Hi, I'm
Oliver
Thylmann.
- Co-Founder & Co-CEO Giant Swarm
- NeoNephos Governing Board
- Nerd Show Co-Host
- Serial Entrepreneur
- Agentic & Cloud Native
Building companies, platforms and communities in Cologne since 1999. I care about people, open source and making complex tech feel simple.
Latest Nerd Show episode
Die Nerd Show 29 - Fliegende Autos, Sicherheitslücken und natürlich KI
Quote of the day
“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” ― Peter F. Drucker
01.The Network
WRITING
Substack
Long-form thoughts on building companies.
RAMBLINGS
Twitter / X
Short thoughts & updates.
CONNECT
Oliver Thylmann
Professional timeline.
BUILDING
Giant Swarm
Cloud Native Infrastructure.
WATCHING📺
Die Nerd Show
YouTube Podcast Co-Host.
LISTENING
Vinyl Collection
Physical records, curated.
READING
Reading List
Ideas that shape my strategy.
SAY HELLO
Contact Me →
02.Latest Writing
How the World Really Works
A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
Book Review: The New Climate War
The evened out climate book.
What the Swarm was reading — week of May 22, 2026
Seventeen posts this week, and an unusually high share of them snowballed into real arguments in the thread.
Beyond #swarmalicious Weekly
This time, I thought I’d add a few points beyond what we covered in our Giant Swarm internal chat because there is a lot going on.