Boštjan “Bos” Špetic – founder and CEO

Taking on the high bets of New York city, Boštjan had his co-creationist moment when Zemanta came to life. A sharp thinker, assertive decision maker and rational idealist, he heads the idea perpetuation endeavors since the first conceptual outlines for Zemanta began to take form. Come meet the person behind the growth of an idea on this special last Meet the Team post.

Q: How would you explain Zemanta in three sentences to your eight-year-old relative?

A: Zemanta is your friend that helps you tell a story on the internet in the most interesting way. By listening closely to your ideas Zemanta finds pictures and explanations to illustrate what you want to say. By looking at other ideas that are similar to yours Zemanta lets you know where they are and how they connect.

Q: Was it the fame? The glory? What made you start Zemanta?

A: The challenge. I always feel it’s important to test the limits of your abilities. And creating a global startup with a world changing mission seemed like the best way to get to work with the smartest people and try to participate in shaping the future.

Q:What have you liked most about working at Zemanta? What is your favorite Zemanta moment?

A: I love every moment of working with the Zemanta team, brainstorming ideas and making things work. We had many rewarding break-through moments, starting with winning Seedcamp in London, but maybe even more symbolic was an email we received only two days after the first launch – Raanan from Automattic said »hi« and wanted to chat. To a group of geeks from small remote country, it felt, well, right, to be able to be equal with most important players in the industry.

Q: Everyone has to start somewhere! What was your first job?

A: Not really a job but a good experience anyway: I helped my mother on the afternoons before she got off work at the local primary school by stamping all final reports with the principle’s signature. I was 8 years old and it gave me a kind of Wizard of Oz revelation on how the internal workings of systems are not always transparent to the outside observer. My perception of the world and one’s function in it changed significantly.

Q: What got you into computers?

A: My older brother studied computer science and I guess I just wanted to prove I could do it too. I played around with his old spectrum for a while before my family provided me with my first PC to stop messing with his toys.

Q:Mac or PC? Android or iPhone?

A: I like eclectic combinations – Mac & Android. Both because they combine the best of commercial and open-source app worlds, meaning they ‘just work’ most of the time and still allow me to hack them when I feel like it.

Q: Does everyone in your family ask you to “fix their email”?

A: Yes, but only my wife remains calm when I try to dismantle her laptop after two hours of unsuccessful attempts.

Q: If you could be a VC for a day, what startup would you invest in?

A: Zemanta, obviously. And besides that, a series of carefully selected small startups around the world that no-one heard of before.

Q: If you could change one thing online, what would it be?

A: Rethink the front-side technology stack. It’s a patchwork zombie right now, it’s getting better with HTML5, but if we could do it from scratch again I think everyone would benefit.

Q: Are you currently hooked on any social networks? What web services suck away hours of your productivity?

A: Google reader, Ubervu, anything else that’s tracking everything else and can draw pretty charts and other infographics from.

Q: Name three people you know online, that you would like to meet in real life?

A: Chris Anderson and Mark Andreessen. Preferably at the same time. I want to ask them how often people get them mixed up.

Q: Who do you look up to in the tech industry? Who do you consider a mentor?

A: I had many mentors, in fact, I still try to learn from as many people as possible, and I am always thrilled to see how glad people in this industry are to share things they’ve learned the hard way. I love sharing experience as well and believe it is the core reason this industry is moving forward so quickly and changing the world so profoundly.

Q: If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be? Who would be your sidekick?

A: Empowering everyone to be what they want to be to their best potential, while my sidekick Zhuangzi would teach them how to catch fish.

Q: What are the top 2 items on your to-do list?

A: Taking care of Zemanta and taking care of the Team.

Q: If you had to pick, what other web service would you like to work for?

A: Archive.org. Cataloging has always been my soft spot and I share the opinion that the future can benefit immensely from having a complete record of the past to refer to.

Q: What is the best holiday you’ve ever taken?

A: I love visiting new places, I enjoy re-visiting places, I always seek out the interesting and different experiences city/country has to offer. I let the world fascinate me when I travel and even when I’m not really on holiday, even if it’s for just the half hour I take off for a jog. That said, everyone should fly to Iceland at least once. It’s the closest alien world we know of.

Q: One thing you could not live without?

A: Silence. It is essential to have a reference point.

Q: What makes you feel lucky?

A: being surrounded by brilliant people who have the ability to solve the world’s simple and less simple problems as their pet projects and the will to work hard on solving the hard ones.

Q: Where were you born? Where did you grow up & what was it like there?

A: West of Vienna, North of Venice, under the last three Alps, in a tiny country that spans 4 climate zones. An inspiring place, inhabited by slightly less than two million very smart people, who amongst other things invented post stamps, pioneered in photography and outlined the first geostationary satellite designs.

Q: Read any good books lately?

A: Founders at Work – I like learning by doing, but to speed things up, learning from other peoples’ experiences is the best. Every founder goes trough same stages of getting to know the rules and tricks of the trade, so you really know what they are talking about in the interviews. Similarly, the first book I read after starting the company was The Google Story

Q: Describe your perfect meal

A: Home-made pasta, with home-made sauce from home-grown tomatoes and basil. A glass of red wine and the company of people who appreciate the process involved in a homemade meal.

Q: What do you do for inspiration?

A: I go out. Rain or shine, a walk around the block, trough the park. Raising one’s head now and then does wonders.

Alright! Thanks for sharing Boštjan! This brings us to the end of our Meet the Team series and we hope that these interviews have brought the people behind Zemanta a little bit closer to you and, well, that you learned something new about the »human condition« as well.