Founder Journal | Altroverso

I Was Not Lazy. I Was Lost and Drunk

Paolo Maria Pavan

I remember standing in the kitchen at home in a clean shirt and yesterday’s trousers, watching the little green digits change from 11:58 to 11:59, trying to calculate whether I still had time to save ...

22 mei 2026

The Strange Grief of Watching Your Reputation Collapse

Paolo Maria Pavan

I was standing at a pharmacy counter, buying toothpaste, aspirin and something for heartburn I pretended was about food. The assistant asked for my surname to check whether a prescription had already ...

20 mei 2026

What the Headlines Could See and What They Could Not

Paolo Maria Pavan

Not the sound of journalists. Not the sound of phones. The small dry click of a laptop key under a finger that did not want to press it. My mouth was already sour. I had been awake for hours. There wa...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

18 mei 2026

I Was Judged as a Bad CEO.

Paolo Maria Pavan

I remember standing inside a storage unit after the collapse, with the metal shutter half open and cold air coming in under it. There was dust on the concrete floor and a smell of damp cardboard. I ha...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

15 mei 2026

When Your Name Becomes the Story

Paolo Maria Pavan

I have seen it across tables, in reception areas, in introductions that were meant to be normal. A slight pause. Eyes that sharpen for a second. A politeness that becomes more careful. It is not alway...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

13 mei 2026

What Bankruptcy Took From Me That Money Cannot Measure

Paolo Maria Pavan

Money is visible. It leaves traces. You can count what is gone, list what is owed, speak about losses in round numbers and legal language. People understand numbers. They fit on paper. They fit in cou...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

11 mei 2026

The Loneliness No One Explains to Founders

Paolo Maria Pavan

It was not a dramatic place. A business hotel near a station, one of those rooms designed to offend nobody and comfort nobody either. Beige curtains. A desk fixed to the wall. A kettle with two sachet...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

8 mei 2026

I Slept in the Office After the Collapse

Paolo Maria Pavan

That is an ugly sentence, but it is the true one. The company had already broken in the formal sense. The numbers had spoken. The damage was no longer hypothetical. People were waiting, some patiently...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

6 mei 2026

What Panic Taught Me About Control

Paolo Maria Pavan

I thought it belonged to people who could not carry pressure, people who lacked discipline, people who were too soft for responsibility. I was wrong. Panic did not arrive because I was weak. It arrive...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

4 mei 2026

The Day Driving No Longer Felt Normal

Paolo Maria Pavan

Not because I was drunk. Not because I was on the phone. Not because I was reckless in the obvious way people recognise. I was simply elsewhere. My body was in the car. My hands were at ten and two. T...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

1 mei 2026

The Fear of Opening the Next Email

Paolo Maria Pavan

Not metaphorically. Physically. My shoulders would tighten first. Then my jaw. Then that small hard drop in the stomach, as if I had missed a step in the dark. I remember one morning in particular. Th...

29 apr. 2026

I Was Still Working. I Had Already Lost Myself

Paolo Maria Pavan

That is one of the hardest truths I know. People imagine collapse as an obvious scene. A person in bed. A company in flames. A public scandal. A missing invoice. A locked office. But sometimes the mor...

Founder Journal Paolo Maria Pavan

27 apr. 2026

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