Why Lithuania? The Business Case and the Family Story Behind It

“Why Lithuania?” is the question I get from new clients and new team members alike.

The business case is clear. The talent is strong - a country roughly the size of West Virginia, with about as many people as Chicago, has produced four home-grown unicorns: Vinted, Nord Security, Baltic Classifieds Group and Oxylabs. Add CAST AI, a US-founded unicorn whose core technology was built in Vilnius. Culturally, Lithuanians are direct, curious and determined, which is a great combination for forward-deployed engineers. In other words, they are smart and they have grit.

Our CEO and two of our partners have a track record of attracting that talent, which gives us an advantage in a market that is harder for others to reach.

The personal answer takes longer, and I had not written it down until I read Stephanie Zimmermann’s recent article in the Sun-Times. She was retracing her own family history, and she described the jolt of a roadside sign matching a name in her grandparents’ memoir. My body could feel it, it was replaying my second trip to Lithuania when I visited Anykščiai for the first time.

I have chased that same thread across Lithuania more times than I can count. In 2016 I joined a company founded by Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago, unaware of my own family connection to the country. That summer, before my first trip, my cousin Steven Kowalsky handed me a handwritten letter from his father, Larry, born Khona Leyzys Kovalskis, which told his immigration story from Lithuania to the US.

Larry was born in Anykščiai, the son and grandson of the town blacksmith. The family lived on a wooden-house street later renamed for the Lithuanian aviators Darius and Girėnas, just over 100km from the capital city of Vilnius.

In 2017, on my second trip, my Lithuanian coworkers drove me to Anykščiai. We walked the treetop path that now runs above the forest there. Then, using a letter from my great-uncle Larry as my map, I found the exact corner where his mother once kept her grocery store. I stood where as a boy he had run to the river. Then I followed his path to visit the great boulder called Puntukas.

Larry, his mother and most of his siblings reached America, his father and one sister did not and were killed after the Germans came.

Larry’s memoir was published in Lithuania in a collection titled “Gyvieji tiltai,” Living Bridges. Both Larry and Steven have passed away, but I know they would both be happy and proud that Lithuania has become such a significant part of my own story.

In 2024 I joined the founding team at Gritmind, where I am a partner and head of AI products. We are co-headquartered in Kaunas, Vilnius and Chicago. When someone asks me why Lithuania now, I usually give them the short answer. This is the long one.

Next summer I hope to bring my own family to that corner in Anykščiai, so the bridge reaches one more generation.