Berlin Airport reflections: on polymaths, ownership and execution

I’m sitting in the lounge at Berlin airport reflecting on the last 24 hours. A conversation on Zoom led to me booking a flight an hour later and meeting face to face with a team of engineers. Not just engineers, but scrappy, multi-faceted, well-rounded people. It’s inspiring. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a place where such motivation, care, intuition and inquisitiveness exists. It was a thrill.

I can’t talk much about the day, but I got to work on problems I’d never really thought much about and think about system designs I’d never considered before.

It’s kind of encouraging to know that my brain still works to some degree after months deep in the depths of an AI startup.

Be a polymath #

The best early-stage startups I’ve seen are built by polymaths — people who can go wide and deep. They’re not just “full-stack engineers” or “product managers” or “designers” — those titles are too narrow. They’re the sort of people who can write an API in the morning, run a user interview at lunch and debug a supply chain hiccup in the afternoon. They adapt because they have to, but they thrive because they want to.

Execution matters. Caring about execution matters even more. In these teams, ownership isn’t just about equity on paper — it’s visible in how they talk about customers, how they defend a design choice and how they rip apart their own work to make it better. That’s what I witnessed. That’s the kind of ownership that drives a company’s future and sets the tone for everyone who joins later.

These environments are extremely hard to get into, not because they’re gatekeeping, but because their cohesion makes them fragile. The wrong hire can throw off the rhythm. The right hire can lift everyone higher. That’s why when you’re inside one, it’s so intoxicating. It’s a place where everyone’s all-in.

What makes teams exceptional? #

Here’s what I saw in them:

• Multi-faceted thinking – they approach problems from technical, operational and human angles without being prompted.
• Ownership mindset – if something’s broken, they fix it; if something’s unclear, they define it; if the timing’s wrong, they park it without drama
• Execution focus – no overthinking for the sake of it, no sloppy shortcuts either; they own their work, feel the pressure to deliver, and clearly love the challenge
• Cohesion – a shared tempo that makes them operate like a single unit; it amplifies their strengths and blunts their weaknesses

I’ve rarely been this impressed with a team in such a short space of time.

The challenge of building culture #

I’ve written about the risk of bad hires before. But I want to extend on that. Because the risk in my scenario then was about letting mediocrity metastasize in a high-performing team.

You can’t “install” this kind of culture. You can’t run a workshop and expect it to appear. It comes from the founders’ DNA, the earliest hires and the shared scars of solving impossible problems together. Every new person has to add energy, not drain it. Every process has to protect that momentum without calcifying it.

This team was made up of founders, hackers and problem solvers who have been burnt before. They know what it takes to build something great and they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty.

And here’s the catch — the better the culture, the harder it is to maintain as you grow. Cohesion can slip. Execution can slow. Ownership can fade if the wrong people get comfortable. It’s why so few companies keep their magic past the first 20 hires. (My personal belief, that and the inevitable payout at the series E.)

No matter the outcome of my journey talking to them, I think they’re a very inspiring group of people. And I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Written from Terminal 1, Berlin Brandenburg Airport, after 24 hours that reminded me why I love building things with exceptional people.