About Sören Creutzburg
Founder · Analyst · Strategist · Designer · Developer · Writer
A question from childhood still shapes my work.
I'm Sören Creutzburg. An old computer and The Sims led me to a question I still build around: If the computer is so smart and can help the sims, why can the computer not also help Niklas, me and anyone else reach their dreams?
The long-term direction is Sapience: making self-determination universal. I build companies and products as concrete steps toward it.
The beginning
One computer changed what seemed possible.
At seven I inherited my mother's old Fujitsu. Its digital encyclopedia and The Sims showed me worlds that responded to what I did. At Waldorf school I learned to make things with my hands; at home I wanted to understand how to make them with software.
The computer could help me shape a simulated life. I wondered how it could help Niklas, me and anyone else pursue our dreams in the world we actually lived in. That question became the filter for what I learned and built.
If the computer is so smart and can help the sims, why can the computer not also help Niklas, me and anyone else reach their dreams?
Learning by doing
I learned the layers by working in them.
Ideas had to survive contact with real people, budgets and constraints. That pulled me from code into design, research, sales and company building.
- 12
Code was the first tool.
I took C++ and Objective-C courses, then taught myself web development through projects of my own.
- 14
The first things had customers.
With friends I ran a school café and an eco-print shop. I also built early websites for others. Making something was only the beginning; someone had to use it.
- Later
Genius On Demand became my apprenticeship.
Freelance work grew into an agency. Across very different industries I worked through the whole path from a problem and a plan to a product people could actually use.
London · 2021
Antler brought the next question into focus.
I joined Antler's London Summer 2021 cohort after years of building independently. Superjoi was founded there. We tried to give creators and fans a new way to finance the work they cared about; I was responsible for product, design and technology.
It was my first venture built with institutional capital. The experience sharpened my sense of how funding, governance and product direction affect one another. It also made me more deliberate about what I choose to build next.
Launch House · 2021
A house full of founders.
During the Launch House cohort, I lived and worked alongside other founders. We also raised Superjoi’s funding round while we were there.
People from that chapter
Some of the people I met at the house and in its wider circle:
- Serena WilliamsIn the first photograph
- Michael HouckLaunch House co-founder
- Brett GoldsteinLaunch House co-founder
- Jacob PetersCommsor · Launch House · Superpower
- Stephen KoshanskyHashdex · Nasdaq · MIT Media Lab
- Harry GestetnerFanfix co-founder · Orion Sleep co-founderOrion Sleep
- Simon PompanFanfix co-founder
- Jijo SunnyBuy Me a Coffee · Voicenotes
- John HuStan Store co-founder
- Daniel KangFlowbo co-founder · former SoftBank Vision Fund investor
The direction
Sapience is the question at scale.
More people should have the means to decide how they live and to turn those decisions into reality. That is what I mean by making self-determination universal.
Life, work and consumption affect one another. I build distinct products and companies where I see a concrete problem I can address. Each is a step toward the larger direction I call Sapience.
100U100 is Sapience Initiative's annual index of people and works shaping what comes next: another way to make people and their work discoverable.
LifeWorkConsumption
Life across places
At home in more than one place.
I work between Berlin, San Francisco and San Diego, and I am flexible about where I work. I lived in London for two years, and also in Los Angeles and Dubai. For three years I lived nomadically, including three months aboard a cruise ship.
How I work
I stay with the whole problem.
Analysis tells me what is happening and what is missing. Strategy makes the choice. Design and code let me test it for real. As a founder I also have to bring the result to people and earn their trust.
I write to think through the larger questions. I also follow biotechnology and technology infrastructure closely, where science, capital and long time horizons meet. I speak about the ideas I am willing to put to the test.