As in the first stage, the selected Ukrainian startups will be announced gradually during the year and will receive:

• up to $200,000 in equity-free financing;
• mentoring support from Google;
• product support;
• $300,000 in Google Cloud credits.

Applications will open later this year.

Google created the support fund for Ukrainian startups in March 2022 and it has already provided 58 grants in the amount of $5 million. The list of participants included Skyworker.ai, Mindly, and Zeely. Thanks to this support, startups:

1. Attracted $15.8 million in additional funding.
2. Increased income by 100%.
3. Helped created new jobs.
4. Received recognition at the global level (for example, Forbes Europe 30 Under 30).

Earlier this year, Google announced the second cohort of 17 startups for its Growth Academy: AI for Cybersecurity program, which was joined by 4 startups from the CEE region, including one from Ukraine — LetsData.

Four startups in the cohort are from the CEE region, namely LetsData (Ukraine), Authologic (Poland), Patchstack (Estonia), and Talsec (Czechia). AIN.Capital tells more details about these startups.

LetsData — Ukraine

• Founded by Ukrainian founders Andriy Kusyy and Ksenia Iliuk, LetsData provides businesses and organizations with real-time threat detection and analysis to mitigate the early cybersecurity risks connected to disinformation.
• Since the launch, their AI-powered solution has experienced rapid growth, establishing operations in the US while continuing to anchor their technology and product development in Europe. According to the company, the startup helped to anticipate 900 risks and opportunities for disinformation across 50 countries. The solution analyses around 500,000 publications daily.

Authologic — Poland

• Authologic is Warsaw-based startup building a global e-ID hub via API for government-issued digital IDs, identity wallets, and bank IDs. The company was established in July 2020 on the initiative of the founders of Zencard, a company purchased in 2017 by PKO BP, Krzysztof Klimczak, Marek Rogoziński, and Jarosław Sygitowicz.
• In 2020, the startup secured $460,000 in a pre-seed round from SMOK Ventures and App’n’rol. And in 2023, Authologic was behind the development of Poland’s official digital identity tool, featured in the new version mObywatel.

Patchstack — Estonia

• Patchstack is a cybersecurity company focused on covering the complete lifecycle of open-source security — identifying new security vulnerabilities and helping open-source vendors fix security issues and mitigate vulnerabilities.
• The company was founded in Estonia and was accelerated in a cyber-security program (Cylon) in London. Patchstack was also backed in 2022 by the European Innovation Council who supported their R&D capabilities to expand the innovative approach to the wider open-source ecosystem. According to the startup, on a daily basis Patchstack powers vulnerability scans for more than 10 million websites around the world.

Talsec — Czechia

• Talsec is basically a security agent inside your phone apps. It makes special tools for app developers that protect apps from hackers, hide important information, and find sneaky malware. The company develops AppiCrypt, which offers additional API protection and prevents app impersonation using client app and device integrity control.

Expanding the language coverage of Gemini Pro

After the successful launch of Gemini Pro in English last December, Bard expands its functionality to over 40 languages and 230 countries. The entire list can be found at the link. Now, users from Ukraine can take advantage of Bard’s text understanding and processing capabilities, accelerating their productivity in many areas.

Checking answers in Ukrainian

Special attention is paid to checking the answers. Now, when users click on the G icon, Bard will evaluate whether there is content on the web that supports that response. If it can be evaluated, click on the highlighted phrases to view the corroborating or conflicting information found by the search.

Creating images in Bard

Bard also introduced a new imaging feature powered by generative AI. English users in most countries can now create visuals for free using the updated Imagen 2 template. Simply enter a description and Bard will create photorealistic images, helping you bring your ideas to life.

In addition, in July 2023, Bard became officially available in 27 European countries, including Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, as well as others from the CEE region.

How long have you worked at Google? Did you enjoy being part of the team? Did you work remotely or in the office?

I worked at Google for seven months on the recruiting team hiring at Google Cloud in the EMEA region. I live in Ireland, and Google here has a hybrid work model — three days in the office and two days from home.

I had a great team! I was amazed by the high culture at the company, well set up processes, everyone willing to help each other, and lots of growth prospects. If you’ve heard that Google is a great company, it’s true 🙂 I truly enjoyed my job.

How did you find out about the downsizing? Was it a surprise to you? How did you feel? How upset were you?

The job cuts came as a surprise to everyone. We had heard about layoffs at Meta, Amazon, Stripe, Salesforce, etc. But Google had been holding on for a long time, and everyone hoped it would pass us by.

On Friday of last week, I couldn’t access the internal systems at Google. When I started asking my colleagues, it turned out that most of them had a similar situation. Our manager didn’t know the reason either.

We joked that maybe we were laid off, but the company forgot to let us know 🙂

Then we read in the news that Google had announced it was laying off 12,000 employees, and by the end of the day, we had already received official confirmation.

How did it feel? First of all, I was surprised. It happened so suddenly and in such a strange way that I couldn’t believe it. But you have to understand that mass layoffs in big companies are “nothing personal, just business.”

Do you understand exactly how they decided who to fire? Why you?

They identified non-priority sectors and projects that were unprofitable, and they cut roles, in some cases, entire teams. It didn’t matter if they were people who had recently joined or had been working for 10-20 years, C-level workers, or managers.

Unfortunately, HR departments are the ones that are affected first in such cases.

How many of your Google colleagues and acquaintances have been in a similar situation? Do you keep in touch? How have people you know reacted to the layoffs in general?

I had 60 percent of my team downsized. We created a WhatsApp chat to support, talk, share plans, or complain. I also know of global chats for Xooglers (a name for people who used to work at Google) and webinars to support people caught up in the downsizing.

People react differently — from outrage and anger to jokes and words of support and gratitude for colleagues. It depends mostly on one’s character and life situation.

How has the layoff affected your life? What were the main problems it caused? Many people mention their work visa problems, financial difficulties, and difficulties in finding a new job because of the worldwide job market stagnation in the big tech industry.

For me, this layoff is, first and foremost, the loss of a job I love. The financial issue is not that important at the moment. I have a good financial cushion and can stay unemployed and live without income for a while.

Unfortunately, not everyone has that situation. Some people live from paycheck to paycheck, have mortgages and loans, or this job is the only source of income for the whole family.

Also, if people have work visas, they have very limited time to find a new job that will help sponsor them. Unfortunately, there are very few employers like that. I do hope they can find a new job quickly.

Google announced that it would pay cash and bonuses to its laid-off employees. How much will this solve the financial issues for those who lost their jobs?

That’s a question I can’t answer, unfortunately. I worked on a contract through an agency. Contractors do not have any severance packages. Depending on the agency and country worked in, the contractors had their contracts terminated with a week or two notice. No additional bonuses or payments were made.

What are your plans? What are your overall impressions of the current labour market — are the waves of layoffs really as large as we see in the news? How does this affect employment opportunities and the mood of candidates?

The situation on the market right now is not good, to be honest. There are not many job openings, but more people are looking for a job. There is very high competition. People from the big tech industry should expect a significant pay cut.

It’s no secret that big tech offers above-market salaries, and companies that are still hiring will have a hard time competing with that. You should also expect that the job search may take longer.

My plan right now is to sleep a lot 🙂 and look for a job in a relaxed mode. Losing a job can be very stressful, but as long as we are alive, any situation can be handled.

Which Ukrainian startups received grants?

• Adwisely, an online tool for conducting digital advertising campaigns that will help increase the income of clients;
• Birb, an application for renting apartments that allows you to search for the best deals in your favorite areas;
• Book Box, a library service for large companies that provides employees with access to books and any reading materials;
• DjookyX, a platform that allows musicians to sell rights to songs and raise funds for the further development of their careers;
• Drug Cards, effective software for automatic monitoring of medical literature;
• Folderly, an AI-based platform that increases the efficiency of customer’s e-mail;
• Fuel Finance, a cloud-based accounting for startups;
• Gradual, an online platform for sales professionals that allows them to develop their professional skills;
• Happy Monday, connects job seekers with companies that might be a good fit for them;
• Jiffsy, a mobile marketplace for slow fashion brands that helps them increase sales;
• Kycaid, an online identity verification and compliance management system;
• Mama Plant a Tree, a digital service that allows users to plant a tree in one click;
• Mate Academy, IT courses adapted to the needs of people who want to start working in the field of technology;
• Mathema, an online math school for students from kindergarten to high school;
• NetHunt, a customer relationship management system designed for sales departments, integrated with Gmail and LinkedIn;
• Numo, an app to support well-being and productivity for adults with ADHD;
• Orderry takes local businesses offline to online to make them more competitive;
• PeopleForce, HR software for companies to manage employee performance;
• Pricer24, a platform that provides brands, distributors, and online stores with market analytics;
• RECEPTOR.AI, an AI-based platform that allows pharmaceutical and biotech companies to more easily develop new drugs;
• Sorbsys, a manufacturer of cheap and environmentally friendly carbon batteries;
• Stape, a tool that helps site owners and marketers track customer behavior;
• Wantent, an AI-based platform for measuring audience engagement and testing video content at all stages of production and distribution;
• Workee, a simple website builder designed for private tutors and freelancers;
• YouControl, an online market analysis and legal entity verification service.

What are these funds for?

In May, the first group of startups from 17 companies received grants. In August, Google announced 16 more startups. The list includes both beginners and projects already known in Ukraine, such as Awesomic, Esper Bionics, and Liki24. Each startup receives up to $100,000 in equity-free funding, as well as free access to Google Cloud and other company services.

33 recipients from the first and second groups used the funding and support to expand their businesses. Such startups as Releaf Paper and VanOnGo have entered the markets of new countries. Mental health app Mindly grew its monthly revenue by more than 300%, and Esper Bionics was named one of TIME’s 200 Best Inventions of 2022.

Although this is the last group of recipients of funding under the Google Support Fund for Startups in Ukraine, Google for Startups will continue to provide mentoring sessions and technical support to all 58 startups. In addition, next spring, all startups will be invited to present their achievements to international investors, partners, and local startup communities. Furthemore, such programs as Growth Academy: Cybersecurity and Founders Academy are available for candidates from Ukraine, thanks to which they will be able to overcome challenges and develop their startups.

About Google for Startups Accelerator: Cloud

It is a ten-week virtual program of workshops and expert mentorship for growth-stage startups based in Europe and Israel.

Selected startups will receive one-to-one mentoring sessions and participate in wider group sessions focused on technology, product development, and go-to-market strategy. They will be supported throughout by Google SME’s, experienced engineers and external experts.

The list of startups joining the first Google Cloud’s acceleration program

• Acumen.io (Israel), an engineering intelligence platform that uses AI to enable engineering teams to deliver software on time, increasing productivity and reducing fire drills.
• AfriSight (Netherlands) provides reliable and relevant first-party data to businesses and researchers interested in gaining insights about Africa’s consumer and business landscape in real time. 
• Ann Education (Israel), an AI-based tool to help publishers convert static educational textbooks into interactive and engaging formats. 
• Born Digital (Czech Republic), a communication startup that uses AI to analyze customer calls, emails, and chats in real time and assess opportunities for automation.
• Caura (United Kingdom), an app that helps car owners manage everything related to their car, from tax and insurance to city charges.
• Comeen [Dynamic Screen] (France), a platform that helps manage hybrid work schedules as teams return to the office. 
• Eve.calls (Ukraine), an AI-powered virtual voice assistant that helps companies connect with customers over the phone.
• Foodetective (Switzerland), a platform and operating system that enables food and beverage businesses to integrate & manage their entire tech stack.
• NANO Corp. (France), a service that provides advanced insight into the health of a company’s computer network while protecting against cybersecurity threats.
• Orbem (Germany) created an accelerated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with advanced deep learning to enable fast, accurate, and contactless object classification and analytics.
• RealTyme (Switzerland), a data-secure communications platform where you can chat, call, meet & share, in total privacy.
• Syntonym (United Kingdom) anonymizes visual data in a GDPR-compliant way to protect people’s privacy by replacing faces in video content with AI-generated, synthetic non-existent ones.
• Viume (Spain), a SaaS solution that humanizes the selling process, improving online interactions and making shopping experiences more personalized for the buyer. 

• The company will cancel the monetization of materials that promote violence or deny the tragic events in Ukraine.
• The restriction also applies to content claiming that the victims are responsible for their tragedy or similar instances of victim-blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.
• On February 26, YouTube stopped monetizing in Russia, but Google’s services continued to operate. The company also banned a channel from Russia’s Ministry of Defense and propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.
• The media also reported on the possible closure of the Google office in Russian. Bloomberg sources informed that Google had 244 people based in its Moscow office and has assisted those interested in relocating.

• In 2020, Tsargrad sued Google in Russia for blocking its YouTube channel. The reason for the blocking was that the channel’s owner, Konstantin Malofeev, was under US sanctions. And, of course, the court did not side with Google.
• According to the court ruling, Russia’s Google had to restore access to the channel in five days and pay a 100,000 ruble fine. The penalty for each day of non-compliance with the decision was a doubling of the fine until it hit 1 billion rubles.
• Now, according to Tsargrad, the court has forcibly seized the 1 billion rubles from Google in Russia by withdrawing funds from the company’s previously blocked account in Russia.

The key point is that, according to Tsargrad, the funds actually earned by Google will be used to finance the so-called “special military operation” — the war in Ukraine. For example, $10 million is enough to buy four tanks.

Google has not yet commented on this information. Moreover, Google’s services still work in Russia, even though its funds were (or still are) used to finance the war.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, Google has removed some of its staff from Russia, fearing pressure from the authorities.

Google earned 85 billion rubles in Russia in 2021. It is unknown how much of it remained in the accounts. At the same time, Tsargrad writes that the court will remove the 1 billion ruble limit, and the fine will continue to grow. So we can expect further withdrawals.

• In June 2021, the President signed law No. 1525-IX, which introduces 20% VAT on online services provided to Ukrainian users by non-resident companies. According to new rules imposed by this law, such electronic services are subject to VAT (20%).
• To comply with these rules, Google starts to charge 20% VAT on its services in Ukraine. This increase applies only to services provided to individuals. Nothing changes for companies and entrepreneurs with business accounts:

What is this series about?

The Billion Dollar Code is a German series directed by Robert Tahlheim for Netflix. Based on a true story — a lawsuit of the German company Art+Com against Google after Google got their technology to create Google Earth. The series consists only of four episodes, and the plot follows two interconnected timelines: the current time (2017) showing their debates at a court and the past (the 1990s) when Art+Com was founded.

Based on a true story

In the 1990s, a German startup that we know as Art+Com has developed Terra Vision, a geodata visualization service, for Deutsche Telekom. In 2014, Art+Com accused Google of stealing its product’s code to create the popular Google Earth service. And they sued the hi-tech giant in Delaware Federal Court for patent infringement.

The German company claimed that Google Earth allegedly uses technology protected with the U.S. Patent No. RE44,550 (Method and Device for Pictorial Representation of Space-related Data). They wanted to get a compensation of $100 million for this infringement.

“Google Earth bears remarkable similarities to ART+COM’s commercial system, which was developed nearly a decade prior to Google’s introduction of Google Earth; and Google’s infringement has been willful,” said the article published on the German enterprise’s website on February 20, 2014.

Their main claim was that the first version of TerraVision was developed using Onyx computers of Silicon Graphics which were the most powerful available at the time. Art+Com also worked directly with Silicon Graphics, whose two ex-employees later were hired by Google to executive positions: Michael Jones, CTO at Google Earth, and Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering at Google. The German company claimed that they both knew of TerraVision and its performance, and Jones even had access to the proprietary information of Art+Com. During proceedings, the Germans presented screenshots of TerraVision from 1996 and screenshots of Google Earth from 2014 to show their similarity.

More details you can find here. As a result, the German art collective lost; the verdict, in that case, was for Google, and the jury declared the TerraVision patent invalid.

There is also an article of Avi Bar-Zeev, one of the developers of the first version of Google Earth in 1999, where he acknowledged the innovation of the Art+Com product but denied the accusation that the code had been stolen: “I’d honestly never heard of ART+COM or TerraVision until a month ago. I wasn’t contacted for the lawsuit or the series…” wrote Avi.

Is it worth watching?

The best illustration of the whole series is a duel between the lawyers of Art+Com and Google:

— I see what you are trying to achieve with your sentimental stories: you are trying to make computer-era Robin Hoods of them!

— Maybe it is what they really are.

The series producers told us a story of two characters: Carsten, a designer, and Juri, a programming genius, who became friends with common interests. Carsten wanted to create the greatest work of art ever, and Juri knew how to help him achieve that.

Together they developed an innovative product — geographical information visualization service, identical to Google Earth — at a time when it didn’t exist.

On the one hand, the series can awake nostalgia among the viewers: it contains a fragment from the legendary Steve Jobs’s presentation of the first Macintosh, it mentions the calculator Z22, the speech of young Bill Gates about personal computers that everybody will be able to afford.

You see true geek characters who love technology and art, quoting Star Track episodes, discussing famous sci-fi writers like Neal Stephenson (who inspired Jeff Bezos to fly into the space) and playing virtual ping-pong on a screen made of highlighted empty beer bottles. And it is exactly the same version of the Atari game. They even visit a festival in the 90s similar to Burning Man.

On the other hand, you see naive romantic innovators tricked and defeated by the mega-corporation. We didn’t like episodes where you could play startup-bullshit bingo because of so many cliches like visionary, revolution, innovation, and mentioning Jobs in vain.

Here the characters don’t create just a service; no, they want to change the world “to make everybody happy, for free, that nobody leaves unhappy.” They believe that their software will erase the borders between countries and nations. And during one of his monologues, Juri even describes an idea that sounds similar to the trend of modern startups — the “Metauniverse” (that’s what Facebook currently does). The atmosphere of the series, in general, feels like David Fincher’s The Social Network or Silicon Valley from HBO. If you like those two, you will love The Billion Dollar Code. However, in our opinion, it is worse than both of them. And there are almost no jokes.

According to dev.ua, the Nest brand registered with Ukrpatent is the same as Google Nest, which offers smart home solutions.

The essence of the lawsuit

Google’s US office has filed a lawsuit demanding to annul the certificates issued to the real estate developer “Capital Real Estate” (“Nerukhomist stolytsi”) for the NEST brand for two classes of goods and services:

• Class 37: installation of equipment; security systems (security alarms, video, and tele-surveillance, access control); installation, repair, and maintenance of air conditioning, ventilation, and heating equipment; installation and maintenance of ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration systems.
• Class 42: development and design of computer hardware and software; computer graphics; maintenance and creation of websites for customers; website hosting and support.

About the Nest Brands

Google Nest is a line of smart home products, including smart speakers, smart displays, streaming devices, etc. Google Nest appeared after Google acquired Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in 2014. Since May 2019, all Google Home electronics have been sold under the Google Nest brand.

“Capital Real Estate” (“Nerukhomist stolytsi”) has registered and used the NEST brand since 2007. The company itself is owned by Vsevolod Trofimenko, has been on the market since 1997, and is engaged in the construction and maintenance of office centers and residential buildings.

Eligibility and requirements

As Google stated, the company aims to help developers scale their services beyond mobile and across all the form factors that are important to users.

“Through these integrations, we enable new discovery and re-engagement opportunities for developers to accelerate their overall growth on Play and offer a service fee of 15% during the program term, all to help developers deliver premium experiences,” Google said.

But in order to participate in the program and receive a reduced fee of up to 15%, the application must meet the following requirements:

• Primary app offering of premium video, audio, or books content (not user generated)
• Over 100,000 monthly active installs on Google Play
• High quality user experience with strong Google Play rating
• Developer account in good standing
• Integration of specific Google platforms and APIs based on type of media content

Also, additional requirements may apply to the application depending on the type of media content:

Video apps

• First and foremost, the app should offer living room-first video programs such as movies, TV shows, live sports, and news
• Android TV, Google TV, Cast platforms with cross device playback and sign-in integrations
• Smart recommendations to easily find content, easier sign-up and sign-in, and enhanced discovery

Audio apps

• Premium music and audio content via subscription
• WearOS, Android Auto, AndroidTV, and Google Cast platforms
• Content discovery and continued listening across devices

Book apps

• Premium books, audiobooks, and comics
• Tablet and foldable optimizations, Entertainment Space. WearOS and Android Auto for audiobooks apps
• Improved reading experience and content discovery and re-engagement throughout Entertainment Space

However, this special program will be available only for developers whose revenue from the app exceeds $1 million. If your app fits all the requirements, you can apply by clicking here.

Why it is important

In November 2020, the developer of Fortnite, Epic Games, circumvented a 30% fee on the App Store and Google Play, and the game was instantly removed from the app stores. This situation once again raised the issue of high fees on these platforms.

Epic Games created an entire coalition against platform owners and exorbitant fees, which was joined by Tinder, Spotify, Deezer, and dozens of smaller developers. As a result, the platform holders had to make concessions and lower the fee. Play Media Experience is the result of this confrontation.

However, users can continue using Google Photos for free. Google gave some recommendations on how to extend the free mode and to accept the new rules easier.

What will change?

Your existing High quality photos and videos are exempt from this change. Any photos or videos backed up in High quality before June 1, 2021, will not count toward your Google Account storage. These photos and videos will remain free and exempt from the storage limit.

Also Google is renaming its High quality storage tier to Storage saver, which you’ll start to see soon. While updating the name is still in process, your photos and videos will continue to be stored at the same great quality. As always, you have the control to choose the storage option that works best for you, whether that’s storing more photos and videos with Storage saver or backing them up in the same resolution that you took them with Original quality. 

Will 15GB of storage be enough for me? 

You have a personalized estimate of how long your storage may last. Your estimate takes into account how frequently you back up photos, videos and other content to your Google Account. As your storage nears 15GB, Google will notify you in the app and follow up by email.

“We estimate that more than 80 percent of you should still be able to store roughly three more years of memories in High quality with your free 15GB of storage,” the company says. 

If you don’t see an estimate: 

• you may not have uploaded many photos and videos to Google Photos, 
• you may be close to your storage limit (making it difficult to predict how many months your remaining storage will last), 
• your account is provided through work, school, family or another group.

How to continue using Google Photos for free

You have a new, free tool to easily manage your storage quota. 

This tool was developed for those who want to keep using Photos for free. It helps you easily manage the photos and videos you’ve backed up that count toward your storage quota. The storage management tool surfaces photos or videos you might want to delete — like blurry photos, screenshots and large videos — so you can get the most out of your storage.

As noted by ITC.UA, access to a subscription is opening gradually, so the service is not yet available to everyone.

About Play Pass

PlayPass offers subscription access to hundreds of apps – from puzzle games to premium music services. The subscription offers both paid games and applications, as well as apps without ads or in-app purchases.

Play Pass is similar to Apple Arcade, with the only difference that Apple’s subscription includes only games, whereas Google has also added applications.

Google Play Pass is compatible with phones and tablets running Android 4.4 or later and Play Market app 16.6.25 or later.

How to subscribe to Google Play Pass

Access to Play Pass subscription in Ukraine is opening gradually, so the service is not yet available to everyone. To subscribe, use a Google account. When Play Pass becomes available, it should appear as a separate item in the Google Play Store menu.

Play Pass in Ukraine costs UAH 49.99 ($1.8) per month and UAH 449.99 ($16.3) per year, and the service can be used by a family group of up to five people. Google also offers a free one-month trial period for Play Pass.

In other countries, Google Play Pass costs $5 / £5 / AU$8 per month, so if you play one ‘premium’ game per month you’re already making your money back there. The price for year subscription is $30 / £30 / AU$50.

• No. 14 – Kyivstar, a telecom operator which paid about ₴6.7B in taxes over a year.
• No. 20 – Vodafone Ukraine, a telecom company. The ranking does not show the amount of taxes, but judging by the closest companies from the list, it is ranging between ₴3.3 and ₴2.8 billion.
• No. 24 – Google’s Ukrainian office. As in the previous case, the amount of tax paid by the company is not specified, but Epicenter, which ranks 23rd, the annual taxes amounted to ₴2.8 billion, and DTEK Pavlogradugol in the 25th place – about ₴2.6 billion. Thus, to get the 24th position, Google had to pay up to $100 million to the budget.
• No. 44 – Ukrtelecom, a fixed-line and mobile operator, which in 2020, paid to the budget an amount between ₴1.5 and ₴1.4 billion.
• No. 62 – Lifecell, a mobile operator, paid about ₴1 billion in taxes last year.
• No. 155 – Emarket Ukraine, LLC (OLX Group). The company paid between ₴341 and ₴337 million in taxes last year.

The ranking also includes operators of the postal logistics market in Ukraine, Nova Poshta and Ukrposhta. Nova Poshta is ranked 19th and paid between ₴3.3 billion and ₴2.8 billion in taxes in 2020. Ukrposhta is in No. 40 with the amount paid of ₴1.5 billion.

The top positions are given to Ukrnafta, Ukrgazvydobuvannya, and Naftogaz.

As the AMCU noted, the high amount of the fine was determined by the aggravating circumstances, namely the fact that Google failed to provide the required information for more than a year.

“The defendant’s failure to provide information in the terms determined by the Committee made it impossible for the Committee to fulfill its tasks, in particular, timely, complete and comprehensive consideration of the claim of violation of the legislation on economic competition protection,” reads the statement of the AMCU.

The information that Google had to provide was necessary for the AMCU to investigate the blocking of an individual entrepreneur’s account in the application Google My Business.

AIN.UA requested a comment from representatives of Google LLC, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

The list of recommended applications from Google includes the Ukrainian application Reface.

Create something new

1. Collage.new: Create inspiring images with BeFunky’s collage creation tool.
2. Resume.new: If you’re looking for a new job this year, perk up your resume with one of CV2You’s customizable templates.
3. Hire.new: If you’re looking for new employees in 2021, with ZipRecruiter, you can post your job opening and find quality candidates to join your team in no time.
4. Site.new: Would you like to create a website? With easy-to-use tools and professionally designed templates, you can launch your website with Google Sites.
5. Shopify.new: With Shopify’s powerful tools, anyone can quickly start a business and launch an online store.
6. Flutter.new: Come up with a great idea for an app? Do it in the new year with Google’s toolkit for creating beautiful web, desktop, and mobile applications.

Get a new experience

1. Puppr.app: If you have a dog, get help training your furry friend with lessons and live chat.
2. Uhmmm.app: Fight awkward silence in your online meetings using free music.
3. Sayana.app: Track your thoughts and feelings, get tips on how to deal with your emotions and talk to people in similar life situations.
4. Glitterly.app: Create videos with animations and effects using stock videos and images in just a few clicks.
5. Get.reface.app: Use your selfies to make fun face swap videos and gifs.

Step up to the new level

1. Nxt.page: Recreate a spontaneous online meeting with friends and colleagues with an extension for Chrome.
2. Funnies.page: Start your morning with humor by getting five new comics from artists around the world, delivered daily to your inbox.
3. Web.page: Find new design ideas, track website trends and techniques.
4. Volition.page: Track your goals and progress anytime, anywhere with this web app.
5. Byline.page: Want to start writing books? Try Byline’s multiplayer app, where you build stories line by line, knowing only what the previous author has written.

Make development easier

1. Projectjob.dev: Find and hire developers who perfectly match your requirements by reviewing examples of their work.
2. Htmldom.dev: Try this handy guide for managing web pages with Javascript.
3. Nodesign.dev: Use existing design tools to complete your development project.
4. Practice.dev: If you believe that practice will lead to excellence, you can improve your skills by solving real web development challenges and learn by practicing.
5. Daily.dev: Get the latest developer news from tech blogs on any topic you can think of, all in one place.

Users’ Choice 2020 was awarded to Disney+. The award for the best game went to SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off and the winner of Best App 2020 is Loóna: Bedtime Calm & Relax.

This year, Google Play’s Best of 2020 includes the Ukrainian application Reface, taking fourth place in the Best for Fun category.

About Reface

Reface is one of the projects of the Ukrainian startup RefaceAI, founded by Roman Mogylnyi, Oles Petriv, and Yaroslav Boiko in 2011. Later, Ivan Altsybieiev, Denys Dmytrenko, Dima Shvets, and Kyle Sygyda joined them. The R&D center of the company is located in Kyiv.

RefaceAI develops AI technology to swap faces in photos, GIFs, and videos. Influencers in social media often use the application of the company.

The Ukrainian application took 4th place in the list of the best applications for fun in Google Play in 2020.

Best Apps of 2020

Google Play has announced Loóna: Bedtime Calm & Relax as the best application of 2020.

According to 9to5google, Google also has several lists of the best applications, divided into categories:

Best Android Games of 2020

Google named Genshin Impact as Android’s Best Game of 2020 for “exceeding expectations and delivering compelling, accessible, genre-defining experiences.”

As with applications, Google Play has also created separate “lists of the best”, divided into categories:

What’s new in the bill?

The document supplements the Tax Code with another Article 208 on the taxation of electronic services. According to the text of this article:

• Electronic services that non-resident companies supply to individuals in Ukraine are subject to VAT (20%).
• A non-resident company is a company that does not have a permanent representative office in the country. It must register in the Ukrainian tax office as a VAT payer to provide services to Ukrainians. This condition works if the previous year, the company delivered services to individuals in Ukraine for the equivalent of UAH 1 million. If the amount is less, it is possible to register as a VAT payer voluntarily. All this can be done through the electronic service “VAT for non-residents.”
• If services are delivered in Ukraine through an intermediary, the one is the supplier for this project. If the intermediary is also a non-resident, he or she has to act following the article.
• At the same time, the “tax on foreign advertising” rule is excluded from the code. That means that Ukrainian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs will not have to pay a 20% tax when buying electronic services from foreign companies, as Oleksandr Bornyakov, the Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, explains.

The authors of the bill in an explanatory note cite the example of the EU countries and Russia. In the latter, such services are subject to VAT since January 1, 2017. Since then, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Bloomberg, Alibaba, Booking.com have registered as VAT payers in the Russian Federation, according to the authors of the bill.

Analysis of similar bills

Previously, we wrote more about what this initiative can result in (in particular, for the advertising market).

A similar bill has already been submitted to the parliament in May this year, but voting has not yet been held. At that time, many experts agreed that it would mean a 20% increase in the price of services for users.

What does it offer?

Under this program, an organization can use the following services of the company:

• G Suite for nonprofit organizations (business applications package, such as Gmail, Documents, Calendar, Drive, Google Meet).
• Google Ad Grants is a program that provides up to $10,000/month in text-based ads on Google Search to raise awareness for your nonprofit organization.
• Free premium features on YouTube.
• Access to Google Earth and Google Maps tools.

Request a Google for Nonprofits account

To be eligible for a Google for Nonprofits account, an organization must:

• Be registered as a charitable organization. An organization must be verified as a nonprofit one by TechSoup or the local TechSoup partner. 
• Meet the requirements in its own country.
• An organization is not eligible for Google for Nonprofits if this organization is a governmental entity or organization, a hospital or health care organization (charitable arms or foundations associated with healthcare organizations are eligible), a school, academic institution, or university (philanthropic arms of educational organizations are eligible).

Such an organization may request a Google for Nonprofits account, and when it is registered, it can use the above services for free.

“More than 250 types of embroidery stitches can be used to create a pattern on an embroidered shirt called vyshyvanka. They are usually divided into three categories: floral patterns, zoomorphic figures, and geometric shapes. All of them are depicted in today’s doodle,” the company said.

In Ukraine, Vyshyvanka Day is celebrated every year on the third Thursday of May. This holiday is celebrated in the country since 2006.

The Government believes that such innovations will create extra ₴3 billion of tax revenues, as was expressly stated by the Head of Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmatnsev. He also assured the public that Facebook and Viber had agreed to collaborate. AIN.UA’s editor has been able to neither obtain comments from the representatives of the services nor find out where the 3 billion figure came from. The committee that initiated the bill also failed to explain it. It is understood that Ukrainian advertisers themselves will pay for VAT introduction: it is they who will have to pay more for advertising services.

In this article, the AIN.UA editor explains what the draft bill is suggesting, to whom it is targeting, and how it will affect the digital advertising market.

About the bill

The matter concerns the bill No. 2634 on the VAT on digital services provided by foreign companies with no Ukrainian offices to individuals in Ukraine. What this document proposes to change:

• Non-residents having no representative office in Ukraine and providing digital services to individuals in Ukraine are to be added to the list of VAT payers. Intermediaries for such types of services should be added as well.
• The VAT is 20% and is included in the price of digital services.
• According to the text of the bill, digital services include all services provided via the Internet, such as:
  • images, texts, photos;
  • games (incl. gambling);
  • advertising services on the Internet and in mobile applications;
  • cloud-based data storage services;
  • software supply and updating, remote software maintenance, etc.
• Non-resident companies without local representative offices should be registered as VAT payers. The registration is mandatory if the company generated a revenue of more than ₴1 million for digital services in Ukraine during the previous year. Such companies have been promised a simplified registration procedure. They do not issue VAT invoices but submit simplified tax returns.
• If a non-resident company does not get registered it will be liable to a fine of ₴8,500.

In a nutshell: foreign companies having no representative offices in Ukraine (such as Facebook or Viber), or intermediaries granting access to their services, will have to be registered as VAT payers and pay the VAT on services provided to individuals, with the sum of the tax included in the price of their services.

Regardless of the ₴8,500 fine, it is still unclear how exactly the Ukrainian tax authorities will ensure that non-resident companies are registered in Ukraine as VAT-payers.

If the bill is passed, it will enter into force the day following the publication and will cover taxation periods after January 1, 2021.

What do non-resident companies say?

In a recent interview, the Head of Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy (and the initiator of this project), Danylo Hetmatnsev said, that these innovations have already been discussed with international companies that provide digital services to Ukrainians. According to him, Facebook and Viber agreed to pay VAT in Ukraine, and revenues from VAT on advertising services will bring the budget ₴3 billion per year.

The editor of AIN.UA has addressed requests to representatives of Facebook and Viber. Viber refused to comment, the Facebook press service promised to provide data, but at the time of publishing this article, there was no response.

It is worth noting that not many international companies that provide digital services are physically present in Ukraine. For example, Google has an office in Kyiv and has been registered in Ukraine as a VAT payer since 2007. Facebook, Valve, Viber, Amazon, Alibaba, and others have no registered legal entities in Ukraine.

Conclusions

Let’s summarize everything we’ve written before, by way of example. There is a Ukrainian company X, which advertises its services on Google and Facebook. If the bill is passed, the price of advertising on Google will not change for it, because Google already pays VAT, and includes it in the price of its services.

The prices of ads on Facebook will increase by 20% if the company pays them as a private individual. But individual employees of the company will face the fact that the subscription to Netflix and games on Steam have increased in price.

All this will only happen if Facebook, Netflix, and others register as Ukrainian VAT payers.

The editors of AIN.UA will follow the passing of this bill. We will write more details about how it will work for individuals who use unadvertised digital services of foreign companies, a little later.

What is known

In November 2019, Google acquired CloudSimple with an office in Kyiv. And already in January 2020, the employees of CloudSimple Kyiv office became employees of the Google Kyiv office. So far, Ukrainian Google has only been busy working with local advertisers. Now it has become the 3rd of 8 Google offices in the CEE region with an R&D center. The other two are Google Poland and Google Hungary. It is noteworthy that the development office at Google Russia was closed in 2014 due to the adoption of rules aimed at restricting the freedoms of foreign Internet companies operating in the country.

The founder of CloudSimple is Guru Pangal, he started his business in 2016. In 2020, the company already had 3 offices: in Bangalore, Kyiv, and the main one in Santa Clara, California.

The Kyiv office is located in the Astarta business center and employs about 30 people, according to the AIN.UA editorial staff. LLC “CLOUDSIMPLE UKRAINE” was registered in August 2018. Before that, the company had been outstaffed at Ciklum, as follows from older job postings. Now the company has 4 job postings in Kyiv. The main technology stack is Golang, Kubernetes, Cassandra, Kafka, Java, and Python.

“We can confirm that CloudSimple has joined Google Cloud, which will help us work to improve the integrated solution for VMware migration by expanding support and adding new features for users. More information can be found in our blog,” Google representatives in Ukraine said at the request of the editor of AIN.UA.

About CloudSimple

CloudSimple defines itself as VMWare-as-a-Service in Public Clouds on its website. VMWare products allow you to create virtual machines on physical servers. Virtualization allows you to deploy several independent and isolated projects (websites, mail servers, databases, etc.) within the same physical server, as well as simplify the process of migration between servers.

However, sooner or later, there is a need to migrate existing virtual machines to the clouds which, in fact, are also physical servers with better infrastructure and capabilities. For enterprise companies, this is a non-trivial and troublesome process.

CloudSimple has created a solution that allows you to conveniently transfer virtual machines created by VMWare products from your own physical servers to public clouds, such as Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure, while remaining in the familiar VMWare environment. At the same time, as it was first noted by TechCrunch, it is unknown whether the support for Microsoft Azure will continue after the deal.

It displays information about popular areas, weather and the popularity of locations at different times of the year. For example, here is what the service recommends for Odessa:

Most tourists visit Odesa during the period from May to August, especially in the middle of summer. At this time, there is warm weather, perfect for a beach holiday. It is cold in winter and it often rains or snows. In July, the city hosts the International Film Festival.

When you go to the ‘Travel Planning’ section, the service displays a schedule according to which you can find out how much the trip will cost. The cost of a flight for one passenger and 5 nights in a three-star hotel is taken into account.

Also, the cost of living can be planned in the “Hotels” section. For example, in the “low” season, accommodation in Odesa is estimated at $14 – $37 per night, and during peak demand – at $27 – $71 per night.

In the future, Google plans to integrate these features into the mobile version and applications.

But the apps do not show it as part of any country when viewed from other countries, including Ukraine.

According to TechCrunch, the company made such a decision under pressure from the Russian authorities. The website of the State Duma informs that this happened after the meeting of the Russian authorities with Daria Yermolina, representing the interests of Apple in Russia.

“Apple fulfilled its obligations and brought the applications on its devices in compliance with the requirements of the Russian legislation,” Russian authorities say.

Similarly, Google maps show the Crimean peninsula. In a comment to TechCrunch, the representative of Google stressed that the company tries to follow the requirements of local legislation.

The Ukrainian party has already officially reacted to this change:

To recap, the United States imposed the first sanctions against Russia for the occupation of Crimea in July 2014. Since then, they have been repeatedly expanded and extended. The last time it was for a year, until March 2020. U.S. companies are banned from doing business in Crimea, that’s why many services such as Visa and MasterCard are not working on the peninsula.

The final of the competition was held on June 25 in London Saatchi Gallery – 30 best developers presented their projects there. The Google Play team has chosen three winners from the finalists: Photographs and Ordia from British studios EightyEight Games and Loju, as well as G30, Kyiv citizen Ivan Kovaliov.

G30 – A Memory Maze is the story of a person with cognitive impairment who tries to put together a rapidly elusive past before the disease consumes his memory completely. The levels of the game are memories. Solving puzzles, the player restores not only the visual image of the event but also the thoughts and feelings which are associated with it.

“Each level adds details to the dramatic plot of the game, each step in the puzzle can change the meaning of the story. You will be able to feel how a person with a mental impairment perceives the world and see how society reacts to it,” the developer describes the game in such a way.

Indie Games Showcase is Google’s annual competition for independent games. The Google Play team selects the best projects of the year from the thousands of contestants, from which then three winners are selected without reference to the genre or other game properties.

As a prize, the winners receive premium placement on Google Play and in special categories of the app store, as well as consultations with the company’s specialists. In addition, the winners receive a voucher for digital campaigns from Yellow Head agency in the equivalent of 100,000 euros, a voucher for $200 in the Unity Asset Store and a one-year subscription to Unity.

Winning this competition is not the first victory for G30 and Ivan Kovaliov. Previously, G30 was included in the selection of the best new games of the Apple App Store and was also the “Game of the Day” in the United States, Britain, China, and other countries. The game holds a rating of 4.8 in the US App Store based on more than 1,300 reviews. Also, the Ukrainian mobile puzzle has been included in the lists of “The Best New Mobile Games 2018” by The Guardian, “The Best Games for iPhone and iPad 2018” by Macworld, “The Best Video Games of May” by Le Monde and other publishers.

“Winning Google’s competition precisely will give us the opportunity to get a global featuring for the game in the store and, as a consequence, an increase in sales will further enhance the game’s reputation as innovative (unique telescopic text mechanics) and, of course, will help with new contacts and industry partners” – the representative of the developer commented.

“Excited to join my great Googler friends and to work with the legendary security VP Kristie Canegallo who served on the National Security Council staff under President Bush and Obama, and was Obama’s deputy chief of staff. I promise to fight for safer and more secure Internet for everyone,” Bilogorskiy wrote.

In the comment to AIN.UA, he confirmed that this is the full-time employment, but did not comment on his appointment citing restrictions, as well as he did not specify whether he would continue his investing activities.

Nick Bilogorskiy was born in Kharkiv, but after school, he moved to Canada and later to the United States. Bilogorskiy worked as chief malware expert at Facebook but left the company in order to join Cyphort as a co-founder. Later the company was bought by Juniper. He is also an investor and has several Ukrainian projects in his portfolio: Petcube, Rallyware, Capitan, Ecoisme.

Now Allset partners are 1,700 restaurants in 11 US cities. The company’s application allows visitors to pre-book a table, order a dish and make payment through the service. Allset partner restaurants include BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings, Bareburger, Pokéworks, Freshii, The Bean, Noon Mediterranean, by Chloe and others.

In 2018, the number of orders through the service increased by more than 100% compared to 2017. The company’s plan for this year is to connect three more new cities and increase the number of orders by 150% compared to 2018.

“Working with Google is a big win and a big challenge at the same time. In 2019, we expect strong organic growth for customers and partners. And cooperation with Google will only consolidate our position in the market and help increase their number. That is why we are expanding the team so that, despite the scaling up of the business, we continue to guarantee the quality of the Allset service,” commented Stas Matvienko, Allset CEO.

Allset was founded in 2015 by Stas Matvienko and Anna Polishchuk. Now the company has two offices – in San Francisco and Kyiv, and all the technical development takes place in Ukraine.

Apple

On the American Apple site, a set of professional applications is available, the standard cost of which is over $629. This includes the Final Cut X video editor and two related utilities, the Logic Pro audio editor and the MainStage live performance plugin. Students can get a bundle for $200.

Even though the promotion does not officially apply to Ukraine, in a conversation with Apple’s technical support, AIN.UA journalist was assured that by providing a valid edu address and paying for the package, applications can be activated in any regional App Store.

Apple also offers a student’s tariff for a streaming service Apple Music. The discount will be 50% off the regular price of $4.99. It can be arranged in a few steps.

Google

If the educational institution has a partnership with Google, your corporate email will be the key to your G Suite Education account. Its main advantage is unlimited space in the cloud (single files should not exceed 5 TB).

In addition, specialized applications and more convenient file management between the users are available in this tariff.

Office 365

Microsoft provides students with free access to all Office applications. In order to do this, the university must enter into an agreement with the company. If cooperation is established, the student should register on the learning portal.

You will receive the Office suite, 1 TB of cloud space on OneDrive, and an access to the Teams command messenger.

Microsoft Imagine Academy

This is another promotional offer from Microsoft. This is an educational IT project designed to introduce students to the development and use of professional software.

After registration and verification, members get access to cloud computing on the Azure platform, downloading the Visual Studio Community, Parallels Desktop, Xamarin Studio, a free developer account in the Windows Store.

You can also use educational materials from Microsoft Virtual Academy courses.

Adobe

The developer provides students with discount access to the Creative Cloud software package.

You can get all the applications with a 60% discount for $20 per month instead of the usual $50. In addition, students can use a plan for photographers with Photoshop and Lightroom for $10 per month.

Autodesk

CAD application developer company distributes all of its software for free if you register a student’s account.

It is a huge advantage – the standard price of one of the most famous Autodesk solutions, automatic design AutoCAD system, reaches $1,500 for use per year.

Students get not only free installations on two devices, but also an access to Autodesk Design Academy training materials.

MacPaw

Ukrainian computer software developer offers students a 30% discount on all applications. You can also get a 50% discount on the purchase of an annual subscription in the SetApp service. It offers over 100 macOS utilities and applications.

Ableton live

The program for studio and live games, popular among musicians of all levels, is also sold with a student’s discount.

The price depends on the edition: the standard package for students costs $259 (instead of $499), and the full suite costs $449 (instead of $749).

JetBrains

A developer of programming tools provides all of his products for free if you register with an official student’s email address.

Students can download development environments for different languages, platforms and tasks, as well as code collaboration tools and learning applications.

Confirming the student’s status is required to be done annually through filling out a web form.

Evernote

One of the most popular online notes. The program is available on all leading platforms and in the form of web version. Students can get a 50% discount for the first year of using the Premium plan.

It activates an unlimited number of devices for synchronization, the presentation of notes, increased limit on cloud storage, added option to work with PDF as well as other functions.

Prezi

The service for easy creation of presentations provides students with free access to the Standart plan in which you can create an unlimited number of files and share them via links.

The company asks for $7 per month instead of $19 per month for the EDU Plus tariff. It includes offline access, voice memo support, video upload, and PDF export.

Norton Antivirus

Antivirus is distributed at a student’s discount.

This way the company charges $14.99 instead of $49.99 for standard access to protect a single PC. Protection for a single Mac or mobile device costs $19.99.

LastPass

The popular password manager provides 6 months of free use of the premium tariff. The price with the discount is $2 per month.

A paid account allows you to share passwords, provides 1 GB of secure cloud storage, priority access to support, and a plugin for applications.

Wolfram | Alpha

This is a cloud service for mathematical calculations, search for scientific information and analysis of statistics. Wolfram | Alpha can solve problems in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and visualize information.

Students can buy a subscription to the Pro-version with a discount of 20% or 30%, depending on the form of payment – by semester or per year. It will cost $33 and $57 respectively.

Scrivener

This is a text editor for voluminous work: stories, academic studies, etc. It has a convenient organization of materials for research and the mode of compiling several files.

Scrivener is useful for students when writing a diploma or coursework. The program is sold with a discount – students can get a copy for $38.25 instead of $45.

Ulysses

Another text editor available on iOS and macOS. It relies on the simplicity and ease of the interface, as well as working with the universal Markdown-format. The program is distributed by subscription since last year.

Students can get a significant discount by paying $10.99 for access for six months. After that, the discount will disappear – the standard access will cost $4.99.

Asana

This is the service for joint project management and communication which offers students a six-month free trial.

To use it, you would need to register in the system, create a team and invite there more than 5, but less than 100 people. Then you would need to apply to the Premium rate for students. Its usual price is $9.99 per month.

In Asana, you can assign tasks, create checklists, projects and plan activities.

GitHub Student Developer Pack

GitHub company offers a whole list of promotional offers in the Student Developer Pack. To get it, you need to write a small letter of motivation from an edu e-mail. Then the message is sent to moderation. The winners are notified about the successful passage via mail. Developer Pack includes:

• text editor Atom;
• AWS Educate Discount;
• year of free use of the Bitnami platform;
• certificate for hosting DigitalOcean;
• free domain in .me zone and SSL-certificate from namecheap registrar;
• unlimited number of closed repositories on GitHub,
• special tariff in the service of creating mailings SendGrid.

This is not a complete list — there are many more tools in the Developer Pack. Mostly they are programmers-oriented.

The New York Times

One of the world’s most famous publications offers unlimited access to materials and applications at a fixed price of $4 per month or $30 per year.

It is much cheaper than a standard digital subscription starting at $12 per month.

Students can also sign up for the All Acces tariff: it has access to the NYT Crossword service and the NYT Cooking cookbook.

At Apple I was around 13 years in product design division in California. I worked on both the iOS and Mac product range, heavily focusing on materials and material development, also on sustainability, removing toxic chemicals, finding substitutes, making more energy efficient, more recyclable versions. At the time we were the first company to deliver green environmental performance through product design. This is something Steve Jobs and I worked closely on, when the rest of the industry was focusing mainly on environmental housekeeping.

We did lots of life cycle analysis and what we found was that improving the performance of your buildings accounts for about 1% of all environmental footprint of a company. And about 75% of it has to do with the products that you and your customers use. So we decided to focus our best engineering efforts on making products greener.

You personally were acquainted with Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and other famous CEOs of the Valley. How did it feel to work with them?

It was intense. Steve ran a very tight ship. And he was the most remarkable person I’ve ever worked with, and certainly the most demanding. He expected you to be the world’s expert in what you do. And if you weren’t – let’s say there was not a lot of wiggle room. He would call me Saturday mornings at 10 am and to this day I don’t know why he would choose that particular time. We would talk about all sorts of things, product design issues on the environmental side, recycling programs. And it was always a good idea to have a strong cup of coffee before 10 am on Saturday 🙂

How did you join Nest?

During my time at Apple I worked  with Tony Fadell.. He left Apple before me and in 2010 he came across an idea to build a smart thermostat for a new house that he was building. At that time thermostats that were available on the market were all very poorly designed. Most of them hadn’t have any design engineering at all, and those that had looked very old-dated, like they were released in 1980-90-ties.

He saw the gap in the market, and a  team of around ten engineers from Apple and started developing the first generation of Nest, that was in fact the world’s first smart learning thermostat. First generation was launched in 2011.  In the early days at Nest I built business development and international partnerships which was a very big career change for me but in the end it became something I really enjoyed doing.

You were able to get more than 100 partnerships for the startup, and eventually to help build a company that was sold for $3.2 bln to Google, how did you do that? Can you offer a piece of advice on success in sales for young startups?

We had a couple of big advantages. We invested a huge amount of effort and engineering detail on the design of the hardware and software. And at the time we were the only company that had both engineering corners under our control. Most other manufacturers did the hardware part in China and outsourced the software. We didn’t take that approach because that device really had to produce beautifully choreographed user experience and because it had a lot of algorithmic complexity to it. We knew that the only way to do this was to have  complete control over software and hardware.

So we could go to our partners and quickly show them the difference in performance and features between our product and our competitors”. It also meant we didn’t have to follow the same retail channels that our competitors  relied on. Many of them were more or less stuck selling their products through DIY retail chains and we went into mass and high end electronic market, gadget stores, we opened an entirely new channel with energy companies. One major difference was our relationship to energy companies throughout North America.  We figured out a way to aggregate the control of air conditioning units across hundreds of thousands of Nest thermostats. Suddenly Nest was were no longer a smart home gadget, instead it was now a virtual peaker plant that energy companies could call on to help manage grid stability during hot summer afternoons, .

During first year we more or less had to educate retail about what our product can do, but during the second year people were reaching out to have partnership with us.

What was your role in preparing deal with Google? Was it hard to negotiate with Google?

Google has a division called Google Ventures. They were following our journey from the start, because they were one of our six very early investors. They knew Tony for a long time and knew his track record as a God father of an iPod and iPhone.

As in every acquisition you first and foremost want to take care of your colleagues, especially if you had taken them out of high flying roles in other companies including Apple to take risk with you in building a thermostat. In negotiations it is always important to make sure that everyone gets a fair outcome and more importantly – you don’t want to do anything that has a risk of them leaving.

You can compare being independent entrepreneur and a hired worker. What are ups and downs in both modes and why did you choose to run your own projects?

I certainly can’t see myself going back to a big corporation. On the one hand if you asked me the same question 10 years ago I just wouldn’t have been ready to go to be a CEO or investor. But 12 years at Apple and 5 years at Nest and Google – that’s a sort of a training camp that prepares you to just about anything in the business world. With all that experience I feel that my impact on early stage high growth companies can be quite profound. For me it is one of two very important ingredients for feeling happy in my career: Am I having an impact? And am I dealing with something that is on the leading edge of a very new direction, disruption?

When you get into big corporation as an executive, you end up becoming much more detached from high impact product related decisions, instead you get a lot of people related and governance related issues. Some people out of business schools love that kind of thing but for me I feel like I’m wasting time. I’d much rather be with a smaller team that could grow triple digits every year, helping them to make meaningful decisions.

Please tell about your new projects, especially – about Ukrainian startup that you joined.  

There are two companies to speak of. There is company in Ljubljana called Sleepy Bottle, which is the world’s first smart baby bottle. You plug it into USB-port by your bedside table and it heats the water to a perfect 37 degrees Celsius. When the baby is ready to feed, all you have to do is to twist the neck of the bottle and shake it. We are launching in three weeks in London in a big department store.

The second one is in Kyiv and it’s an IT-recruiting company. From my experience in Google it was extremely difficult for us to get high end developer talent. If Google can’t get enough developers with its resources and reputation, what must it be like if you are a bank or oil company or pharmaceutical company? So I was introduced to a company named HireHunt [Ed.note: now called as  Global Talent Advantage ] which is located in UNIT.Сity. At the time they had an ecosystem of 20,000 developers and during six months that turned into 52,000 developers. And I have taken CEO position with them. I’m helping to bring London and Silicon Valley based customers who need developers in Kyiv.

How did you find them and why did you choose to become a part of the team?

They were part of an accelerator in Ljubljana. I was giving a keynote speech there and the representative of that accelerator was in the audience. She invited me to meet some of the startups and that’s how I’ve got to know the team. I never jump into things immediately, I take my time to peel the layers, to understand the culture of the company, skill set of the management team. But in that case the potential was immediately obvious. Seeing how much talent was available across Ukraine and particularly in Kyiv was not news to me, but having met the company that established themselves on almost no budget and became top brand for job search and training – that seemed like a remarkable achievement to me. What they needed was a channel to North Western Europe and North America and I could see how I could build that channel, make an impact.

Did you get an equity in the company, under what conditions did you take a role of CEO?  

For most people in my position who were in large corporations and built startups from scratch it is really about impact and growth. For sure having a package which is based on equity is important for any startup that is looking to attract right business experience. But in most cases it is really about the chemistry, opportunity and timing. If there’s equity linked to that, it just helps with the decision.

What would you say about Ukrainian IT-community and IT-market?

It seems that every time I go here I learn something new about it. First of all I’ve fallen in love with Ukraine. It’s a wonderful place to visit and it has so much potential. And there is no other area on the Globe that I’m aware of, with such a concentration of highly ambitious and highly skilled IT-specialists, both hardware and software. And of course when I say that people often respond like: Yeah but what about Silicon Valley? In numbers these places can compete, but they cannot compete in ambition and drive. Developers in the Valley have lot of expectations from employers, huge salaries, bonuses. Whereas people I meet in Ukraine are driven mostly by the need to move forward, to develop exciting new projects. It is really about innovation for the sake of innovation.

Ukraine for now is in near-war conditions, and economy is not at its best – didn’t it scare you off when you were thinking about doing business here?

Most of the people I know who have that sort of fears, just don’t understand Ukraine. If they visited Ukraine and spoken to local people, as I did, they’d change their mind.