The Exchanges

Q And you've also said before that after your, your bankruptcy, you only now do your own ideas, uh, and then you get really cool people in. So the question is what, what impresses you with people? What, what makes one person cool and one person not? What excites you in founders and employees and investors?

A I think it's, it's always curiosity and stamina. I mean, you have to be endlessly curious, you know, and, and be able to absorb endless amounts of, of input, because that's, that's the new thing with the internet. Remember, I grew up with, my Bible was the encyclopedia of my parents. And, uh, it was, I mean, I, I, I, I got through it pretty fast in my life, and then I, of course, started reading some books, but, but now you have all information at the tip of your fingers, so being able to digest that information is extremely important. And then, at the same time, being able to have the stamina, because things takes forever, you know. I mean, it all, there's this rule of thumb that, I mean, any project will take, you know, three times more time than you expected, and also three, four times more cost than you expected, yeah? And that, that, that, that points at stamina that you really need to want to do this, yeah?

AI assessment note: “I think it's, it's always curiosity and stamina.”

Q And you've also said before that after your, your bankruptcy, you only now do your own ideas, uh, and then you get really cool people in. So the question is what, what impresses you with people? What, what makes one person cool and one person not? What excites you in founders and employees and investors?

A I think it's, it's always curiosity and stamina. I mean, you have to be endlessly curious, you know, and, and be able to absorb endless amounts of, of input, because that's, that's the new thing with the internet. Remember, I grew up with, my Bible was the encyclopedia of my parents. And, uh, it was, I mean, I, I, I, I got through it pretty fast in my life, and then I, of course, started reading some books, but, but now you have all information at the tip of your fingers, so being able to digest that information is extremely important. And then, at the same time, being able to have the stamina, because things takes forever, you know. I mean, it all, there's this rule of thumb that, I mean, any project will take, you know, three times more time than you expected, and also three, four times more cost than you expected, yeah? And that, that, that, that points at stamina that you really need to want to do this, yeah?

AI assessment note: “I think it's, it's always curiosity and stamina.”

Q you mentioned about being immersed in European fintech, uh, and, and so let's talk about your focus at the moment, uh, where you spend the majority of your time at trade shift. So, can you tell us a little about, A bit about TradeShift, what you do, maybe the company Origins. It was founded in your basement, I believe. So, so could you give us a little lowdown on that?

A Well, so, so TradeShift was, you know, when I was in this mood of, of being, you know, empty on cash, and they picked up my, you know, the art in my house, and I just barely, you know, survived staying in my house, and the financial crisis was all over, you know. I, I did a bigger View of the world and looked at, so what am I going to do now? And it was fairly obvious that if you looked at the internet as a media business, it was fairly large, but something that was like 10, 15 times larger was financial technologies, because every bank, just to simplify it, every bank has a budget of a billion a year in technology spend, yeah? Mostly because they have an immense amount of stupid people running around doing nothing. But But that was so easy to go in and say, okay, we want a chunk of that, so where do we start? And then these brilliant guys, Christian and his partners, came to me and said that they built the digital invoicing infrastructure for the Danish government, and they thought it would be, you know, interesting to, to be consultants, and I was not super interested in being a consultant or building a consulting business, but we kept bouncing until we found, we agreed on an idea that we could build a cloud-based platform so that governments and large corporations could get this Electronic invoicing infrastructure so they could force all their suppliers to deliver their invo…

AI assessment note: “we agreed on an idea that we could build a cloud-based platform”

Q And in your talk with Mike Butcher, you, you mentioned that, with regards to the kind of community itself, Companies from Europe always really just need to move to the valley, because that's where the big acquisitions happen. Do you still think that is the case now with the blossoming European hub?

A Well, you, uh, endgame, you have to take a plane to San Fran at some point to sell your company, because nobody can swallow a company in Europe over, you know, a billion dollars. So if you have a unicorn, and God forbid it, then you have to, you know, go to the, to the U.S., But if you want to sell earlier, you want to build a massive business, you can easily do it here, but the exit route is, is mostly in the Silicon Valley, but now, I mean, remember, there's a big change, ah, in the last two or three years, where, Alibaba, Tencent, a lot of these companies are the largest companies in the world, so they're going to also be able to buy stuff, but they're probably going to put up their M&A teams in San Fran as well.

AI assessment note: “endgame, you have to take a plane to San Fran at some point to sell”

Q And in your talk with Mike Butcher, you, you mentioned that, with regards to the kind of community itself, Companies from Europe always really just need to move to the valley, because that's where the big acquisitions happen. Do you still think that is the case now with the blossoming European hub?

A Well, you, uh, endgame, you have to take a plane to San Fran at some point to sell your company, because nobody can swallow a company in Europe over, you know, a billion dollars. So if you have a unicorn, and God forbid it, then you have to, you know, go to the, to the U.S., But if you want to sell earlier, you want to build a massive business, you can easily do it here, but the exit route is, is mostly in the Silicon Valley, but now, I mean, remember, there's a big change, ah, in the last two or three years, where, Alibaba, Tencent, a lot of these companies are the largest companies in the world, so they're going to also be able to buy stuff, but they're probably going to put up their M&A teams in San Fran as well.

AI assessment note: “endgame, you have to take a plane to San Fran at some point to sell”

Q you mentioned about being immersed in European fintech, uh, and, and so let's talk about your focus at the moment, uh, where you spend the majority of your time at trade shift. So, can you tell us a little about, A bit about TradeShift, what you do, maybe the company Origins. It was founded in your basement, I believe. So, so could you give us a little lowdown on that?

A Well, so, so TradeShift was, you know, when I was in this mood of, of being, you know, empty on cash, and they picked up my, you know, the art in my house, and I just barely, you know, survived staying in my house, and the financial crisis was all over, you know. I, I did a bigger View of the world and looked at, so what am I going to do now? And it was fairly obvious that if you looked at the internet as a media business, it was fairly large, but something that was like 10, 15 times larger was financial technologies, because every bank, just to simplify it, every bank has a budget of a billion a year in technology spend, yeah? Mostly because they have an immense amount of stupid people running around doing nothing. But But that was so easy to go in and say, okay, we want a chunk of that, so where do we start? And then these brilliant guys, Christian and his partners, came to me and said that they built the digital invoicing infrastructure for the Danish government, and they thought it would be, you know, interesting to, to be consultants, and I was not super interested in being a consultant or building a consulting business, but we kept bouncing until we found, we agreed on an idea that we could build a cloud-based platform so that governments and large corporations could get this Electronic invoicing infrastructure so they could force all their suppliers to deliver their invo…

AI assessment note: “we agreed on an idea that we could build a cloud-based platform”

Q Of course that's, um, so it's what I, it's a major flashes, which everyone wants here. So we're going to put a minute cap on each answer. So we don't drag it on. So how did Skype come about one?

A So basically in our digital agency, we work with the tele to the, um, the, the, the challenger on the, on the fixed line phone, um, Businesses in, in most of Europe, and we, we've made a lot of their branding, and a lot of their strategy work, and a lot of their, also the portals. We built pretty advanced stuff already in 1909, 98, and there we met, um, Nicholas and Janus. They became, you know, bosses of that project while they worked at Taylor too, and I built a good relationship with them, and they, you know, ended up calling me whether I wanted to invest in Kazaa, And, um, I was not really convinced, convinced that it would be a, a, a healthy business because, um, It was actually a business plan one-to-one with iTunes, but they didn't have, or we didn't have the negotiation power to make a deal with the record labels. And then when Kazaa was in most, the most trouble, you know, everybody was looking to do something else. I mean, it was the biggest lawsuit in history. Digital lawsuit, at least, with all the record labels suing the crap out of Skype and the founders and, or of Kazaa and the founders and everybody. But I was just helping on a business development level and Some guys came up with the idea of making something called Skyper, which should be a Wi-Fi sharing network.

AI assessment note: “Some guys came up with the idea of making something called Skyper”

Q And then secondly, we, we did roll about on the one minute cap, I'm sorry for that, that's my fault, but how did you deal with the bankruptcy, and how did it change you as a person?

A I think I got a little bit, you know, it was like a wake-up call, because I, everything I had done until seven years ago had gone through the roof, you know, in a positive sense, the technology companies, the consulting companies, We did a crazy, um, uh, mobile phone backup service that we sold to Vodafone, you know, things were a little bit crazy and, and, and there was no blocking, you know, there was no end to what we thought, what I thought I could do. So, so getting restarted and have nothing was, was very today. I mean, I thank God that I, that I, that it happened because I was, I was losing it a little bit, you know?

AI assessment note: “it was like a wake-up call... I thank God that it happened”

Q Hmm. Absolutely. It brought you back down to earth, would you say?

A Well, I'm probably hard to get back to earth, but it did put me in a, I mean, I had to refocus. I had to, you know, understand a whole new business area, find out what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, until then, I just, I went into this kind of, um, boiling frog syndrome. I mean, it was nice and hot water, and it got hotter and hotter, and I could do more or less what I wanted, but I was not deep into anything. I was just in helping, uh, starting, or co-founding, or investing in, I think, 8070, 80 companies. And I had no background from that, and I didn't understand finance, because my family is not from finance, so I had no idea about finance.

AI assessment note: “Well, I'm probably hard to get back to earth, but it did put me”

Q Hmm. Absolutely. It brought you back down to earth, would you say?

A Well, I'm probably hard to get back to earth, but it did put me in a, I mean, I had to refocus. I had to, you know, understand a whole new business area, find out what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, until then, I just, I went into this kind of, um, boiling frog syndrome. I mean, it was nice and hot water, and it got hotter and hotter, and I could do more or less what I wanted, but I was not deep into anything. I was just in helping, uh, starting, or co-founding, or investing in, I think, 8070, 80 companies. And I had no background from that, and I didn't understand finance, because my family is not from finance, so I had no idea about finance.

AI assessment note: “Well, I'm probably hard to get back to earth, but it did put me”

Q Of course that's, um, so it's what I, it's a major flashes, which everyone wants here. So we're going to put a minute cap on each answer. So we don't drag it on. So how did Skype come about one?

A So basically in our digital agency, we work with the tele to the, um, the, the, the challenger on the, on the fixed line phone, um, Businesses in, in most of Europe, and we, we've made a lot of their branding, and a lot of their strategy work, and a lot of their, also the portals. We built pretty advanced stuff already in 1909, 98, and there we met, um, Nicholas and Janus. They became, you know, bosses of that project while they worked at Taylor too, and I built a good relationship with them, and they, you know, ended up calling me whether I wanted to invest in Kazaa, And, um, I was not really convinced, convinced that it would be a, a, a healthy business because, um, It was actually a business plan one-to-one with iTunes, but they didn't have, or we didn't have the negotiation power to make a deal with the record labels. And then when Kazaa was in most, the most trouble, you know, everybody was looking to do something else. I mean, it was the biggest lawsuit in history. Digital lawsuit, at least, with all the record labels suing the crap out of Skype and the founders and, or of Kazaa and the founders and everybody. But I was just helping on a business development level and Some guys came up with the idea of making something called Skyper, which should be a Wi-Fi sharing network.

AI assessment note: “Some guys came up with the idea of making something called Skyper”

Q And your, your 50 K brought back fifty million, was it? Was that what Mike Butcher said?

A Oh, yeah, I'm not sure exactly how much, um, I think actually it was a little bit more I put in their apartments, But I ended up getting a really sweet deal and everybody was, I was really happy. And I mean, the money was one thing. Another thing was suddenly to get, you know, invited to stuff that a normal guy from Denmark was never, never invited to, you know, what was the highlight? I think it was when it's, when it took off and it actually worked because everything else was a little muddy with selling and blah, blah, blah. And I think then the highlight is of course, anytime you, today you see a movie or anything where it Where Skype is referred to as a verb. I mean, should we do, should we Skype?

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure exactly how much, um, I think actually it was a little”

Q And then secondly, we, we did roll about on the one minute cap, I'm sorry for that, that's my fault, but how did you deal with the bankruptcy, and how did it change you as a person?

A I think I got a little bit, you know, it was like a wake-up call, because I, everything I had done until seven years ago had gone through the roof, you know, in a positive sense, the technology companies, the consulting companies, We did a crazy, um, uh, mobile phone backup service that we sold to Vodafone, you know, things were a little bit crazy and, and, and there was no blocking, you know, there was no end to what we thought, what I thought I could do. So, so getting restarted and have nothing was, was very today. I mean, I thank God that I, that I, that it happened because I was, I was losing it a little bit, you know?

AI assessment note: “it was like a wake-up call, because I, everything I had done”

Q And your, your 50 K brought back fifty million, was it? Was that what Mike Butcher said?

A Oh, yeah, I'm not sure exactly how much, um, I think actually it was a little bit more I put in their apartments, But I ended up getting a really sweet deal and everybody was, I was really happy. And I mean, the money was one thing. Another thing was suddenly to get, you know, invited to stuff that a normal guy from Denmark was never, never invited to, you know, what was the highlight? I think it was when it's, when it took off and it actually worked because everything else was a little muddy with selling and blah, blah, blah. And I think then the highlight is of course, anytime you, today you see a movie or anything where it Where Skype is referred to as a verb. I mean, should we do, should we Skype?

AI assessment note: “I'm not sure exactly how much... what was the highlight?”