YouSaid · the spoken record

Toto Wolff

lines on the record: 65
first: 2024-10-25
most recent: 2024-10-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I don't know when I was younger and obviously in racing it was always a relative competition. You want to beat the other guy. And I realized over the years that it was actually more a competition with myself. Setting expectations and trying everything in order to achieve that. And today raising, whilst it's still relative and we want to beat our competitor, it is more for us, it's not only me and the team, we want to surpass our expectations. And if we lose, it's not particularly losing against another team. It's losing against ourselves. And the activities, like you mentioned, is a fight against myself. How far can I push myself? And I love free diving. It has a meditative component for me that I like. I like the water and achieving certain depth is expectations that I set myself. And I don't need to have anybody competing with me.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I couldn't wish for better shareholding group because Winios, we got a tremendous powerhouse behind us, a very financially profitable organization of these chemicals business, and that goes through cycles. But Jim Radcliffe, the founder, is involved in Manchester United and in America's Carp in Skiing, in cycling. So that was a good deal. Financially made sense. It was during COVID. And then Mercedes obviously providing us with this mighty car brand, the seven most valuable brand in the world. And I'm running it. And between us, it's very well understood who contributes. And I deem myself very lucky that I have a shareholder with Mercedes that's basically giving us the keys. The responsibility for this brand. And it's been great, the current CEO, Calenius, Marcus Schaefer, CTO, and the whole bot gang is fantastically supportive.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly when they offered me to run it. I said, that is super honorable, but I'm a shareholder at Williams. And the deal we found is that I bought 40% from the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund. And then Nikki Lauder came in and he bought 10%. So it was 60 Mercedes, 30% myself, and 10 Nikki Lauder. And when Nikki passed away, we found another investor. And today it's three shareholders, each with 33.3%. So I increased my stake, as you say.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It all starts with the human being because in tech, human beings have ideas, they manage processes, and it's the same in Formula One. When you talk about a company or a team, what is that? And it's basically a bunch of people that are on this professional journey together. around people that run racing cars and I did the same when I was a venture capital investor. I tried to hire and develop the best people to run a specific organization.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we were both rookies in Mercedes, basically. And that started to be a successful year. And by the end, we were a frontrunner. And we finished second in the championship. And from then on, we introduced new engine regulations in 14, which was really core expertise of Mercedes, obviously. And then we had this run of eight consecutive world championships.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So my first day was in January 2013, and it was a difficult situation because I got the job of head of Mercedes Motorsport and at the same time shareholder of the team and executive director. But those two posts were with people that were icons in the industry, a German who was running Mercedes Motorsport and then Ross Brown, a highly decorated technical director who was running the team and so had to manage that situation eventually took over. And when I joined, we started to win races in that first year. We won three races with Lewis joined that year as well, same time as me.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the board realized at that stage that it bought a world championship winning team with Braun and that the results were getting worse and worse and they felt they had no grip on what was actually happening. And that's why they asked me, they knew that I was not biased because I had another team, but I was with them in touring cars. And this is how it all came about.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was multifaceted because we had this company where we were basically doing all the work from Mercedes racing outside of Formula One. I had a driver management company where 50% would be paid by Mercedes, 50% by myself. And so we established a trusting relationship. And then I obviously embarked into being with Williams, which was a competitor of Mercedes. We won a race and they were interested to understand how can that be. Underfunded back market team and you're beating us on track. They asked me, could you evaluate that? And I said, I don't want to badmouth anybody, but I can. So I did that. They came back and said, we'd like to offer. You to run this as a head of Mercedes Motor School”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's quite interesting because when EMG Was bought by Mercedes. The racing side was spun out because the big Daimler corporation didn't want to have the headaches with motor racing. With the unions, this is weekend work, and you want to stay agile as a corporate to say, well, we are in the sport or we are out without having too much overhead and headache. So that was spun out and it was a really good high-tech company. They built engines for Formula 3, as I said before, touring cars for the very famous DTM racing series. This is the equivalent of NASCAR in Germany or in Europe. Limited editions broadcast for AMG and high margin business. And I bought 49% of that business with the founder of AMG. And we IPO'd it and sold it to investors and then to a Qatari investment fund. And that was a success story.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't have the infrastructure nor the capability. The drivers were not on the level of Louise Hamilton and others. It was the energy in the team. People gave it all they had, heart and soul. And I think we moved barriers, we fought against adversity and we want to race just because the people gave it their all.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the 10 years in between was going from pretty much tech investor into motor racing. I bought a touring car team. We were doing formula three engines for Mercedes was quite an extensive program about a Raleigh team as well. So in these 10 years, I kind of merged my passion for the sport with the investment world. And as you say, Williams was the first former one team I got myself into, had a minority stake. And then I run it in 2012 with Frank Williams because the CEO decided to depart. And this is where basically my formal one active formula 1 story started.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Met these people, sometimes not even companies. One was a 17-year-old boy that run the largest free SMS platform online and set up structures around it. It was equity for consulting, so I didn't buy anything because I didn't have the money. And it was just a good timing in 1999 and 2000. We started to IPO companies and it became a proper venture capital company from consulting action.”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the first company was called March 15, and then March 16, and there is not a lot of meaning behind it. It was just the data incorporated it, and that felt the easiest. So back in the day, you wouldn't think a lot about brand. And I went to the US for a couple of months and realized that internet companies were coming up here, Yahoo, America Online, and Netscape. And went back to Austria and figured out who is doing that in Austria and stumbled upon a few websites”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so the 24 hour race was in Dubai and was insofar relatively important because it was the first big race of 24 hours in the Middle East. So you had three drivers of four and you're having two hour stints and it's challenging from mentally and from the human body because sometimes you have to get up at two o'clock and drive from two to four in the night. But it was all part of my racing, and I loved every minute”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, I was born and raised in Vienna and went to Vienna University of Economics, but actually raised in junior formulas at the time and wanted to be a race driver. And when that ended abruptly ran out of money and we had a very bad spell of accidents in Formula One, so I lost a sponsor. I decided I'm going to quit both. I'm going to quit only Uni and I'm going to quit racing and launch myself into working”
2024-10-25 · Masters in Business · Fueling Success for Mercedes F1 with Toto Wolff · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source