-Hi Dmitriy!
-Hi.
-Welcome to Artcor.
-What am I doing here? Why did you invite me?
-I’m going to ask you questions.
-Go ahead.
-What I want. It’s basically my podcast.
-Yeah, we talked, no strings attached, some I won’t answer, some I will.
-Yeah, that’s your right of course. I’ll start with the main question for me. Where does a man like that find the energy to do all this?
-Just today my wife and I were discussing this question over breakfast. She says: “Dim, I have a group where students from this course gathered and they have to do the event, but none of them can do it. I kind of know, I’ve done this kind of event many times, at school I always take the initiative to drag. But I kind of beat myself up, because if I now say let’s, I’ll organize everything, then I’ll have a lot of pain and problems and I do not want to do it. And on the other hand I understand if not who. Developing this thought we came to the fact that a person needs to understand his mission, which is entrusted to him, some abilities and resources, which the universe gives him, the forces and he is obliged to realize these resources. Some people are given to be leaders, some people are given to be leaders, some people are given to be leaders’ assistants and if you understand your function, resources which the Universe gives you for a reason, then please distribute them correctly. If you lie on the sofa, you’re finished, you will die or something will happen to you. Once you realize that you have to turn them into something else, you’re motivated to do something. Sometimes you do not want to, you do not want to work much, you do not want to motivate, you want to lie on the couch and just go to the sea somewhere. But you understand that while you live, you have to move. You know, like a hamster in a wheel a little, but man… this is my problem.
-What do you consider your greatest resource? Is it enthusiasm?
-No, enthusiasm is applied. Probably I think that not for nothing I was given such a strong team which works with me, a business which generates money and some name which allows to do projects. Family. I’m kind of okay, but I understand that I have a responsibility for it and why it’s given to me, I understand, because I’m not hoarding, I’m not doing it for myself, and the more it’s given to me, the more I give back. That is, I digest it, I chew it up, and I give it back in a different quality. If, for example, people pay me 1 per ad, I recycle it all, take people to work, pay them a salary, and the income I put in the development projects and return to the city in the form of sports, in the form of cartoons for the country, coloring the city. And when the universe looks and thinks, well, not bad, I give it to him, he gives it back. So he went to America to promote Moldovan projects, and he started writing books, which is great. He does everything for people. I think so, it’s easy for me to think so, I understand the meaning of my existence on earth. And maybe that’s why I get these opportunities.I try to tell other people that there’s a certain sense to it, that people have tried not to close that outgoing valve. You know, the pool has an inlet valve, you dialed it in and screwed the cap on. And that’s it, you’ve got your pool.So, open the outlet valve and you’ve got more coming in.That’s my philosophy.
-Let me ask you about God. When your employee comes to the office with an idea, how do you choose this idea when you say no, when you say yes. By what criteria?
-Lately we don’t do this bullshit, that a person came in, we looked at it, and it’s like a shitty idea or a great idea.It’s a hypothesis, it has a right to life and he himself doesn’t know if it’s good or bad and I don’t know if it’s good or bad.It has to be tested. For this, there are technologies for testing hypotheses. For example he says: “Dim, but it seems to me that let’s make the button to submit an ad on 990 not green, but red. And it seems to me that people will submit more ads. I say that maybe, to do this, you need to take it and change it on the site and check how many people began to press less or more. I’m already afraid to evaluate it. I had a lot of mistakes, to good ideas I said that bad, to bad that good.We are now checking everything.
-But if here are such ideas, for example the technician came and said, here we have an oscillator as at tesla and so on….
-Is it already there or do I think I can make it?
-Yes
-Okay, what’s being done to do that. He says he’s invented a generator that generates energy out of thin air, out of nothing. Can we do that? Yeah, we need a million dollars. That’s awesome, I think. “Well, if it makes energy from scratch, it’ll pay for itself in a second. Let’s do it. But first let’s do this, let’s make a page on the Internet, where we write how this thing works, let’s write how much it costs and make a button to pre-order. We launch an advertising campaign, we invest $ 1000 in an advertising campaign, we look how many people for this 1000 dollars came and made a pre-order, we look how much we spent for each visitor attracted to the site, how much order and we have profit? We do. So I give you a million dollars for this device. and if nobody wants it, nobody orders it, then sorry man.” Again, I’m willing to test, not all ideas of course, but willing to test. Most ideas can be tested, whatever I say, anyway.
-Makes sense. You were talking about the universe. Do you believe in God?
-I was running around listening to Hopkins today. He’s constantly being put in opposition, he says there is no God, and a lot of people think there is and he’s a man to them who denies God. But he talks about it in a very soft way in his book. His thought is that God is the laws of physics. I want to continue his thought and say that there are laws that have not yet been discovered, the laws of karma, they exist, but it is a hypothesis, they have not yet tested. I think 50-100 years will pass and mankind will be able to formulate the laws, which will describe the universe, the spirit, they will be written in textbooks, they will be taught in schools. And this is God, how this world is organized, what we do not understand, what is at such an abstract level, how an apple falls, and why the apple falls, it is the will of God. No one has explained why they fall. So here too, if you do shitty things and then you get in trouble and vice versa, that also seems to be what God wants us to do. In reality it will just be described by mathematical formulas.So we are waiting for these textbooks to appear, but for now I believe that these laws exist and I have tested them on my own skin, I can’t prove them to anyone, but I have tested them on my own skin. You could call it God.
-What do you think, this dogmatic religious device that governs us, is it for the better or for the worse?
-I think it was the only best way for mankind to survive and not to destroy each other is to believe in God, everyone plus or minus his God, but the meaning is the same. do not kill, be good, take care, do not be gluttonous, do not multiply randomly, do not spread disease, it was a forced measure to restrain people, so they do not turn into animals, do not destroy each other. So I think that if there were no religion, there would be no humanity, we would have long disappeared. Now at this stage, when there are no problems like this, it seems that these beliefs will be transformed into something else. Here’s what, we’ll see, I think we’ll live another 30-40 years, we’ll make it through. And in 100 years it will be one religion, it will be based on these laws.
-Interesting people I know usually say about politics: “I’m not interested in politics, I start with myself.” I think you’re that kind of person. You didn’t like something, you changed it, you organized it, for example, Sportster. But anyway, we all don’t like the way we live in Moldova. What do you think is our main problem in Moldova?
-Why don’t we all like it. Not everyone doesn’t like it. I like it. My many friends like it.
-Do you like the traffic, do you like the roads?
-It’s a question of your reaction to it. Go to New York, see how the traffic is.
-I wouldn’t live in New York personally.
-I wouldn’t live in New York either, I didn’t like it, but it’s a matter of interpretation. People ask me how you, Dima, lived in New York for three months and came back here. How? It’s impossible to compare, it’s heaven and earth. But for some reason, I don’t have that rejection, because people ask me how to compare Chisinau with New York. I say here’s how you can compare the blue and the round. You can’t compare things like that, you can’t take the price away from bananas. They are different entities, New York is one thing, Chisinau is another. I guess you can compare Moscow and New York. Chisinau is not. I have friends here, I have colleagues here, I have family here. I like that the distances here are small, that the climate here is awesome, that the city is green. The question is from what angle do you look at your current life. You say small salaries, okay. Small salaries means what. You can find cool people for little money. You can make a team here, which in America will be 10 times more expensive, and here 10 times cheaper, and make products for the world market. You say you do not have such basic things as education and medicine, ok, with the help of this team to make money and go to Germany or Israel for treatment, what problems?
-That’s selfish.
-Why?
-Because we all need medicine and in fact, ok, if I have a chronic illness…
-Ok, not everyone has a team, not everyone has a business, most people live on 5000 lei a month. I’m well aware of that.
-So in this vein I ask, what is our conceptual problem?
-What is the conceptual problem of Moldovans? First of all, I think that the politicians are not to blame for our situation. I think that we live in the world that we deserve. I don’t want to brand Moldovans. We’re in a place where several worldviews, several religions, and several languages are intertwined. We are on the fracture. So when two waves collide, this froth happens. I think the circumstances are to blame and it is impossible to wait for someone to come and fix it. This will not happen, or it can only happen over time. Each of us should try to do something to make this happen as quickly as possible and raise a new generation that will make us a European country. I am not giving any miracle here.
-In essence, we have to educate our children and ourselves for a better life?
-Of course, we have to do something. Counting on the state is fundamentally wrong. Everyone says, for example, I am waiting for the leaves to be cleaned in my yard, for salt to be sprinkled on the road. I think that there should be any initiative. Here take a shovel and go and remove the snow. You need curtains in the kindergarten, but take it and chip in for these curtains. You want to do a project, you expect help from the state. Well, take with friends to chip in and do this project. Do not expect a handout from the state. The state does not owe you anything. Moldovans have what they owe me. You do not owe anything. You live in this country, try to do what you can, while the situation is like that. In 20-30 years everything will be different. If we all sit and wait and smoke bamboo, that someone has to come and solve everything for us, nothing will work out.
-I absolutely agree, but this is the way they pressure me as a businessman. The pressure is that the government is sucking up 40% of my business.
-Are you in the pasta business?
-No, I’m not.
-Well, my situation is a little different, I’m in it business. Thank God the gray days are over when everyone had to cheat the state. Now it is very hard for small businesses, I understand very well and there are many gray schemes to just survive. Did you know that in France there are 80%?
-But in France there is medicine, in France there are universities. We have…
-I think that in the current situation, I do not think that the state is doing to enrich any officials, this is a forced measure, so that the state does not collapse into a black hole. There are many people who cannot support themselves – the elderly, children and the sick, and these budget organizations that need money to simply survive. We do not see any sector flourishing, we do not have oligarchs, I hope the situation will change somewhat. The money they are taking away from us now settles very little in someone’s pocket, and we do not see any sector flourishing. So this money is needed to ensure at least some vitality of our bodies. Yes it is hard, yes it is difficult, that is why I now call all businessmen, you are a businessman, move to the West, work here, make a product there. There is an unlimited market there. Try to attract money into the country from abroad.
-That is essentially outsourcing.
-Not only that. I won’t say that I’m against outsourcing, it’s just not my way. I’m a product company, I want to create my own products and sell them, I don’t want to serve some dudes there. The right strategy is to start with outsourcing,then start to make your product and when it grows to reject outsourcing and move your product. I now say to all the guys go ahead, let’s go to the West, I see nothing difficult there. There plus or minus the same rules of the game, there are some features, but now there are essentially no boundaries, start earning there, bring the money here and build a life here. But I live here because I feel good here. And I can go anywhere, go to the sea, live for 2-3 months, come back here, it’s interesting here, the market is crude, it’s just taking shape. There are talented people here with whom you can work which you cannot afford in America. I feel very comfortable here, I try to make it comfortable not only for me.
-Here you were talking about outsourcing and so on. You were in America. You are working on a new product. Please tell us about it.
-If you can pour me some water. This is the same kind of thing that we faced in the local market, which is small and we regard it as a testing ground for certain products. One of the first projects was the Lobster- this is a cargo for freediving. We sell it in more than 40 countries, several world records were set for this cargo. But the freediving market is very small.
-Tell us for those who watch us and don’t understand what it is.
-You don’t understand what freediving is? I beg your pardon … you know diving, when the tanks, dudes put the cylinders and dive to depth, come out, begin to drink vodka, then sleep, and then back under the water. That’s the sport. Freediving is a real sport, it’s diving underwater with breath-holding. Without tanks, without anything. You can dive to a depth of 30-50-100 meters on one breath or in a pool, who swims through more pools or hold their breath longer. The world record of 12 minutes for example. I took up this sport actively for 5 years. And then I saw that athletes use weights not to float. When you hold your breath, your lungs fill up and push you up, and you have to swim at depth. That’s why they use weights, lead weights. They took bicycle tires, stuffed them with lead shot and put it around their neck. It’s a bit ugly, you know, the more so because the legs float up and the head is down. We invented this weight, it goes on the back, it’s very beautiful. It hangs, you can customize the weight, in short, a cool thing. But the market is small freedivers that probably everyone knows about us, any freediver ask what a Lobster, he will tell you.
-Why Lobster?
-It looks like a lobster, that kind of thing… Now we decided to enter the swimmer’s market, that market is bigger, probably a hundred times bigger. That was my personal pain too, that was my personal pain. I didn’t understand how to swim with that tire. Here I came across the fact that swimming is the slowest learning sport, where students do not hear their coach, he tells them what to do, and they do not hear, because their ears are in the water. He swims and makes a lot of mistakes while he’s swimming. He swims 200-300 meters and you think: “Well, how … how do you swim? Why are your hands so crooked? “Swim that way. And again he swims with mistakes. That’s how it slows down the learning. We invented such an underwater radio, which is the size of such a small disc, which you put under your cap in any place on your head, not necessarily to the ear. And through the bone conduction, the trainer with the radio says what to do and you do, repeat all his movements while you swim. It speeds up the learning to swim by 20%. Here’s this thing we have now made a prototype, we went to a business gas pedal in America, there we were pumped as to enter the American market, how to promote, how to create, how to find partners in China, how to go to kickstarter.
-Who made the prototype? There are engineers, where did they print it, how did they do it?
-Yes. We have a team, a division called the garage. There are engineers, industrial designers, electronic engineers, programmers, and we assembled this team piece by piece. These are the people with the golden hands, the golden heads. They create these products. I come in, I tell them the concept of the product, how I see it, and they tell me what may or may not be allowed. I say that I don’t give a damn, you can do anything. They argue at first, then they work out, they do. There is a prototype, we make a website, under the scheme that I told you, look at how much it costs to attract customers and go to America, after 2-3 months to go on a kickstarter-is a platform where we will raise money for its production and around the summer of this thing will be able to buy.
-That’s great. Are you going to print it? Assemble it in China?
-Yes, it’s all Chinese manufacturing. It’s all very complicated still, we’re only halfway into this market and we’ve made a prototype. As long as it’s a toy, it’s not mass production. We traveled around America, went to swimming pools there. Showed local coaches, local swimmers. All said wow. They say we want to buy it now. I said it’s pre, it’s not for sale yet. They say whatever. I said, no, although I can sell it for $10,000. They say it’s expensive. Now we go to China, and now the real problems begin, because the production of iron is a very cumbersome business. This is not a website made on my knees in the toilet. And there’s a lot of scams there, a lot of plants, the way they work. They don’t like Europeans, there are a lot of nuances. That’s if you invite me in 3-4 months and ask to tell you how it was in China, I’ll tell you how naive I was 4 months ago, I thought it was so simple and it turns out everything is much more complicated.
-Did I mention you’re writing a book?
-I’ve already written one book about the desert, a desert run. Now I’ve got a full-length film script, a cartoon, a terrible quality script. I wrote it. I’ve been writing this story for about five years. And at the end of it all gathered the story, the cartoon for 1.5 hours. The overall story is entertaining, but it’s written, man. This is my pain, I don’t know when I’ll solve it. But I need to finish it. One of the missions, I need to finish writing the script for a feature-length cartoon. Ideally I need to find the money to make it.Lots of writing, blogging: voloshin.md. If you go there, you’ll see, it is written more than 70 posts. I can make a book for myself. In five years I can write a book about what I can and cannot do.
-Where does the love of sports come from?
-From the ceiling, frankly.
-From your childhood?
-No, I hated sports as a kid. I was the weakest in the class, girls even beat me, I guess girls could beat me if they wanted, I hated sports, especially running. You probably hated it too, running in the stadium, running 3 km in the stadium cross-country – it was hell. It hit me when I was 38, one day it hit me. I saw what Ironman was and I had a quantum leap in my head. You have a state when you’re in limbo, you don’t want anything, and then suddenly some shit happens and you immediately, not smoothly, jump up a level. And you wonder how I got here in the first place. That’s what happened to me, and here we go. First running, then swimming, then triathlon, then freediving, mountains… I got so sucked up that I couldn’t believe it. And I want to tell you that I didn’t jump back up, I slid down. In the last six months something has happened in my head, especially after this cold run, I’ve lost something in my head about sports, you know, like a horse’s curtains disappeared. I wasn’t interested in business at all, I wasn’t interested in drinking, hanging out with friends who are in sports, normal guys. But now, thank God, I realized that besides sports I have a family, I have a wife. It turns out I have company. I said, “I ran here for seven years, how are you doing in the company? They say: “How’s Dima, that’s it…” I said, “Why?” They said: “You wanted a marathon, we gave you a marathon.” I said, “Well, that’s good.” They said: “well, in five years, it’s a million dollars.” I said, “How? Why didn’t you tell me that?” – “we told you, you didn’t hear. You said, “I want all of Moldova to get off the couch and run. You were shouting, beating your fist in your chest. What money, you weren’t listening to anyone. I: “So guys, stop, stop. Let’s stop, let’s get this straight. So we’re not doing so good, huh?” – “Yes.” I stopped then, came to the company, closed for three months and we have changed a lot, that is, we understand that if we continue that still 2-3 years, in general, it can collapse. Thanks to this complicated organization, we shot a few horses, half dead. A lot of work was done with the people. In short, it was a very hard period. But thank God now everything is normal, we went up again. I mean with business. Because you shouldn’t get addicted to this sport, it’s like a drug. I know a lot of people in Moldova and in Russia, who are plunged into the abyss completely, and they’ve lost their vision of reality. It’s so fucking dangerous. Because when you dive out, you can be left without a family. Okay the job, but you can be without your wife, because I’ve had so many conflicts. I’ve been kicked out with a suitcase on the street and thrown my bike off the balcony so many times, I don’t give a shit. Thank God I came back to reality and it seems to me that sport is a hobby for me now. I have free time and I may or may not go for a run or a swim. There was no such thing before. I go for a workout every day and it doesn’t matter what your wife asks for help, she has something to do – wait for her business, now I go for a run. That’s not good.
-It’s very interesting. Okay, other than sports, over the years you’ve been a sports fanatic, okay. And besides sports, what hobbies do you have? Books, video games maybe?
-I like creativity. I generally think that everything I do is creativity and business, too. I as a businessman in general do not ace to be honest. Thank God I have my friends, my colleagues, who run businesses. And I’m all so creative. I like to write, I like to make cartoons, I like to make some inventions, things, gadgets. I like working with fonts. I’m not a bad designer. I like doing design. That is, creative work interests me in almost any way. Sports, too. As for purely making money, I was never interested. I can make a cool product and give it to the guys, sell it. It’s cool. I can advertise it all. Make it profitable, there are such monsters that it’s their job.
-Here you have a vr cartoon, tell us about it.
-Who, Ilyusha turned it in. Yes, we have a vr movie. It is a very expensive product. It took us a long time to make it, and it cost a lot of money. But without having made it, I would also say that the mission was not accomplished, that is, if there is an opportunity, if there is a strong team with brains, talented artists and programmers, if there is an idea that can be done, then not to do it is not good. That’s why we got involved for 3 years in this cartoon, which originally was not vr. We wanted to do just a long 3D cartoon, and then we realized that, man, you can do it all in virtual reality. Of this let’s do if I knew what it would cost, I would not have said the phrase, in what money, in what problems, in what technical difficulties, in what time frame. We started to do it, we started to study, to see how it all worked, to google it. This year came out and as it turned out, the vr cartoon is the first cartoon at all in Eastern Europe in general. Russia does not make such cartoons and our guys are some of the coolest specialists in vr.
-So this is essentially an animated video game?
-In fact, it is a video game in reality.
-On what engine?
-Unity. A virtual reality game where you’re in the midst of a cartoon. A lot of people confuse panoramic video and vr. You still realize that you have a flat picture in front of you, like a regular screen that you can poke your finger into. And in vr you can look under the table, go behind you, you are at any point in this object, you can watch. But the screen is a flat picture, you can’t look behind it. Here there is no screen, you are in this 3D environment, you can go around talking characters in a circle. Everything is in real time. There were a lot of speed issues because it’s rendered in real time, you render it once and then you watch it yourself. You can watch it on any device. Here, it depends on the angle of your head, the camera and the light. You need a very powerful computer, but we tried to work with an average computer. I have a powerful computer, but not everybody has one. And this imposes a lot of restrictions on the quality of the picture. Already not a super shadow, you can not make the clouds so cool. You try to stylize and optimize something. It took us about a year to be able to at least watch it on the computer. So in April, on April 12, on Cosmonautics Day, we came out and did the premiere and started rolling around in festivals. We haven’t put it out into the public domain yet. We plan to do that within a month. We have traveled well around the world, we have more than 12 awards, 1st places and grand prix around the world. This is very cool for Moldova, and now, in December and January we will show the people the vr version and the normal 2D version. For me this product is a landmark, because it’s dedicated to my friend, Yuri Borodai, who disappeared 4 years ago, he was a pilot, flew hang gliders with such wings and engines. He was teaching children and just disappeared one day and it was just a shock for me. This movie is about him. Here’s
-What do you think, after the swimming thing, what’s next or don’t you have it in your head yet…
-I know what the project will be. I know the mistakes we made in choosing the project. I always choose a project with my heart, but it’s better that these products with my heart have a better chance to survive. First of all hardwar projects, these are hardware, startups, they are quite rare because they have a fairly high mortality rate and low scalability. That is, the site can be used by 100 or 1000 or billion people. If you want a billion people to use the hardware, you have to print a billion pieces. So if you want to develop fast, you are limited to production. The second problem is that there is no subscription model, you attract a client for $ 100 and here you pay $ 10 a month and after a year it has paid off. Here you spent 100 dollars to attract a client, he bought it from you once and disappeared. No subscription, this is not very good for a startup. Then you have to find $100 again to find a new person.There are downsides to this.
-The support, the rejects…
-A very high percentage of defects, you may receive defective goods and your business is dead. Very big risks and slow growth. I really like iron. Anyway, when you tell them about this startup in New York, there are 10 ordinary products and one of ours, and they all come up to touch it. People like hardware, but they don’t invest. The next product is likely to be a symbiosis, like the iPhone, it’s not just hardware, it is also a software with a subscription. The next version will be the hardware with the software that people will pay for every month. I have a couple of ideas, but they haven’t been formed yet. Sonar is a project we are sure to make profitable. But right now it’s important for us as a product portfolio, to show investors that we have not only lobster, but also sonar and everything we do, we make it smart and make it profitable. We let not only you but also us make money. That’s why for 3 products it was easy to find investments. To be believed.
-But I can see that you like to take risks. And one of the risks, from my point of view, is running at minus 60. You had people with you. Who do you trust your life enough to go with them. How it stacks up in your mind.
-I don’t trust my life more to people, but more to circumstances and the same universe.I know that if it needs me, then it will give me the people I need at that minute. And if she doesn’t need me, then she will give me those people who won’t help me. It’s not about the people. It’s about whether I’m needed at all. So while the universe gives me those people who help me, who pull me out of those piles and do not let me die. Once again confirm that if I do everything right once I am still alive. around me if honestly a lot of loyal friends to whom I also relate. I have no problem with that. My family is great and my friends are great. I’m used to trusting people by default. This is the first time I’ve seen you and even though your hair color is creepy, I trust you and think you’re a good person. That’s how Americans are. In our country it’s the other way around, or in Russia. The default is that a person is shit and he has to prove that he is normal. In America, it’s the other way around, in fact you’re cool, but you can shit your pants. That’s the difference in mentalities.
-And this difference is that they live well and we live badly?
-No, I think it’s a consequence of the fact that they live well and we live badly.
-But they haven’t been at war for hundreds of years like we have. They haven’t been at war at home for as many years as we have.
-Maybe. I know we fought more, but I don’t know how it worked out. According to the idea civilization develops where, the more a country fights, the cooler it stands and the more advanced it is.War is the engine of progress. You understand that the countries that are not fighting,they live bananas, they don’t need anything and they don’t develop.So judging by your lighter, you have to be a really fucking developed country, because we fought so much and we should be so cool. But that’s not exactly how it works.
-But we didn’t get it right, when the Vikings were fighting in their time, those were the times.
-The Hundred Years’ War, that was a good time.
-You don’t like history?
-I like history, I like historical movies.
-What is your favorite part of history?
-The Middle Ages, from the 11-15-16 centuries, what was going on in Europe is fantastic. I can watch history movies once in a year and then watch it as a new one.
-So we were talking about the “Aripi” cartoon. And what cartoon inspired you to go to cartoons? What cartoon inspired you to go to cartoons? I think there must be a cartoon or a series of cartoons, you think wow, cool, I also want to do so.
-I started doing computer graphics when Pixar first started making moves, it seems like toy story of ’95 just came out. It’s when I started to get into computer graphics.Pixar made an impression, still makes an impression very strong, although I have a taste for childish infantilism, I love to write children’s stories and cartoons, it’s generally my topic. I probably have not yet formed as a normal man. But although the cartoons I do not quite children. They are such adults. But the animation allows me to tell the story in a semi-serious, half-truth, in any story has a kernel, which makes sense. Underneath that ha-ha hee-hee you convey important things. In serious cinema it’s harder to do that.
-An important question for me, too. Where did Dmitry Voloshin come from, where did you study, where did the interest come from, and how did Simpals essentially come into being? In a few words.
-You know I was asked this question many times, and we agreed that you will ask me tough questions. The kind that would make me say, oh, man.
-I’m not gonna ask about masturbation.
-Okay… although… Simpals came out in 2002 on April 1st. I wanted it to be April 1st. I remember they wanted to register us a day early, and I came up and I had an act of corruption. I once in my life, brought a bottle of cognac and asked for a day later. It was kind of symbolic, not like March 31. I was asked not to talk about it … But I will not tell who I gave it to, I do not remember. I was born in Ukraine, I have lived here for 12 years. My father is a military man. Then he was transferred from Alexeevka village, Belgograd district, Odessa region to Floresti, I lived in Floresti for 12 years, I graduated from school there, I entered the Chisinau Polytechnic Institute,
-Was it difficult to move from Ukraine?
-It was very difficult, I was such a nerd, there were a lot of problems. In the end I was left alone in the class, in such a light vacuum, I got hit in the head again. Maybe that’s why I got into sports, since I was never cool and maybe I wanted to now. I thought, it’s time to be cool. It was a tough transfer, I did well I wasn’t an A student, but I got B’s, no problem with that. Loved physics. I liked mathematics. I got into Polytechnic, and my parents went to Orenburg, where they are from, I have all Russian roots. Although you know, I did a dna analysis of myself, my family.I did several, 23 and me first. And I saw that my parents are from Russia, but my roots are Balkan. They are all intertwined, that I am from the Balkans. And the surname is a separate issue. You think where did you get such a surname from – the Wallachians, the Volokhs, the same region. I am connected to the Balkans, so I am in my place. I put down roots where I belong. Didn’t go to Russia.
-Simpals how did it happen?
-Well, how did it happen, I did computer graphics, I got into it in ’96, then I started making commercials, computer videos, commercials for Moldova, then more and more. Then the music videos for the band o’zone . Then I had some colleagues, with whom I continued to do things. Then there were 5 or 6 of us, I thought that it was necessary to create a company. And by that time I had a site 999.md which I did so because of the hobby, because I traded components to survive. Buying and selling. I myself from the polytechnic, I understand hardware: RAM, casing, motherboard and so on. slowly, opened a company that we could get together to work, many customers ask me where to transfer the money, I say just the cache … they said that not serious and they will go to others. “In 2008, we stopped doing commercials, because I realized that this is pointless crap, you get money to make some stupid movie. You make a stupid commercial, they give you money, you give away your salary, you pay the rent, and you have nothing left. You think you’re doing
-It’s also a kind of outsourcing.
-Outsourcing is when you put something in your pocket, but there was no profit, you gave everything away, and there was nothing left. Then I’d rather not do anything, the effect will be the same. Or they will do something cool, if I do not even earn money, then at least something will remain after me. I will not make commercials, I will do what I want. At least I’ll be able to say that I did it, I’ll be proud of it, and it’s hard to be proud of a commercial. That’s why in 2008 we stopped doing commercials, the income from the Internet allowed us to keep 5-6 people to do animation. Here our 999 allowed us to make these 6-7 cartoons. That’s very cool. Thanks to Ilyusha for helping us with the cartoons, he’s a very talented man.
-Yeah, he’s our first character on the podcast.
-He’s really not the most talented of our team, he’s just talented.
-Who’s the most talented?
-I’m about to offend someone. I won’t say.
-Dimitri, thank you, I was very interested.
-I was expecting some real questions, no one asked me.
-Well Dimitri, that’s what kind of questions you were expecting?
-Here’s a thought, a tricky, provocative one…
-A provocative one. How much do you make a month?
-I make… 5000 lei a month. about earning, good question… my salary in the last 3 years has not increased at all. if before what was left I took to survive. then at some point, I realized that I have a certain amount and I do not need more. To live a normal person well do not need 50,000 dollars a month. What will you spend it on, living in Moldova? There’s a certain amount … I don’t need more. That’s the salary is not growing.
-What are the things you focus on that money can buy. What big things?
-For me the biggest value is that I can buy people. I can buy professionals, I can afford to work with some gurus, and you can’t meet them and learn anything.
-You can’t make a great project without people.
-No, you can’t. All we have is our people, our specialists, we save and invest in them like the apple of our eye.
-All right, we’ve discussed your money, let’s discuss your women.
-My wife says if you went somewhere very far, you have not had a woman for a long time, so take $100 to $200 for a beautiful clean girl. For an hour lay with her if it is so necessary.But if you even blink an eye here some local and start paying attention to her, no need to sleep with her, just pay attention to her, I will bury you. And I believe her and it never happened, I swear I never made eyes at anyone and never had an affair with anyone. I chose my woman and I think a woman is where a man should start.
-His career, find the right woman, who will allow him to become what he dreams, because it is very important. If you make a mistake with a woman, nothing will work out.
-It’s true that behind a strong man…
-Absolutely true.
-Women, cars, money…
-No need for money, no mistress… what a boring character…
-And cocaine?
-Have you tried
-And how?
-I don’t get it. They tell me that you feel so high, you want to talk, you seem so smart, everyone listens to you. You’re so wow, and you’re so cool. I say no. They ask me why. Well, I say that I am in this state all the time and nothing has changed, everything is good. So people who take cocaine, they get anxious, they have some problems, depression. When you take it, you just go one step up and you feel good. And if you’re standing on that step, you don’t feel any difference. That’s why I don’t understand the funny thing about cocaine.
-Voloshin is always high.
-No drugs, but who hasn’t smoked pot in their life? Everybody’s smoked weed. But weed is evil, it makes me feel so bad that it’s yuck. On the subject of drugs, we’re done. Let’s at least on a positive note, but the aftertaste will be that Voloshin junkie. No details
-Voloshin likes to write children’s books and make cartoons or children’s stories. Let’s talk about kids.
-My children are a marker of whether I’m doing the right projects in life, whether I’m doing the right things. If I tell my son, who is 10 years old, that I made a submarine radio, or ran the Oymyakon, or painted the town, or organized a marathon, and he is interested in this story, then this is the right project, this is the right time I spent. If I say that we added a new section of 999 and increased the conversion rate by 12%, this is bullshit. So I try to do the things that kids are curious about. That’s the secret to doing the right things. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all my life.
-So daddy can have interesting projects.
-Grandpa, too. I’ll tell my grandchildren more. My brain is so built that it makes up stories for you later. In 20 years, I’ll tell my grandchildren such stories that they’ll freak out. They’ll think, “Wow, you’re a grandpa, do you have proof? I’ll say, why don’t you believe your grandfather?
-Thank you very much!
-Thank you, see you later!
