01:08:11 · Roman Kirsch, Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli
[01:08:11] S0: Cool. Well, that's been really amazing to kind of hear the insights of, you know, how you think about operating and how you think about strategy. Would you be up for some final rapid fire questions? Can try not. Okay, let's start with number one. Which company would you secretly love to acquire? [01:08:34] S2: Google? Yeah, I've said it before. I mean, who knows? We'll see. [01:08:41] S1: So if I told you any [01:08:43] S2: I greatly admire Google. It's not a I mean, that's why I'd love to have a chance to make an impact. But it's not reasonable in the next few years, [01:08:53] S0: of course. [01:08:54] S1: I'm pretty sure that if I mention any for profit company there would be kind of rumors that we're after it. I mean Google perhaps is a little too far away still for now. [01:09:02] S0: Year '25 maybe. [01:09:04] S1: Year '25. Who knows? But I mean [01:09:09] S2: people thought at some point Yahoo was too big to be acquired to even be in a discussion. And then it [01:09:16] S0: got acquired a bunch of times. So never say never.
01:09:16 · Roman Kirsch, Matteo Danieli, Luca Ferrari
[01:09:16] S0: got acquired a bunch of times. So never say never. [01:09:19] S1: Yeah. Never say never. But I'll tell you like a nonprofit one. So I actually admire the work of Wikipedia. I think it's one of those companies that had a massive impact and is not really recognized so much, acknowledged. It's taken for granted. But the design has been the same for, I don't know, twenty years now. And I think there's so much more that you could be doing by rethinking the product, perhaps bringing it into the social media age, making it easier to share things in a format that's more absorbable and entertaining, stuff like that. Think if you own such a product, there's like sky's the limit for how you could transform it. [01:09:58] S2: It's a great product. I've been a donor actually for as long as I can remember. I love Wikipedia. [01:10:03] S1: Yeah. Maybe And Very important. Maybe that's the other part, right? A company You like that to thrive. And right now they depend massively on donations. It would be nice to think about a play whereby some of that is paid for, just like to help the business thrive and be more sustainable in the future. So that could also be [01:10:24] S2: It could stay pro bono, no profit. But I agree that there could be an upside in having a premium product in there. [01:10:33] S0: 100%. What's the most underrated founder skill these days?
01:10:33 · Roman Kirsch, Matteo Danieli
[01:10:33] S0: 100%. What's the most underrated founder skill these days? [01:10:40] S1: Like Do want go first? For me, I think it's humility. I think that has to do with the fact that if you're a founder, you believe that your work is convincing people, persuading people, influencing people. So you try to study the art. You try to improve your charisma to make that possible. And that often comes with forgetting to be humble and remembering that no matter how strong you feel about something, you might be wrong about it. So I think humility is underrated because if you show yourself to be humble, if you show yourself that you have an opinion but you're very willing to rediscuss it if new information comes along, that opens up the door for people, for smart people, for knowledgeable people to provide feedback that they know will be processed. And those ideas will become better. So again, it's not the trait that you associate with the archetypal founder, but I think it's a very important one.
01:11:49 · Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli, Roman Kirsch
[01:11:49] S2: Yeah, agree. That's a good point. Especially smart people will appreciate you more. I think sometimes stupid people like to follow leaders with absolute certainty. But I think as a leader you much rather work with be followed by follow smart people. So I'd say patience. Not in the way that like I think an entrepreneur needs to have a massive sense of urgency. So not patience in the sense of well we can take it easy, we'll get there eventually. But more in the sense of understanding that a great thing, a great vision may take a long time to be accomplished and being able to take the millions of steps it takes to gather patience in that way. And I think a lot of the time, especially I sound old saying You are. Young people [01:12:45] S1: these Compared to the average colleague you are. [01:12:48] S2: Statistically, average age at the conference were like 28. Yes. I'm 29. No, but people these days sometimes do seem to want it all, want it now, which on the one hand it's good to have that ambition and drive, you rarely get it all. And now people who got it all, whatever that means, typically are the people who stuck with it for a long time and took the millions of steps to climb the mountain. And so patience in that way, continuity, consistency, precious and fairly rare quality I think. [01:13:22] S0: 100% agree, yeah. [01:13:23] S1: Mean, you do have like overnight successes as well every now and then, but they typically fade away as quickly as they came. Also there are so few and far too Yeah, they're also very You're years fast strategy
01:13:23 · Matteo Danieli, Luca Ferrari, Roman Kirsch
[01:13:23] S1: Mean, you do have like overnight successes as well every now and then, but they typically fade away as quickly as they came. Also there are so few and far too Yeah, they're also very You're years fast strategy [01:13:32] S2: to say I'm going to have [01:13:32] S0: success No, I'll in tomorrow. Yeah. So last question, if not an entrepreneur, what would you be most likely doing right now? [01:13:40] S2: I'd probably be working for, I actually don't like the word working for but just someone else, an entrepreneur. I don't think I need to be the guy in charge or founder necessarily. It happened to be the case. But what I know I need is to be part of a very ambitious, grand project where I feel I'm helping build something worthwhile, bigger than myself. And if it had... It meant following someone else's lead, I'll be pretty happy doing that as long as I admire the person. I actually hate to be managed by someone whose intelligence and integrity I don't respect. But... So I'd probably just be looking for someone doing something that I think it's inspiring and I would try to help them do that.
01:13:40 · Luca Ferrari, Matteo Danieli
[01:13:40] S2: I'd probably be working for, I actually don't like the word working for but just someone else, an entrepreneur. I don't think I need to be the guy in charge or founder necessarily. It happened to be the case. But what I know I need is to be part of a very ambitious, grand project where I feel I'm helping build something worthwhile, bigger than myself. And if it had... It meant following someone else's lead, I'll be pretty happy doing that as long as I admire the person. I actually hate to be managed by someone whose intelligence and integrity I don't respect. But... So I'd probably just be looking for someone doing something that I think it's inspiring and I would try to help them do that. [01:14:33] S1: Yeah. I think that, you know, I've always felt like I love to create no matter really the context, the vertical, the what. And up to the point where I met Luke and my other co founder, I didn't know how much I love to create within business, like within business. So right now, I love that. I love being able to create value for users but also for the company, business value as well. So if I hadn't fallen in love with that, I would probably be creating something else. Perhaps I would be an architect or some movie director. Who knows? But I think that would still be part of my life. [01:15:17] S2: Wasn't that a childhood dream? I think you told me at some [01:15:19] S1: point Yeah, I'm still in love with the idea of becoming a movie director at some point or a producer perhaps. But right now I feel that my time is much better spent on Bending Spoons.