Hi, I’m Ben.

My name is Benedikt Lehnert (but everybody calls me Ben). I’m a dad, designer, executive, and angel investor. In the past decade I’ve helped build startups, sold startups, worked for the two largest tech companies (Microsoft and SAP) on the planet as a design executive, and had the privilege to shape products billions of people use every day.

What’s this all about?

I stopped publishing my writing (for the most part) in 2015 after Wunderlist got acquired. That same year, I became a dad and overall life threw a lot of things at me that required most of my energy to learn how to handle, get better at and / or not suck at.

But while I stopped writing publicly, I kept writing in private. In fact, I probably wrote more in the last 8 years than in the 31 years prior to that. Writing helped me process, understand, feel and become the man I wanted to be.

I’ve always been drawn to writing, especially poetry. The intention, mastery and emotional connection in every carefully crafted word has spoken to my soul like no other. Still does, deeper than ever.

At the intersection of business and poetry

With that said, this will be a place that imagine to sit at the intersection of business and poetry. And as the sub headline suggests, if what I write inspires at least one person, it’ll be all worth it.

Between my job at Stark and my teaching gig at Princeton, I feel fulfilled to be able to give back to the world not only through my product work but passing on what I’ve learned along the way (so far).

Going forward, you can expect a mix of my writing (like the example below), inspiring things I’m reading or have found on the internet (or the real world) or quick thoughts that are barely formed but occupy my mind. It’s scrappy by design, enjoy the ride.