This year ended very differently from how it started.

The biggest thing was moving from Turkey to France, following the centuries-old and well-established tradition of Russian emigration. Not for lifestyle reasons alone, but because I wanted to be closer to where real FOAK (first-of-a-kind) execution is happening — in a region that still combines two things I value deeply: personal freedom and a serious attempt at climate transition.

Professionally, three things defined my year:

• I started systematically building my FOAK execution frameworks — practical tools meant to help deep-tech founders move from “interesting technology” to something that can actually be built, financed, and scaled.

• I published nine episodes of my podcast, WattsUpWithStartups, talking with founders and operators about what breaks (and what holds) when scaling climate tech (big thanks to the NEAH: New Energy Advancement Hub for their support!).

I continued working hands-on with founders and investors who are already past the hype stage and dealing with reality, across the battery value chain and in renewables.

On LinkedIn, I spent the year writing openly — sometimes critically — about FOAKs, batteries, hydrogen, manufacturing, and execution risk. Here are some numbers:

~3,200 new followers this year, bringing the total to ~6,500

309,000+ impressions, reaching ~90,000 unique people

The post on Robotaxis has been named among the best posts on Future Mobility and Market Evolution by Next-Gen Vehicles & Mobility Newsletter (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-linkedin-cw-49-50-future-mobility-market-thomas-allgeyer-gn2rf/?trackingId=b6MiNbfHTKmb%2FQVWId9Z3A%3D%3D)

The posts that worked best seemed to be opinionated takes grounded in execution experience. That confirmed something I already suspected: for deep-tech and climate hardware, trust builds faster through clarity and disagreement than through optimism. I’ve shared the links to the three top performers below.

On a more personal note:

Scaled my kettlebell work from 24 kg to 32 kg

Wrote a short climate/fantasy fiction story (I’ll share it over the weekend)

Started working on a full-scale book on FOAK frameworks — and learned, once again, that finishing hard things takes longer than the original plan envisaged!

Targets for next year:

- Grow this audience to 10K

- Finish the FOAK frameworks book

- Publish 12 podcast episodes

- Write a dozen climate/fantasy short stories

Thank you to everyone who followed, liked, commented, disagreed, and shared my posts this year! Most of my longer posts live on my website (check it out - link in my bio).

Wishing you a calm end of the year, and a 2026 with fewer slides and more things that work on the ground!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!