Jonathan
Thompson

Jonathan Marcus Thompson was born on April 10, 2012, at Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany, to Dr. Elena Thompson (née Richter), a molecular biologist specializing in cell membrane dynamics, and David Thompson, a British computer engineer who had relocated to Berlin to work on distributed systems at SAP. Jonathan arrived three weeks early, which his mother later described as "the first indication that he found inefficiency intolerable, even in utero."

His first word, spoken at the age of six months, was "efficiency." His parents initially recorded it as "fishie," believing their infant son was pointing at the family aquarium. It was only after Jonathan repeated the word with visible frustration while pointing at a poorly organized kitchen pantry that David Thompson reviewed the baby monitor footage and confirmed the correct pronunciation. "He was looking directly at the spice rack," David later recalled in a Wired Germany profile. "The paprika was next to the cinnamon. He was right to be upset."

By age three, Jonathan had developed what child psychologist Dr. Ingrid Neumann described as "an almost unsettling capacity for systems-level thinking." During a routine developmental assessment, he was asked to draw a picture of his family. He produced a detailed organizational chart with reporting lines and a footnote questioning why his father, as the lower-earning parent, held equal decision-making authority in the household. Dr. Neumann recommended "continued observation," which Jonathan interpreted as surveillance and objected to formally, in writing, at age four.

His relationship with other children was, by his own account, "strategically limited." At a neighborhood playdate at age five, Jonathan reportedly spent the entire two hours sitting in the corner reading a German translation of Nassim Taleb's Antifragile, pausing only to inform a boy named Felix that his sandcastle "lacked a viable drainage system and would fail under any meaningful stress test." His parents stopped arranging playdates shortly thereafter. Jonathan described this as "a mutual optimization."

The story of how Small Ball Technologies secured its initial funding has become something of a legend in European venture capital circles, and for good reason: it is, by any objective measure, absurd.

In June 2022, ten-year-old Jonathan Thompson and his parents boarded Lufthansa Flight LH462 from Frankfurt to Orlando, Florida. The trip was his mother's idea — a rare family vacation intended to give Jonathan "a normal childhood experience." Jonathan had agreed to the trip only after negotiating a series of concessions, including a first-class upgrade ("I don't brainstorm in economy"), a guaranteed window seat, and the right to bring his laptop and "a reasonable quantity of research materials," which turned out to be a rolling suitcase containing eleven scientific journals and a three-ring binder labeled "BALL THEORY: MASTER FILE — CONFIDENTIAL."

Seated in 2A was Martin Schulz, a 58-year-old German venture capitalist and founding partner of Schulz Kapital, a Berlin-based firm known for early investments in biotech startups. Schulz was traveling to Orlando for a healthcare conference, though he would later admit that he also had tickets to Universal Studios ("I like the Minions"). Jonathan was in 2K. Between them, in 2E, sat Jonathan's father David, who fell asleep approximately eight minutes after takeoff and would remain unconscious for the next six hours, an act Jonathan has since described as "the most consequential nap in the history of reproductive science."

The interaction began approximately forty minutes into the flight, when Schulz noticed the child across the aisle reading a journal article titled "Testicular Volume as a Predictor of Spermatogenic Efficiency in Mammalian Models." Schulz, whose portfolio included three reproductive health companies, was mildly intrigued. He asked the boy if he was reading it for a school project. Jonathan looked up, paused, and said: "I don't go to school. And this paper has a sample size problem I intend to correct."

What followed was, by Schulz's account, "the most extraordinary four-and-a-half-hour conversation I have ever had, and I once had dinner with Elon Musk." Jonathan, without prompting, launched into a detailed explanation of Ball Theory, beginning with the evolutionary biology of testicular size across primate species, proceeding through the biomechanics of scrotal thermoregulation, and culminating in his hypothesis that deliberate, controlled reduction in testicular volume could trigger a cascade of hormonal and cognitive enhancements. He illustrated his points with hand-drawn diagrams on the back of the Lufthansa drink menu, which Schulz kept and has since had framed in his office.

Schulz asked about data. Jonathan reached into his backpack and produced the three-ring binder, which contained 137 pages of experimental data, hand-written calculations, literature reviews, and a five-year business plan with revenue projections that Schulz later described as "aggressive but internally consistent." The plan included market sizing estimates for what Jonathan had labeled the "TAM" — Total Addressable Males — which he calculated at 3.9 billion.

By the time the pilot announced the initial descent into Orlando, Schulz had verbally committed to a 2.4 million euro seed investment. Jonathan, who had anticipated this outcome, produced a pre-drafted term sheet from a folder labeled "IN CASE OF INVESTOR." He had brought three copies: one for Schulz, one for himself, and one for his father, who was still asleep.

David Thompson was woken upon landing and informed that his ten-year-old son had secured venture capital funding. He asked if they could still go to Disney World. Jonathan agreed, on the condition that they leave by 3:00 PM, as he had "calls to make." The family spent four hours at the Magic Kingdom. Jonathan reportedly described Space Mountain as "an acceptable use of centripetal force" and refused to meet Mickey Mouse, stating, "I don't take meetings with mascots."

Schulz later told Handelsblatt: "In thirty years of investing, I have never met someone with that level of conviction. The fact that he was ten and drinking apple juice from a box did not diminish his credibility. If anything, it enhanced it. He had nothing to lose and absolutely no social awareness of how unusual the situation was, which is, frankly, the ideal founder profile."

Jonathan Thompson's management philosophy can be summarized in a phrase he uses frequently and without irony: "radical scrotal transparency." He believes that corporate culture should mirror the principles of Ball Theory itself — that efficiency comes from reduction, clarity from compression, and excellence from eliminating everything unnecessary. His weekly all-hands meetings, which he calls "Ball Sessions," last exactly fourteen minutes. "If you can't communicate your weekly progress in fourteen minutes," he has said, "you haven't made enough progress to justify your employment."

Employees describe working for Jonathan as "intellectually exhilarating and emotionally bewildering." Dr. Claudia Reiss, the company's Director of Bioengineering and a 42-year-old with two postdoctoral fellowships, has said: "He once told me my quarterly report was 'adequate, which is a word I use when I'm disappointed but don't have time to explain why.' He was eating a juice box when he said it. I went home and revised the entire report." Dr. Marcus Friedl, head of product development, has noted that Jonathan "gives feedback the way a surgeon uses a scalpel — precisely, without anesthesia, and with the full expectation that you'll thank him afterward."

Despite his reputation for directness, Jonathan is known for a number of idiosyncratic management rituals that his team has come to accept as non-negotiable. Every new employee receives a welcome packet that includes a company hoodie, a Small Ball branded notebook, and a laminated card titled "Things Jonathan Will Not Tolerate," which lists, among other items: "ambiguity," "Comic Sans," "meetings that could have been emails," "emails that could have been Slack messages," "Slack messages that could have been silence," and "the phrase 'let's circle back.'"

Jonathan conducts all performance reviews personally, despite having no formal management training and being, legally, a child. These reviews are exactly ten minutes long and follow a rigid format: three minutes of data review, three minutes of forward-looking objectives, two minutes of "radical candor," and two minutes of what Jonathan calls "motivational silence," during which he stares at the employee without speaking. "The silence is where the growth happens," he has explained. "Most people are uncomfortable with quiet. I'm uncomfortable with mediocrity. We meet in the middle."