The Geek Talk

Who is Koen Bok?

A 27 year-old guy from Amsterdam who co-founded Sofa, a software company that likes to build great interaction on the Mac and the web.

Do you have a personal Brand?

I’m not one of those developer rockstars/online personalities if that’s what you’re asking, and I’m not really interested in becoming one either.

What does your typical day look like?

Getting into our office at around ten, depending on the day (or night) before. Figuring out who will make the first round of coffee, and then some basic planning for the upcoming day if needed. I like to get the business stuff out of the way in the morning and helping out with coding, support or intense design discussions in the afternoon. Depending on who’s still at the office after going to the gym we cook something together and work some more if I feel like it.

What do you do in your free time?

I love running, (thai) boxing, traveling, analogue photography and the occasional pub or clubbing night. I’m also involved in STIKK, a Dutch startup collective where we organize bi-monthly events with great entrepreneurs from all over the world who share their experiences with upcoming startups. I wish I had more time for sailing, fancier cooking, politics and maybe making a short movie. There is just so much to do…

Current favorite apps?

That would be Kaleidoscope, our new app. Surely it’s hard to be objective if it’s your baby, but it’s really coming together. Other then that, Chrome, Webkit, Versions and our Enstore template designer. Other noteworthy apps that I’ll plug here are Squeeze, Arq Backup, MailPlane, Bowtie, Espresso and TextMate. Online we use Google *, Beanstalk, GitHub, Harvest and DropBox. And check out some of the cool new Cappuccino apps like 280Slides, Observerapp and TimeTable.

What OS do you prefer?

Mac OS, but I like anything that works well and you can build cool stuff for.

Small picture for your Workplace?

It’s located in Amsterdam Old-West near the center. If you walk out the door there is a fresh food market and it has a big garden.

Favorite: Color, Font, Language, JS Framework?

We like Objective-C, Python, AppKit, Cappuccino, Django and AppEngine.

Name something that has inspired you recently?

Regarding tech mostly cool projects people come up with. A few I can think of are CoffeeScript, UkiJS, Redis, Mongo, V8 and PyPy. From a UI perspective I’m curious what influence new devices and web apps will have on the way we currently do things. I also enjoy reading insightful comments on Hacker News a lot. But above all the talented people here I work with every day.

What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?

Employment I guess. I like building big things with a talented team that lots of people actually use. The company can be big, but the teams should be small, diverse and independent. I hate corporate politics.

What are your personnel projects and goals for 2010?

Find more great people that want to work for us to build more cool stuff, while maintaining the culture. And more concretely making Enstore (our e-commerce platform) and Kaleidoscope both huge successes. I also hope to inspire more Dutch people to start their own companies.