Hello,

I am Vladimir Prelovac (pronounced "prel-oh-wats" - or simply call me Vlad), a dad of three and a builder of user-centric products. I hail originally from Yugoslavia - a country that now exists only in memory. My childhood in the 1980s unfolded during that magical sweet spot between the old world and the new. We were the last generation to play in streets without smartphones, yet among the first to witness the digital revolution.

My youth was deeply intertwined with a passion for software, computer games, physics, and astronomy. It all began in 1983 with a Commodore 64 and Elite - a game that opened my then 7-year-old mind to endless possibilities. Perhaps the nerdiest highlight of my life was meeting Elite creator David Braben to discuss terraforming Mars by driving a comet into it.

The 1990s shaped me in ways I couldn't have imagined - I faced the harsh reality of two wars first hand. I still remember sending my first email in 1995, when the internet was still in its infancy.

Since 2004, I've been running bootstrapped ventures as a founder, including a successful journey that led to my role as VP of Product at GoDaddy (2016-2018), following their acquisition of my first company ManageWP and the move with my family to San Francisco Bay Area.

Today, I find immense joy in working on ambitious, often audacious product ideas that push the boundaries of possible. Since 2018, I've been fortunate to dedicate myself to Kagi, a project focused on creating a novel search engine and web browser. This endeavor is my tribute to my three children, striving to make the web more humane and a friendlier place for them.

Current work

I am the CEO of Kagi Inc. Kagi (pronounced kah-gee) is building:

• Kagi - Search engine that puts the user first
• Orion - Fast, zero-telemetry browser for Mac

We launched our public beta in June 2022, marking the beginning of our mission to create a more user-centric internet. You can learn more about our journey through my origin story interview and in-depth conversation with John Gruber. For real-time insights into our growth, check out our live statistics.

Hobby projects

This is a selection of my current hobby projects, updated seldomly.

• WordCraft (logical word-based puzzle game I made for my kids)
• GreatCountry.org (ranking world's countries on diverse factors)
• EV Vehicle Range Simulator (interactive tool for estimating electric vehicle range)
• Teclis (search engine for non-commercial content)
• TinyGem (bookmark app with AI curator, featuring my reading list)
• Cloud Optimizer (comparison shopping for cloud resources)
• Lands of Myst MUD (old-school multiplayer text adventure game I started working on 1995 - and the reason I dropped out of college)

Interests

• Endurance sports - Swimming, running and cycling, culminating in completing my first Olympic triathlon in 2024 at age 47.
• Aviation - Accumulated ~200 hours as a glider pilot (primarily on Blanik L-13 and L-23) and ~50 hours as a private pilot (flying Utva-76 and Cessna 152).
• Philosophy & consciousness - I'm an admirer of The Egg perspective on existence. I hold a hobbyist interest in the nature of consciousness and pursue study of ancient scriptures as time allows.
• Strategic gaming - Chess, Magic: The Gathering, and strategy board games like Axis & Allies.

Family crest

With the dedicated effort of my mother's family, the Jaksić lineage, we have managed to recover our family crest, tracing its origins back to the medieval era.

Philanthropy

Success in business brought an opportunity to give back. In 2013 I founded a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting primary education and inspiring entrepreneurship among children. This initiative stemmed from a principle I proposed that "good" companies should allocate 10% of their profits to enhance society and benefit their local communities.

Today, Živojin Mišić stands as the benefactor of the most prestigious annual award for educators in Serbia.