Most of my posts about life are very positive. However, sometimes I write when I feel that something is wrong. It’s not about complaining but critisizing an issue in a constructive way.
Most of my posts about life are very positive. However, sometimes I write when I feel that something is wrong. It’s not about complaining but critisizing an issue in a constructive way.
Today is Polish Independence Day. 103 years ago today, Poland became a country again after not being on the map of Europe for the 123 years prior. As a Polish citizen, born and raised in Poland, I should be happy today. I should be celebrating. I should be proud of being Polish. However, I don’t feel that way. It’s complicated. Let me explain:
As a business owner of Nozbe I look up to many bigger and more successful companies for guidance, examples and inspiration when running my company. Recently however, leadership of some of them is making decisions I cannot agree with. First it was Basecamp with their “no politics at work” policy that drove 1/3 of their talented employees away. Now it’s Apple, with their questionable attitude towards us, developers on their platforms. And to add insult to injury, recently Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, told their employees to come back to their office, or else! There are fundamentally two things I cannot agree with here:
This year of 2020 is seriously bugged. We’re plagued by a virus that seriously impacts the way we’re living our lives. Until there is a cure or vaccine (or both), we have to lead our lives a little differently. What this deadly Coronavirus also reveals is that our human nature is tricky. Suddenly we’re all scientists now, or virus experts or worse yet, we believe the virus has an agenda of its own or it’s a part of some conspiracy or belongs to a certain political party. That’s why I decided to write this blog post to link to scientific research and draw my own conclusions from them so that when anyone asks me about the Coronavirus, I can point them to here. I hope it’s going to be useful to you, too:
Last week two people I greatly admired died. One of them a sports legend - Kobe Bryant - who was just one year older than me… and the other one - a thought-provoking business legend - the author of the “innovator’s dilemma” - Clay Christensen. This short post is my tribute to them.
Recently I wrote this post on Twitter, in reply to Tim Cook visiting Alabama:
Yes, Rosa stood for something. Yet Apple, the company I used to so highly admire… Recently stands for nothing. Videos promoting Trump campaign? Removing Taiwanese emoji? Removing Hong-Kong apps? Putting Crimea in Apple Maps as “Russia”? Yes please, Tim, do learn from Ms Parks
I’m an Apple user myself. I’m #iPadOnly, I buy a new iPhone every year, I love my Apple Watch and I own lots of Apple shares as well… and I’m so invested in this fruit company not just because of the “design is how it works” thing, but mostly because of their values. Here’s why I’m so disappointed in Apple so much recently:
Yesterday was September 1, 2019… meaning it’s been only 80 years when the World War II started (and lasted until 1945) which made all the world fight against each other and kill around 80 Million people worldwide including over 6 Million Jews as a part of the Holocaust. Today I live in the European Union (EU) with 28 countries united to form one political and economic region. Being an EU citizen gives us an unprecedented feeling of freedom, peace and connection… yet with recent raise of ideas like Brexit and other nationalistic movements across Europe with governments in countries like Poland and Hungary actively opposing European values, I feel like we’re taking the peace that we have now for granted. And peace can go away quickly.
Today was one of the saddest day in the history of my country of Poland - the president of Gdansk - Paweł Adamowicz - was stabbed to death by someone for political reasons. Turns out that the divide that ruling government of Poland is creating among my countrymen has its first spectacular victim. This is the low point of Polish democracy. Will we go lower? Yes, we will if we don’t stop the to tolerate the hate speech:
In my home country of Poland, football (in USA: soccer) is our national sports. We love it, we play it, we cheer it. And we used to be good at it… like 40+ years ago… but we’ve never been good at that until now… or so I thought.
Another day and another mass shooting in the USA. This time the deadliest ever. I usually try to avoid political statements and arguments because frankly, everyone is entitled to their own views. However, I believe the idea of gun ownership has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the gun industry and facts that are interpreted wrong. And innocent lives being taken. Facts just speak for themselves and very often I’m drawn into a debate on Twitter with people who simply haven’t done their homework. So here, five reasons why more guns lead to more people being killed. From the perspective of a person who luckily lives in Europe:
In September Apple started selling two new iPhones - a bigger one and a bigger-bigger one: iPhone 6 and 6 plus. People kept asking me which iPhone I’d get… as I’m upgrading my iPhones every year… but because of the new sizes (and my relatively small hands) I didn’t know what to think of these new headsets… so I decided to go and check them out in the store: