14. Thiago Licias de Oliveira

Thiago Licias de Oliveira, father of two, global talent executive turned founder of Unmaze, spent 25 years fixing what was broken inside companies like Johnson & Johnson, until a six-hour descent down an extinct volcano in Cape Verde gave him the first real mental space he'd had in over a decade.In this conversation, we journey from Brazil, where he grew up with 80% monthly inflation and learned early that uncertainty was not the exception, it was the condition, to Europe, the U.S., Cape Verde, and recently to Cleveland—where a search for a more generative way to solve problems led him into positive organizational psychology. We talk entrepreneurship, how success can trap us (the Greek myth of Daedalus and his labyrinth), and his answer when his kids ask, but Dad, what if this fails?Thiago challenges one of the values he inherited: never give up is a great value, he says, until it's not—learning when to stop is a critical skill. We get into how making gelato captures his essence as a nerd and artist, the symptoms of something much deeper brewing in society, and his belief that the real root goes back further than AI: we've taught kids to know, not how to think. His message for American society circa 2026: we're all part of the same whole.If you're wondering whether never give up is the right call, if you feel like you're swimming against the current and looking for a different way, or you're exhausted by everything that's supposed to divide us, this one's for you.Find Thiago on LinkedInWebsite: unmaze.work