Blog Posts | ASK LINDA

Your Gut Is Lying to You: Why Founders Who Trust Instinct End Up Bankrupt

Years ago, I sat across from the founder of a promising scale-up. Charismatic, sharp-witted, and visibly proud of his instinct. “I don’t need risk reports,” he said with a grin. “My gut tells me what’...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 18, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

The Dutch Pension Bomb No One's Talking About: Why Your Taxes Are Now Paying Grandma’s Bills

Act I: The Quiet Crossing Nobody Noticed In 2024, something historic happened in the Netherlands. Not dramatic. Not viral. But structurally seismic: for the first time ever, more than half of all AOW ...

AUDIO DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 18, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why Ethical Founders Start Alone and Often Stay That Way

The Solitary Spark of Entrepreneurship: Where It Really Begins Forget the glossy team photos and pitch decks. The real start of entrepreneurship is not collective. It’s private. Almost sacred. It begi...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 17, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

The Hidden Truth Behind the Netherlands’ ‘Stable’ Unemployment Rate: What 386,000 Jobless Really Reveal

When Stability Is the Mask of Movement 386,000 unemployed people. 3.8% unemployment rate. Flat for three consecutive months. To the untrained eye, that signals equilibrium. To anyone who runs a compan...

AUDIO DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 17, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN

Paolo Maria Pavan

The Truth Nobody Tells You: Why Real Sustainability Starts with Calm, Not Carbon Credits

Introduction: Sustainability Is Not a Strategy, It’s a Nervous System Sustainability in business has become synonymous with dashboards, ESG ratings, and CSR checklists. But the real foundation of sust...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 16, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why 95% of Exporting Industries Are Worried: The Trade Policy Earthquake You Can’t Ignore

Introduction: Trade Anxiety Is Now the Default Setting for Exporters If you're running a business that exports goods, machinery, chemicals, wood, or even paper—you're likely feeling something heavy in...

AUDIO DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 16, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN

Paolo Maria Pavan

Documentation Is a Form of Dignity

The Dignity of the Written Word When I was a child, my grandfather, an old Engineerwith ink-stained fingers, once told me: “What is not written is not real.” At the time, it felt too severe. Why shoul...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 15, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why the Netherlands Is Keeping Dead Companies Alive (And Pretending It's a Recovery)

The Surface Story: Numbers that Reassure June 2025: 313 companies were declared bankrupt in the Netherlands. That’s an 18% drop compared to the same month a year earlier. The bankruptcy rate sits at 8...

AUDIO DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 15, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why Founders Must Govern Themselves First

The Lesson Beneath the Silence When Noostech came to an end in the aftermath of COVID, it wasn’t just a company that closed. It was a moment suspended in time, complex, painful, and intimate. A chapte...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 14, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why Your Business Is Clapping for 0.5% Growth Like It's a Win, And Why That Should Scare You

Exports Up 0.5%. Should We Celebrate? May 2025. The Dutch export machine, once an iron heartbeat of Europe, managed a whisper of growth: just +0.5% in volume (corrected for working days) compared to M...

AUDIO DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 14, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN

Paolo Maria Pavan

The Ethics of Letting Someone Go

I. The Uncomfortable Question We All Avoid Let me begin not with numbers, but with a memory. It was early spring, Amsterdam still grey. I had just signed off on a termination notice, an act I had post...

ES ESG IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan WISE

Jul 11, 2025 WISE

Paolo Maria Pavan

Why That Quiet 1.1% Jump in Spending Is the Wake-Up Call Smart Entrepreneurs Needed

A Modest Number with a Loud Signal When CBS tells us that Dutch households spent 1.1% more in May 2025 than in May 2024, most executives raise an eyebrow, then move on. Too small to celebrate, too gre...

DUTCH ECONOMY ES IT NL Paolo Maria Pavan

Jul 11, 2025 PAOLO MARIA PAVAN