Dominik Krause

Welcome to Bits & Pretzels Day 2

Day 2 opened by positioning Bits & Pretzels as both a business-building forum and a place to reset attention before a dense agenda. The hosts welcomed the audience back after what they described as an “incredible” first day, referencing great speakers, a closing appearance by Trevor Noah, and informal networking at the beer carousel. Lara introduced Guillermo Flor as an angel investor in more than fifty companies, a co-investor alongside firms including General Catalyst and A16z, and an AI writer on Substack. Guillermo then shared how a surprising email led him to Las Vegas to interview Mark Cuban and the Shark Tank team, even giving him the chance to pitch Cuban himself. Guillermo introduced Lara as Europe’s largest tech influencer, with more than 400,000 followers and work with companies such as OpenAI, Google, and NVIDIA. Lara grounded her own story in a personal example: explaining car sharing to her 101-year-old grandfather five years earlier, which helped define her role as a “tech translator” on LinkedIn. She used that story to underline her belief that technology needs more bridging and translation between people. The hosts then turned to the room, asking corporates, startup founders, investors, VCs, and LPs to identify themselves, and urged them to connect because the day was meant for doing business. The agenda preview highlighted AI, space as “the next industry here on Earth,” quantum computing as a way to run AI with computing power, and defense as a major topic, all framed as being discussed in a humanized way. Before moving into those sessions, the hosts introduced breathwork as a practical reset for focus. Peter Van Woerkum explained that breath can regulate the “human operating system,” bringing attention, calm, and energy. He noted that two years earlier they had only a vision, while now the Regulate app had supported more than 60,000 breathwork sessions as a performance tool. Peter then guided the audience into a breathwork practice. He explained the structure: a warm-up followed by three rounds of active breathing through the nose and out through the mouth, with short breath holds and safety guidance for participants with heart conditions, epilepsy, or pregnancy. The exercise began with awareness of airflow, belly movement, ribs, chest, feet on the floor, and the feeling of arriving in the room. He normalized wandering thoughts as human and invited people back to the breath before transitioning toward active breathing intended to move participants into a state of attention.