The surprising power of the peer group
BTW: these posts go on Nostr, not X - because X derates any post that is not about Bitcoin so much, they actually get more engagement here, even though I have less than 10% the followers on Nostr
OK, on with the story
A couple of years ago, I was running our first group call after our mastermind retreat.
One of the five founders could not make it.
He came onto the group call the following week and listened in as the other four one after the other described what had changed for them since retreat.
He listened, and spoke last. When his turn came, he reflected:
"I was in the complete opposite mindset." He shared that he’d had a bad week at work. I asked “What was it like hearing the others’ wins.”
His answer surprised me. He said it was uncomfortable at first, but …
“that discomfort was what sort of catalyzed a lot of the reflection, and the others are reminding me of what I know I need to do with their wins”
The following week, something extraordinary happened. He’d completed his first full draft ready for their first US customer, his productivity changed, and he had an energy level that he said surprised him.
How did this happen?
He had not been at the retreat
He hadn’t received any specific coaching guidance from me that week
He hadn’t gotten any pristine new information from a book.
Nobody held him to account for anything he had said he would do.
One thing happened: he sat in the presence of four peers who were moving ahead.
I even asked whether anyone had told him anything he did not already know. He reflected:
"No. It was being able to recognize that these [actions the others were taking] were the things that I kinda knew I should be doing."
Often the coach gets the credit when a client gets a great result. That’s at best only half the story.
I recently discovered what the research says matters even more. Harris for example (Psychological Review 1995) found that for social behavior generally, the peer group is more influential than one’s own parents.
But this was the cleanest firsthand evidence I saw ever for the power of the peer group. Because the other variables that could have turned around his behaviors were all stripped out. Yet he still changed his behavior fundamentally inside seven days, based purely on being in a group with four people who inspired him to a different standard.
Who is your peer group?
And are they helping you to become the next version of yourself, or supporting you to remain the version that doesn’t threaten them?
For the right person, this could be an excellent opportunity to get into Bitcoin mining (that earns ancillary revenue) at a in history where this is rising fast. I know the founder personally so can vouch for his integrity.
Is this you?
Looking for a Mining Ops Lead / Co-Founder
Orange Wheel puts flexible compute where a controllable load makes energy assets worth more, while stabilizing increasingly congested grids and lowering power prices for consumer.
Most often that means co-locating behind-the-meter with wind or solar+BESS assets, monetising power that would otherwise be curtailed, negatively priced, or stuck waiting on a grid connection. It works equally behind-the-meter at a consumption site, or at a dedicated balancing site, in some cases alongside storage.
The configuration changes; the logic doesn't — a load that can move on demand is worth more to the asset owner and to the grid than one that can't. The compute layer today is primarily Bitcoin mining.
Where we are
Copenhagen-based, incorporated, self-funded.
Proprietary stochastic project evaluation model (Monte Carlo, P10/P50/P90) used in live developer conversations
Regulatory groundwork done across our target markets — the connection, curtailment and behind-the-meter rules that decide whether a project pencils, market by market
Live conversations with developers, IPPs and asset owners in Northern Europe, and selective opportunities beyond it
Small team of advisors, minimal equity dilution
The gap
My background is energy — petroleum engineering, management consulting and energy market analysis at BCG, and corporate strategy and development and Maersk and OMV. Alongside that I've spent years on Bitcoin: its long-term value proposition, and the hashrate and price dynamics that drive mining economics. I can model a project, structure a PPA and get in front of a developer's investment committee. What I can't credibly claim is having run a site. That's the hole, and closing it — with someone whose strengths start where mine stop — is what takes this from a well-modelled thesis to sites that actually run.
What you'd own
Everything related to Project Delivery and Operations :
Site and container design
Hardware procurement and fleet strategy
Firmware and curtailment response
O&M Strategy
The opex side of our economic model — your numbers, not my estimates. Whatever we underwrite a project on, you own the cost assumptions that make it real
Building the ops team as sites come online: what the roles are, who we hire, how we train them. We'll add people as development justifies it, but the strategy for that is yours from the start
Being the person in the room when a counterparty asks an operational question I shouldn't be answering
Who you are
Required
You have personally run mining capacity at meaningful scale and owned uptime, not just observed it
You're comfortable that the hardest part of this is unsolved. Operating against a live grid signal — curtailment, demand response, dynamic pricing — is where the value sits, and it's genuinely rare experience. We will be working parts of it out as we go. I want someone who finds that the interesting bit rather than the risky bit
You think in fleet economics: hashprice, efficiency curves, resale and repair, not just "machines on"
You're analytical about Bitcoin rather than evangelical. We lead with "flexible compute" to energy counterparties, deliberately. If that framing bothers you, we're probably not a fit
Helpful, not required
Direct experience running against curtailment, demand response or dynamic pricing rather than flat-rate hosting — rare, and a real advantage if you have it
European or Nordic operating experience
Immersion or hydro cooling
DC-coupled or behind-the-meter configurations
Grid services markets (FCR, aFRR, mFRR)
Danish or German
Not required — I cover these
Energy market modelling
PPA structuring
Developer BD
Fundraising
Terms
Denmark is ideal. DACH or the wider Nordics are a close second; elsewhere in Europe we can make work if the fit is right.
On money, plainly: there is no salary at the moment. Not a reduced one — none. Orange Wheel is self-funded and pre-revenue, and I'd rather you hear that here than on the third call.
What's on offer instead is real ownership: [10–20%] depending on shape and when you come in, properly documented and vested. Cash compensation starts at first revenue-generating site or first external raise, whichever lands first — and if neither has happened within 18 months, we sit down and revisit the whole arrangement rather than letting it drift.
Part-time to start is fine, and probably sensible. Plenty of this can be built alongside consulting or another income while we get to the first site. What it needs is runway of some kind — severance, savings, freelance work, a partner's salary. If your situation doesn't allow that right now, say so early: it's a timing problem rather than a fit problem, and I'd want to stay in touch as we get funded.
Open on shape: co-founder, or advisor first with a defined path to more.
If this sounds like you or someone you know, ted@orange-wheel.com.
Short version
Copenhagen-based Orange Wheel is looking for someone who has run Bitcoin mining sites to build the ops side of a flexible-compute business in Northern Europe — co-located with generation, behind the meter at consumption sites, or at dedicated balancing sites, sometimes with storage.
Founder covers energy: petroleum engineering, BCG/Maersk, live developer pipeline, regulatory groundwork across the target markets.
Missing: a person who has actually run a site at scale and owned uptime, and who wants to work out grid-responsive operation with me rather than needing to have done it already. You'd own opex assumptions in the model and build the ops team as sites come online.
Equity only to start — 10-20% (Earned over 3 years), no salary until first site or first raise, revisited at 18 months either way. Part-time alongside consulting works fine. Denmark ideal, DACH/Nordics close second. If you've been let go in an AI pivot and want to build rather than get absorbed — ted@orange-wheel.com
Alternative request message
Paste into a DM or email to someone in your secondary network.
Quick ask — I'm trying to find a person who has run Bitcoin mining operations, to join Orange Wheel on the ops side. I've got the energy half covered (modelling, PPAs, developer pipeline in Northern Europe); what I need is someone who has actually run sites at scale and is up for figuring out grid-responsive operation as we go. Equity only for now — no salary until we're funded or revenue-generating, so it needs someone with runway, though part-time alongside consulting works fine. Denmark ideal, DACH or Nordics work too.
Does anyone come to mind? Happy to send a fuller description if useful.
The Bitcoiners I coach have had some outstanding wins of late
1. Raising capital from Tim Draper
2. Not only securing meetings with, but influencing parties on the political left, center and right in France to all adopt pro-Bitcoin positions
3. Others of my clients have recently met with the prime ministers of two nations, and the energy minister of another one to further energy policies that explicitly include Bitcoin mining
4. Delivering 14MW of ASICS to stabilize the grid of Sweden
... and so the list goes on
The coach often gets the credit for these wins, but there is something else at play that is less obvious, but arguable even more powerful.
It's a concept every Bitcoiner intuitively understands already:
your peers
Let me give you an example. One of my clients doubled his sales win.
I didn't coach him on a single sales principle.
What happened was much more effortless, and much more sustainable.
He stopped doing things that were reducing the likelihood of sales (talking too much, being attached to an outcome)
He was able to do that because (in his words) "I've been meditating every day for the last 2 weeks"
He did that because (in his words) he was inspired by the win one of his peers on the group had around running 213km in a month, and used the same principles his peer had used to make his running habit stick, to make his meditation habit stick.
When you're surrounded by people who are committed to being the best version of themselves, even if the actual things they do are different to you, you end up taking on the best of them also.
If you are part of a group that has been specially curated for commitment, growth mindset, and the ability to give and receive in a group setting, you take on the best habits of from the best examples of those habits
That's why the two things that most consistently happen in the 10-week groups I run are
- people undergo ~10 years of personal and professional development in 10 weeks
- people make friends for life
Most of them continue on to the year long mastermind, because having experienced the personal, behavioral and commercial value of being in a group of elite peers - they don't want to go back to how they used to try to achieve goals.
I don't blame them. Trying to achieve goals without the best peer group is like trying to fill a bath with the plug out: you may still succeed for long enough to achieve your objective, but it takes a lot more time and resources than is necessary.
I'm running one more 10-week block this year and have a couple of places left. If you think this might be for you, reach out.
What are the 3 biggest determinants of your behavior?
According to the research it is
1. your genetics
2. your peer group
3. your parents
In that order (that may come as a surprise)
You can't choose 2 out of those 3 things. But your peer group you can.
Yet most people have no idea how important an influence on the direction of life, their decisions, their actions, their choices their peer group is.
The research tells us that it is an even more important influence on your behaviors and habits than your parents.
(Harris, Psychological Review 1995)
A 2007 study by Christakis & Fowler found that person's odds of becoming obese rose about 57% if a friend became obese.
57% !
And even when researchers stopped letting people pick their own friends and assigned them at random, it held. College students who drew higher-performing roommates got better grades themselves. (Sacerdote, 2001)
A 1999 study by Drigotas, Rusbult et al found that this effect worked equally strongly in the positive too. Dubbed the Michelangelo phenomenon they found that close others sculpt you toward your ideal self, simply through affirmation.
No discipline, no effort, no willpower required, you just place yourself in an environment with the people you want to become more like
If you want to get really good at drinking - hang out with people who drink a lot.
Want to get really good at complaining? Hang out with other people who complain.
Want to become an expert at finding reasons why due to some external obstacle, you can't do what you want to in life? Hang out with people who do this on a regular basis.
Want to become a better criminal? Go to prison
Want to grow a mission that has a global impact, while developing strong health, resilience and connection to family and community at the same time? Make sure the peer group who influences you most lives this way.
Don't get me wrong - discipline, willpower and drive are all important markers of success too.
But they are overrated.
Or rather, the importance of your peer group is underrated.
Trying to achieve a goal using willpower without sorting out your peer group is like heating a house with the windows open.
You may still achieve your goal, but it will take you a lot longer, you will use more energy, and it will be a lot more expensive.
So given that your peer group is the 2nd most important influence on your behaviors, decisions, habits and actions - who is your peer group?
And are they supporting you in the direction you want to move in?
I’ve been investing into technology companies since 2004, and working in tech startups since I was an early employee at a startup who was first to use the Internet for utility billing in 1996.
The 3 technologies with the most use-cases and the most potential value to humanity I’ve seen in that time are The Internet, Bitcoin and AI … with plenty of air until the next grouping.
The difference is that with Bitcoin, the ratio of positive to negative uses of the technology is much higher - inherently it is order of magnitude harder to use Bitcoin for crime than traditionally currencies, but the social and environmental usecases for the technologies are significant, supported by many peer reviewed studies, and growing each year.
That, combined with the fact Bitcoin, unlike any technology I've seen, is benefitting the Global South at scale before it is benefitting the West, make it the most promising technology for social and environmental justice I've seen in a generation.
