Mr. Anatole Varin, a sober and thoughtful entrepreneur, was raised on the West Coast of the US in Portland, Oregon. Before coming to Japan, he lived and worked in many countries including France, Spain, Brazil, and Turkey.

Mr. Varin was granted a scholarship to attend Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya and received his master's degree in international commerce in 2000. "During this time, the Internet was just starting to take hold in Japan and I wrote my master's thesis on the Internet and the effect on Japanese SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the Aichi region in Japan," he says. As part of this, he also created a website to provide information about and access to SMEs in English and Japanese. "It was during this project that I really became interested in the power of the Internet and software development."

After graduating he worked as a university professor and, as a side project, started developing a website with a couple of his friends called GaijinPot, a site providing information to foreigners in Japan. Even though GaijinPot started from a small project, it developed into a major web portal that provided job and other services to foreigners in Japan. Mr. Varin and his partners managed these under the umbrella company they created called GPlusMedia and moved the headquarters to Tokyo in 2002.

Then, in 2005, he left GPlusMedia and formed his own company, The Plant, in order to focus on developing next generation web applications. The Plant creates and maintains Joblet, a distributed job network, and Asoboo, an international social network. It also creates web applications for multinational corporations as well as SMEs. His major clients include MTV Japan and Tamedia, the Swiss media house. "I feel that the strength of my company is the strength of my team," says Mr. Varin. "People working at my company are among the best in the world at what they do."

Mr. Varin, who used to enjoy traveling whenever he wanted, is now in a totally different situation from where he was. "I haven't traveled so much recently, since tending to The Plant is quite consuming," he explains. "But I enjoy hanging out in Tokyo and taking short trips in Japan." In Tokyo he says he likes the Koenji and Asagaya areas, where there are creative singers, small clubs, live music bars, and also Shinjuku golden gai. "I prefer these kinds of cozy areas more than busy areas such as Shibuya."

When asked about what he likes about Japan, he says, "I appreciate the relationships between Japanese people. I believe that as adults, Japanese people seem to have more freedom to spend time with their friends." Mr. Varin explains that as Americans become couples, they tend to spend all of their free time together and seem to make relatively little time to spend with their friends. "I remember that when I first came to Japan, I was surprised to see so many non-couples (groups of men and women) out at night eating and drinking together."

"I also like the Japanese attitude towards work," he continues. "From my experience, Japanese people take their duties very seriously even if they are not in 'glamorous' jobs." He feels that this is one of the reasons that Japan is always competitive in the world market and makes excellent products with such attention to detail.

However, he doesn't think that the longer work hours in Japan are always a sign of productivity. He says, "I was surprised to see people in Japanese companies working late but doing nothing at all." In his company, he encourages his staff to go home early if they are not busy. "Of course if there is an important deadline to meet we have to work late, but in general I know that these geniuses also need their downtime too."