Hommels: Trump is right that Europe naively expects others to fund defense
Klaus Hommels · Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Nov 27, 2024 · at 32:40
Klaus Hommels is the founder of Lakestar and chairman of the NATO Innovation Fund. He discusses Donald Trump's criticism of European nations relying on the US for security.
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“Trump has a point, because it's pretty naive to think that everybody else pays and we don't need to pay, yeah.”
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“The ammunition is, is a cruel one, yeah. So, 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.”
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“Even if you buy US fighter jets, Yeah. So the way how it works is you are the owner. It stands somewhere in the hangar, and you want to, you know, start flying. You have to put it in the way where, where you want to fly, and then this data is sent to the US, a…”
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“Yeah, currently we either we get a slot in a SpaceX, yeah, with all the with all the restrictions that there are, or we have Ariane, but Ariane base lastly sold a hundred percent of the defense transport capacity to Amazon. So basically, as Europeans, we are, …”
Klaus Hommels: Having one or two standout investments makes any portfolio successful
“I'm not so keen of building portfolios. If I find cool companies that make a difference, that is where the beef is. And if you have one or two of them, every portfolio looks great.”
Hommels: Venture portfolio construction exists only to satisfy institutional LPs
“It is a, it's a mean to an end. You have to build portfolios in order to get money from institutional investors. But on the way there, you make a lot of concessions.”
Hommels: Top European founders match US drive, broader base is entitled
“So I think on the very top of the pyramid, it's exactly the same. You will, 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,”