this kind of things, like, and we never, like,
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so for us, it was always super important to have
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everything super clear, everything, like, separated, and it makes a
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life a way easier.
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Yeah. And I think that detachment that you mentioned, that
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you're not a company and you're not marrying the product,
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you're not marrying the idea, is extremely smart and healthy,
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I would say.
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Yeah.
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Yet so many people are not doing it. Because they're
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so attached to what they're creating. They're so attached to
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the product. So it's impossible sometimes for them to pivot.
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And we are observing, I think both of us, a
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lot of different ideas and great founders and great people
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that actually are struggling a lot. And they fail over
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and over again because they cannot detach themselves from what
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they are doing and they just cannot zoom out and see, hey, okay,
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what is working, what is not working, what can we
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do differently? Absolutely.
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Absolutely, Alison, I think that this attachment, not detachment, but
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this attachment is pretty natural for us people. You start
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doing something, you feel like you're doing your best, you're
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putting a lot of feeling and in some way it
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also means this quality of your work and why something
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is good or not, the feelings and this, you know,
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putting yourself into your work is very important. That's for sure.
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But I think you should put it into the work
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you are doing and not the other way, like not
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like treating the company as your part of yourself. And
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then when it comes, you know, to some operations like
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exiting company or doing IPOs whatsoever or hiring, even hiring managers, like,
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It matters a lot because if it's part of you,
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your decision will be also very emotional and not exactly efficient,
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not always efficient.
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Yeah, so there's this difference between being passionate and being
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so attached that you cannot just let it go. It's
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part of your identity and it is extremely hard. And
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I see it all the time.
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Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. I think the difference is
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the most... One of the most important factors that we
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succeeded doing the business together. And the second, as I said,
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is trust and culture. And also, I think that our
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parents did a great job because we never felt like
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at home, we never felt that we are competing between
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each other. It always was like we were treated the
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same way. And this is also very important.
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I'm jealous because myself and my sister was in the way.
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My parents always said, yeah, you were raised the same way.
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My sister is six years younger than me. And I
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was always like, what the heck you're talking about? This
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little shit can do so much more than myself. So
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it's like... Of course, right now, we are great. We
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love each other so much. We are still in contact
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and actually write to each other every single day.
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Actually, I heard a lot of stories like this. So
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I think that also we just had a lack.
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Yeah. But what you said about the way of cooperating
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with your writer, I think it is something that you
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can copy and paste as an algorithm, as you mentioned,
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to any founder and co-founder co-founders situation that trust is
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necessary I know from my own perspective as an entrepreneur
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what is important because there's nothing more tiring than being
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still having this after years having this thought that I
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I need to double check and this is not my
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over controlling but my experience is that a person This
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person and this person, and we contracted things that I'm
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doing a part of the job and the second person
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is doing the second part of the job and somebody
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is not delivering. And this is exhausting to have these
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thoughts that I need to double check because I had
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those experiences from the past that something was not delivered.
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And I have those conversations with other entrepreneurs as well,
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regardless of the industry. Tech is the most representative because
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we both are in it. But different industries, different setups
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as well. Uh, so the contracting part, I, because you mentioned, uh,
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the culture, you mentioned the trust and clear communication and
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everything that is, is there because it needs to be
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on the table. Assumptions are deadly, right? So if you
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need to.
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Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's funny. You, you, you, you, you
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pointed those, uh, those two things, um, because I totally
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agree and, uh, I prepared some notes to this conversation
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and it's exactly like almost the same wording you said.
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I stole it.
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So the clarity in communication is super, super important. There
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is a pretty cool book about it, like Radical Candor.
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And it's also about the other thing, which is that
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you shouldn't lie to your employees and to yourself. And
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this also means a few different things. Because sometimes, you know,
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I also seen, like we also did it at some
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point at Devante that as you are trying to be,
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you know, manager, the best manager you can possibly be,
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and you are not communicating clearly with your team because
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you are afraid that those people get demotivated. Because, for example,
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the situation in the company is really tough. And if
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it's really tough, probably you should Especially then, communicate this
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very clearly and have everybody on your side. And if
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they're not, maybe this is the signal they are not
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a good fit or something because otherwise you are putting
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too much on your own shoulders. And this is also
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something which is stopping the founders from growing the companies
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because they try to over-control and double-check. And they should, like, they, okay,
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they should sound like very like too much advising, like advisory,
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but what I, a younger pilot, you should have been
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doing more is like thinking like, why do I really
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have this feeling I need to control it? Why I'm
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afraid of? Maybe it was lack of trust to this person,
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as you said. Maybe it was that I delegated the
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task the wrong way. Maybe micromanagement you know was uh
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the the reason and when you start thinking like if
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those people you have uh and you hired have everything
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they needed to go uh and you are sure about
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it then it's very easy to lose this control the
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way you feel that it's going to be done the
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right way. So that's something I really think is very important.
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And to be honest, for me, it took a few
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good years to learn it, how to delegate things and
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how to not control that much.
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Yeah, that's true. You know, we are both from Poland
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and we are raised as perfectionists, right? Because we need
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to do things perfectly. Because only if you are perfect,
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and this is like a myth from the cultural perspective,
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only if you are perfect, whatever perfection means to you,
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only then it counts, right? Only then you can be successful.
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And I think this, you mentioned yourself, I agree. And
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for me as well, it was extremely hard to understand
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that somebody else's 80% is better than my 100%. Because
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I can go and give some feedback and give some direction,
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sometimes some advisory. But sometimes 80% is good enough. So
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the definition of done, pretty well designed, is a very
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good outcome of what we should deliver.
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Absolutely, Alex. But you know what? I had also a
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different thing because perfection is, of course, one thing and
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this 80% is better than 100% because it piles up
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all the people you have. That's true, but I had
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always this kind of fear. And very often it was
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like a real fear. I should have been afraid of that,
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that we have no margin, you know? Because when you
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are a startup, when you are a small company, maybe
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just after breaking even points, you don't have much space
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for losing clients, right? Or or not delivering and then
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losing client whatsoever, if you don't have the space, you
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are over-controlling because you are just afraid. And very often,
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this is the only thing you can do to survive.
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So I would say, sometimes we had middle managers and
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they were always complaining, this company is not managed well.
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You don't have processes, you don't have this and that
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and this and that. And if you are like 50 people,
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100 people, companies, because on this level, those suggestions usually
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pop up. It's very frustrating from the founder because you
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hear that, but I'd hardly know that, okay, fuck it,
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but we need to deliver, we need to survive, we
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need to build this client. And first of all, this
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client needs to be happy, or clients if you're building product.
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So what I'm trying to say is that sometimes it's
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okay that it's not optimal. You're not an optimal leader
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because you can't do. There is this, you know, wartime,
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peacetime leader, as they say. I very often was the
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wartime leader because we were growing so fast, so rapidly
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that we always had some, you know, some burning fire
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or lack of something. And we have no margins. And
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I must say that after I exited from Divante, which
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I treat as a safe game, kind of. So when
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you exit a company, you have some safe game. Whatever happens,
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you have some safety, right? Because you have some money
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in the bank and you can build something new. It's
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far easier for me personally. I don't know how it
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works for others. But for me, it's far easier to
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start something new because I don't have this urgency to
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control everything. And I must say that the open Mercato
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that we are building right now, it's built in some
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parts the same way as we always do, because this
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framework works pretty good. But on the other hand, delegation
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and hiring and and setting the goals was very different
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than than uh me would do this like 10 years
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ago right so i have a lot way like i
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i give to people a lot of freedom right so
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you are a different.
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Person now and you know i will be worried about
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you if you copy and paste everything because it is
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about learning uh over the years and as you mentioned
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it is something that you it works Over the years,
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you can copy and paste it to the new one,
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but everything that you've learned over the years, what didn't work,
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what you could have done differently and more efficiently and
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smarter and without burnout and everything, you do things better
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for the next time and the next time. So I
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think it's super smart and, of course, more comfort from
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the money perspective because they are not fighting for every single...
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and a client that, of course, you care about the clients,
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but it is not like the fight, fright, or freeze response, right?
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So you are not in this season that everything depends
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on it because you have more of a comfort to
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build it and it's a beautiful place to be in.
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And we know a lot of founders, especially those who
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are doing things for the first time, and quit corporate,
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for example, for building something on their own because they
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hated the lack of influence, the lack of freedom. you
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name it. In a bigger organization, they want to do
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something on their own. So everything is at stake here.
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Their life, their family's life, their cash flow, everything is
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at stake. So what would you advise for, I know
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that you do a lot of advisory from the angel perspective,
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but also from the mentoring perspective, over years of experiences,
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fuck-up stories, success stories, all of them. What would be
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one advice that you would give to this founder and
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co-founder that is building something? They quit corporate. They wanted
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to go with a dream. They built something, but they're
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scared to death about the next steps. They freeze a lot.
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They are so scared of what is going to happen.
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So how they move through this phase, because this is
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a phase, but they need to move through it to
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keep some momentum going, to go to their clients, to
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get some traction, to get some funding, and just keep going.
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Yeah, that's a very good question. And I think that
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something I heard a few good years ago fits here.
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So what I heard is that company fails only when
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the founders resign. and when they decide it's enough. So
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we invested in more than 30 companies, and I saw
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and heard a lot of different kinds of stories. Not
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everything is positive and successful, as you can imagine. But
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even companies being on the edge of bankruptcy, very often,
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and then grow like a crazy. Because, you know, if
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you look at, like, you have a situation, you have
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a problem, and if you have this co-founder that's supporting
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you or family members, whatever, like, whoever is supporting you,
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so you have this capacity, mental capacity to step, like,
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one step back, very often it shows that you can
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actually do something. Like, maybe this invoice you need to
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pay can wait a little bit. Maybe you can discuss
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with the clients to pay upfront so it will give
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you a little bit more cash way or maybe do
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some bridge around, whatever. Of course, it depends on the situation,
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but almost always there is something you can do. That's
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my advice to those who are afraid of the situation. So.
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Yeah, I think that this is a very important one.
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And don't copy and paste your corporate ways of working
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because in this setup, it might be a dead end,
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I would say. Yeah, of course. Speaking about being a
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business angel, I guess you mentioned about 30-ish companies that
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you've invested in. And I have a lot of different
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conversations about being a business angel. And people who have money... Sometimes,
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I think I know that this is a super huge problem.
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They don't know what to do with that sometimes. So
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they don't want to buy the 10th apartment or something
425
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like that. The stock is... So they're thinking about technology
426
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and investing, being an investor, being a business angel, but
427
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they don't know how to start doing it. And we
428
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are talking about this a lot in Startup Community Postline
429
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as well, the meetups, and there are questions about it.
430
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So people have this vision and this belief that you
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need to have a lot of money to become an angel.
432
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And we both know that this is not the truth,
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but the belief is there in the brains. So what
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would you say is the best way to start being
435
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an angel? What is the minimum ticket you want to
436
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go with it? How the process looks like? Where to
437
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look for those startups that are looking actually for the
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funding for the person who has money but never invested
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in tech? What would you say?
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I would say don't do it. I would say say
441
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don't do it because the possibility you will earn anything
442
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on these investments, especially when you are starting, is close
443
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to zero. And if you have up to, I don't know,
444
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like 100 key euro or something like this, it's far
445
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better to invest it into yourself for education. Go for
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some studies, maybe abroad or some trainings or whatever, or
447
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just start doing something and cover your life costs with
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this money. Because investing in yourself those amounts will surely
449
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get you better results. And, you know, we even, like,
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in the early years we've been in the business, we
451
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had something like it. Like, we didn't invest into, like,
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other companies, but we were figuring out how to build something.
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Sometimes you need money to build something. Use this money
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you have for it. Build something by yourself is the
455
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best way to feel something, how it works, why it
456
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could succeed or not. then people will need it and
457
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you will learn a lot. And investing is very difficult
458
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because if you're starting it, you actually don't have access
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to quality pipeline of the deals. And I think this
460
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is the most challenging part of investing in general. And
461
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we had this 26 years of experience and pretty good
462
00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:26.839
visibility in the community of tech and startups. So the
463
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deals we invested in most of the times came to
464
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us naturally from networking. And this is something you can
465
00:31:35.529 --> 00:31:39.210
hardly copy because you need to have this networking and
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this visibility. And how you do it, you do it
467
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by building. Building in public works very well. Maybe doing
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some open source, maybe sharing knowledge. When you look at
469
00:31:50.259 --> 00:31:52.920
our activities, me and Tom, we usually.
470
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Maybe not 70, but like 50% of the time, sometimes,
471
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sometimes less, sometimes more. What we do is we are sharing, right?
472
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We're doing some trainings, we're doing webinars, recording podcasts, everything.
473
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So we are building in public, actually. And people see
474
00:32:13.430 --> 00:32:17.369
it and some of them feel like, wow, the guys
475
00:32:17.970 --> 00:32:21.490
are doing the thing the way I believe it's the
476
00:32:21.529 --> 00:32:26.859
right one. So That's why they sometimes ask us for
477
00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:32.579
investments when they're starting their own thing. But this wouldn't
478
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:37.349
have happened without this whole story before. So that's why
479
00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:41.869
I'm saying don't start investing. It's like starting from the end.
480
00:32:42.089 --> 00:32:46.109
For us, the investment was a natural consequence of all
481
00:32:46.150 --> 00:32:49.769
the other things we've been doing before. And to be honest,
482
00:32:51.029 --> 00:32:55.240
it's very... Exciting sometimes, but most of the time it's
483
00:32:55.299 --> 00:33:00.200
super boring. Nothing happens. You just get the lead, you
484
00:33:00.220 --> 00:33:04.640
get excited, you have a call with the funders. You say, yeah,
485
00:33:04.769 --> 00:33:08.170
I'm in. You wire the money and then get the
486
00:33:08.250 --> 00:33:11.849
email statuses once a month or something like this. And
487
00:33:12.029 --> 00:33:17.509
that's it. Because if you have like 1.6% in the stake,
488
00:33:17.730 --> 00:33:20.390
which is usually a case of business angels even less,
489
00:33:21.450 --> 00:33:25.240
you are really not an active investor. And if you
490
00:33:25.259 --> 00:33:27.700
would like to be, that would be harmful for the company.
491
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:33.710
So it's really nothing. It sounds super glamorous and cool,
492
00:33:34.029 --> 00:33:34.990
but it's really not.
493
00:33:37.190 --> 00:33:40.900
I love it. If I would know that you respond
494
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:43.680
that way, I would cancel the question because we really
495
00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:46.059
want to educate people how to become business angels. But
496
00:33:46.599 --> 00:33:50.279
right now, I'm going to start to challenge the idea
497
00:33:50.299 --> 00:33:52.779
of the educational part that we're planning for 2027. So
498
00:33:52.819 --> 00:33:56.759
thank you for this answer, Piotr. Sorry.
499
00:33:56.779 --> 00:33:58.140
I just tried to be honest.
500
00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:02.200
No, no worries. I'm kidding, of course. And this is
501
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:06.779
interesting to reverse the process, to reverse engineering the process.
502
00:34:07.019 --> 00:34:09.860
So it is like not the first thought, but hey,
503
00:34:09.889 --> 00:34:13.449
let's build something. If you have 100k, 200k, you have
504
00:34:13.489 --> 00:34:17.829
a mail, just do something first. Exactly. go with it,
505
00:34:18.210 --> 00:34:22.659
build a community, build a networking that actually matters, not
506
00:34:23.139 --> 00:34:28.639
the 10K or 20K LinkedIn network that is dead, but
507
00:34:28.860 --> 00:34:32.599
create value. And then as a consequence, as you mentioned,
508
00:34:32.659 --> 00:34:36.239
as a byproduct of the process, maybe invest, maybe support others,
509
00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:39.800
share knowledge, be a mentor, so you can do more
510
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.670
different things that will build maybe even better value out
511
00:34:44.690 --> 00:34:45.510
of the money that you have.
512
00:34:45.969 --> 00:34:50.130
Yeah, exactly. And still it's like a huge chance you
513
00:34:50.329 --> 00:34:53.130
will fail with those investments. And to be honest, you
514
00:34:53.170 --> 00:34:56.860
need to be really, really okay with that. So if
515
00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:00.780
you are thinking seriously about being business angel, let's say
516
00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:03.619
you did it, what we said, so you have this credibility,
517
00:35:04.239 --> 00:35:10.489
the visibility and networking, yet you need to invest carefully.
518
00:35:10.730 --> 00:35:15.150
And we are usually not investing more than single-digit percent
519
00:35:15.190 --> 00:35:22.579
of our of our total value because otherwise we would
520
00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:27.179
have this really strong fear that if it fails, we
521
00:35:27.239 --> 00:35:34.000
will have big problems. And that would surely impact the
522
00:35:34.039 --> 00:35:39.260
decisions we made and also maybe even trying to impact
523
00:35:39.300 --> 00:35:42.769
the companies, the decisions they made, which is super bad
524
00:35:42.949 --> 00:35:47.050
and no investor, no business angel should do this and
525
00:35:47.570 --> 00:35:49.349
like never. So, no.
526
00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:52.059
Interesting. Thank you for sharing this perspective. It is, it
527
00:35:52.119 --> 00:35:55.250
is quite fresh and, uh, Yeah, we are going to
528
00:35:55.289 --> 00:35:57.369
dig deeper into this one, I would say, with the team,
529
00:35:57.530 --> 00:36:01.849
because this is interesting. Switching gears a little bit, because
530
00:36:01.869 --> 00:36:04.159
we are talking about the teams, we are talking about building,
531
00:36:04.179 --> 00:36:08.260
scaling up an organization, exiting the organization, building something from scratch,
532
00:36:08.360 --> 00:36:11.079
connected with the community, because this is something that's connected.
533
00:36:11.239 --> 00:36:15.909
As building a community, both of us are very much
534
00:36:15.969 --> 00:36:19.849
involved into open source communities, building communities in overall in tech.
535
00:36:20.750 --> 00:36:24.070
So the question is, from your perspective, right now building
536
00:36:24.110 --> 00:36:27.000
an open Mercado as well, but being in communities for years,
537
00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:33.000
what is the value of the community for leaders in tech,
538
00:36:33.019 --> 00:36:35.639
for founders in tech, and teams in tech as well?
539
00:36:35.780 --> 00:36:37.820
Right now, we're currently at the very end of July 2026.
540
00:36:37.820 --> 00:36:41.019
What would you say? Why we should even bother to
541
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:43.019
build it, to look for it, to be.
542
00:36:42.980 --> 00:36:46.380
A part I never thought about it because for me
543
00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:51.199
it was always super natural to have been kind of community.
544
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:54.670
Even those freeware softwares we've been building back in the
545
00:36:54.690 --> 00:37:01.829
day usually had some community around. So people contributing, even ideas,
546
00:37:01.889 --> 00:37:05.699
bug reports, content, whatever, using it, giving us feedback. It
547
00:37:05.739 --> 00:37:08.980
was always a fun to be around because You learn
548
00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:11.099
that a lot and you have this feeling that what
549
00:37:11.139 --> 00:37:15.639
you are doing is important for someone, for anyone. So
550
00:37:16.099 --> 00:37:20.449
it makes sense to continue. And I think this is
551
00:37:20.510 --> 00:37:23.570
also one of the reasons it's good to be around
552
00:37:23.650 --> 00:37:29.510
and invest into communities to have this support network to
553
00:37:29.550 --> 00:37:32.809
learn from the peers. The best way of learning is
554
00:37:32.869 --> 00:37:37.139
learning from the peers. So people having similar experiences, maybe
555
00:37:37.179 --> 00:37:41.670
different experiences, but on a similar level like you, so
556
00:37:41.730 --> 00:37:46.610
being part of the founders' community, developers' community, whatsoever, is
557
00:37:46.820 --> 00:37:54.300
a super learning opportunity. And then, of course, networking, meaning
558
00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:59.989
the healthy networking. So you know a lot of people,
559
00:38:00.230 --> 00:38:03.909
and then there's a huge chance that if you say, guys,
560
00:38:04.329 --> 00:38:07.769
I work on this new project, somebody will say, well, wait,
561
00:38:08.369 --> 00:38:11.050
I need something like that. Or my friend needs something
562
00:38:11.070 --> 00:38:13.610
like that. I know a company who could potentially need
563
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:16.659
something like that. And this is actually how we started
564
00:38:16.699 --> 00:38:21.440
this Open Mercato as well because it started September last
565
00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:25.820
year and I started publishing the post over LinkedIn, what
566
00:38:25.860 --> 00:38:30.619
I'm building, how I'm building. Then Tom joined me and
567
00:38:31.099 --> 00:38:35.550
we simply shared the very honest content what are we
568
00:38:35.619 --> 00:38:40.409
doing without trying to sell anything. And people love it.
569
00:38:41.130 --> 00:38:44.170
And I think this is this community effect because the
570
00:38:44.329 --> 00:38:49.429
community around us like before and around the AI things
571
00:38:49.550 --> 00:38:53.250
and our open source community as well, they started spreading
572
00:38:53.570 --> 00:38:57.380
the word, sharing it. So I think it's something like,
573
00:38:58.860 --> 00:39:05.579
you know, passing the thing forward. So you give something
574
00:39:05.639 --> 00:39:08.840
to the community and this community will give back at
575
00:39:08.889 --> 00:39:11.289
the very moment you need it. But you never know
576
00:39:11.309 --> 00:39:14.190
what's the moment or when is the moment. And I
577
00:39:14.230 --> 00:39:17.530
think we are learning a lot here in Poland especially,
578
00:39:17.590 --> 00:39:23.260
but in Europe in general and in the States, in
579
00:39:25.679 --> 00:39:30.860
San Francisco and the whole valley, it's very natural to
580
00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:35.550
have this community idea and to share the ideas, to
581
00:39:35.590 --> 00:39:38.849
support each other. And we are learning, but we are
582
00:39:38.889 --> 00:39:43.429
learning very fast. And you can see many different communities
583
00:39:44.170 --> 00:39:48.530
in business and tech doing a great job. Startup coming
584
00:39:48.570 --> 00:39:50.989
to Poznań is one of them, of course. But you
585
00:39:51.010 --> 00:39:58.630
have also some more business-oriented like YPO, EO, and other organizations.
586
00:39:58.869 --> 00:40:02.909
And I think that this is really cool because beforehand,
587
00:40:03.010 --> 00:40:07.409
when you started business, you didn't have anyone to learn from.
588
00:40:10.139 --> 00:40:14.360
People were so focused on growing the company, selling, earning things,
589
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:18.010
and so on, that they were totally not interested in
590
00:40:18.090 --> 00:40:21.670
sharing their experiences. And, you know, we are first or
591
00:40:21.730 --> 00:40:26.840
second generation in Poland building the companies. So you really
592
00:40:26.889 --> 00:40:32.599
haven't had any way to get this experience. And with communities,
593
00:40:32.659 --> 00:40:33.559
it's far easier.
594
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:37.619
That's true. Two things I want to dig deeper a
595
00:40:37.659 --> 00:40:40.559
little bit into the community part. If I was a
596
00:40:40.599 --> 00:40:43.579
person that was looking for a community, I am not
597
00:40:43.659 --> 00:40:47.159
in one, but I want to, because you convinced me
598
00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:50.219
with everything that you just said, where I should start
599
00:40:50.340 --> 00:40:57.429
looking for it. Should it be online, offline, hybrid, Slack, Discord, whatever.
600
00:40:57.630 --> 00:40:59.889
What would be the best idea to look for it?
601
00:40:59.949 --> 00:41:03.030
To find something meaningful, as you mentioned. Not something that
602
00:41:03.170 --> 00:41:06.690
is just like a facade, but... something that is real.
603
00:41:06.340 --> 00:41:10.639
Yeah well i think that every every option you just
604
00:41:11.139 --> 00:41:14.400
mentioned is is guilty if it works for you and
605
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:17.440
you feel comfortable some people like attending events which is
606
00:41:17.460 --> 00:41:19.960
great and there is a lot of events and there
607
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.250
are some aggregator of events and you can easily find
608
00:41:24.289 --> 00:41:30.150
like three or five or six events going on next
609
00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:34.269
week like in your city or or somewhere near. So
610
00:41:34.590 --> 00:41:37.590
I would start with that, and that's usually a good idea.
611
00:41:38.309 --> 00:41:40.489
But then when you go to the event, you should
612
00:41:40.570 --> 00:41:44.389
be trying to take part of it. I mean, at
613
00:41:44.409 --> 00:41:47.289
least start conversation, which is super difficult. For me, it
614
00:41:47.309 --> 00:41:50.789
was super difficult to talk to people I didn't know,
615
00:41:51.110 --> 00:41:55.880
but they are usually very open of those meetups, so
616
00:41:55.889 --> 00:41:59.070
it's not that hard, and you should definitely do it.
617
00:41:59.989 --> 00:42:04.949
And online communities in a way are easier, especially for
618
00:42:05.010 --> 00:42:08.610
tech people who are maybe not that people-oriented and are
619
00:42:08.650 --> 00:42:13.230
afraid of talking in public. So that's also a great idea.
620
00:42:13.349 --> 00:42:16.929
Many projects that might be of your interest have some
621
00:42:17.150 --> 00:42:22.530
Discord Slack, other channels of communication, informal, so you can
622
00:42:22.989 --> 00:42:28.139
join freely. Open Mercato has it, of course, as well. And,
623
00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:32.500
you know, there are some some other ways of joining.
624
00:42:32.579 --> 00:42:36.000
But what I would recommend is to join the community,
625
00:42:36.039 --> 00:42:41.760
which is interactive. So, for example, being on webinars is
626
00:42:41.800 --> 00:42:46.280
maybe not this fully interactive. I have nothing to webinars.
627
00:42:46.380 --> 00:42:49.809
I'm a fan of webinars, doing webinars, attending webinars, everything.
628
00:42:50.289 --> 00:42:54.170
But in community, you want to be part of something, right?
629
00:42:54.809 --> 00:42:58.210
And being part of something means you contribute, right? You
630
00:42:58.250 --> 00:43:02.130
even can contribute just a conversation, meaningful conversation, meeting people,
631
00:43:02.550 --> 00:43:07.219
building your network. So that's what I would recommend. And
632
00:43:07.860 --> 00:43:13.539
I'm also a mentor. MD Fellowship is an organization for
633
00:43:13.579 --> 00:43:21.250
mentoring young people up to 20-something. So young people in tech.
634
00:43:22.099 --> 00:43:24.880
And I remember that I had a mentee back in
635
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:28.039
the day, and he asked me exactly the question you
636
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:30.820
asked me, like how to start like this, be part
637
00:43:30.860 --> 00:43:33.559
of something, start networking and so on. And I said
638
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:36.139
something like, you need to go to the events and
639
00:43:36.199 --> 00:43:39.219
you need to meet people and meet new people and
640
00:43:40.010 --> 00:43:50.130
make it a habit. And he, Oskar, I really enjoyed
641
00:43:50.809 --> 00:43:54.219
mentoring Oskar. my first mentee. He learned me a lot
642
00:43:54.429 --> 00:43:57.820
about being a mentor itself, but Oskar took this really seriously.
643
00:43:58.119 --> 00:44:02.119
I remember that he said, okay, so every month I
644
00:44:02.139 --> 00:44:05.320
will meet, I don't remember the number, but it was
645
00:44:05.380 --> 00:44:08.630
a number, a number of new people that I don't know.
646
00:44:10.110 --> 00:44:13.139
And he did it. He was really serious about it.
647
00:44:13.170 --> 00:44:18.469
So he attended like two, three, four events a week,
648
00:44:19.340 --> 00:44:22.650
having a list of new people, And you know what?
649
00:44:22.789 --> 00:44:26.369
It worked super well for him because right now he's
650
00:44:26.429 --> 00:44:30.730
doing a startup, having investors, having a co-founder. He found
651
00:44:30.750 --> 00:44:36.269
this way in the industry, which was totally new for him.
652
00:44:36.670 --> 00:44:42.929
But having this system for getting into something new, he succeeded.
653
00:44:43.489 --> 00:44:46.230
And you know what? I had also a pretty similar
654
00:44:46.969 --> 00:44:50.989
experience I started the podcast during the COVID. It was
655
00:44:51.030 --> 00:44:57.570
CTO to CTO podcast. I recorded just 54 episodes. I
656
00:44:57.610 --> 00:44:59.449
know it's nothing, I'm comparing it to you.
657
00:44:59.469 --> 00:45:04.340
It is not a contest, okay? Don't underestimate, you know.
658
00:45:04.389 --> 00:45:09.199
You have almost like 200 episodes, so really congratulations. But,
659
00:45:10.059 --> 00:45:12.659
you know, I had the same thing. I mean, like,
660
00:45:13.059 --> 00:45:15.579
I need to record one episode per week. So I
661
00:45:15.619 --> 00:45:18.559
need to meet somebody I don't know because I want
662
00:45:18.599 --> 00:45:22.119
to make it really interesting and discussing with people I
663
00:45:22.179 --> 00:45:25.909
already know very well that doesn't make it. So I
664
00:45:26.389 --> 00:45:29.949
try to like, until Wednesday, I always try to meet
665
00:45:30.010 --> 00:45:34.110
somebody new on LinkedIn, networking, like make me into this person,
666
00:45:34.150 --> 00:45:37.269
this person and so on. And then trying to convince
667
00:45:38.309 --> 00:45:41.110
this person to be my guest, which was, by the way,
668
00:45:41.170 --> 00:45:47.219
very easy part. Everybody likes to be a guest. But
669
00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:50.139
meeting was more difficult. And I have a very systematic
670
00:45:50.179 --> 00:45:53.039
way of doing this. And after a year, I met
671
00:45:53.099 --> 00:45:57.320
like 50 new people from different companies I didn't know before.
672
00:45:58.039 --> 00:45:59.909
And you know what else is the best part? The
673
00:45:59.929 --> 00:46:02.769
best part is that when you do something like this
674
00:46:02.989 --> 00:46:05.750
and you spend like one hour recording this podcast with
675
00:46:05.789 --> 00:46:08.590
this person, in my case, but maybe talking at the
676
00:46:08.610 --> 00:46:12.480
event is the same, you feel like you know this
677
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:17.179
person And she or he has the same feeling. And
678
00:46:17.239 --> 00:46:20.510
for example, with those guys I discussed, we even did
679
00:46:20.590 --> 00:46:24.449
some co-investments together, like out of the blue, you know.
680
00:46:25.010 --> 00:46:27.449
And this method works really well. So you need to
681
00:46:27.469 --> 00:46:30.510
be systematic and get out of your comfort zone and
682
00:46:30.849 --> 00:46:34.099
get where people are, offline or online, it doesn't matter
683
00:46:34.119 --> 00:46:37.280
that much. But what it does is that you need
684
00:46:37.300 --> 00:46:42.179
to be interactive and trying to contribute something, provide them
685
00:46:42.219 --> 00:46:42.820
with some value.
686
00:46:43.679 --> 00:46:46.139
You know what? People ask me a lot because when
687
00:46:46.159 --> 00:46:52.400
I say that I was... very much, maybe not introverted
688
00:46:52.440 --> 00:46:54.679
because this is not my part of the personality, but
689
00:46:54.969 --> 00:46:59.510
I was very uncomfortable in talking with people that I
690
00:46:59.550 --> 00:47:03.150
don't know during the events. So it's something that I
691
00:47:03.230 --> 00:47:07.440
see right now. I'm observing in a room where people
692
00:47:07.500 --> 00:47:10.559
are just in their phones and they're just going out.
693
00:47:10.980 --> 00:47:14.019
So just nobody just talks to me. And I had
694
00:47:14.039 --> 00:47:17.139
it as well. It was years ago, but I was there.
695
00:47:17.619 --> 00:47:21.050
And people are asking me, Alex, how... you train your
696
00:47:21.110 --> 00:47:24.030
muscle in networking. Because this is something that is a
697
00:47:24.030 --> 00:47:27.199
skill and you can actually train it. And say, hey,
698
00:47:27.480 --> 00:47:31.090
I have this opening question. And it works every single
699
00:47:31.110 --> 00:47:34.230
time as an opener with some people. I am going
700
00:47:34.269 --> 00:47:37.449
to share, but first, I would love for you to
701
00:47:37.489 --> 00:47:39.610
share yours. Do you have, like, I know that people
702
00:47:39.650 --> 00:47:41.389
are coming to you most of the time. I'm always,
703
00:47:41.449 --> 00:47:44.539
I'm observing yourself or Tom, and always a lot of
704
00:47:44.599 --> 00:47:46.920
people around you. So maybe it is not even an issue.
705
00:47:46.960 --> 00:47:49.960
But if you are in a room and that's you
706
00:47:50.059 --> 00:47:51.679
are here for the first time, you didn't know a
707
00:47:51.699 --> 00:47:54.820
lot of people, but you have this goal to meet
708
00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:58.239
people because that's why you came here. Do you have
709
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:02.039
an open question that is something that you always use?
710
00:48:02.199 --> 00:48:09.070
Actually, I do. My open question has two variants. But actually,
711
00:48:09.090 --> 00:48:12.329
it's something like, what's on your mind? So what's on
712
00:48:12.349 --> 00:48:15.920
your mind? What are you in right now? Or what
713
00:48:15.980 --> 00:48:20.219
are you working on right now? People love to share
714
00:48:20.300 --> 00:48:23.480
what they are working on. And if you ask this,
715
00:48:23.659 --> 00:48:26.710
what's on your mind, what you are in, It's more
716
00:48:26.929 --> 00:48:31.139
like generalistic, not work-oriented. And sometimes you can hear all
717
00:48:31.199 --> 00:48:35.940
sorts of different interesting stories. Very deep sometimes. And I
718
00:48:36.039 --> 00:48:37.159
love asking this question.
719
00:48:37.860 --> 00:48:38.960
Okay. Interesting.
720
00:48:41.019 --> 00:48:43.840
And yours? Your opener question is?
721
00:48:44.219 --> 00:48:49.480
You know, my opener is... Even more high level, because
722
00:48:49.579 --> 00:48:52.099
my opening question that always works is, how are your
723
00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:56.360
impressions about the event so far? Yeah, that's a good one.
724
00:48:56.679 --> 00:49:00.769
I'm going about it. Everyone has one impression about the event.
725
00:49:01.090 --> 00:49:03.530
And as you mentioned that people love to share, people
726
00:49:03.550 --> 00:49:05.690
love to share what they think about the event. So
727
00:49:05.789 --> 00:49:07.289
it's super easy. Always works.
728
00:49:07.789 --> 00:49:11.500
And no risk asking this question, right? It's very safe
729
00:49:11.840 --> 00:49:17.880
and people are afraid of starting conversation because they are
730
00:49:17.900 --> 00:49:21.679
afraid like, well, they will think about me if I'm
731
00:49:22.050 --> 00:49:23.320
good enough, you know.
732
00:49:23.429 --> 00:49:25.030
Or they go just to walk away.
733
00:49:25.170 --> 00:49:28.260
Or those smart people, they will walk away and so on.
734
00:49:28.489 --> 00:49:31.730
But if you start with question where somebody can share
735
00:49:31.849 --> 00:49:36.730
something and tell you something and about something not related
736
00:49:37.369 --> 00:49:41.690
even to work and so on, it's, It makes way easier. So, yeah,
737
00:49:41.849 --> 00:49:43.610
I really like it. Really good question.
738
00:49:43.929 --> 00:49:45.690
Yeah. And yours as well. I'm going to put it
739
00:49:45.750 --> 00:49:47.159
on my list and see how it's going to work.
740
00:49:47.239 --> 00:49:48.320
And then it goes, right?
741
00:49:48.380 --> 00:49:48.539
Yes.
742
00:49:48.599 --> 00:49:49.219
Usually it goes.
743
00:49:49.519 --> 00:49:53.360
Of course. And if the conversation isn't going, maybe it's
744
00:49:53.420 --> 00:49:55.280
just not your conversation. Exactly.
745
00:49:56.110 --> 00:49:57.550
It's also a signal, right?
746
00:49:57.670 --> 00:50:01.900
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay, Piotr, I have so many
747
00:50:02.219 --> 00:50:03.929
things on my list, but I need to be mindful
748
00:50:03.949 --> 00:50:09.489
about our audience's attention span. So I'm going to move
749
00:50:09.650 --> 00:50:14.409
into the lightning round. I have some questions for you there. Okay,
750
00:50:14.570 --> 00:50:18.150
let's do it. What is the worst or the weirdest
751
00:50:18.610 --> 00:50:21.570
leadership or entrepreneurship advice that you've ever gotten?
752
00:50:25.789 --> 00:50:29.860
Hmm. I think that for tech people, it would be
753
00:50:30.099 --> 00:50:33.860
that you need to be more in business and managerial stuff,
754
00:50:34.119 --> 00:50:38.099
less into tech. That's pretty weird and it doesn't work.
755
00:50:38.900 --> 00:50:42.099
It didn't work for me. I mean, I'm not saying
756
00:50:42.139 --> 00:50:45.460
that if you are a tech leader, you don't have
757
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:48.710
to be in business or sales or whatever. You should be,
758
00:50:49.829 --> 00:50:52.710
like 100%, like 50% maybe. Because the other 50% should
759
00:50:52.730 --> 00:50:58.710
be still in tech And that was the way this
760
00:50:58.849 --> 00:51:03.280
advice I got. And the saddest thing was that I
761
00:51:03.320 --> 00:51:08.500
believed in it. And I tried to be more manager
762
00:51:08.519 --> 00:51:13.099
than tech guy. And it ruined my life, the quality
763
00:51:13.119 --> 00:51:17.320
of life. Because I love technology in part ways. And
764
00:51:17.340 --> 00:51:21.340
I also like being a leader and developing people. But
765
00:51:21.380 --> 00:51:22.780
there is a way you can connect it.
766
00:51:23.320 --> 00:51:23.570
So.
767
00:51:24.440 --> 00:51:26.940
don't believe that you need to leave the tech.
768
00:51:27.519 --> 00:51:30.380
You don't. I think that's the part of the public
769
00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:32.260
that is actually on your side is going to love
770
00:51:32.300 --> 00:51:35.980
you after this sentence. And there are more examples of
771
00:51:36.039 --> 00:51:40.619
it as well, because I had a conversation with Marcus Fontoura.
772
00:51:40.719 --> 00:51:46.199
He was a VP of Microsoft from Azure perspective. Right
773
00:51:46.219 --> 00:51:51.199
now he's in Atropic, so good chance. And he told
774
00:51:51.239 --> 00:51:55.199
me that, yes, he's reporting to Satya, so he's a
775
00:51:55.239 --> 00:51:58.690
minus one of the VPs. And he told me that,
776
00:51:58.889 --> 00:52:02.050
you know what, every single month I block my calendar
777
00:52:02.389 --> 00:52:05.269
for just doing tech stuff because I love it. This
778
00:52:05.309 --> 00:52:07.530
is my passion. This is why I started doing all
779
00:52:07.590 --> 00:52:11.889
of that. And I could just go into the deepest,
780
00:52:11.969 --> 00:52:16.289
deepest part of the infrastructure, and I'm just playing out.
781
00:52:16.369 --> 00:52:19.119
And this is one of the most joyful days of
782
00:52:19.159 --> 00:52:22.559
my month. So, yeah, of course.
783
00:52:22.679 --> 00:52:24.840
And I'm not sure if you have the same thing,
784
00:52:24.880 --> 00:52:28.219
but I have this feeling that when you hear even Satya,
785
00:52:28.260 --> 00:52:32.760
CEO of Microsoft, or Sam Altman, or other CEOs, you
786
00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:36.219
have this feeling that they really understand the stack details
787
00:52:36.360 --> 00:52:39.940
and what the products do and all the trends. They
788
00:52:39.980 --> 00:52:43.260
are really into it. And they would never say it's
789
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:46.090
not important because it is the bread and butter of
790
00:52:46.119 --> 00:52:49.989
their companies and the USP and the reason why their
791
00:52:50.050 --> 00:52:51.650
companies existed.
792
00:52:51.869 --> 00:52:57.170
Okay, number two. What is something that you wish you knew?
793
00:52:57.369 --> 00:52:59.769
One thing that you wish you knew at the very
794
00:52:59.809 --> 00:53:02.079
beginning of your leadership, entrepreneurship journey.
795
00:53:02.849 --> 00:53:06.010
Damn, there's a lot of things, so it's a long list,
796
00:53:06.050 --> 00:53:10.369
you know. But if I were to pick one, that's
797
00:53:10.389 --> 00:53:13.269
a very difficult question. I don't know.
798
00:53:16.050 --> 00:53:19.929
Something maybe that cost you the most from today's perspective.
799
00:53:20.730 --> 00:53:27.099
Cost me the most? Damn, I really don't know because,
800
00:53:27.119 --> 00:53:30.179
you know, there's so many things I wanted to know about.
801
00:53:32.650 --> 00:53:35.590
on the beginning, but maybe there is one not that
802
00:53:36.590 --> 00:53:41.460
obvious thing. The one thing I wanted to be aware
803
00:53:41.639 --> 00:53:46.119
of is that when you are a leader in technology
804
00:53:46.340 --> 00:53:51.349
or in a different space, you have big impact on
805
00:53:51.389 --> 00:53:57.130
the people even if you are not saying anything or
806
00:53:57.150 --> 00:54:01.489
not doing anything, just being and people looking at you. Because,
807
00:54:01.530 --> 00:54:06.590
you know, the culture builds up this way. And you
808
00:54:06.610 --> 00:54:10.250
need to be very careful what you are saying because
809
00:54:10.289 --> 00:54:12.760
this message stays with the people. And I think I
810
00:54:12.820 --> 00:54:19.699
made a lot of mistakes and managerial issues that came
811
00:54:19.760 --> 00:54:25.659
up from this, being not aware of that, feeling that
812
00:54:25.699 --> 00:54:30.010
I'm still just this developer and doing my stuff. And
813
00:54:30.090 --> 00:54:33.539
it's very easy going this way to demotivate the people
814
00:54:33.559 --> 00:54:39.079
or not appreciate them as much as you should. So yeah,
815
00:54:39.860 --> 00:54:42.800
if I were meant to pick just one thing, that
816
00:54:42.840 --> 00:54:43.360
would be this.
817
00:54:44.760 --> 00:54:50.739
You made it. After a moment. What is something that
818
00:54:50.760 --> 00:54:54.230
you've read recently or listened to or watched maybe that's
819
00:54:54.469 --> 00:54:56.489
taught you something, that you learned something out of it
820
00:54:56.530 --> 00:54:57.369
that you can share with.
821
00:54:58.550 --> 00:55:01.789
That's another tough question.
822
00:55:02.849 --> 00:55:06.650
You mentioned radical candor, so it can be that.
823
00:55:08.909 --> 00:55:12.849
It was quite some time from when I read this book,
824
00:55:12.909 --> 00:55:18.449
and it was very, very eye-opening for me. By the way,
825
00:55:18.530 --> 00:55:22.369
the other book I really recommend, and for me it
826
00:55:22.429 --> 00:55:25.869
was Game Changer, was Nonviolent Communication. It's a little bit
827
00:55:26.329 --> 00:55:31.929
connected to Radical Candor the way it could soften the message.
828
00:55:33.949 --> 00:55:37.190
But it's not about the format, it's about the merit
829
00:55:37.250 --> 00:55:45.760
and the nonviolent communication we recommended. But recently I'm reading
830
00:55:45.880 --> 00:55:50.559
mostly things related to AI. So because I try to
831
00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:53.579
be on the edge now and doing a lot of
832
00:55:53.619 --> 00:56:06.030
stuff in this space, And those information have the experience
833
00:56:06.110 --> 00:56:11.050
data in days. So I would say it's nothing to share.
834
00:56:13.679 --> 00:56:17.900
But other than that, I have also a habit I
835
00:56:17.940 --> 00:56:23.199
can recommend being a manager or leader of reading a
836
00:56:23.239 --> 00:56:29.940
lot of psychological stuff. And recently, the topic I was
837
00:56:30.039 --> 00:56:37.429
reading about was related to emotions, regulations of emotions and
838
00:56:37.449 --> 00:56:40.190
this kind of stuff. I highly recommend it to understand
839
00:56:40.250 --> 00:56:44.190
how this works. It's very useful if you are a leader,
840
00:56:44.670 --> 00:56:51.139
but not for manipulating your people, but rather to understand yourself.
841
00:56:52.239 --> 00:56:56.610
And I think... In general, even not reading, but thinking
842
00:56:56.679 --> 00:57:01.980
about yourself and self-realizing why you do some things is
843
00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:07.619
a great development tool for managers. And I'm spending one
844
00:57:07.659 --> 00:57:11.909
hour a day thinking about what I did and why
845
00:57:12.760 --> 00:57:17.269
now and in the past. It's funny because recently I
846
00:57:17.329 --> 00:57:22.590
got to understand a few of my managerial habits I
847
00:57:22.630 --> 00:57:28.389
had before. And I did just because I was mature
848
00:57:28.429 --> 00:57:31.789
enough and have time for thinking about it. So self-reflection
849
00:57:31.869 --> 00:57:35.409
is even better than books. I know that this is
850
00:57:35.469 --> 00:57:37.889
not the direct answer to your question. Sorry.
851
00:57:38.230 --> 00:57:40.050
No, it is. It is. And I just wanted to
852
00:57:40.190 --> 00:57:45.670
add that about self-awareness and communication intelligence, there's another very
853
00:57:45.769 --> 00:57:49.730
great book, very new on the market, From Code to People.
854
00:57:50.530 --> 00:57:53.840
It's written by myself. So, hey, just saying that you
855
00:57:53.860 --> 00:57:56.380
can just go and check it out.
856
00:57:56.659 --> 00:58:01.070
So, I know what I will read next, you know, Yes, we.
857
00:58:01.010 --> 00:58:03.530
Were talking about it a couple of months back. So
858
00:58:04.050 --> 00:58:06.780
it is a good idea. Speaking of AI, I just
859
00:58:06.800 --> 00:58:08.699
wanted to add one more thing because I was reading
860
00:58:08.840 --> 00:58:12.639
recently the book about Generation Alpha because, hey, those young
861
00:58:12.699 --> 00:58:16.829
folks are going to be on the job market very soon, anytime.
862
00:58:17.570 --> 00:58:19.869
And there's a book, Generation AI, by Brittain, I think
863
00:58:20.030 --> 00:58:23.710
the name of the author is. And there's information about
864
00:58:23.730 --> 00:58:28.889
generation alpha compared to previous generations, but mostly focused on
865
00:58:28.969 --> 00:58:31.980
AI and how this generation is going to be shaped
866
00:58:32.539 --> 00:58:35.099
by it, because this is the first generation that actually
867
00:58:36.940 --> 00:58:40.820
was raised, and maybe not born, but raised in the
868
00:58:40.940 --> 00:58:47.670
AI age and surroundings and how AI influences all the
869
00:58:47.690 --> 00:58:52.010
areas of their lives and career choices. So, super interesting.
870
00:58:52.250 --> 00:58:54.349
I highly recommend it because this is something that we
871
00:58:54.389 --> 00:58:54.809
as leaders.
872
00:58:54.849 --> 00:58:57.849
That's the topic. That's the tough one because people sometimes
873
00:58:57.929 --> 00:59:02.409
ask me, like, they're having kids or young people ask me,
874
00:59:02.469 --> 00:59:06.019
what should I learn next? And I said, no idea.
875
00:59:06.019 --> 00:59:10.239
No idea. It's very tough because you know when I
876
00:59:10.300 --> 00:59:15.699
was younger or you know the generations after me but
877
00:59:15.739 --> 00:59:19.159
you know like 10 years ago or something like that
878
00:59:19.179 --> 00:59:21.969
it was very easy you need to learn like development
879
00:59:21.989 --> 00:59:24.710
I don't know like mobile development whatever like you can
880
00:59:25.030 --> 00:59:26.849
easily pick something.
881
00:59:26.570 --> 00:59:28.449
There was a pipeline right there.
882
00:59:28.329 --> 00:59:31.690
Was a pipeline and right now No idea, like using
883
00:59:31.829 --> 00:59:37.170
AI is probably the general tool you should use to
884
00:59:37.329 --> 00:59:38.550
use in IT, right?
885
00:59:38.909 --> 00:59:44.590
Critical thinking, being a generalist, right? Analytical skills and human skills, basically,
886
00:59:44.690 --> 00:59:46.730
because this is going to be important.
887
00:59:46.750 --> 00:59:49.769
Yeah, I think that there will be kind of, you know,
888
00:59:49.809 --> 00:59:52.570
like we have golf clubs right now. So in 10
889
00:59:52.570 --> 00:59:54.760
years from now, there will be Sudoku clubs or something
890
00:59:54.780 --> 01:00:00.510
like that. And just thinking, keeping this thinking muscle Ready
891
01:00:00.550 --> 01:00:03.880
will be as popular as right now is the fitness
892
01:00:03.900 --> 01:00:05.000
clubs or golf clubs, right?
893
01:00:05.340 --> 01:00:07.800
I think so, too. I think it was a beautiful
894
01:00:07.860 --> 01:00:12.539
way to finish our conversation today. This optimistic view of
895
01:00:12.579 --> 01:00:15.630
the future for the young kids that are there and
896
01:00:15.849 --> 01:00:20.329
on the way to adulthood. So thank you for that, Piotr,
897
01:00:20.389 --> 01:00:21.110
for the finishing.
898
01:00:21.150 --> 01:00:21.920
It was great talking with you.
899
01:00:23.889 --> 01:00:26.969
It was great as well. And the last thing before
900
01:00:26.989 --> 01:00:28.800
we wrap up the episode, I would love for you
901
01:00:28.840 --> 01:00:32.219
to share with everybody who wants to check on you,
902
01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:35.219
contact you, maybe DM you, have some questions, or just
903
01:00:35.260 --> 01:00:39.739
share the feedback about the conversation. Or just take a
904
01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:42.400
closer look on Open Mercado and anything that you're doing,
905
01:00:43.139 --> 01:00:45.079
where they can find you. Tell us all the places.
906
01:00:45.599 --> 01:00:49.719
Yeah, guys. So I'm 100% into Open Mercado right now.
907
01:00:49.780 --> 01:00:52.820
So you can find me on LinkedIn. And we are
908
01:00:52.860 --> 01:00:56.510
doing a lot of interesting things about AI engineering. So
909
01:00:57.349 --> 01:01:04.269
shortly we are starting the ai-techleaders.pl is the page address,
910
01:01:04.309 --> 01:01:07.889
the training you can sign up for. It will be
911
01:01:07.909 --> 01:01:12.119
a pretty unique one. And then you also have the
912
01:01:12.420 --> 01:01:15.659
hackathon we are doing in September in Wrocław for Open
913
01:01:15.699 --> 01:01:21.900
Mercato and AI engineering. So As we discussed before, there
914
01:01:21.920 --> 01:01:26.639
are a lot of ways to join the community around
915
01:01:26.699 --> 01:01:29.889
it and learn about AI engineering. And this is my
916
01:01:29.949 --> 01:01:33.349
focus right now. So I'm super happy to share the experiences,
917
01:01:33.429 --> 01:01:36.690
to get the experiences. So if you have anything to
918
01:01:36.730 --> 01:01:39.829
share or you'd like to ask me, feel free to
919
01:01:39.869 --> 01:01:40.389
just reach.
920
01:01:41.030 --> 01:01:44.070
Amazing. We are going to put everything in the show notes.
921
01:01:44.130 --> 01:01:45.639
So all of the links are going to be there.
922
01:01:45.659 --> 01:01:48.679
So just click away. And check it out. A lot
923
01:01:48.719 --> 01:01:51.920
of things are happening right now. Great. Perfect. Yeah. Thank
924
01:01:51.940 --> 01:01:54.300
you so much. I'm grateful. Yeah.
925
01:01:54.929 --> 01:01:55.139
Thanks.
926
01:01:55.769 --> 01:01:57.929
And thanks all for listening because as much as we
927
01:01:57.969 --> 01:02:01.329
enjoy talking to each other, we are doing it for you.
928
01:02:01.349 --> 01:02:03.269
So thank you for listening. Share the link with somebody
929
01:02:03.289 --> 01:02:05.909
who might use it, might find it interesting or inspiring.
930
01:02:06.030 --> 01:02:08.550
And I'll see you very soon in the very next
931
01:02:08.610 --> 01:02:18.360
episode of the Element Tech Leadership Podcast. Bye, everybody. Lehman
932
01:02:18.400 --> 01:02:19.670
Tech Leadership Podcast.