That doesn’t get you anywhere: I believe you learn by doing. I hate judging something without having first-hand knowledge of it. I like grassroots movements but I see top-down decision-making as very limited, and it often has a negative impact. I’ve never really liked politics or change that stems from regulation. I’ve always had a clear sense of how technology impacts our lives and can deliver our vision of the future. When I was at university, I came to realise that there are three things that can create significant change in society: technology, people’s beliefs and politics.Įach of those three things shapes our society and changes its course. The story starts a long time before I actually started the business. So, Aki, what’s the story? Why did you set up Cookpad? So here’s the longer version of how Cookpad started. And while we can sum it up in a couple of lines, there are a few more layers to it. It’s not the ‘solving a personal problem’ slick PR answer you hear from a lot of tech companies.

So how did Aki come up with idea behind Cookpad? I asked him that question when I first interviewed with him for this role and it’s a good story. It’s available in almost 70 countries around the world in 23 languages. Now almost 100 million people around the world use Cookpad every month and over 4 million recipes have been created on the platform. Aki today at Cookpad’s global HQ in the UKĬookpad was founded 21 years ago in Japan by Aki Sano.

Cookpad jp