“I’ve been in the role since January 2020. Prior to that I was deputy CEO, COO, project manager and software developer.”
“Well, my background is in decision analysis (DA) and a big part of DA is to figure out what you actually want, i.e. what are your objectives (and values behind them). Then you can start figuring out what intermediate objectives could there be to advance those values.”
“Optimization as a technology is like lubricant for business processes. It’s the lever-like potential of the technology that really pulled me in, the opportunity to make a big impact with seemingly minor intervention.”
“Optimization is about doing more with less, using resources more efficiently to reach the targets the user has. These targets can range from climate impact mitigation to cost minimization and customer satisfaction maximization. Optimization is not a single technology, but rather a methodology, a shorthand for an area of applied mathematics. Mathematical optimization is a powerful way for solving complex problems.”
“Optimization is also a framework for thinking about problems, which helps to keep the focus on the problem for a sufficiently long enough time, before jumping into the solutions part. For many of us, our kind of default way of solving problems is to start listing off the top of our head what we could do about the situation. That works fine for everyday situations like where we should have lunch, but leaves value on the table when you’re dealing with something more complex or impactful.”
“When viewing things through the optimization mindset, you begin by thinking about what you want to achieve, what you can affect and what limitations there are. First you start listing what could be done about the situation, then start comparing your alternatives. It doesn’t always need to involve a mathematical model – that comes in the picture when you really want to squeeze out the final percentage points of efficiency or make the decisions significantly faster.”
So, considering your answer to the previous question, what does the future for Weoptit look like? And what are the current goals of the business?
“We’re doing many things in parallel. There are some gold nuggets in our IPR portfolio which we’re happy to provide to our partners and customers either as part of an existing platform or a custom-made solution. Our partner Gurobi has a powerful solver well-suited for the miscellaneous hard-to-put-in-a-box problems every optimization expert encounters sooner or later. We’re using their solver to help our end-customers. Furthermore we rent out our experts to customers for several different projects.”
“There’s a famous theorem, the no-free lunch theorem, which states that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to optimization problems, manual tailoring is a necessity if you want to reach the best outcomes.”
“Optimization is a revolution happening behind the scenes. The results are visible as better service, faster reactivity, cheaper prices and smoother customer experience. The market is growing and as long as we can attract and retain the right talents, Weoptit has a bright future.”
“We get our business in three different ways. Either customers come to us, we go to them or there’s a partner in between. As a small organization we can be and are very transparent about where we are and what the direction is. As an example I could mention our early 2021 pivot from cold-calling to content-marketing. We shipped a new website, LI page and a nice pipeline of blog posts and other content before the summer – all thanks to our team helping out wherever they could.”
“I’m really proud of all of my co-workers for what the company has accomplished during the difficult corona-times. Our team is motivated and working toward the same goals in good spirit. If you asked me to describe the company culture in three words, I’d say transparent, supportive and tongue-in-cheek.”
“Problem-solving ability and intelligence. How do they go about solving a difficult business or development problem? As in optimization problems, there are lots of good solutions to every problem, but plenty more bad ones and for locating the good ones you need useful algorithms. What kind of algorithms people have in their heads to understand the problem, make tentative attempts to solve it, test whether they’re on the right track and finally at what point to stop – it’s fascinating. A lot of background knowledge helps, since even a good algorithm can’t help you if the problem is completely alien.”
“We have a lot of problems to solve! And now we’re talking optimization problems. The other types of problems – why is my tax percentage wrong on my payslip, where can I get permission to install visual studio – are very uninteresting and resolutely minimized by good processes. In consulting work you get to see lots of different companies and in our case also from several different business lines. Our clients are in the public sector, transportation, media, manufacturing, healthcare, defense etc.”
“That’s a tough one. There are many people close to me whom I have the privilege of using as sounding boards in different situations both within and outside the company. I think inspiration comes, in large part, naturally when you are an active agent in your own life and view yourself as such. This is probably a very millennial thing to say, but most of the external new ideas and thought-teasers I get, stem from online sources, especially the silicon valley -originating rationalist community.”
““Everything is my responsibility.” Whenever I feel like whining I remind myself of this to reframe the situation, put myself in the driver’s seat and not be a helpless piece of driftwood. Of course this has a complement “The universe is deterministic (with some randomness thrown in for good measure)”. The latter one is for the days when I feel there’s too much thrown on my plate and want to detach myself from the stress. Usually I’m closer to the first adage, but the second one is a nice “eject seat” feature to carry along as well.”
“Recently I started open water swimming, which is great fun. There’s a lake close to my home where I’ve been at least once a week since early May. I also read a lot of books, both fact and fiction.”