Never in my life have I cried for someone I have never met, before yesterday. There’s no consumer brand I love more than Apple, and there’s no person that has inspired me as much as Steve Jobs.

Rest in peace, mr. Jobs.

This week I’d like to congratulate Ciprian Morar, a fellow Romanian and old friend for signing a three-year deal with Travelzoo (a NASDAQ company) as their main technology provider. Secondly, big congrats to my friend (and investor in Brainient) Alex Hoye for selling Latitude Group. And last but definitely not least, big hug to my bud and flatmate Lucian Tarnowski for… well, you’ll find out what for, soon .

Excellent work, gents. Keep them coming.

About the computer:

Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this cafe [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, “Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward .” and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this cafe, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions–”Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number”–but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

About the mouse:

If I want to tell you there is a spot on your shirt, I’m not going to do it linguistically: “There’s a spot on your shirt 14 centimeters down from the collar and three centimeters to the left of your button.” If you have a spot–”There!” [He points]–I’ll point to it. Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We’ve done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it’s much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it’s not only easier to use but more efficient.

About life:

There’s an old Hindu saying that comes into my mind occasionally: “For the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you.” As I’m going to be 30 in February, the thought has crossed my mind.

Selling is all about telling a story that’s relevant to the person you’re telling it to, but at the same time creates an emotional impact or connection. If you look closely at the paragraphs above, you’ll notice that the stories involve the interviewer directly. It may not make the person buy whatever you’re selling directly, but it might make people pay more attention to whatever your saying.

However, I think trendspotting is incredibly difficult but pays off massively, if you manage to have the right team and the right product at the right time. Don Valentine, the founder of Sequoia Capital makes a similar point in a speech he had at Stanford a few months ago:

We have always focused on the market: the size, the dynamics and the nature of the competition. Because our objective always was to build big companies. If you don’t attack a big market, it’s highly unlikely you’re ever going to build a big company.

We don’t care if people went to school or how smart they are. We are interested in their idea about the market, the magnitude of the problem and what can happen if in fact the combination of Sequoia and the individuals are correct.

We don’t choose people, we choose markets. And once we choose a market, we choose the best product in the market.

I strongly recommend that you watch the entire speech (about 1hr long), when you get a chance:

In that post, I was talking about the selfless way in which real friends show you their love, whether it’s by taking you out for a walk in the park when they feel you need it, by helping you pick a scooter, offering to pick up your dry-cleaning or simply calling to say hello. And I was stressing how important these people have been in my life so far.

I call them Human Batteries. They charge me whenever I need it, and I try to charge them whenever they do. And, without even realising it, we make sure none of us ever runs out of batteries.

Thank you SO much Mom & Dad, Claude London, Lil Bulgac, Lucian Tarnowski, Loredana Gal, Sorana Urdareanu, David Abelman, Victor Anastasiu, Oliver Shapleski, Jeh Kazimi, Joshua Green, Thomas Hoegh & Arts Alliance, Teodora Poptean, Cristian Manafu, Alena Dundas, Vladimir Oane, Nicoleta Dragan, Ciprian Mocanu, Andy Young, Iulia Poptean, Ciprian Morar, Dragos Bucurenci, Alex Van Someren, Cristi Lupsa, Alina Gal, Jason Goodman, Mihaela Dragus, Hanna Ruth Wallis, Doru Mitrana, Catalina Rusu, Lea Bajc, Vlad Stan, Lippe Oosterhof, Brainient & Mihai Sava, Mihai Iova, Cristina Pop, Andrei Blaj, Misha Plesco, Kolea Plesco, Andrei Baragan, Andrei Soporean and, of course, Sabina.

A few days ago I was speaking to a friend about the fact that, as we go through life, we lose the innocence we had when we were kids. Which is not entirely bad, because after all – we are not swans. We are sharks. However, with the loss of innocence we also lose the ability to see the best in people, the desire to smile (back) or the willingness to help each other.

As I was walking to the office this morning I saw a mother walking her two 5-year-olds to kindergarden, probably. All 3 of them had the happiest faces I’ve seen in a while which make me realize something: to keep our innocence, we should spend more time with kids. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t done that in many, many years. Which gives me an idea… (and no, it’s not that)!

Number 1: DO NOT LOSE MONEY.

Number 2: DO NOT LOSE MONEY.

Number 3: DO NOT LOSE MONEY.

Simple, no?

Big thumbs up to Albion London, Jason Goodman & co, Mike Butcher and Robin Klein for helping people like Eliza speak about what they believe in, through events like Albion Society.

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman founded one of the hottest startups of the dot com bubble, govworks.com. He raised $50 million, grew the company to 300 employees and then scaled it down and sold it cheap ’cause of the bubble.

Ten years have passed and he’s done quite a lot. Most importantly, he founded KIT Digital, a publicly traded (NASDAQ: KITD) IP video enablement company. And the biggest one in this space, for that matter.

So, as I was saying, I had the priviledge to have a very fun & entertaining dinner with Reshma Sohoni, Kaleil and a few other people, a couple of weeks ago. And the the highlight of the evening was when I asked Kaleil what he would’ve done differently in the past 10 years. His answers stuck into my head so I decided to share them with you:

1. Keep your very good friends very close. You’ll find your best friends in your early 20s.

2. Have more fun. Much more fun. Don’t let work be your life. Get out and play. Try almost everything at least once.

3. Make more babies. Start a family. Early on, ’cause there really is no perfect time to do that.

That’s it. Thank you, Kaleil.

By the way, feel free to checkout my other posts from the “Words of Wisdom” series, here and here.