I went from PhotoShop and 3D Max
To Flash and JavaScript
From passion to games as a teaching tool
to interests in entrepreneurship
and making software tools that help people
with their daily challenges.

These days I run Desktop Commander,
a company I co-founded in Riga,
making tools that let AI agents
work on your real computer

Recently realising that my thirst for
finding economically viable intersection
between games and education
is still there.
Games are magical at providing constant feedback, adjusting to your level of skill,
allowing you to learn by doing
in immersive and engaging environment.
I do think that they have great potential.
But I do not see path there yet,
while I keep my 👀 open for that.
                    

My first interests in life were construction toys
and drawing.
In drawing I was inspired by my mother who is a designer.
What she could with paper and pencil seemed like magic to me back then.

I was learning to draw.
Learned PhotoShop
Learned 3D Max
Bought Wacom tablet to draw on computer.
But then realised that process is too tedious

At school I also liked physics and biology.
Was reading classical hard scifi.
Was not bad at math, just like construction toys.
But math was not clicking for me.
Until in high school I went to Pascal programming courses.
Then it clicked.
Huh that's what math can do if you use it with computers.

I also was a gamer. My favourite story about that how I learned english playing Fallout 2.

Went to university.
Self learned Flash.
Got interested in computer art and making games.
Doing physics simulations and playing with programming computer graphics and post my experiments on DeviantArt.
Finished Bachelor with final work being presentation system made in Flash.
Went for Master in computer sciences.
Finished with work in fluid dynamics simulations contributing to EU funded research under my supervisor.
Did not go academic route as it felt that everything is very slow and far from end user.

First full time work was making landing websites in Flash.
Then got dream job of making games using Flash, but it was social games.

For me games are magical.
With big potential for motivating, teaching sharing hands on experience.
Learning with constant feedback loop of a game that adjusts difficulty to you.
And not for pure entertainment but because you are learning things and overcoming challenges.

Social games, made for extortion money from users trough manipulation, a hidden casino,
with relationship to your users similar to a drug dealer.
It was like some kind of heresy against magic of games that I loved. So I left gamedev.
At a time indie game dev felt risky, unstable.
AAA/mobile/social games felt wrong for one reason or the other.

It was also a time of first iPhone, death of Flash.
I needed to choose what I will do next.
I was lucky as it was also raise of massive online courses.
Learned and tried things as taught by top US universities.
AI, Ruby, mobile development, Unity, SaaS, Gamification, Entrepreneurship.

In the end openness of internet and reach of JavaScript,
from server side with node.js to mobile apps,
lured me more with my Flash background.
As well as startups, and productivity apps,
making tools for people that help them to improve their lives and work.

I worked on products for
infolio.co
infogram.com
prezi.com

Recently reading The 10% Entrepreneur
going trough an exercise that helps to understand where your skills and interests are
remembered of my passion for games as a teaching medium.
I do think it is very exciting,
but also tricky,
finding economically viable intersection,
between games and education.

Then ChatGPT happened.
I dove in head first — the custom GPTs archive
on this page is a snapshot of that time.
One experiment, giving AI access to my own computer,
grew into something people actually wanted.

It became Desktop Commander.
Now I run it as a company, co-founded with friends in Riga.
Open source, used by tens of thousands of people monthly.
The same old thread runs through it:
tools that help people do their work,
constant feedback loops, learning by doing.

And the games? Look at the projects above.
I make them with my kids now.
That might be the economically unviable
but personally perfect intersection
of games and education I was looking for all along.