DEVELOPED WITH PARTICIPANT
ANDY CLAYTON
What strikes me is how different each autistic person is. I struggle sometimes to see what unites us.
ANDY CLAYTON
Andy Clayton’s first business failed. He says this plainly, without trying to soften it or reframe the failure as a “valuable learning experience.” Two successful exits followed, and today he is building his fourth company, Fermtech, an Oxford biotech startup using fermentation to create lower-carbon food ingredients.
He didn't fit well inside large organizations. Office politics wore him down and workplace relationships were hard for him to read; he also pushed back against authority more than most managers wanted. He calls the instinct behind that pushing back playing devil's advocate - useful when a business needs someone to question an answer everyone else has already accepted, less useful in a meeting where the expectation is to nod along.
He was diagnosed autistic as an adult. Before the diagnosis, the patterns that now read as one story - long periods of isolation, difficulty working for other people - had just been separate problems.
During the 2020 lockdown he wrote about alexithymia, the trouble of recognizing his own emotions, and said he sometimes needed time alone, or another person, to work out what he was actually feeling.
One method for that came from a different part of his life. Clayton got sober, and in recovery learned to keep what's called an emotional inventory - writing down possible feelings and the reasons behind them until something hard to name came into focus. He used the same method through the pandemic, working out, one by one, whether what he felt was grief, rejection, or something closer to plain anxiety.
He didn't fit well inside large organizations. Office politics wore him down and workplace relationships were hard for him to read; he also pushed back against authority more than most managers wanted. He calls the instinct behind that pushing back playing devil's advocate - useful when a business needs someone to question an answer everyone else has already accepted, less useful in a meeting where the expectation is to nod along.
He was diagnosed autistic as an adult. Before the diagnosis, the patterns that now read as one story - long periods of isolation, difficulty working for other people - had just been separate problems.
During the 2020 lockdown he wrote about alexithymia, the trouble of recognizing his own emotions, and said he sometimes needed time alone, or another person, to work out what he was actually feeling.
One method for that came from a different part of his life. Clayton got sober, and in recovery learned to keep what's called an emotional inventory - writing down possible feelings and the reasons behind them until something hard to name came into focus. He used the same method through the pandemic, working out, one by one, whether what he felt was grief, rejection, or something closer to plain anxiety.
Running his own companies gave him more control over his working conditions: how his day was structured, who he chose to work with. He's careful not to read that as proof of some natural gift.
"I think that entrepreneurship is like many other skillsets, it can be learned," he said. "I made it my business to learn how it works. I don't think I have any particular natural ability for it. My main drivers are that I like autonomy, and to drive change in society through innovation."
He joined the Entrepreneurs' Organization in 2009, and points to its peer forums as part of how he learned to name what he was feeling, lead other people, and take responsibility for outcomes. One idea from those forums: “Never give advice, only share experiences.” He later became a senior trainer there, working with founders in Beijing and London.
His son was diagnosed with autism as a child, after spending his early years in China. Clayton received his own diagnosis later in life.
In 2018 he ran over four days - a challenge he called 7 Counties, 177km Run for Autism - to raise money for the National Autistic Society, and mentioned Autism Family Support in the same fundraiser. He ran it with his friend Jon Penn, whom he's called an important source of support in his life.
When the conversation turned to talent in neurodivergent people, Andy was reluctant to generalize. The diversity among autistic people, he says, is more noticeable to him than what they have in common.
His strengths and difficulties sit close together, he can hold complicated information and stay curious about a problem well past the point where most people move on - and that same persistence makes group discussion harder. He wants clarity; uncertainty wears him down. He's direct, which can expose a weak idea in a meeting and just as easily strain a relationship.
He joined the Entrepreneurs' Organization in 2009, and points to its peer forums as part of how he learned to name what he was feeling, lead other people, and take responsibility for outcomes. One idea from those forums: “Never give advice, only share experiences.” He later became a senior trainer there, working with founders in Beijing and London.
His son was diagnosed with autism as a child, after spending his early years in China. Clayton received his own diagnosis later in life.
In 2018 he ran over four days - a challenge he called 7 Counties, 177km Run for Autism - to raise money for the National Autistic Society, and mentioned Autism Family Support in the same fundraiser. He ran it with his friend Jon Penn, whom he's called an important source of support in his life.
When the conversation turned to talent in neurodivergent people, Andy was reluctant to generalize. The diversity among autistic people, he says, is more noticeable to him than what they have in common.
His strengths and difficulties sit close together, he can hold complicated information and stay curious about a problem well past the point where most people move on - and that same persistence makes group discussion harder. He wants clarity; uncertainty wears him down. He's direct, which can expose a weak idea in a meeting and just as easily strain a relationship.
He started the company in 2022, it works in solid-state fermentation - Koji Cocoa, made from cocoa industry side streams, is one result - and raised £2.5 million in seed funding this year to expand production.
Vegan Cheese | Oxford Brookes University
He's written two books, Sweetspot and The Scale Model, published by Routledge in 2024, and now splits his time between the lab, the company, and teaching other founders.
His diagnosis gave a name to things he'd already lived through. Building his own businesses gave him more say over how he worked and a set of skills he chose to learn on purpose. Social friction and uncertainty didn't disappear, and naming a feeling in the moment is still, some days, hard.
His diagnosis gave a name to things he'd already lived through. Building his own businesses gave him more say over how he worked and a set of skills he chose to learn on purpose. Social friction and uncertainty didn't disappear, and naming a feeling in the moment is still, some days, hard.
