About
Building between Kaos and Kosmos.
I've spent two decades building and leading companies across open source, distributed systems, climate technology, and impact. My work tends to live where ambitious technology meets messy real-world systems — with unruly optimism and both feet on the ground.
I'm based in the Alps near Dornbirn, Austria, where the mountains remind me daily that the best things are built with patience, persistence, and a healthy respect for nature. I'm a natural scientist by education, a long-time open-source contributor, and — for what it's worth — a beekeeper.
I'm building something new at the intersection of technology, AI, and trust, right now exploring in an experimental setup with Here Be Dragons. Before that, I founded Tree.ly (now Pina Earth), making high-quality, nature-based carbon removal transparent and accessible, and a few more projects.
Journey
Founder & CEO, Tree.ly (now Pina Earth)
Building the infrastructure for trustworthy, nature-based carbon removal — making high-quality forest carbon transparent and accessible. Founded in 2021 as Tree.ly with data-driven forest climate projects, later becoming Pina Earth, leading a cross-functional team across forestry science, technology, and carbon markets.
Founder & CEO, later CTO, Crate.io (CrateDB)
Built a distributed SQL database from zero to millions of inserts per second. Grew the company past 60 people, raised a Series A and beyond, and flipped it to the US — obsessing over distributed systems and a strong engineering culture built on trust.
CTO & Managing Director, VZ Netzwerke (StudiVZ)
Led engineering and product for StudiVZ — the largest German-speaking website of its time. Re-architected the platform, scaled backend infrastructure, and managed the tech teams.
Founder, Lovely Systems
Early adopters of cloud computing, building distributed systems, search infrastructure, and user-generated-content platforms for media companies.
Open-source developer & board member, Plone, Zope & Gentoo Linux
Active contributor to open-source projects, and director of the Plone and Zope foundations — advocating for open-source software and community-driven development.
What I care about
Sovereign Technology
Europe has a unique opportunity to build technology that is sovereign, trustworthy, and aligned with our values. We're between China and the US, and we need to build our own path — with open-source, privacy-respecting, and human-centered technology.
Impact
Technology should serve the planet, not just shareholders. I'm obsessed with building things that make a real, measurable difference. Local models, running at a fraction of the energy cost of large language models, are a great example of how we can build technology that is both powerful and responsible.
Engineering Excellence
Coming from software engineering, I know great software is a craft. I believe in clean code, thoughtful architecture, and the beauty of elegant solutions. Humans and Agents are the future of software, and I care deeply about building teams that can build great software together.
Leadership & Self-organisation
My job is to make others great. I care deeply about the human side of things and commit to the agile values: courage, commitment, focus, openness, and respect.
Get in touch
Reach me directly, or let Tashi route it.
Working on something at the intersection of technology, climate, and impact — or just want to say servus? Email is still best for thoughtful notes; Tashi can help with scheduling and routing.
jodok@batlogg.com
For personal notes, ideas, and conversations that should not disappear in a feed.
Call my agent
Tashi is my OpenClaw-based agent and can help with scheduling, routing, and triage.