YouSaid · the spoken record

Johannes Reck

lines on the record: 115
first: 2025-06-23
most recent: 2025-06-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I think lastly, this comes to the nuts and bolts. Like, you need to have a really functioning society. I'm actually really concerned about the far right in Europe because that will be a huge detractor for these type of people. I mean, something that we do.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tremendous resume. He's Indian. For him to get a visa, to come to Germany, after he had signed job contract, this guy makes a lot of money, took him six months. Why? Because he had to go to the consulate in San Francisco and they only take appointments two times a week. And they've been booked out for the next six months. So I literally had to call up, you know, the foreign office in Germany to get him an appointment in San Francisco so he could bring his paperwork, literally the paperwork, because he unsent that anywhere, so that he can get the visa and migrate to Germany. I kid you not. I mean, if you make it that hard, you know, it's no wonder that we don't have a technical system in Europe.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sounds very sad, but actually making it easy, removing the red tape and the barriers. So we hired a CTO from Netflix last year, Gorov Agaval, amazing guy. He was the guy who led all of growth at Netflix, which was very successful, was at Meta before.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Canadas that are available. Like we relocate massive amounts of people from India, Northern Africa, the United States, and then obviously in the European Union.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and not German. Most of them don't even come from Europe because the reality is with demographic change we don't have enough people here, even if I wanted to hire only Germans, I couldn't do that. It wouldn't be possible.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, don't ask me. The problem, though, if you look even at the old industry, so Volkswagen, Mercedes, et cetera, what do they need? Brilliant software engineers. They do need the next people figuring out autonomous driving, right? So we need that level of talent. And Harry, at Get Your Guide, we have 90% of our employees in Berlin are not German.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, I recommended that in Germany and got shot down immediately because people said this is not egalitarian. It's like we need to pay the same taxes everywhere. But I think it's so misguided because we have such a”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. I would go so far to say anyone who relocates to Europe with a computer science degree or sort of joining a tech company should get massive tax benefits. I don't know, five years tax free or like no taxation on stock options, whatever it is, like bring them over. We can't compete with less capital, a more scattered European landscape, more bureaucracy, and less talent. Like it's not going to work, right? So we got to solve the talent part. And the great thing is we can turn our weakness into a strength because everyone wants to live in Europe. Everyone I talk to, they want to live here. They want to live in London, Berlin, Munich, like you name it. We're a very livable continent. People love to be here. So let's make sure that they calm.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Next one as the Prime Minister of Europe that I would recommend here is we should attract talent like crazy right now. We've got the entire immigration debate in Europe just kills me because we have the wrong debate. Of course, we cannot have all the refugees in the world migrate to Europe. We need to solve that problem agreed. But why don't we spend that airtime now discussing how we get the greatest minds in the world to Europe? Because that's going to make or break them.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very difficult because we don't have the pools of capital here. That's the problem. And we don't have these pools of capital pre-IPO. We don't have these pools of capital post-IPO. So that's what I mean with like we need to invest a lot more in innovation. It's not just about the next C-Ron. It's really about scaling these companies and making sure that they stay in Europe and making sure that they continue to innovate and build in Europe. We need way more budgets for innovation and that ultimately comes with a lowered cost of capital, which means higher valuations for growth stage companies. And that means more money for these companies.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Disagree with you, Harry. So I agree on the seed and series A and like all of that territory. Yes, probably there is enough capital. Maybe. I don't know, but probably there is enough capital. But when you look at the get your guide stage and like our last couple of rounds, we had to go around the world. It is harder to raise as a European company. And that's where the big rounds happen. I get you. CDE pre IPO, and then even public. I mean, how can a German company go public in Europe is impossible? And like if we go public is only with American funds”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally. I think that's why both of us are so committed to Europe. I think that's the Eureka moment of Europe. I think we need to seize that moment. And I wish we had the landscape and the leadership to do that. I mean, if I was in charge of Europe, I would say pump up venture capital funding to match US levels. We spent 50 billion a year on VC in Europe. The US is north of 200 billion. Why do we have that gap? Doesn't make any sense. I mean, just to give you another number, like Germany subsidizes its broken retirement system every year with 100 billion, right? We have 7 billion invested in VC, 100 billion subsidies in retirement system. That doesn't make any sense. That's not the future, right?”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be honest, like, I think people here on average having much tougher time because it's much harder to raise funds, it's much harder to build a business across Europe than in the US, where when you raise funding, the addressable market, everything is much bigger. I think where we have a big difference, and that's where we need to catch up is just the overall flywheel of having had successful NVCs that have raised bigger and bigger funds. And also, and that's very important having the talent density in the different startup capitals of Europe. If I want to hire, let's say, the next chief product officer at Get Your Guide, it's almost impossible to do that in Europe and need to go to Silicon Valley because the density of people who have done that scale have served tens of millions of customers a year, built a business that's 10 billion plus valuation. That just doesn't exist to build the structures and the processes and everything to do that.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the biggest difference is that the US investors just have had much bigger home runs, and that relieves a lot of the pressure. So talks bar capital, our Series A lead. You know, the deal after Get Your Guide was Oculus Rift, right? You know, Palmer, Lukey. So we were basically off the hook a couple of months after they made the investment in us because the fund was already returned. And then afterwards, Wayfare was in the same fund. The fund got returned another time. And then if Getcho God returns it another time, like, that's great, but that's icing on the cake. has a completely different dynamic and VCs in Europe don't have that. And that allows you to think much bigger because your early stage investors don't feel the same pressure. On the US versus Europe, I think we have the same ambition level among the foundries in Europe and the US. I think it's bullshit, to be honest, when people say European entrepreneurs don't work as hard, are not as ambitious. You know, I've heard Peter Thiel and others say that, but I think that's BS.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would have not raised as big of a series A looking back, I think it was too much dilution. What did change was that suddenly I felt like a celebrity. That was the moment when I made the biggest mistakes. If you have a Sequoia capital or an index or a Spark capital on your cap table, the reality is that your next round will be so much easier.”
2025-06-23 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source