YouSaid · the spoken record

Klaus Hommels

lines on the record: 78
first: 2024-11-27
most recent: 2024-11-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“There are two things that would make me happy, and that's the final word then. I need to be proud, proud of my eight-year-old me, what I have achieved and what I have dreamt of, and proud of my 80-year-old me when I look back and say, oh, how have I shown integrity with the people I've worked with, integrity, with my partner, with my family? These are the two things that are the North Stars for making me happy.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an interesting one because everybody asks me very factual things and geared short term. There are very few people that sit down and say, yeah, you're basically I'm doing a journey for like 10 years. What makes me happy over a period of 10 years? Because there will be some fatigue moments from the normal work or what did you make and what do you individually make out of it? Because happiness can have many facets and just being successful and eight times divorced is also not the ideal dream of a happiness, right? So it is not only factual things, it's a lot of things of what makes you proud, what were the moments, how should I design my life? So this is things that I always ask. So it is a very great luxury if I can have some friends that are 10, 15 years old or that have mastered the next 10 year period in terms of”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that there is a very, very high chance it becomes super big for a very reason. So you have the execution skills that are or are unparalleled and proven and the markets are so much bigger if it comes to health. So at the end, music is not a big market. It's an okay market, but it's not a monster big market. And as Daniel said last, that the pay, the sum of what the US spends on heart diseases and medication, all that kind of stuff in the US is in the vicinity of Apple's revenue worldwide. So that means if you are moderately successful, the sizes is so much bigger. And I do think that with the product we have currently at NACO, with the ideas that Daniel Yalma and the team have, there is a very high chance that they will absolutely smack it.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know I would have guessed this from Shaq because we have this discussion very often and there are clear advantages of being an angel. You are very free. You do not need to do fundraising. The decision takes as long as you want to. But you always die one death. So meaning a platform has also something interesting and you can achieve something with a platform that you cannot achieve as an angel. There is a right time for being the one or the other. So I think Mark Evans, whom I admire a lot, he was spectacular good at benchmark. But afterwards now even better as an angel. So I think maybe everything has its time.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it is more nuanced. So, I think on the very top of the pyramid, it's exactly the same. People fight like maniacs and there is everything that you do in order to get somewhere. But I think the broader base under the bell curve is more complacent, more entitled. You have more discussions on this crazy voke shit and on ESG and what do I know? This is not that you see it in different geos.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You still can, I would say, also because, yes, you are an ambitious entrepreneur, but it's not everything in life. So you are also a human being, you have friends, you have family. I think it is sometimes an equilibrium in life and not a single parameter that needs to be optimized.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not how I think about it. It's a little bit what we just discussed with the Dalai Lama thing. I'm fatalistic about it. So everything that I thought was bad, or a lot of things that I thought was I thought were bad, turned out to be good and a lot of things that I thought were good turned out to be bad, so time will tell. I'm easy on that.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investment defined as the returns delivered, then I would say every single cent I invested in, any of my four kids. Multiple is not measurable. But if you want to, as I said, I have a different coordinate system with that. For what it's worth, if you insist, I have something like six, seven investment more than 100 times money, one even a thousand times, and some more like six or so in the range of 30 to 60 times money. But this is not the currency. The very nice currency I have to tell you is I have some very, very crazy cool thank you emails from the best founders worldwide that say thank you for your help. You kept your promise and made an impact on my journey. So this is what makes you proud.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Crazy persistence and patience things at least two levels more profound than others. It's very logical and is always a very friendly and well-rounded character, and he has uncompromising ethics in everything he does. Very important to me.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Lee Fixer is a very cool guy. When he was at Tiger, he was in Mercado Libre, he was in Yandex, he was in Flipkart. And it basically was a one-man show on the plane starting there with 28, 29. This is an amazing achievement. Also, the way he applied thoughts to conquering markets, very, very impressive.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh yes, so they all got the same grandma test. So they have some exposure and that's the best way to see if they liked what they can experience. So no look, it's a very open discussion I have with them.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the beginning, it hasn't been like that very affluent. So the beginnings weren't that glorious. It was a long journey to get where we are now. We had a very normal and very tight family life. So I very consciously decided to be basically during the 2000s at home at 5-ish six. And then we had supper, then we did homework and then brought them to bed. And then at nine, I sat down at the desk again. So this was a very conscious decision. If it is unilaterally explains why this is the outcome, now I think there has been a lot of very valuable input. My then wife was giving to the kids then the love and the home that she created. So this is probably everything working together there.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think about it. So I think it is at the time it was still an arguable call because Keddy Crush didn't even exist. It was a very different company at the time. But it's a fantastic team and they deserve very much to be so successful as they were. So I'm totally relaxed. It is a little bit like a certain number of criticism that you get. If you don't get it, you're not there.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody has that. So be cool, everybody has that. There's a common trait with all the entrepreneurs and investors. So I got in at king.com at two and a half million and sold something at 100 and I could have sold at 5 billion. So I did do it, obviously. So basically”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Savior of my life, so otherwise it would have been way worse. And it's the same with company. So my biggest nightmare, I wouldn't say, but at that time it was a pretty nightmare, was a company called Wunderloop where basically I worked with a friend of mine like three, three and a half years just to lose 60% of my wealth. The market wasn't mature enough for it. I was a little bit too early. It was a cookie-based advertising platform that was probably like one to two years too early. But I, during the process, I got to know somebody who wanted to buy this company, but at the end didn't, I then hit it off and we decided to found Macafoni together, a company in Turkey that we sold for $150 million several years, two years later. Two and a half years later, to Nespa. So it overcompensated the loss of that one company. So I'm a big believer if you are ethical in the things you do and you're friendly, then luck comes to you.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's also a mentality thing. So I come from that area in Germany called Cologne, Bonn, and Dusseldorf who are very easygoing people. So they have like a little bit like, I would say the Dalai Lama. Sometimes it's good if you get what you want and something is good when you don't get what you want. I have felt that a lot of cases, even if you don't get what you want, it turns out valence for a good reason. So I still remember being son of a farmer, I didn't have a clue about anything what I wanted to do in life and that didn't so much change after my studies. So I thought, lo, that'd be cool to be as Goldman or McKinsey or BCG amongst Tenley. And I applied several times everywhere, but they never wanted to give me a job. So kudos to their smart H&R departments because I would have been a terrible employee. It was clearly not what I wanted, but in hindsight it was, yeah, this.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“FinTech is good. I like fintech. I was always working with Shailandra from Sequoia in the Indian market. And we looked at it together and he was so kind to help me getting into it. Very early innings and I begged also Kunal Shah's company he had before. And so he was happy to have me again on his steps captible.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so look, I mean, also, it's a little bit like a personality. So if I want to have it, I want to have it now. And then you try to preempt it. So in these times, what the examples I was saying, that was the market was not in the same professional state as it is now. So there was always room for cowboys like me that tried to get into some situations in a different way.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“API then, or the music, or all the innovation is easier to happen within Facebook because you take advantage of the network and don't need to build the network again. And then the value will stay. And at that time, I needed to figure out how I get into it. And then I for two months called everybody I knew in the vale and I ended up with Matt Kohler, like a little coincidence because I was at benchmark. Things met, by the way”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was following the social media stuff as there was a company called Singh in Germany and there was like Friendstar and then you had like MySpace. It was fascinating that Friendster being like the sort of first social media. The only thing they basically invented is I could see through whom I know somebody else, the six or seven degrees of knowing each other. So and then suddenly MySpace came and they just added music to it. And the whole herd moved away from Friendster to MySpace. And suddenly MySpace was the hottest thing on Earth. And then Facebook came along and suddenly introduced like clear names or voyeurism. And then everybody moved there. And so until then, I did not feel that there was one single argument why the value was captured. And then they announced that they were willing to do introduce the API. And at that moment, I said, Jesus, if that's...”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Revolution is, I think it's the biggest blessing that we have in the European ecosystem currently as a company. And we basically missed it in the UK team at the time. I still remember then my son came along and said, look, I have found this cool app. And he was raving about it with his friends at the dinner table. And I looked at it. And with my product affinity, I said, wow, is this cool? And then I just ordered. Literally, I ordered the team to get into that cap table. And this was a very short one.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it's a lot of luck in these situations. So, in the case of Airbnb, it was a discussion I had with Guyo Ziri, who was the manager of Madonna. We were chatting and he basically was advertising it so heavily and tried to convince me. I think at the end I followed his logic. And then luckily I made that decision.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But look, I mean, all the big ones I invested in were not obvious ones. So you could say when the time I was looking at Spotify, it was, I'm not sure, I wouldn't say it's illegal, but we had music and we didn't have the rights. So at the time when I invested in Skype, there was no business model because with Skype out wasn't even invented at the time when I invested in Airbnb, it was also very, very early.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was lucky to be an investor in Stadol, which was led by Matthias Bixcher, a great entrepreneur in Stockholm. And Daniel was CTO there. And we got to know each other. Obviously, there was for sure a unilateral appreciation for him, but obviously also a reciprocal one. So, and then at some point when he started Spotify, he asked me whether I would be willing to be on board again.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a typical fund question. I do think that you need to have ownership in that sense that some of the crypto funds that I'm seeing, they invest many, many, many companies very, very small sums, so it never makes a difference if you're right. So you need to make sure that it makes a difference if you're right. The reason why I sometimes argue this is I feel I'm an outsourced business development guy, so I have a certain number of hours available to help you. And I need to make sure that the compensation level as it should be right on your side must be right on our side as well. And that's basically how you come up with finding a common sensitivity to agree on.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aspiration and the perceived execution skills. And this is the result of that is the price. And this is, you can have a confidence interval around it, but that's not rocket science.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the good things I would still do them, good companies I've invested in, even if they were 30% more expensive and the shit I don't want to have, maybe it's worth 30% cheaper. So the beauty is I'm not in the buyout where buying makes a difference. I'm in the business where right judgment makes a difference. And even if you misprice it at the beginning at 20, 25%, it doesn't make a big difference at the end. People are always stuck on this valuation thing. And valuation is for me a hygienic thing. First of all, the first hygiene factor is if the founder tells me a decent price and a decent price is interesting. If he's too expensive, I think what the heck did you smilk? And if it's too cheap, then he said, look, you don't understand what it is because at the end it is a pact that we both do, which honors everything I've done in my life as an entrepreneur.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think this is the entrepreneurial spirit. And basically it's a little bit the spirit that we can take very fast decisions in the organization. But I was on my way to meet.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes, of course. And basically it is their gift and they are fast tracking the development of the ecosystem. So basically when I started with AOL in 1995, I was responsible for online banking, right? To bring online banking to the German banking landscape. There was nobody in German banks that wanted to do online banking. There was no way how to sell online services into banks. So it is all a process. So as much as it is a process to do that now in an MOD. So that is why the mission of the NATO Innovation Fund is bringing these trust levels. Now people say, oh, we get financed. So we can start to do a use company, which wasn't the case before. The entrepreneurs basically were left alone. And then, oh, with NATO, yeah, there are some people in the MODs that now are responsible to embrace early innovation.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Biggest mistakes this is a trust thing there's a very fragile situation now that you have to sell into the MODs you have to break the procurement processes as they are and if you if protagonists get into the game that just do it because it's easy or they perceive it's easy to raise a fund in defense and then become active yeah there might be a risk that this fragile trust level there is jeopardized so it's very important at the beginning we are very serious and very sober and honest players in that field so that we do not lose that this beginning trusting”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Embracing innovation, to cooperate with the VC world and VC financed innovation is way, way higher in Europe than it is in the EC.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, of course. And not only if it's a precede or precederal, it's also, if you think the process through has to be to some extent also at the gross capital stage. Because if the gross capital is always provided from the US, then basically you are abolishing your own sovereignty at that stage already again. Then you have the influence in the boards, which then comes from the big investors, which might have at some point a different interest than as if it was a European one. So it's interesting to see the examples we have in the US are might not be 100% transferable to Europe because the US defense budget has like 14% R&D, which translates into 94 billion own R&D a year. Which is a lot, which is proprietary findings that then finds its way its way. In Europe, it's 4% and so 9 billion. So the necessity when it comes to”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because if you want to sell something, you need to fill out 800 pages of what do I know. And they all have that. And startups will never have that to some extent. Only the big ones like the Helsinki, the underworld. So the question is, how many of the startups become sizable companies and become a prime in their own sense? Or will we have a market like a pharma market where you have basically a lot of innovation that gets accelerated through the cooperation with Primes?”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you have to reinvent an ecosystem, and an ecosystem that basically hasn't ever worked together. So there are very few startups that ever worked with primes. There are very few startups that have worked with the MODs and vice versa. So this has all to be reinvented. Everybody has to get to know each other. Everybody has to develop a certain level of trust. And the interesting way that I'm currently thinking is how does this ecosystem develop? What is the mature market? Is it a little bit like the pharma industry? Because the pharma industry, if you think about a novatist, they are basically a gigantic organization if it comes to distribution and regulation, but not invention. So a big prime, as Molloch in distributing because they have years and years of lobbying into the MODs, and they are pretty good at regulating.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not that different. So technically, you have deep tech companies that have a superior sensor, that have a software instead of managing the operating system of an Android phone. It manages like Oterian, the operating system of a drone. You have very similar traits. You have one customer, one different customer, and who has a very special procurement process, which probably you have to learn a little bit. That's basically at the beginning what is not so much the difference.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Constraints, capacity constraints is the one, but you still need to have some of those. So that will be a fight for the scarce resources. And the others basically is along the efficiency. So you do have drones. And if you extrapolate the development, what will be happening there? You had like one drones that got flight by one soldier. And then you have the next development will be swarms and then you will have the attacking swarms and defending swarms. And so there is so much going on here that there has to be a little bit of foresight where does electronic warfare go. And then we have to equip ourselves to be efficient in that field. So this will probably be in the technical part of the equipment. And that is also why I do believe the chances for deep tech investors that have their good ties into”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I described, we do have to come up with our own sovereignty. So that means investing now. If we can provide it fast enough, that's fine. If we can, probably we'll have to be other options that...”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Effect, you would get 25 30% of immediate tax effect, and you had something like 40% of household income. So for a period of four or five years, the net effect on Germany, to put it a little bit polemically, if you ask the German electorate, do you want to be indebted with 63% of GDP and not able to defend yourself or with 68, 69% after the five years, and you would be able to defend yourself? I think that's the ultimate question that we have to ask and the choice that will be made in the next months.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's an overview. I commissioned a study in which I analyzed all this kind of stuff. And clearly came out that in terms of threat, historically most of the European countries have spent in the vicinity of three and a half percent. Poland is at 6 or 7, the Baltics are even higher, and Finland is also way higher. So this is actually not a crazy number. So I try to understand what are the repercussions if we went as a German to 3.5%. Basically that meant we had to spend 100 billion extra, roughly. So with all the economic theories, if you drop 100 billion into an economy, provided you can spend a lot of it in the home base, or let's say Germany, or even Europe, then you immediately basically get back 80 to 110% of GDP.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so you always have that. So you never get fired for buying IBM, right? This is the mental thing. There are some advantages as facts because you cannot get the equipment we bought enough numbers and the efficiency in the Ukraine shows that you have to buy other stuff. So there is a very clear way so that people need to understand we need to get into a very different, let's say, asset class of defense equipment.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and you still need to explain a little bit more. So funnily, as you see, Rein-Mittal has become sponsor of Bossia Dortmund. So this is also done this year in sync with the politicians to bring this topic in the midst of the population and make it visible to everybody. So I think there is this explanation that is currently happening.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the electorate doesn't give the benefit of the doubt. So the politicians fear they cannot win by doing that historical, which was probably they have some sympathy because if everybody thinks you never have a war, then all the inhabitants of a country probably say like, why do we invest in that if we will never have a war? But if they knew this is the ammunition level, this is the constant threat that we have, then you will have probably a very, very different viewer.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. You're perfectly right with this. And I think also in this case, I think Trump has a point because it's pretty naive to think that everybody else pays and we don't need to pay. And it's even worse. So look, if you think about the German budget, not only didn't we pay 2%, but whatever we paid are the 1.4, 60% of that is salaries and pensions. It's not that you buy equipment and become more able to defend yourself. It is conceptually wrong. Coming back to the question what worries me most is a very, very clear view what do we need and execute on it. So because”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what worries me most is that at some point we need a European unanimous view on what is important to us. And then we need to act on it and then we need to support this. But this doesn't happen.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Currently, we either get a slot in a space X with all the restrictions that there are, or we have Ariane. But Ariana-based lastly sold 100% of the defense transport capacity to Amazon. So basically as Europeans, we are for the time being not able to send own satellites at our own discretion whenever we want to.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The space will be a very, very big opportunity and a very crucial technology ecosystem to co-own, so to say. Think about it like the Starlink. So Starlink, if it can connect to a mobile device like Apple, theoretically the entire European telecom industry would be obsolete. So, and if suddenly the self-driving cars are more dependent on low orbit satellites, do you think that in the common competition between Tesla and”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This will have a very big influence. So that's why I, for example, also believe that the player like an Isaospace is a perfect situation for a sovereignty investing.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ammunition is a cruel one. So the numbers I have from the military is like four days in Germany and UK and five in France, which is 25% more, but it doesn't make a difference. There are other facts which are mind-boggling. So, for example, with the new hypersonics, if they have a warhead, the reaction time of any US president is 12 minutes before when the rockets weren't that fast, you had a way higher reaction time. So basically there's a new reality that forces us to think more technologically about it. Or the other example which I found very, very surprising to say the least is even if you buy US fighter jets, the way how it works is you are the owner. It stands somewhere in the hunger and you want to start flying. You have to put in the way where you want to fly. And then this data is sent to the US. And if they like it, the machines...”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Continent is depending on availability of internet if Elon Musk with Starlink has a good day and if he has a bad day, shuts it down and this is what defines the availability of a certain technology. So I think for a continent, this is too poor. There needs to be a consistent strategy how we basically level ourselves up in terms of our capacity there.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has been a long time of the peace dividend, so to say. Yeah, I mean, me included, I had never thought that we would get to this kind of a situation where we are at we see a war on Europe territory. And if it then comes to the fact that we seriously need to think about being able to self-defend ourselves, then you start to make up the mess. So what has been achieved? What did we do with in the ministries of defense? And some numbers are very misleading. So for example, everybody says, yeah, but Russia has the capacity or the economic power of something between Portugal and Spain. But in terms of purchase power parity, they're spending more on defense than entire NATO member states. There are, for me, these kind of things happen gradually, more with facts of observation. So for me, it was not or still very difficult to see that.”
2024-11-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source