Creators are the heart and soul of Tealfeed. As they continuously work towards feeding us more information every day, it's only fitting to bring out their journey for the world to know.

In this series “Creators Spotlight”, we are asking our creators about their journey. Watch out for them sharing their journey and getting candid with us. Today we have with us Peter Wurmsdobler

Peter Wurmsdobler, who's contributing to the technological foundations for autonomous vehicles at Five AI, talks about spending his childhood in Austria and shares what's the most satisfying thing for him as a content creator.

Continue reading to find out more!

Who has been the biggest influence in your life? What lessons did that person or those people teach you?

There are certainly many people who have influenced my life in one way or the other, both family and friends, in particular in my formative years as a young student.

However, the biggest influence was perhaps my father in various ways. For instance, he taught me how, in a family operation such as our farm, everybody needs to pull his weight, participate and carry out any task needed for a common goal. It is not possible to only do pleasant work; sometimes you have to do something hard or dull and persevere, which is true for any other organisation, too.

Another aspect is perhaps my father’s despise of the consumer or throw-away society; this attitude has certainly created the seed for my interest in a more sustainable economy.

Tell us about your childhood, what was the best part? Is there any specific incident that has largely influenced the kind of person you are today?

Growing up on a family farm, my childhood is characterised by always being with my parents and siblings, participating in farm work from an early age, and as such, learning many practical skills.

In my early childhood, I spent a lot of time playing in fields or forests using simple means; no computers then. Later, despite the workload, there was still time for building all kinds of things in our workshop.

Fortunately, there were no major incidents or even accidents. What influenced the kind of person I am today is perhaps the attitude to work and a certain versatility I still benefit from.

Where is your hometown, and what was it like when you were young?

My home town is actually not a town but a small village in Austria, a hamlet really, consisting of four medium-size farms (to Austrian standards), one of them our family farm.

This was the 70s, no Health & Safety, no seat belts, people smoking and drinking quite a lot, and still driving. People had time to talk to each other, they stopped their tractors in the middle of the road for that. Many tools and farm equipment were still shared and there was much more cooperation.

How important a role does content play in your life? Are you a full-time content creator? Why did you start creating content?

If content means information offered on Internet platforms, both verbal or graphical, then I would say it does play an important role.

For instance, I regularly consult Wikipedia on various issues, read articles sent by friends and follow links if necessary. In general, I try to find multiple sources on the same subject. However, I am not a full-time content creator myself.

I started writing articles for two reasons: first, and that was the very beginning, I was looking for a platform that allows me to gather my thoughts on various issues, mostly to gain clarity and peace of mind. Second, whenever I think other people might benefit from that, I intend to share my work; then only it becomes content visible to others.

What’s that one aspect of being a content creator no one talks about?

There may be many aspects of being a content creator no one talks about. The aspect that does spring into my mind is that of content being quite often merely an articulation of personal opinions that are not even peer reviewed.

Traditional content creation involves a process of creation per se, submission, review by qualified people, acceptance, and publication, in particular in academia (I am not talking about tabloids here). The absence of peer review bears the danger that unfounded opinions enter the public domain as pseudo-knowledge thus creating echo chambers, i.e. self reinforcing feedback-loops.

What’s the most satisfying part of being a content creator?

The satisfying part is perhaps two-fold: for one, being content about having articulated an issue reasonably well as well as improving my own understanding of the matter through research, discussions and thinking, and second, positive feedback received upon sharing.

What are you up to currently and what are your long-term career goals?

In my professional capacity, I am contributing to the technological foundations for autonomous vehicles at Five, UK, both to improve road safety and enable shared mobility. That already consumes a large portion of my time.

Outside employment, and apart from family and home improvement, I am working on various technical and non-technical articles. Finally, as far as long-term career goals are concerned, I would like to continue contributing to an advance in various areas to my best abilities.

What drives you to create content regularly?

Personal or other issues, societal, political or economical, that bother me and I would like to gain an understanding for, do some research and share my findings; on some aspects I am driven by a desire to change and influence.

What’s the most challenging part of being a content creator?

Getting my facts right and trying to create something which is more than just an opinion, but  without becoming a piece of scientific work, i.e. find a balance between something engaging but still founded and correct.

How do you make sure that you aren’t affected by nasty comments and negative things said about you?

First, I try to be balanced and not promote extreme views in any way thus limiting the likelihood to receive nasty comments in the first place; if I did receive some negative criticism, I would try to understand why that is and address it.

If comments were perceived to be unfair, or more of the nature of an opinion, then I would simply detach.

Anything else you would like our audience to know about you!

My main areas of interest, both through reading and writing are: renewable energy as the sole basis to sustainably maintain our civilisation; mobility solutions with a more holistic approach; and regenerative agriculture as one way to feed the world long term. 

How would you want people to remember you

On a personal level, as somebody reliable, principled, considerate as well as pleasant, funny, and even naughty at times; with respect to my legacy, hopefully as somebody who contributed in a positive way to family, society and even to the world.

What's success for you and when you would consider yourself to be successful?

It all depends really on your value system which is influenced by your upbringing as well as your peers, and those, in turn, may be determined by the alignment of their value systems to yours. The easiest and most common view of success is based on status and accumulated material wealth. For me there are two aspects to success.

First, perhaps paraphrasing a section of the song “Breathe” by Pink Floyd on “The Dark Side of the Moon”: “And all your touch and all you see Is all your life will ever be“.

In that sense, success would be correlated to experiencing life to the full, not in a hedonistic manner, but to understand and appreciate as much as possible, with your mind and all your senses: intellectual wealth.

However, there is a catch: once you disappear, all of your accumulated experience is likely to vanish, too. Therefore there is a second, more important aspect: some notion on how much you contributed to maintaining, if not improving, what allowed you to gain your own experience, such that those coming after you will be able to do the same, or even more so, and so on.

There are many forms of contribution, for instance, passing on knowledge, caring for other people, helping in building a more sustainable civilization. Material wealth may be an enabler but remains a means to an end. Success is then perhaps the degree of utilization of received assets (material and immaterial) for the maintenance, continuation and improvement of life on Earth. The more one has received, then higher the bar.

To every individual who’s planning to start out as a content creator, what would you like to advise them?

Do your homework and research, then try to project yourself talking to your target audience when you are writing, i.e. virtually engaging with them as if they were in the room; as a result produce something structured, consistent and comprehensible.