Paolo, you built Noostech based on your philosophy and new workplace rules, but it went bankrupt after COVID. How do you feel about that, and how did the experience shape your current ideas?

Ah, Noostech—that’s a chapter of my life that is both painful and transformative. It’s the kind of failure that shakes you to the core, forces you to question everything, and ultimately leaves you with a deeper understanding of who you are and what you stand for. The dream of Noostech was everything I believed in: a company built not just to follow the new rules, but to rewrite them. I wanted it to be a place where work wasn’t a grind, where people felt like they were part of something bigger, where we didn’t just chase profits but purpose.

But COVID? It hit us hard. Harder than I could’ve ever anticipated. We had a business model rooted in collaboration, flexibility, and autonomy—the very things I’ve always preached—and yet, when the pandemic swept through, it exposed cracks we didn’t even know were there. We were built on human connection, on shared energy, on creativity that thrived in physical spaces. And when those spaces were taken away, when the world shut down, we couldn’t pivot fast enough. It wasn’t just a financial failure—it felt personal, like the collapse of something much bigger than a business.

So, how do I feel about it? I’ll be honest: it crushed me at first. The failure was brutal. I had to watch as everything I believed in and worked for seemed to unravel. I questioned myself, my ideas, and whether I had been naïve to think that a company could be built around the values I held so strongly. It felt like a betrayal—not just of me, but of everyone who believed in the vision of Noostech.

But here’s the thing: that failure taught me something that no success ever could. It taught me that failure is not the end—it’s a reset. Noostech going bankrupt didn’t invalidate the ideas behind it. It just showed me that we needed to evolve faster, adapt more radically, and embrace even more uncertainty than I had originally imagined. The philosophy was never wrong, but the execution? That’s where I needed to dig deeper.

What the experience really solidified in me is this: chaos is the only constant. I had been preaching it, but Noostech’s fall forced me to live it. The world is unpredictable, and we can’t control it no matter how well-intentioned or visionary our ideas are. I had created a company that was meant to empower people, to give them the freedom and space to innovate, but what I hadn’t fully grasped was how fragile the infrastructure around those ideas could be. The pandemic was a reminder that the world can flip in an instant—and to truly succeed, we have to be ready to rebuild, rethink, and recreate in real time, over and over again.

The failure of Noostech also taught me a hard truth about balance. I had wanted to create an environment where people had autonomy, where they weren’t chained to a desk or rigid corporate rules. But the pandemic showed me that freedom without resilience can be dangerous. People need structure, even within flexible systems. They need a foundation they can fall back on when everything else falls apart. That’s where I learned the balance between freedom and stability, and how crucial it is to weave both into any future system we build.

And on a deeper level? It humbled me. Failure strips away your ego. You can’t stand there and pretend you have all the answers when you’re watching everything collapse around you. It forces you to go back to the drawing board, not with fear or hesitation, but with a new sense of clarity and purpose. It made me realize that failure is not the opposite of success—it’s part of it. If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing hard enough. You’re not risking enough. You’re not testing the limits of what’s possible.

The bankruptcy of Noostech didn’t break me; it remade me. It taught me to be even bolder, to embrace even more risk, and to never, ever build something that depends too much on stability in an unstable world. It also reaffirmed my belief that people—not profits, not systems, not technology—are the heart of everything. If you invest in people, if you trust in their potential and create environments that allow them to grow, you can rebuild anything. Even after everything falls apart.

So yes, Noostech failed, but the philosophy behind it? It’s more alive in me today than ever. I’ve just learned that the path forward is never going to be linear, and it’s never going to be predictable. That’s not a reason to pull back—it’s a reason to charge forward with even more conviction.