What I learned from the rise and fall of Oussama Ammar
The guru
Oussama Ammar was for many years the most famous French Tech Guru. He cofounded TheFamily, a Y Combinator's copycat based in Paris that helps European Startups. To join TheFamily you should give 5% equity. In exchange, you gain access to advisors, discounts and founders fellowship. The exact same business model as Y Combinator.
6 years ago, I was a pure geek spending my days coding behind a screen. After a while, I realized coding is not enough. I had to build business skills. I started consuming content about how to create value out of coding. Oussama Ammar was the one YouTube recommends the most. He shows up whenever I type something in French.
I loved his videos. They were fun, inspiring, and informative. I used to type his name weekly to see if he made new videos. I was having so much fun consuming his content. Two years later, as I became more familiar with most business concepts, I wasn't anymore learning when I listen to him. But I kept listening for the sake of inspiration. Four years laters, as I became less naive, I wasn't anymore inspired by his talks. So, I stopped consuming his content.
TheFamily holds a promising portfolio with several startups beyond $1B valuation. For some reasons, the incubator is now going through the darkest of the days. It ended up with cofounders suing Oussama Ammar for diverting €3 million, along with other claims.
These are some lessons I learned by watching what he did.
Racism. This guy is a Lebanese who is holding Ben Laden's first name. He operates in a country that has a bad reputation when it comes to racial and religious tolerance. He was able to build an iconic personal brand despite the stereotypes. He was acting like if they didn't exist.
Overweight. Oussama is excessively obese. He manifests zero signs of body shame. He has a big persona with huge charisma. He achieved exceptional carrier accomplishments. But was unable to eat less and practice more physical activities. I am sure he is aware that obesity is a major problem in his life. But, personal habits seem to be harder to change than professional ones.
Fragility. Human relations seem to be more fragile than they appear. At first, I was impressed by the strength of his cofondation with Alice Zagury. They were closer than soul mates. They were bragging about being like “I, Oussama ammar, take you, Alice Zagury, to be my cofounder. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life.”
Resilience. His ability of not giving a damn is admirable given the amount of scandals and reactions he is facing. Despite accusations, mockery and treason, he keeps going with pride and confidence. I can imagine any reasonable person would be depressed watching such comments whenever he appears.
Story Telling. Big part of the personal brand he made was due to fake stories. He is surprisingly comfortable telling lies. It works. People seem to accept listening to fake stories as long as they get inspired. Like the offer he rejected when was approached by Travis Kalanick asking him for funding. By chance, Travis was in the same room coding Uber's MVP. There are many of these. I am not sure people are naive enough to believe them.
USA. Oussama was importing most ideas from American thinkers. Mainly, Paul Graham, Marc Andresson, and Peter Thiel. That was enough to impress French people. I was impressed how much France is less competitive than USA. I don't think he would ever be noticed if he was in such competitive environment as USA.
Self-confidence. He can read any Wikipedia article before a talk and makes a great inspiring speech about it few hours later. He puts it in such beautiful words that makes you think he is a world-class expert on the subject.
Precision. He is comfortable being categoric and radical at the expense of the precision. Audience seems to accept it. Even more, he contradicts himself all the time. Audience seems to accept this too.