Felix Hüttenbach and the Habit of Seeking Rooms Where He Is Not the Best
Felix Hüttenbach, the German founder and investor known in English as Felix Huettenbach, says that since childhood he has deliberately sought out environments where he was far from the best. That principle offers a way to read how Hüttenbach moved from a teenage event company in Munich to co-founding and leading Sameday Health as CEO amid the COVID-19 pandemic and then to Terranum, a Dubai-registered developer of renewable-powered data centers, and it also explains much of what he films for YouTube.
The person behind the principle
Born in Germany on 31 August 1993, Hüttenbach describes himself as a founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai. His academic route ran from a Technology and Management degree in Munich (TUM) via a 2015 term at Berkeley to MIT, where he was an International Scholar in entrepreneurship. He co-founded Sameday Health in 2020, serving as its CEO, and is today a co-founder and partner of Terranum.
What the principle means
Choosing to be far from the best is the opposite of a common career instinct, which is to stay where one is already competent. The logic behind the alternative is straightforward: in a room where everyone else knows more, the gap itself becomes the curriculum. The discomfort is the price of learning faster. Hüttenbach has not published a detailed philosophy around the idea, but his choices show it repeatedly.
In business: changing fields more than once
From events to investment and health technology
His first company was an event production business started at 18 after a move to Munich, which paid for his degree and which, he says, he later moved to Los Angeles before selling his stake. He then joined the investment team at Aurelius Equity Opportunities, founded the fitness-technology company W8X in 2017 and became Chief of Staff at Quantgene, a company using machine learning to detect cancers early from standard blood samples. Each step took him into a different field.
Sameday Health: entering a medical field during COVID-19
When the pandemic began, Hüttenbach set up a unit at Quantgene offering COVID-19 testing to companies, then co-founded Sameday Health in September 2020 with one site in Venice, Los Angeles, because the general public needed fast testing. The company offered PCR and rapid tests with online booking and digital results and, with Hüttenbach as CEO, grew to 55 US locations and more than 1,000 employees by April 2022. For an engineer by training, entering healthcare in the middle of COVID-19 was a textbook case of his principle.
Under his leadership, the company repeatedly moved into new medical services. In March 2021 Sameday Health started giving vaccines at a drive-through site at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, which the company said could serve roughly 1,000 to 2,000 people per day, and Hüttenbach said then that "we are committed to providing accessible care." In November 2021 it launched House Calls, sending nurses to homes, hotels and offices for COVID-19 testing, STD testing, IV drip therapy and wellness services. By 2022 it also offered virtual urgent care with same-day medication delivery through the partner pharmacy Capsule. By his own account, he cares about making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable, and House Calls was explicitly designed to cost less than the traditional, wealth-focused house-call model.
His exit can be read in the same light. In early 2023, together with the management team, he concluded that Sameday Health should be led by a physician so it could broaden its medical services, and he stepped back that year. Recognising that someone else is better placed to lead is, in a sense, the same habit applied from the other direction.
Terranum: a new industry again after Sameday Health
His current work is in digital infrastructure, a field dominated by engineering and energy specialists. Terranum is planning a 100 MW, fully off-grid, 100% renewable campus in Prieska, South Africa, designed for hyperscale demand by 2029. In March 2026 he and Terranum's Victor Decalf visited Prieska with the Prieska Power Reserve team and met the mayor and senior officials about preliminary approval. He argues that Sameday Health, with its multi-site infrastructure, official approval processes and near-zero downtime, prepared him for data centers, which is how a newcomer translates past experience into a new domain.
In adventure: being the beginner on camera
His YouTube series is perhaps the clearest expression of the idea. Earning a skydiving license in 10 days, trying to become a pilot in 30 days, heli-skiing and building an art car for AfrikaBurn all begin with him as the least experienced person in the frame. The videos only work because the audience sees him start from a weak position. A childhood dream he still pursues, surfing a barrel wave, belongs to the same category: a skill where progress is slow and the ocean decides who is good enough.
Lessons for founders
- Moving into an unfamiliar field can be an advantage when it forces fast learning, but it requires recruiting people who know more.
- Admitting that others are better suited to lead a company at a given stage is part of the same mindset.
- Personal challenges outside work can train comfort with being a beginner.
As an investor, Hüttenbach says, "Ownership mindset is the first signal." when assessing founders. Paired with his habit of seeking rooms where he is not the best, it describes a founder who wants responsibility but does not need to be the most skilled person present to take it. Glimpses of his challenges, from skydiving to AfrikaBurn, also appear on his Instagram account, @felixhutti.
