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.

For example, Dan Meyer, a high school math teacher and part time Googler who lives in Santa Cruz, US, has found a way to redefine how high school students understand math, by using multimedia, interaction and by redefining how math problems are created.

I encourage you to watch the video below. If more people would try to decompose problems & find solutions the way Dan does, education so much more interesting for students.

“As some of you will already know, alongside developing Trigga and becoming a father, I’ve spent the last year on an intensive endurance training programme in preparation for an unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole in May. When you receive this email I will be about 12 hours away (Wednesday 28 April) from departing for Resolute Bay, the most northerly Inuit settlement in Canada. From Resolute, I will dropped off on the ice to begin what will be a long journey to the Pole on foot. I hope to have reached it by mid-May.

I will be skiing and walking across the ice, pulling all of my kit on a pulk (sledge) in what is one of the harshest climates on earth. More people have climbed Everest than have successfully reached the North Pole.

The biggest challenges are going to be the physical endurance, the cold, polar bears – and missing my wife Dilek, and our baby daughter Thalia, who was born in February.

I will be skiing between 12-14 hours per day, in temperatures ranging from minus 20 to minus 60 degrees, depending on the wind chill. And the proposed route cuts across an area which is home to 80% of the world’s polar bears, including one stretch called “Polar Bear Alley”.

I want to use this expedition to raise money for two inspiring Global Angels projects to help children which, having just become a father, really inspired me – a special equipped holiday home in the UK for children with life threatening illnesses and an orphan home and school for street children in Sierra Leone. I have inserted details of these projects below.

100% of the money I raise will go directly to these two projects – I am paying for all of the costs of the expedition myself. If this email and these projects also inspire you then it’s easy to help make a donation via the “Support Ed Now” button on http://www.globalangels.org/pages/10120/Fundraising.htm.”

The problem is though that nowadays most people just start arguments, refuse agreeing with you and at the same time avoid debating. They just sit there without providing any sort of thought, solution, reasoning or squabble. Worst of all – they don’t listen.

I’m a guy who loves arguments, and I can be very fierce about them. Some people get me wrong, but I don’t do it just for the sake of it. I do it because I’d rather stand up than shut up. It’s how I am. I don’t care about winning, I don’t mind losing face, I just want people to listen, analyze, conclude and start again, until they get to common ground. That’s how I do it, but some people don’t get it.

I’m starting to think I might be wrong. How do you approach arguments?

“In the past couple of years, I’ve asked about a hundred 80-90 years old what they would do different in life if they’d have a chance to do it again. Most of them said they’d spend more time with their family, and less time <<in the factory>>. None of them said they’d focus on making more money.”

I’m gonna look for a 90 year old on my flight back to London .

For those of you who don’t know, Jonathan Klein founded Getty Images together with Mark Getty, back in 1993. Getty Images is the leading stock photo business in the world.

Last week, thanks to Saul Klein and Seedcamp, I had the priviledge to listen to him for two hours, speaking about how he built a business that makes hundreds of millions of dollars in profit every year.

What struck me the most was how “normal” Mr. Klein was. Extremely friendly and patient with all our questions, some of which were rather stupid, I think . Then, I was amazed at the fact he had a set of ‘principles’ for every aspect of the business, whether it’s hiring people, scaling the business or creating sustainability. And last but definitely not least, I loved the fact that he was fun, easy going and had a constant smile on his face.

Besides talking about how he built a billion dollar company in 15 years, he gave us 10 tips that can help us do it as well. And I want to share that wisdom with you:

1. Raise more money than you think you need. If you’re on to build a large business, dilution doesn’t matter anyway. You’re in the business of minimizing risk.

2. Cash is the only thing that matters. That should be your focus. Create an automated, scalable business model that will generate cash.

3. Invest in your company’s culture. It works as a filter for making small, easy or complex and tough decisions.

4. The two most important things in your company are: your employees and your customers.

5. Be honest, transparent & realistic. Especially with yourself.

6. Decide fast. It’s better to be wrong and fix it than sit around for 3 months and miss on opportunities.

7. Wrong decisions are OK. As long as you’re wrong really fast!

8. Focus, focus, focus. Say NO to stuff. Constantly.

9. LEAD. People are crying out for leadership. Know where you’re going, and they’ll follow. You can find Jonathan’s leadership principles here.

10. Have fun every day. “Sometimes it’s even black humor“, he said.

Besides the “10 rules for building a business”, he constantly showered us with other various bits of advice, like: be unglamorous, make it easy to use, be accessible, understand your market and be relevant, speak the same language as your customer, do a lot of research, explore, and my personal favorite – make the customer look good.

With that said, I’d like to thank Jonathan for inspiring me to try and be better, work harder, lead thoroughly and have fun while doing it. Oh, and I finally understood that building a great business will take at least 10 years. I’m up for that.

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost a year now, I try to go to church regularly and I read the Bible daily, so according to Dan Buettner, a writer and explorer at National Geographic, chances are I’m on the right path to be able to hold my grand, grand, grand children in my arms, one day.

Together with a few smart scientists, Buettner identified the so-called “blue zones”, areas where people live, on average, around 100 years. After analyzing all kinds of data, he discovered the four things we could do to live a better, healthier, longer life: more naturally, have faith and direction, be vegetarians and make lots of friends. Apparently, it’s that simple.

I highly recommend you watch the 20 minute video below. I don’t think it’ll make you live 100 years, but it will sure raise some questions .

But after close to 5 years of entrepreneurship, I’ve learned that you should only hire people that you feel you can be friends with. You have to feel that you can go out for beers and spend your holidays together. If you don’t, you’ll probably find it difficult to communicate with that person and, ultimately, you’ll lose time and money.

Even more than that, I believe that a company’s team is its DNA, therefore every member of the team should feel like he can be friends with any other member of the team. That’s difficult and requires a lot of trial & error during the recruiting process, but it pays off.

And I have the best example to prove that it’s f**ing worth it. For the past couple of months, my brilliant friends in the Brainient team have been building our products all by themselves back in Romania. And they’ve been doing a fantastic job although I’m in London, focusing on biz-dev and other “boring stuff”, to quote a friend. Actually, I’m starting to think they’re better off without me .

While most of us are struggling with full-time boring jobs that we don’t like, some people are changing the world. Really changing it. Saving millions of lives and making their mark. Challenging the status quo and approaching problems differently.

Today I discovered a TED presentation by Michael Pritchard, a british nano-tech scientist who invented, prepare yourself, the water filter that turns filthy water into safe, drinkable water.

I invite you to watch the video below. It’s mind blowing. It has vivified a whole new desire in me to try and change something and not get caught up with my daily (sometimes boring) thoughts and activities.

You can find out more on http://www.lifesaversystems.com/.

2. I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

3. When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.