Chief of Staff at Docquity

A few things I believe:

- Velocity is everything. The faster you execute, the more you learn. Speed increases your interactions with reality.

- Small teams win. Fewer people mean faster decisions, fewer meetings, and no need for political fragmentation. No room for mediocrity.

- The only real limits are the laws of physics. “I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest of caution.” — Werner von Braun

There are two ways to reduce economic inequality:
- Lift the floor.
- Lower the ceiling.
I’d rather work on lifting the floor.

- Most problems come from not having found your life’s work yet. Once you do, most questions disappear.

- Fight entropy. A product that isn’t improving is degrading. It's always Day 1.

- Relentlessly add value to great people in my network.

- Take full ownership. No excuses, no passing the buck. End-to-end responsibility in everything I do.

- Default to trust. Approach problems with intellectual maturity. Give credit in public, criticize in private.

- Optimize for impact over status.

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If you're interested in startups, I share insights from the frontlines every once in a while: https://viktor.substack.com.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of my employer.

Anyone who has ever worked on a new product or inside a startup has felt the intense resistance of the world pushing back. This dynamic was captured quite well centuries ago by Machiavelli:

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new…”

Later, the same idea was echoed by Isaac Asimov:

“I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance—bitter, exaggerated, last-ditch resistance—to every significant technological change… Usually the resistance came from those who stood to lose influence, status, or money as a result of the change—though it was always framed as concern for the good of humanity.”

And then Douglas Adams distilled the whole idea into these amusing technology rules:

"Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary.
 
Anything invented between fifteen and thirty-five is new, exciting, and you can probably build a career in it.

Anything invented after thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

This is the game we play.

Going against the “natural order” is hard. It attracts resistance, skepticism, and even outright hostility. But if you succeed, it’s also one of the most rewarding experiences you can have.

Viktor Kyosev

CPO at Docquity | Building at the intersection of AI and healthcare

This is perhaps my favorite essay of the U.S. - China dynamic. Well balanced and easy to read, highly recommend a read!

It’s written by the author of Breakneck, which just moved to the top of my to-read list.

Link to the essay in the comments.

Excited to visit one of my favorite cities, Tokyo, next week and share our learnings building AI across human and animal health.

A fun (and slightly painful) stat: our first Japan launch took 1,000+ localization iterations!

Turns out, “just translate it” is not a strategy...

Thank you Julie for all of your support 🙏

Last year, together with A'alda Ltd., a leading veterinary healthcare group in Japan, we helped launch "AnyMall Vets Ask AI" - an AI platform bringing real-time, reliable insights to veterinarians and pet owners across Japan’s growing pet health ecosystem. Powered by Docquity’s clinical AI, the platform supports better, more informed everyday pet care.

Next month, we take this collaboration a step further.

Docquity will join A’alda and Microsoft to host a closed-door roundtable in Japan, bringing together leading veterinarians, pet health innovators and AI experts to exchange perspectives and explore opportunities in a rapidly evolving animal health landscape.

At Docquity, we continue to focus on what we do best: enabling healthcare professionals and caregivers, across diverse care environments, with localized AI that improves decision quality and ultimately, patient outcomes.

Open article: Tokyo IPO targeted by Singapore's doctor-networking platform Docquity by asia.nikkei.com

Tokyo IPO targeted by Singapore's doctor-networking platform Docquity

I finally got my hands on "Breakneck" by Dan Wang, and so far I’m enjoying it quite a bit!

One story in the book that really stuck with me comes from Dan’s visit to a tech manufacturing factory just outside Shanghai. Over a cup of tea in the owner’s office, they talked about why the US struggled to ramp up production of basic PPE during COVID.

As Dan recounts it:

“American manufacturers constantly asked themselves whether making masks and cotton swabs was part of their ‘core competence.’ Most of them decided not.”

The manufacturer put down his teacup, looked at him, and said:

“Chinese companies decided that making money is their core competence. So they go and make masks, or whatever else the market needs.”

That line immediately reminded me of a conversation I once had with my Chinese Indonesian then-girlfriend, now wife. I asked her what she was passionate about.

“Money,” she said. “I’m passionate about making money.”

At the time, I thought she was joking.

Turns out, she was just being honest 🙃

Two things can be true at the same time:

1. The success of any organization is the result of the collective effort of the entire team.

2. The great man theory is real. In every organization, a small number of people exert a disproportionate influence on the trajectory of the business.

If you want to understand how clearly someone thinks, let them work on product.

It quickly becomes obvious whether they can communicate clearly, expand and compress context, see the big picture, and zoom into tactical execution.

The only role that demands comparable clarity is the founder role, which is why so many founders hold on to product for as long as they can.

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