Q: Can you explain your background and how Fly You Fools began?
My background is unusual compared with most people working in technology consulting. I trained professionally as a clown in France at the same school attended by Sacha Baron Cohen. The work was grounded in theatre, satire, Buffon and performance. From there, I ran a theatre company in Norway for several years before eventually moving into technology and consulting.
The transition sounds dramatic, but for me there is a direct connection between clowning and storytelling for technology companies. The core skill is understanding how people process ideas emotionally and intellectually. In clowning, particularly in the school I came from, the focus was not technical perfection. The audience could still understand even imperfect performance if the spirit and meaning were authentic.
During Covid, I started looking for ways to apply creativity and imagination to real-world systems rather than purely theatrical work. I became involved with a research lab in Brussels focused on cybernetics, self-organisation and emergence in systems and communities. That gave me the language and conceptual framework to connect creativity, intuition and performance with technology, systems thinking and organisational strategy.
Initially, Fly You Fools focused on workshops and education within accelerators, universities and startup ecosystems, but eventually companies simply wanted the work done for them directly. That naturally evolved into consulting, campaign strategy, narrative work and ghostwriting for technology businesses.
Q: What exactly does Fly You Fools do today?
At its core, Fly You Fools helps technology companies explain themselves. Most of my clients are Web3 or advanced technology projects that struggle to communicate what they actually do in a way people can understand.
I often describe myself as a tech storyteller because many of these businesses are building sophisticated systems but are trapped inside their own language. They understand their products internally, but externally the messaging becomes opaque. That is especially true in Web3, where terminology and concepts carry years of cultural and technical context that newcomers simply do not have.
So the work involves strategy, narrative audits, campaign design, storytelling structures and helping companies see themselves from outside their own ecosystem. The objective is not simply marketing. It is clarity.
Q: You mentioned “narrative audits”. What does that involve?
A narrative audit is effectively a diagnostic process. I come into an organisation as an outsider and ask questions that people internally often stop asking.
I sometimes compare the role to a court jester. Historically, the jester could ask difficult or uncomfortable questions because they occupied a different position inside the system. They were allowed to point at things others could not.
When companies become immersed in their own structures, assumptions become invisible. Teams begin speaking in shorthand and internal logic. The narrative audit identifies where communication breaks down between the company and the outside world.
The process is informed heavily by cybernetics and systems thinking, particularly around feedback loops and self-regulation. Rather than imposing solutions directly, I try to create conditions where organisations can see their own blind spots and reorganise more effectively themselves.
Q: Cybernetics is not a term many people fully understand. How do you define it?
Cybernetics comes from a Greek term connected to steering a ship. The idea is that when navigating changing conditions, you cannot simply move in a perfectly straight line. You adjust constantly based on wind, current and environment.
In organisational terms, cybernetics is about how systems regulate themselves through feedback mechanisms. Healthy systems receive information, adapt and reorganise in response to changing conditions.
One recent example involved organisational consulting. A consultant may initially be told that lower-level employees are the problem inside a company, but after entering the system it becomes clear the issue actually exists within communication structures at middle-management level.
The challenge is that you cannot simply announce that directly. Organisations resist external judgement. Instead, the role becomes creating circumstances where the organisation can observe the problem itself. That is where feedback loops and systems thinking become useful.
Q: Why do you think Web3 companies particularly need this kind of storytelling support?
Web3 is filled with language and assumptions that are completely normal internally but inaccessible externally. Terms such as peer-to-peer, self-sovereign identity or trustless systems carry entire philosophical histories behind them. People inside the space understand the references automatically, but outside audiences often hear only technical jargon.
That creates a major communication barrier. Many Web3 businesses genuinely solve real problems, but they struggle to explain those solutions in human terms. The technology becomes difficult to feel or experience emotionally.
The challenge is not simply simplifying language. It is translating entire conceptual frameworks into stories and experiences people can intuitively understand.
Q: You also spoke about “Chain Wars”. What is that project?
Chain Wars is a creative project that emerged from years of working inside Web3 ecosystems. There were ideas I could not fully explore while working commercially with clients because they were often too experimental, too philosophical or too creatively risky for normal business roadmaps.
The project attempts to explore a larger conceptual question: “What happens when mortals try to create an immutable world?”
That question sits at the centre of blockchain culture. Human beings are attempting to create systems that are permanent, incorruptible and decentralised. There is something deeply philosophical inside that ambition around permanence, truth and even immortality.
Chain Wars uses the crypto ecosystem almost as mythology or world-building material to explore those themes in a more visceral and experiential way than white papers or technical documents can achieve.
Q: How has your background in clowning shaped your work today?
The through-line is probably the fool archetype itself. The clown enters situations without assumptions. The work is about experiencing something as if for the first time.
That mindset becomes extremely useful in technology because many industries become trapped inside expertise. People stop questioning the meaning behind the systems they build. The clown or fool reintroduces curiosity.
In practical terms, it allows me to ask very basic questions without embarrassment. Often those simple questions expose communication failures or conceptual gaps that insiders can no longer see because they are too close to the system.
Q: What kind of clients typically approach Fly You Fools?
Primarily Web3 and technology businesses, including infrastructure projects, AI companies, DeFi protocols and blockchain organisations. The common factor is usually complexity.
These companies often have strong technical teams but difficulty making their ideas accessible to broader audiences, investors or users. The work involves helping them communicate their value clearly without losing the sophistication behind the technology.
Q: What ultimately motivates your work?
The central motivation is helping ideas become understood. Technology is increasingly shaping society, economics and governance, but much of it remains inaccessible to ordinary people because the storytelling around it is poor.
I am interested in the space between systems and human understanding, where meaning either connects or breaks down. That is where storytelling becomes valuable, particularly in emerging technologies where language, culture and infrastructure are all evolving simultaneously.
