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Jonathan tells us about his life in Vancouver and where you can find the best sushi if you ever visit 🍣. He tells us what mantra he lives by every day and why his friends would describe him as determined 💪.
Who would you like to play you in a movie?
Hugh Jackman because he’s so good in musicals, Les Miserables is one of his most famous ones. He’s charismatic and good looking. I like to listen to soundtracks from musicals when I’m coding if it’s a particularly long day.
Describe your ideal weekend.
Well, if I am not tired, it would have to be shopping in Tokyo. I’ve never been to Tokyo before but my brother has been there and he said that it lived up to the hype. Plus I am smaller than average so the clothes would fit better. When I lived in Vancouver I used to snowboard before work at 8 am or 9 am. I used to go to Mount Seymour where they hosted the Winter Olympics, I would have the whole mountain to myself because it was early, it was amazing 🏂. So after my shopping trip, I would fly to Hokkaido for some snowboarding. I’ve heard the powder there is insane. Of course, I’d finish the weekend off by finding a good party!
How would your friends describe you in one word?
Determined, because I have taken big risks in hopes of big rewards. I moved to Canada when I was 21 with no job but ended up joining some of Canada’s largest startups 👊. I soon left and raised seven figures of private equity funding to develop a social identity platform. That risk did pay off, I got Canadian citizenship and I learnt a lot. I got to live the dream but I also learnt that running your own business and trying to make it in the tech industry is very hard. I learnt humility and resilience. I think if you have humility you can learn a lot faster than you think. It takes real big defeats to really realise how much you don’t know or how naive you were when you started.
If you could open your own shop what would it sell?
I would open a plant shop 🌴. Selling different kinds of trees including bonsai trees. I don’t have much knowledge at the moment (not as much as I would like) but I would love to learn. I would have lots of exotic plants and genetically modified ones that could glow in the dark.
What’s the best thing about working at Ocasta?
The people, because everyone here is super nice and friendly. Each person is very different and the team is full of unique personalities. There is one commonality which is that everyone is very chilled out which is nice. The work-life balance is mind-blowing, the flexitime is really good. It allows me to have a two and a half-day weekend👌. It is very different from my previous work as a start-up co-founder where the hours were all day every day.
Is there a job which you think you would be particularly good at apart from your job here of course?
I would like to be an inventor in the victorian era. I think being an inventor during this time would be great, assuming you were already wealthy. I’m a creative person by nature so I’m always coming up with new ideas!
What would be your first thought after waking up from a coma for 10 years?
My first thought would be where are my friends and family, what’s going on. I would want to check Wikipedia to see if anything random has happened like America has changed its name 🇺🇸. I’d want to read about geopolitics and space developments.
Who inspires you the most?
My dad inspires me because he seems to know everything and if he wants to do something, he just figures it out and gets on with it. I think many people are too scared of trying to do new things, you just have to give it a go and see what you can do otherwise you’ll never know 🤷♂️.
What mantra do you live by?
Try to make everyone’s life a bit better. If I can do that I am generally happy 😄. If I see someone wearing something I like I will tell them or if I can help a person out with something to make their life easier I will. If everyone did that the world would be a better place. Being nice to people doesn’t cost anything 💰.
Tell us an embarrassing story about yourself.
I like peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches. I was really poor so I thought I’d give them a go as I didn’t have much left in the house. I still eat them now if I’m feeling really lazy 🥪.
When are you the happiest?
When everything is going well and there are no problems. I guess things would have to be going really badly for me to be genuinely unhappy. I’m generally a super upbeat person so it takes a lot to bring me down. Good Sushi also makes me happy 🍣. The best sushi I’ve ever had was from a small restaurant in Vancouver. Called Kaide it has been there for years.
What makes you really frustrated?
Finding plot holes in my book. It’s a science-fiction heist novel, so the story is very tightly woven, and any small changes can have huge knock-on effects which require extensive rewrites. Unlike programming which nearly always has a logical solution, writing is almost entirely creative, so it’s a great balancer for my lifestyle.
