The Spreadsheet Philosophy: How a 22-Year-Old VC Turned Extreme Optimism Into a System

THE INTERVIEW

There's a Chrome bookmark on Robin Harbort's browser that he opens multiple times a day. Not his email. Not Slack. Not even his venture capital firm's deal flow dashboard.

It's an Excel spreadsheet. And according to his friends, anything that goes into it "will happen."

At 22, Robin works as a venture capital analyst at Angel Invest in Berlin, focusing on early-stage AI investments. He got rejected by McKinsey. Then he applied to 30-40 VC firms. Then he listened to his future boss's five podcast episodes three times each, made a mind map of the man's thinking, and showed up to the interview asking questions nobody else would think to ask.

Two meetings later, he had an offer.

But this isn't a story about one successful job hunt. It's about a system—a minimalist philosophy that treats goals, habits, and life itself as variables in a spreadsheet that can be optimized, filtered, and executed with the kind of discipline most people reserve for their finances.

And it's working.

The Excel File That Runs a Life

"I put everything I want to achieve in life into a spreadsheet and give it a deadline," Robin tells me from his apartment in Berlin. "It can be small—like trying a new restaurant—or big, like retiring with 50 million by 40."

The spreadsheet is filtered by date. Most urgent items sit at the top. When he's bored or has a free minute, he opens it and asks himself: Can I do something right now to get closer to any of these goals?

Maybe he checks flights. Maybe he reviews his PTO. Maybe he messages someone to set up a meeting two months from now.

This isn't productivity theater. Robin's spreadsheet led him to reach out to people at Nomad Capitalist two years before he became a referral partner with them. It's why he spent a week in Vienna, then Rome, then decided to skip traditional consulting entirely and go straight into venture capital at an age when most people are still figuring out their LinkedIn headline.

His friends joke about it. But they also watch things materialize.

"It borders on delusional self-belief," he admits. "But you have the agency to decide on its execution."

Read George Mack on High Agency

Luck Surface and the Religion of Optimism

Robin attributes his success to two things: luck and extreme work. But he's quick to clarify—luck isn't random. "I'm super optimistic as a system setting," he says, referencing a video called Good by Jocko Willink, where the former Navy SEAL responds to every setback with the same word: Good. Broke your leg? Good—now you have time to think about life.

Luck surface. It's a term coined by writer George Mack to describe the idea that certain behaviors—calling people off-schedule, trying new things, asking for introductions—exponentially increase the probability of something unexpected and positive happening.

Robin treats optimism like a competitive advantage. He deletes apps he doesn't need. Throws away items that don't serve him. Keeps his bookmark bar ruthlessly minimal. The fewer decisions, the more focus.

"All of this might not seem like a lot in a singular moment, but it adds up. Then you just focus on what's really important."

Book Recommendation: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The Memory Maximization Thesis

When I ask Robin what drives him—what his North Star is—he pauses, then laughs.

"It sounds silly, but you only have one life. My goal is to maximize the memories I can recall. I want to be the guy who tells stories."

He's done research on how the brain creates memories. Turns out, there are only two ways to force your brain to encode an experience: do something new or do something extreme.

He explains it like this: imagine a burnt-out man who's worked a job he hates for ten years, married to someone he no longer loves. Ask him where the time went, and he'll say it flew by. Why? Because he only has two or three memorable moments on his mental timeline.

Now imagine someone who tries new restaurants, meets new people, travels unpredictably, takes risks. Their timeline is dense with pins. Time moves slowly for them because they can recall so much.

"It just looks more full," Robin says. "So time feels slower."

This isn't just philosophy. It's operational. Robin uses it to justify everything from spontaneous trips to Azerbaijan to cold-calling VCs in his target niche. He's not optimizing for comfort. He's optimizing for future recall.

Read: Aldous Huxley “The Doors of Perception” 

The Habit Tracker Gambit

Like many high performers, Robin tracks his habits. But not for data analysis—for the dopamine hit of seeing a clean spreadsheet.

His tracker has six categories: 10K steps, food quality, gym, work, social contact, and one hour of deep work. Each day, he colors the cells green (nailed it), yellow (decent), or red (failed).

The purpose isn't to analyze trends," he explains. "It's the sense of reward from seeing all green cells at the end of the week. That's the incentive for making healthy decisions."

He's tried gamification before—assigning point values, creating multipliers for difficulty—but it added too much complexity. Simple works best.

The real unlock? Accountability. Robin sends weekly recaps to his best friend (who probably doesn't read them, he jokes). But the act of externalizing the commitment matters. It's the same principle behind high agency: minimizing the time between idea and execution.

Related Book “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz

Human Data and the Future of Labor

Inside the VC world, Robin has a favorite investment thesis: human data.

As AI models exhaust the internet's available training data, companies need humans to generate new, niche datasets. Robin describes a startup creating virtual environments that replicate legacy enterprise software—Excel, SAP, Salesforce. They put AI into the simulation and have human annotators monitor it, providing feedback and rewards when the AI executes tasks correctly.

It's reinforcement learning at scale. And it's training AI to interact with the software that runs global business.

Robin sees this as more than an investment trend. It's a labor market shift. Millions of people will transition from doing the work to creating the data that trains the systems that do the work.

"Humanity won't run out of work," he says. "We'll need millions of people creating super niche datasets for AI."

Deep Dive: Angel Invests Portfolio

The Nomad Capitalist Endgame

Two years ago, Robin put "work with Nomad Capitalist" in his spreadsheet. Last month, he became a referral partner.

For those unfamiliar, Nomad Capitalist is the world's leading consulting firm for high-net-worth individuals looking to optimize their global tax and residency setup. Think: corporate entity in Hong Kong for low taxes, personal residency in Dubai for zero income tax, German passport for travel mobility, Latin American citizenship for visa-free access across continents.

It's legal tax optimization through geographic arbitrage.

Robin loves it because it aligns with his broader philosophy: maximize personal freedom by treating countries as opportunities, not obligations.

He's particularly attuned to this because Germany—where he holds citizenship—has floated the idea of a global tax by citizenship. If implemented, Germans would pay taxes even if they don't live, work, or own companies in Germany. The only escape? Renounce the passport (but only if you have another one first).

"Germany's GDP hasn't grown in four years," Robin says. "If you exclude government spending, there's been no economic growth in eight years. That's the worst recession Germany has ever experienced—worse than the World Wars if you just look at economics."

His peers are already planning exits. The smart ones. The wealthy ones. The ones with options. Brain drain accelerates when the people with the most to lose realize they can simply leave.

Learn More —> Nomad Capitalist

The Season of High Risk, High Reward

When I ask Robin to describe the current season of his life, he doesn't hesitate. "High risk. Go crazy. Try stuff. Nothing will happen. What should go wrong?"

He's 22. Job-wise, he's set—AI expertise is a golden ticket. Health-wise, he's disciplined. So why not maximize?

"If I can't do it now, I probably won't be able to do it in my lifetime."

He's currently on vacation — Baku, Dubai, the Philippines, Kuala Lumpur for New Year's, a Malaysian island, then the Sumatran jungle. He's bringing his journal. No laptop. Minimal screen time.

"A lot of new ideas will pop up," he says.

He pauses. "So I'll write it down. Then I'll put it in the Excel spreadsheet. And I'll give it a date." 🤙

The Takeaway

Robin Harbort's life isn't impressive because he works in venture capital at 22. It's impressive because he's built a system that treats ambition like infrastructure—something you design, maintain, and iterate on.

The spreadsheet isn't magic. The habit tracker isn't revolutionary. The optimism isn't naïve.

But together? They create a framework where high agency becomes inevitable. Where luck stops being random and starts being engineered. Where goals stop being aspirational and start being operational.

Robin's friends joke that anything in his Excel will happen.

They're not wrong.

It's not delusion. It's just ruthless clarity about what you want—and the minimalist discipline to remove everything else.

Help us keep sharing real stories