Iwo Szapar

Hybrid Work Expert

🚀 Remote-First Activist | Top 50 Remote Influencer | Since 2017, shaping the future of remote-first world

Aloha, I'm Iwo Szapar! Over the years, I've helped transform how over 3,000 companies approach work, leading to more efficient and enjoyable professional lives. 🌍

Key Achievements:

▪️Co-created the AI Maturity Index with Harvard researchers, democratizing access to enterprise-grade AI readiness insights
▪️Advised Ministry of Communications and Technology of Saudi Arabia on AI up-skilling for startups
▪️Launched world's first certification program for remote workers: Remote-how Academy, back in 2018.
▪️Established strategic partnerships with 150 companies, including Asana, Deel, Remote, and Safetywing.
▪️Created an expert community of 250+ consultants from companies such as GitLab, Netflix, and Hubspot.
▪️Co-organized 3 editions of Remote Future Summit, reaching over 11,000 attendees and featuring 140 speakers.

Born in Gdansk, Poland, I've embraced the 'slowmad' lifestyle, living in various countries while working remotely. This journey has enriched my perspective and fueled my passion for innovation. When I'm not working, you can find me reading history books, following international affairs, or indulging in my hobbies as a dog lover, amateur surfer, and DJ.

Connect with me to explore how you/your company can work smarter! 🚀

🚀Remote Work Advocate & Co-founder

Remote-how helps companies make remote & hybrid work, work. Since 2017. 

🤓 Remote-how Marketplace - the world’s leading remote & hybrid work experts marketplace. Work on your consulting and advisory projects with 200+ pre-vetted practitioners from top distributed companies. 

🚀 Remote-how Campus - a community where leaders of hybrid teams come to connect, learn and grow together with access to live leadership development programs, mentoring services, and more.

$50k revenue in three months from a side-project. Two other products in the making, while working my half-time job. 

No team. 
No VC. 
No startup story. 

A small, profitable product.

Just me + dozens of AI Agents, and an obsession of going AI-first with 99% of work tasks I do.

IE University's podcast asked what advice I'd give entrepreneurs. My answer surprised them. (I guess...😅 )

Forget the unicorn. 

Build small. 
Build profitable. 
Build alone if you have to.

Skip the unicorn obsession. 

The founders winning right now are the ones running lean, staying profitable, and using AI as their operating layer instead of a headline.

Now advantage goes to whoever moves before the playbook is written - right now, that's the lean operator, not the firm with 500 analysts."

Keep in mind that we're at maybe <5% AI adoption globally. 

Still the first inning. 

The window to figure this out before everyone else does is narrow.

Is the lean founder model genuinely better - or does it only work for certain product types?

Sooo... coming back to the interview: Ainhoa asked great questions, and our conversation went places I didn't plan for.

Enjoy tull episode in the video - link in comments.

Gracias Ainhoa for a super energising chat and Mercedes for the invite ❤️ 

Sending good vibes to my IE / South Summit friends and hope to see you in a few weeks in 🇧🇷 Victoria Juan Christopher Joe Francisco Geoffroy Nacho Liz João Camila Mateo Juan Andrea Emma María Maria Gabriela Fernanda

You read posts about AI every day. That does not put you in the top tier.

0.04% of humans use AI daily to ship real work. 

0.3% pay for any AI tool. 

The rest are observers.

Reading about AI, sharing posts about AI, attending AI workshops: none of that moves you up the distribution. 

Building something does. 

Running a model against your actual work does. 

Getting Claude Code to do a real task in your real environment does.

I deployed Second Brains for 85 people. 

The ones who moved tiers fastest did one thing differently: they stopped consuming AI content and started running experiments inside their own work.

The AI revolution people keep announcing has not happened. 

For 99.96% of people, it has not started.

You already know what to build. 

The gap is not ideas. 

Where do you stand with AI adoption?

Start here: https://lnkd.in/dgqpKJyd

AI Adoption Tiers among knowledge workers 2026 

I cancelled my ChatGPT subscription last year. Now OpenAI sees a mass exodus of users. Why? 

It’s following the deal with the Pentagon over AI military use, where Anthropic rejected the deal due to its firm position on AI ethics. 

The CEO Dario Amodei refused to accept the deal for two reasons: 
- the use of AI for mass surveillance of American citizens
- managing autonomous weapons.

Is this a temporary problem for OpenAI or a part of a bigger trend where they might loose the pole position in the AI labs competiton? 

PS. Have you cancelled your ChatGPT subscription - what was the reason? Have you joined the Claude Code family for good?

Thank you IE University for having me ❤️ Muchas gracias! 🫡

The latest episode of Venture Ahead explores the future of work with Iwo Szapar, an entrepreneur, writer and speaker and the founder of the AI Maturity Index.

From the rise of remote work to a world shaped by automation, augmentation and distinctly human skills, this conversation, recorded during South Summit Madrid, dives into the profound shifts redefining how we work and how we live. As AI agents move from prediction to reality, the question is no longer whether change is coming, but how we adapt to it.

For founders, leaders and professionals navigating this transformation, this episode offers a sharp look at what’s just beginning.

Watch now and #VentureAhead: https://lnkd.in/edN3fx8V

Ainhoa Valencia | Victoria Pérez Jiménez | Juan José Güemes | IE Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center | IE University Lifelong Learning

I built a tool that grades AI Second Brain setups. It gave my own setup a 76% 😅

Everyone assumes the person who builds the grading tool at least passes their own test.

Overall: 80% - Grade A. 

But Setup Quality scored 76%. 

That's a B.

397 out of 499 points across 140 automated checks.

Here's where it got embarrassing:

1. AI Fluency: 93%. Five checks scored perfect. Reference Integrity: 60%. My files point to things that don't exist. Embarrassing when you're the one who wrote the scoring logic. 

2. Setup Quality: 76%. Model Configuration scored 0%. Sandbox scored 13%. I literally skipped the config I tell other people to set up. Progressive Disclosure: 98%. 

3. Self-Correction and Compound Learning: both under 60%. The system I built knows I'm not using half of what it checks for.

The tool placed me at COMPOUNDING - fourth of five levels. 

Not yet Production-Grade. 

Which means there's a ceiling I haven't hit yet.

Three fixes would add 14 points:
- Auto Memory (+5)
- Quality Tracking (+5)
- Growth Log (+4)

Fifteen minutes of work I keep putting off.

The tool is Open Sourced - it's free. 

If you want to be publicly humiliated by your own setup, install it in one line:

claude mcp add second-brain-health -- npx second-brain-health-check

Read more: https://lnkd.in/dqnjpsrd

Full breakdown in the carousel.

What's the one part of your setup you know is broken but keep ignoring? 

Mine was Model Configuration. Scored 0%.

Second Brain Health Check Iwo Szapar 2026

AI tools made my clients productive. Then they asked me to remove every single one.

Not because the tools were bad. 

Because every tool came with the same trade-off: someone else owned the intelligence.

Notion AI? Your data on their servers. 

ChatGPT? Zero memory between sessions. 

CRM automations? Break the moment your workflow changes.

After building 81 Second Brains across 12 industries, the pattern is always the same. 

People start with tools. 
Then they want a system. 
Then they want to own it.

What they actually want is a fourth category that nobody talks about.

A system built to their exact workflow. 

Running on their own infrastructure. 

Vendor-independent. Claude today, GPT tomorrow, Gemini next month. 

You own it. Completely.

The discipline behind this is context engineering: managing what the AI knows, when it knows it, and how that knowledge compounds across sessions.

The industry default is renting intelligence from a vendor. More and more people want to own it instead.

Does that gap feel real to you?

I'm packaging v2.0 in the next 7 days.

Comment below what an ideal Second Brain should do for you 👇

AI is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get, but it will absolutely be confident it gave you exactly what you wanted.

Andréa Bensaid

CEO at Eskimoz | Building the Future of Digital Marketing

My friends and family will tell you that when they call me, I never hang up until I've delivered my best advices.

Perhaps this comes from my 10+ years in the strategy consulting industry, but this habit also points to the qualities that have made me a reliable partner.

I am driven to find the best possible outcome for my clients, partners and collaborators, and my ability to analyze the big picture allows me to make decisions that lead to optimal results. I am able to leverage my consulting and investment experience to develop business models, conduct due diligence, and build strategic plans that create long term value. And I strive to build productive teams and to empower others in their strengths. I enjoy helping individuals pursue their potential, and aim to inspire growth through positivity and collaboration.

My motivation lies in striving toward the next goal on the horizon, and I look forward to the next opportunity to help businesses reach their potential.

Experienced Founder. Skilled in operations management, internal process modeling, international strategy, strategic ventures, M&A. Tech enthousiast, graduate of EDHEC.

Maxime Barbier part d’un constat simple.

La solitude explose alors que nous n’avons jamais été aussi connectés.

Les lieux de vie comme les églises, les terrains de foot ou les PMU, qui structuraient les rencontres, disparaissent peu à peu.

On comptait 60 000 cafés en France autrefois, il n’en reste plus que 6 000 aujourd’hui.

Désormais, on travaille, on rentre chez soi, on commande sur Uber au lieu d’aller au restaurant.

Pour lui, le problème n’est pas notre capacité à être sociable, mais l’absence de moments dédiés à la sociabilité.

On a moins d’amis, on sort moins, on entretient moins de liens profonds.

C’est de ce constat qu’est né Timeleft.

Un concept simple mais essentiel pour reconnecter les personnes entre elles.

Chaque mercredi, dans 200 villes, six inconnus se retrouvent autour d’une table pour dîner ensemble

En 2 ans, 1 million de personnes ont été réunies autour d’une table grâce à l’application.

Chaque mois, 150 000 personnes dînent ensemble pour la première fois.

Timeleft s’est déployé dans 50 pays, dont les États-Unis, qui génèrent à eux seuls 45% du chiffre d’affaires.

Le modèle repose à 100% sur l’abonnement à 20 euros et fonctionne dans tous les pays.

L’entreprise est passée de 0 à 16 millions d’ARR en 2 ans et vise désormais le milliard.

Derrière la simplicité apparente, une machine bien huilée avec 15 développeurs et plus d’une centaine de collaborateurs pour gérer des dizaines de milliers de connexions simultanées chaque jour.

Pour Maxime, on ne rencontre pas assez de gens car on sous-estime le nombre de points communs possibles.

Timeleft ambitionne ainsi de devenir la plus grande plateforme de rencontres sociales offline.

Un échange profond et philosophique sur les rencontres, l’amitié, les rêves et le temps qui passe.

Bonne écoute !

Le venture capital n’est pas seulement une question d’argent.

Pour Jean-David Chamboredon, c’est avant tout un métier où l’on mise sur des idées et des personnes, en faisant des paris incertains.

Un rôle qui consiste à accompagner, structurer et faire émerger des trajectoires entrepreneuriales.

Ancien élève de Polytechnique, il s’oriente vers l’informatique presque par hasard.

Très vite, il comprend qu’il a une longueur d’avance.

En 1997, il part dans la Silicon Valley pour lancer une entité de Capgemini pour investir dans la tech, convaincu que tout se joue là-bas.

À l’époque, en France, certains grands groupes doutent encore du potentiel d’internet.

Lui fait le pari inverse et accompagne des startups américaines dans leur expansion en Europe dont certaines iront jusqu’à l’IPO.

Il développe alors une lecture très précoce des dynamiques de marché et des cycles technologiques.

C’est à ce moment-là qu’il découvre le venture capital.

Fin 1999, il est recruté par le groupe Arnault en tant que CTO, en pleine bulle internet.

Puis, quelques années plus tard, il cofonde ISAI avec des entrepreneurs, dont Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet.

Un fonds lancé avec 35 millions d’euros, devenu aujourd’hui une plateforme d’investissement qui a levé plus d’un milliard d’euros.

ISAI a accompagné des entreprises emblématiques de la tech française comme BlaBlaCar, Evaneos ou Malt.

Une approche hybride, entre venture et buyout, avec une proximité forte avec les fondateurs.Même en ayant traversé toutes les crises, sa stratégie reste la même.

Faire le dos rond quand le marché se retourne et continuer à investir.

Car selon lui, même les meilleures peuvent naître dans les périodes les plus difficiles.

Un épisode dense, presque académique, sur les coulisses du venture capital, entre histoire de la tech, stratégie d’investissement et vision long terme.

Bonne écoute !

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