Szymon Słupik regards himself as lucky. He tells us how he made enough money by the time he was 35 that he would never have to work again. We learn how growing up in communist Poland taught him to be enterprising, at ease with taking risks, and being open to opportunities, which he took time after time. He believes that the challenges of starting a business in 2021 are child’s play compared to how things used to be for those who experienced communism . His trenchant views on thinking long term, focussing on quality, and working with passion and focus on things that he believes in are ones from which we can all learn.Szymon is an entrepreneur with a strong technology background in IT and Electronics. Szymon is a CTO at Silvair, the company he co-founded in 2011. Szymon is also chairing the Mesh Working Group at Bluetooth Special Interest Group. Silvair develops technology for low power wireless device networks based on the Bluetooth mesh standard. The company has been the key contributor to the standard itself, driving it sinceinception in 2014 to formal adoption of version 1 in 2017, as well as the evolution of future releases. SIlvair is a Delaware company, publicly traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE:SVRS). Szymon’s previous companies were CDN (acquired by Comarch in 2004) and Wind Mobile (acquired by Ailleron in 2009). At Silvair Szymon is focused on long term projects which aim at solving difficult problems, contribute to improved quality of life and deliver lasting value. He strongly believes Bluetooth mesh is the winning standard for the Internet of Things and will enable significant energy savings globally as well as proliferation of modern food production technologies such as vertical farms.Since 2005 Szymon has been running a weekly blog at https://headworx.slupik.com He can also be reached on LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/slupik. https://silvair.com/The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and inform, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.Follow our channels on Facebook Linkedin Twitter and watch the interview on Youtube hereAbout the NBNThe New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube. Watch this episode on Youtube here. About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics