The story in brief
I started my first company at 18 and have been building companies for thirty years. The ventures ran in parallel, not one after another, and each began with a bet on a technology before it was obvious.
Since 2024 I build production software with AI coding agents, without being a developer by training, and I teach leaders and developers to do the same.
Five bets and the ventures they led to
Bet = the technology wagerVenture = a company or role it led toMilestone
Bet = the technology wagerVenture = a company or role it led toMilestone
1997–2005 · Sound and search
2006–2015 · Content, people, a doctorate
2016–2023 · On-chain
2024–now · Agents
AI and the Centaur model
My current bet: experts in their domain, augmented by AI, become superhuman. The human brings judgement and taste, the agents bring speed.
All five bets as a list
Bet 1 of 5 · 1997 · Digital production
I bet on digital technology when it was unprecedented in professional audio recording. A session could be saved, reopened and edited with precision.
- Produkcija97 → Hipersound Recording Studio
Started as Produkcija97 and later renamed Hipersound Recording Studio: one of the first working digital recording studios in Slovenia, recording multi-track and editing precisely while the industry still worked on tape.
- Hipersound Records
The studio grew into a record company that made its name with the hit albums Srebrna Krila and Novi Fosili. It no longer releases new records, but still holds the rights to its catalogue.
- Produkcija97 → Hipersound Recording Studio
Bet 2 of 5 · 2003 · Search, before it was a channel
I bet on Google and search engine optimisation. Tourism was the business, but the guests came from our websites, which ranked first on Google for everything that mattered.
- TDS Group
Tourism was the business; our own websites, which I optimised to rank first on Google, brought most of the guests.
- Hiša na kolesih
Campers as a branded, organised operation, before Booking.com. The name became the everyday word for a camper in Slovenia and Croatia.
- TDS Group
Bet 3 of 5 · 2006 · Content that adds value
I bet on high-quality, value-adding content. A company that invests in content its readers value earns trust, and people buy where the trust is.
- Online Guerrilla
Websites, applications, TV and radio commercials and video content: the studio years continued, built around brand awareness online.
- Doctorate (DBA)
Defended in Paris on my 40th birthday, under Prof. Dr. Joseph C. Santora, on content-driven online brand equity.
- Online Guerrilla
Bet 4 of 5 · 2016 · Frontier technology: blockchain
I bet on blockchain and on-chain communication: infrastructure, research and education for a decentralised web.
- 4thTech
On-chain communication infrastructure, and the ecosystem AgentLink now grows out of.
- UN/CEFACT expert, UNECE
Expert status at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
- Blockchain Recorded
A Web3 education podcast, founded in early 2021. Nine seasons and more than 90 episodes.
- Block Labs
AI and Web3 research and development company.
- Tolar HashNET
Research on a decentralised identity (dID) project, focused on blockchain implementation models for dID.
- 4thTech
Bet 5 of 5 · 2024 · AI and the Centaur model
My current bet: experts in their domain, augmented by AI, become superhuman. The human brings judgement and taste, the agents bring speed.
- Lumina and Moj AI
The first AI products built end to end with coding agents.
- The Curator, ØØT and AgentLink
Open-source infrastructure for working with agents.
- Vice Dean of Frontier Technologies
Leading frontier technology in the curriculum, and the AI innovation work of the school.
- Chasing Jarvis and SIQ
Hands-on programs where leaders and developers build with AI agents themselves.
- Lumina and Moj AI
Education and recognition
Thanks
To my parents; to Dražen Kapusta; to Prof. Dr. Joseph C. Santora; and to Nataša.