Timothy Solinger

@nikolacupic 🎯

@SebJohnsonUK @n8n_io If you're building in Europe and want to distribute your product to millions of people, DM me

The founder of @n8n_io is an absolute GOAT: > Rejected YC because they wanted him to headquarter the company in the US > Wants to IPO the business in Europe, and ideally in Germany > Had to politely reject one of his (american) investors' suggestion to relocate the company HQ to the US This guy clearly loves Europe and wants to see it succeed. It follows an interesting trend of European founders insisting on building businesses in Europe even if it's doing it on "hard mode". In Atomico's latest "State of European Tech" report 51% of European founders reported feeling a sense of mission to build and scale their company in Europe, even if it might be harder than elsewhere. It's something @vriparbelli at @synthesiaIO has spoken about, as well as @antonosika at @Lovable. European Tech Nationalism is on THE RISE. This is genuinely great to see as founders deciding to stay in Europe means more jobs here, more growth here, and more taxes paid here. LETS GO 🇪🇺

@realPatrickJr @calleymeans This topic needs more attention! Thanks for shedding light on this @realPatrickJr

Almost every condition killing us is reversible through food. Big Tobacco bought our food companies in the 80s and engineered this crisis. @calleymeans reveals how they hijacked it and how we take it back. The full story: BREAKING BIG FOOD is out now. This is the ultimate David vs. Goliath battle for America’s food system. A $1.5 trillion Big Food addiction machine… Versus rebel farmers, organic markets, and scratch restaurants in Arizona proving you can bring clean food back without waiting for D.C. • Officially streaming this Thanksgiving on Apple TV & Amazon Prime Video. • Unofficially streaming THIS WEEK ONLY for free on YouTube: bit.ly/BreakingBigFood (The first 2 mins are intense!) The food system got forked 40 years ago. It's time to take it back.

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Ben Horowitz: "Don't follow your passion; follow your contribution." When offering career advice, Ben Horowitz gave a counterintuitive perspective: "Don't follow your passion," he states. "You're probably thinking that's a really dumb idea because everybody who's successful, if you poll a thousand people who are successful, they'll all say that they love what they do." But Ben challenges this conventional wisdom: "We're engineers and we know that might be true. But it also might be the case that if you're successful, you love what you do. You just love being successful and everybody loves you." He outlines several problems with the "follow your passion" approach. First, passions are hard to prioritize: "Which passion is it? Are you more passionate about math or engineering? Are you more passionate about history or literature? Are you more passionate about video games or K-pop? These are tough decisions. How do you even know? On the other hand, what are you good at? Are you better at math or writing? That’s a much easier thing to figure out." Second, passions change over time: "What you're passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you're going to be passionate about at 40. This is true for boyfriends, as well as career choices." Third, you might not be talented in your area of passion: "Just because you love singing doesn't mean you should be a professional singer." Finally, and most importantly: "Following your passion is a very me-centered view of the world. When you go through life, what you'll find is what you take out of the world over time — be it money, cars, stuff, accolades — are much less important than what you put into the world." His alternative recommendation? "Follow your contribution. Find the thing that you're great at. Put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better. And that is the thing to follow."

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Jeff Bezos's personal framework for dealing with high-stress: "Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over." He explains that when he feels stressed about something, he treats it as a warning signal: "If I find that some particular thing is causing me to have stress, that's a warning flag for me. What it means is there's something that I haven't completely identified, perhaps in my conscious mind, that is bothering me and I haven't yet taken any action on it." Simply beginning to address a stressful situation dramatically reduces the Bezos's stress levels: "I find as soon as I identify it and make the first phone call or send off the first email message, or whatever it is that we're going to do to start to address that situation, even if it's not solved... The mere fact that we're addressing it dramatically reduces any stress that might come from it." Bezos believes many people misunderstand the relationship between hard work and stress: "People get stress wrong all the time in my opinion, stress doesn't come from hard work, for example. You know, you can be working incredibly hard and loving it, and likewise, you can be out of work and incredibly stressed over that."

@NicoSvane A vicious cycle

@TimothySolinger *Soham when someone inevitably does this*

The contrarian play is hiring Soham right now. When others zig you zag

@hd_kuypers @TheClearedMind 100%

@TimothySolinger @TheClearedMind This works. When you love torturing people into greatness, prepare to have them do the same to you, and when you do, you build a strong bond/team.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang: "I'd rather torture you into greatness than give up on you." When asked about his reluctance to fire employees, Jensen Huang explains why he prefers to help people improve rather than let them go. "When you fire somebody, you're kind of saying, 'Well, I made the wrong choice,'" Jensen explains. "But there are very few jobs that I believe you can't learn." Drawing from his own experience, he continues: "Look, I used to clean bathrooms and now I'm the CEO of a company. I think you could learn it. I'm pretty certain you can learn this." He continues: "I had the benefit of watching a lot of smart people do a lot of things. I'm surrounded by 60 people doing smart things all the time, and they probably don't realize it, but I'm learning constantly from every single one of them." Which leads to his leadership philosophy: "I'd rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness. Greatness kind of comes all of a sudden one day like 'I got it.' That feeling that you didn't get it yesterday and all of a sudden one day something clicked. Could you imagine you gave up that moment right before you got it?" Jensen concludes: "So, I don't want you to give up on that. So, I'll just keep torturing you."

Thanks for reading! Found this valuable? Follow @TimothySolinger for more content about founders, for founders. P.S. — You can watch the full interview here: youtube.com/watch?v=8Pfa8k…

@InciteTo @t_blom Likely a possible side effect too yeah. If you don't use it you lose it

@TimothySolinger @t_blom ?Cognitive decline

@InciteTo @t_blom That’s for boomers

@TimothySolinger @t_blom What happened to mind coding?

@raphaelschaad Full video: youtube.com/watch?v=ksGNfd… Thanks for reading! Found this valuable? Follow @TimothySolinger for more content about founders, for founders.

Cron's founder, @raphaelschaad, on what founders can do to improve their design game:

@NicoSvane 2025’s Misogi done ✅

Last month I moved to Singapore. I'm 23, never been to Asia, didn't know anyone here, so why? I'll challenge that premise tho: It's not why, it's why not? Age 16, I moved to the U.S. for a year by myself. Age 17, gave up on school because I'd learn 100x more just doing things. Age 18, got obsessed with content creation. Age 19, got obsessed with studying founder stories. Age 20, got a role at Binance straight out of high school. Age 21, knew I'd create my own path or go homeless trying. Age 22, I quit Binance to start my own thing. Why not? Why not? Why not? I'm fortunate enough to have the opportunities to do this (just like so, so many people in the Western world), so why wouldn't you? Clarity on what you want helps but is certainly not a prerequisite to just say "why not? let's just try stuff." 23 y/o, if there's ever a time to just say "why tf not?", that time is now. My hot take: sadly, most seem to not think so. Not "sadly" as in that I'm right about creating your own path being correct. It certainly isn't for everyone. But I mean "sadly" as in that most don't even think twice about their big decisions in life: → where they live (and with who) → what they study → what path they're on → their information diet David Foster Wallace's beautiful speech about default settings says: "A fish swims by two other fish and asks "how's the water guys?". The two fish look confused, swim by, and ask each other "what's water?"" Most don't know water exists. I think just realizing it's there is quintessential to getting what you want out of life — as Naval says: "Getting what you want out of life is the only true test of intelligence. We spend months deciding where we'll be for decades. People decide frivolously which city to live in — and that's going to decide who their friends are, which job they get, their opportunities." That's why I went to Singapore — to @balajis' Network School. Because people here: → deeply care about what 'water' is → are keen about "what are you building?" → won't settle for less Oh, and cleaning, laundry, fitness, 3x daily Bryan Johnson-approved meals — complete holistic accommodation — is all taken care of. Great place to lock in, to build, to dig deep. As Balaji and Vitalik described a startup society like Network School, "it's a deployment point for the obvious to smart people." I genuinely think it's a full-on society that's in real-time manifesting the phenomena, "what the smartest people do on the weekends is what everyone will do during the week in 10 years." One day Balaji does 13 hours straight of 1:1 five minute chats. Next day Vitalik randomly shows up because why not? Next day we watch Champions League at 3am. Discuss what we're building at breakfast. Back to building. The shared mindset here: "You can just do things." There's some youthful naivety to that mindset — but as Jensen Huang emphasizes, that's one of the greatest superpowers to have. You have it when you're young but most lose it as they "mature". I guess the TL;DR is a bunch of immature people has gotten together in Singapore — because certainly that youthful naivety is alive and well here, thankfully. — Seems some journos came after Balaji & @thenetworkstate, so in case anyone is inclined to misinterpret me calling it "a bunch of immature people" — anyone who has fundamentally improved the world at scale undoubtedly was full of exactly this — which usually feels isolating. This type of environment is what those building the future are yearning for. Balaji creating a space to tackle this problem, and sooooo much more, is nothing short of noble. Arguable, it could in fact be the most mature thing to do.

@NicooSvane Epic story

Last year I spent a whole day with Alex Hormozi & Sam Ovens in Vegas. Knowledge bombs left, right and center I got 4 job offers (age 22, no college) Earned over $54,000 Here's how I blew their mind to earn my invitation without being a big shot (and a lesson so you can too):

@johnmark_taylor Appreciate it John! 🙏

@TimothySolinger Usually find these sorts of threads annoying but this was a genuinely good story. Followed

The way Steve Jobs became a billionaire is insane: • Sold 99% of his Apple stock • Lost $50 million over 9 years • Then sold a side project to Disney for $7.4 BILLION Here's how the genius revival of a dying tech company made Jobs a billionaire before Apple did:

@orenatostefani An incredible story for sure. Appreciate it Renato 🙏 definitely will

@TimothySolinger I've read and re-read Creativity Inc a dozen times, and got mad into the rabbit hole of Steve Jobs, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull. I know this story by heart, but never did I realize that this is how Jobs got rich. thanks for this gem. please keep writing. this was a pleasure.