Kevin Riedl: Success & Failure, Quantum Teleportation and Everything In-Between | Blank Page {1}

Chapter 01

0:00 What’s the craziest thing I could do? You hacked SEO without realizing it, right? I just tried to build something cool because you dropped such a bomb there. I didn’t do this on on purpose. The bills need to be paid. How do I start a business? But in the end, you don’t really have a choice. Like they’re bots now. They’re your girlfriend. You can literally talk. I have the craziest stories you have ever heard. Didn’t fit

0:23 in into the podcast. What do I need to now learn? I think nobody can predict the next year anymore. Welcome Kevin RLE is your surname. So I’m going to pronounce it the English way. So thank you very much for joining today. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Um and thank you very much for making the time today to come and talk to us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Uh really really looking forward to it. Yeah. So a good place to start is

0:51 obviously we met in a grants program but we kind of met before that already. seems that we’re in the same region in Europe. So, and you obviously done a lot of interesting things to get to where you are today. You obviously own your own business and it’s really interesting to talk about your personal journey to founding your own business and obviously the what I’d like to show the audience is all the really cool things that you

1:15 do around education as well. Like a couple years ago, I I started participating in coding for kids, which is a a nonprofit in in Austria about educating kids about software development. And since we were uh providing soft development services to blockchain companies, I approached them and asked, "Hey, uh what do you guys think about uh offering blockchain workshops to kids?" Right? like these kids were aged uh 10 to to 15 and so we tried it out and it

1:50 worked really well, right? The the feedback was incredible and as a consequence we are now doing uh this in collaboration with them every year. this year as well again and with each year of course since AI is advancing as well we are utilizing these tools and kids are able to code smart contracts the apps and all kind of stuff without actually going deep into the rabbit hole and spending months or years actually learning that craft right so that’s

2:23 pretty cool and aside from that we also as a company started doing that ourselves elves as well with online workshops for kids. um with uh trade fairs where we also are each year at a larger trade fair in Austria or visiting uh universities or schools uh in countries far away like Thailand uh for example whatever right so that’s basically the kids education part and yeah I mean it’s all for free we uh of course uh get a lot of value from it as

3:05 well just by the branding and marketing but in the end uh there’s no monetary upside directly for us. That’s awesome. So I really love the fact that you’ve realized that the youth do need to understand these technologies. So kudos to you. So that’s one of the things that I’m really passionate about that brought us together was that you’re doing a lot of these things and educating the youth um because it is going to be a leveler.

3:32 But I think the thing that I’m really interested in is where did your journey start? So where did you start? Because I know you started quite young in your journey which maybe fuels the passion as to why you educate at the moment. Like it’s actually quite funny, right? Because uh I didn’t do this on on purpose or consciously. But after educating kids, teaching at university and so on, the funny thing is I remembered that I told

4:01 my parents in kindergarten that I would like to become a teacher like at I think four, five years old. And I completely forgot about it. And at some point I got into software development, building websites, IT security, uh, hacking stuff with 13 other age 13, 14, 12. And now kind of it got back together like it’s it’s a full circle now. And that’s kind of really funny because just choice, right? It just happened. Um, and yeah, my own journey.

4:40 I mean someone in uh middle school has shown me uh a website builder of how you can build your own website and I was before that already somewhat fascinated with computers like uh tearing them apart, destroying them like as kids

Chapter 02

5:01 do. And yeah, that basically started my yeah my fun journey. I basically just built out a website where I thought I need to put everything in it or on it. Right? Back then it was like it really had everything from an app store from uh everything you can imagine. Right? I really was like thinking, okay, what else can I put on that website? And funnilingly enough, it even had like a thousand or yeah, a thousand visitors,

5:35 unique visitors per day, which was quite a lot back then, especially since I was a kid, right? So that was my starting journey, I would say. So it so the question the question that begs me now because I’m so curious is is the web still live? No, no, no. like um it was live for 3 four years and during that time I’ve built out like 30 additional websites um like I really built out an ecosystem back then had a lot of partnerships with other websites

6:08 I even had ad revenue not a lot but for my age it was nice pocket money um but uh it it kind of you know like the website was called wel spiel and weld our spiel basically uh translated Did that mean space games? Uh I I had no space games on the website. It was just I I loved the universe and I was fascinated about that as a kid. Uh so that’s how it started and kids were bullying uh me simply for the name without checking out the website and you

6:43 know if you’re a nerd you are being bullied at certain ages especially back then and at some point the pressure was just too much and I decided to delete it um especially as I got more mature as well and learned other stuff too. So kind of that’s a that’s a journey that fun. Okay. So the beauty and the lesson to take out of that is that the lot the knowledge never left. Although the website may have closed down, you still

7:11 you learned this tremendous knowledge that you can still use today. And possibly the thing that I find the most genius about it is you hacked SEO without realizing it by the naming because you got so many visitors looking for something. So maybe it was a really popular term. Um I I as I obviously didn’t have the expertise to to look into analytics that much, right? I definitely had Google Analytics back then. Um but I think it

7:43 was more kind of I really just had a lot of partnerships, right? Like you used to have these banners on websites I remember on the side. Yeah, exactly. And I just was like on on a spree to onboard all websites I could find. Hey, I promote you, you promote me. And that was just kind of how I got a lot of visitors, right? And back links. And of course, that’s SEO, but didn’t know what it was. So, it was just No, sounds so your entrepreneurial

8:14 spirit was very early on in the game. You you figured it out. You found something you loved. You explored it. You built it out. you felt the the pain side of it as well as the joy that came from actually seeing something through. I don’t think it was entrepreneurial spirit because that’s the biggest curse I would say that I had uh when doing all these things also with my first startups I never tried to make money. Mhm. Right.

8:44 I just tried to build something cool. I came from the perspective of a developer, from someone who from an engineer, from someone who wants to build something cool. And of course, when you really are innovative and build great things, that’s that’s a viable path. Um, but in the end, you have to focus on building an actual company. And I for for a long long long time, I just built stuff. I thought, okay, that’s cool or that helps people, which is

9:14 already a great starting point. But um so it it was less about entrepreneurial spirit but more passion to to build something crazy fancy have a lot of uh projects in that regard that just don’t make sense but are crazy uh to tell right so that’s kind of oh so yours is more about the challenge and the curiosity of what can this be or identifying a problem and then saying how would I solve that problem by using the tools sets I have or what do I need

9:47 to learn to because I have a gap so how do I fill this gap and that’s that was your driving okay that’s still kind of entrepreneurial in wanting to invent things I mean I mean we can get to that

Chapter 03

10:00 obviously later you obviously had to build out the um the bills need to be paid how do I start a business what is the landscape sorry I was a kid living at home no I mean as in later like we grew out into what do I need to now learn because I wouldn’t build a business around this this talent I have. Right. So your passion was lying in developing and solving problems and solving potentially unique problems that you could see in the world. So what’s what

10:30 are the interesting side projects or hobbies that you’ve developed out of that and what what are the interests you have around that? that that’s where where solving a problem might not be the the most suitable thing because like one of the one of the things I I built for example was uh like that that was the thought process of a lot of projects right that I did okay what’s the craziest thing I could do like where people see this and

11:00 think okay wow that’s that’s just crazy and one of those things was okay how do computers work there’s zeros and ones right under the hood zeros and ones like binary is highly platform dependent which means every computer every processor has a different format how it reads those uh bits right so I thought okay how about I create my own programming language okay that is written in zeros and ones but is platform independent which means you can

11:33 write your zeros and ones in your esoteric language doesn’t make sense But you it’s a programming language. It works and you can run it on any machine. That was the idea and I have built it. Um it’s a compiler runtime. Super fun project but it doesn’t make sense, right? So it was just a challenge and uh because that wasn’t enough. I even uh added a blockchain library and a quantum computing library into that programming language. So you could

12:03 develop on the onto on a quantum computer with my invented programming language. So that kind of was uh one of the things I thought okay that’s different. It’s stupid but it’s different right? um or a lot of things like you perfectly uh summarized it like whenever there was a gap of how do I get there I was fascinated right and a great industry or subset of information technology that has this at the root is IT security

12:45 because okay how do I hack this how do I get into this right there’s a gap a knowledge gap. Uh it’s back then it was also super difficult to get to that information without going into the dark web, right? Like I had nobody who even like in the beginning I didn’t even know what a programming language was, right? Like everything I learned was without any guidance, without anyone in the technical field, which is bad, right? I

13:15 wouldn’t recommend that. But I remember when I did my first website and I clicked on the wrong button, I suddenly saw HTML and CSS and I just thought like what the hell is that? Deleted it and wondered why my website was gone, right? So that that was my first touch point with something like code and the same for it security also here. Okay, I want to do that. How do I do that? Right? And everything I did at that time was with

13:50 Windows Batch, which is not even a real programming language, but just a way of executing programs on your computer and everything in a simple white text editor, right? There was no no support from something like a development environment that tells you, hey, you made a mistake here or you are missing a white space. I I just was confronted with a script that opens for a fraction of a second and disappears. Yeah. And I

14:23 had to figure out like what’s wrong. Yeah. Right. So for problem solving that was was great and that’s really I would say one of the things that serves me really well today that I can code like that I really understand how things work because I developed really complex stuff without any development support like without any IDE support without any syntax highlighting anything um or even error messages right I didn’t even know what the hell was wrong often

14:57 times. Uh so yeah, that kind of gives you

Chapter 04

15:02 hopefully some kind of idea. The intriguing thing the question that comes to my mind when you say those type of things, what is your how do you feel about the AI coders now that do a lot of that for you? So what is the Sorry, that’s great. But I mean moving forwards, if everyone can be a coder, does that mean that actual real coders and developers are going to disappear or I know I’m going really far ahead. I’m just trying to figure out cuz

15:34 you’re saying you know every piece of the pie. So you know everything under the hood but somebody doesn’t know that. And the AI is good but it’s not perfect. I mean how like what would developers say that were born 20 years before me like that have been coding in assembly for example like close to the processor um or C developers C++ developers who had to work with memory management like how to tidy up your your uh memory all

16:07 that kind of stuff just because uh it gets easier to develop doesn’t mean uh your knowledge about something becomes irrelevant because still understanding how memory works Mhm. can be helpful in uh resolving memory leaks which also can happen in in newer programming languages as well. Um I mean the knowledge for a lot of things might become less relevant and less important. Absolutely. Why the hell would I need to uh understand

16:40 assembly today? like there’s not really a benefit to that but it’s great if you have done it once right so just to to know okay like what what what’s the piece here like we are just talking about the the last 10% of becoming a 10x engineer for example right but those first 90% I definitely agree uh it just becomes much more accessible which is great for the economy but bad for developers, of course, because your knowledge just got

17:16 commoditized, just got less valuable and competition as a consequence got much more intense because it’s more competent competition and cheaper competition that you can’t compete with. Um, so I wouldn’t say developers disappear as most people uh say as well, but it’s more kind of instead of 10 developers, you may need one uh that knows how to use these new tools. So the job description of a developer might change again like

17:52 instead of knowing how to uh manage your own memory like as older developers had to do um and understanding processors and that kind of stuff. You may need to understand different things, different tools, different environments, different AI tools instead. And of course, if there are issues with the output, you have to understand how. So you have to have the skill to resolve the issue. You’re still a problem solver. You’re just solving different

18:24 problems on a more abstract and higher level. Yeah. Right. And it might also go more into the direction of a product engineer which I really like which means you’re not just getting tasks to implement that’s what the AI will do if you give uh specific instructions but instead um you have to think or at least validate the output or brainstorm with an AI or with your team how do we build this in a way that it serves us right

19:01 like with our budget and so on and so forth like more product management uh goes towards developers I would say um okay but that’s just a guess right and what we personally to to wrap this up also bet big on is QA which means correct yeah a lot of vibe coders and a lot of people including myself using AI. Um, how can you be sure that even if it used to be correct that your code still fulfills all

19:41 requirements, right? Just because you told your you uh AI originally that if you click on this button this should happen that it remains this case because AI is uh changing your code uh web really fast. Right. Correct. Yeah. And I I know

Chapter 05

20:00 myself like when I get these code changes from AI I often times just click okay okay accept accept right. So QA testing um doesn’t mean like these tests are written by by humans, but that you have to have an eye on making sure the requirements are tested and that the tests are accurate and that most likely will for for super long time or maybe even ever. always I require at least one human to do a final checkup in some way

20:40 and so that’s uh that’s a guess how the world might evolve. Yeah, it’s interesting. So as it as we digitize more and more of it, it becomes more access arrives which means more businesses can be built. But that also means that the the developers who are really good will now won’t you won’t need as many. So if if it’s aic AI actually comes out to be what it what everyone assumes it’s going to be. It could be you with 10 agents doing the

21:15 same as a whole team would do. you’re just running your own team now. So you need somebody who’s really good at the top, understands the entirety of the process and can delegate and understand how to build out something. And then the second part of that is you really need an external partner or you need somebody external from that development process to actually do the QA to make sure yes, does this conform? Is this correct? Have

21:39 you got all the have you ticked all the boxes as far as security is concerned? Does it actually work the way it should work to spec? So there are actually two fields developing here, two new fields developing that are vitally important. I mean QA is not new but I it will be much more important pretty sure. Well, I meant as as a as a interesting enough which we’ll go into now is as a service is going to become really important

22:06 because if I don’t know actually how to code as well as you, but I have a product and I can maybe work with a developer and they build out some my idea. I can start with the basic here’s my MVP from AI pass it over to developer. They do everything else and then I need a partner who can externally do that QA to make sure has everything been done. So this QA part’s actually potentially going to be a very important service in the future as we move down

22:36 the line. Funnily enough, somebody already offers that. Yeah, a lot of people offer that. But it’s way less competition, too, which is great, right? So, but you’ve identified that with your business. You’ve identified this trajectory and you’re actually filling that void and giving people an opportunity to have the expertise and to double check, triple check what’s already been built, which is can save you a lot of money at the end of the

23:04 day, I’m assuming, if it’s done right. Correct. Absolutely. Not just through AI, right? Just making sure stuff works. Correct. Crazy concept. Great. Uh yes, these days potentially. Um so hobbies are interesting. We’ve moved through the hobbies. What interests you? We’ve identified. But you also as you’ve grown up, you’ve now also moved into creating an actual business together with a partner. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. So

23:38 yeah. So you guys have created a business together. And what was that experience like going from learning all these things, solving problems, solving problems that didn’t need to be solved but were interesting for you and then out to building the company you have today? I think the most authentic and honest thing I could say here is really exhausting and and madness. Those two words describe it the best. And I know everyone is saying that, but until you

24:05 have been through that journey, you can’t possibly comprehend how crazy like what what crazy stuff is coming along your way, right? From lawsuits to, oh well, our biggest customer is is now gone and whatever, everything, right? So, I I think that that describes it pretty well. also like founding with a co-founder or with several founders like even had uh my first startup even was with eight co-founders. Okay, how stupid

24:40 can you be? Um but it comes with a lot of conflict as well and uh challenges and also in terms of leadership not just through employees but with your co-founder because everyone is different right I love a harsh direct language I

Chapter 06

25:02 have thick skin um but I have had co-founders and for example also Chris uh doesn’t like the same language I like, right? So, for example, it’s everyone is different. And that’s definitely something I learned as well. The difference allows for different outcomes. So, if everyone was the same, you probably wouldn’t see all perspectives. So, although your communication styles are different, it also helps you as a founder to real like

25:35 the co-founder to realize that potentially your customers or suppliers communicate in a different way. And that helps you to grow that to realize that. And the same for Chris probably helps him to realize sometimes he just needs to be really direct with people in order to progress a conversation. So you guys get to learn from each other which is good. So eight co-founders that must have been a very interesting table to

26:00 sit at probably very loud as well. Uh well it was my first startup that I founded myself and it was uh during my exchange semester so it wasn’t a table it was uh it was zoom calls or like not not even zoom back then but everyone was in completely distant complete remote areas Canada Australia Europe US time zones were crazy but uh Yeah. I mean, yeah. Sorry. No, I’m saying I’m just thinking now because when you said time zones, I’m thinking yes, now I can

26:41 see it. That would be the hardest part is the time zone. Yeah, it was madness. Absolutely. Uh but that that was definitely one of those early leadership experiences where I learned a ton. Um yeah. Wow. Really interesting. Yeah. So tell me a bit about the company you have today that you co-ounded with Chris. I mean it started out as a web free uh software agency, product studio, whatever you want to call it, right? That’s why we also teached kids and

27:14 lectured at universities. Um and we are still doing that right we are working with web three companies uh in the infrastructure space in around application layer like smart contracts the apps and so on wallets um but I would say the last 6 months or so we said hey um whenever someone approaches us and they asked us to to build something the conversation always goes went like something hey Okay. Yeah, cool. Let’s do that. But they always

27:49 came with that fixed mindset. Okay. It needs to be built with for example blockchain. And when we as uh technical people thought okay well uh yes you can technically build that with blockchain but in your specific case it really doesn’t make sense for the thing that you want to build. Yeah. So what happened a lot of times was like we were talking people out of the sale. Yeah. which is really bad for us and in the end we were just helping them. So

28:21 getting not paid by helping people is is a bad process as you can imagine. Yes. And we said okay like how can we help people without uh wasting our time. So it was kind of uh the starting point of hey okay let’s start with uh let’s not sell technology but let’s sell an outcome. Let’s sell an experience. Clever. And the two things we came up with was a fractional co-founder. Yeah, I love that. Yes. Um, which of course can be a fractional

28:58 CTO, CPO, or really just a co-founder. Um, and Q&A, right? Because that’s also something like Chris is super passionate about. So, we are now doing those two things. we both are super passionate about and where we think uh AI is at least for the next next time just a supporting uh tool instead of a replacement. But so that’s kind of how we thought about it. So I found it really interesting the way your face changed me

29:37 like for the next because AI is moving at such a pace. You have no idea what even in six months time we’re going to be looking at. Um I love the fact the co-founder thing I find super interesting. Um because I think that’s you’ve identified something that’s lacking in the market and you’re offering and as you said the clever part

Chapter 07

30:01 is you’re offering the solution let alone the wealth of experience and things that you can do underneath that. you have all these products underneath but encapsulating them and saying we can come in and be a co like do you need a fractionalized co-founder to help you get over that hurdle because you don’t understand maybe you need a CTO as you said maybe you just need somebody who’s technical you have the idea but you need

30:22 a technical person or perhaps you have no idea how to manage you have an idea you have a business but you don’t know how to move forward or you’ve lost somebody in your team is another thing how how would somebody approach you with that so what what does it entails. So, say I have an idea. I say, "Okay, so Kevin, I need a a co-founder. How does that work? What does it look like?" Well, uh, we have it like the funny thing is we have it big

30:50 on our website stating we don’t know, right? Basically signifying, hey, a co-founder does everything. Mhm. We make we do the stuff that’s required to move the needle. Yep. Right? Which means for some clients uh that we have, it’s more kind of uh maybe even the consulting route. Hey, don’t do that. Focus on that. Don’t waste money on this. Blah blah blah. Right? For some uh clients, it’s a lot more hands-on where we do

31:23 stuff. Um or just giving feedback on things. Um like we do everything a co-founder would do. uh we are trying to be as available as possible answer reply as quickly as possible and also the engagement is super let’s say predictable as well like the one package that we have that people get the most value from is a subscription basically because it’s an ongoing service and it’s at 300 per week which means uh you get to cancel any

31:59 time if you’re not happy you get the last week refunded So the risk is fairly minimal, right? And that’s kind of where we feel and see from clients that they get the most value from cuz you you can protect them from a lot of um expensive mistakes and yet uh you know a lot of founders think they need a full-time over full-time committed founder. Uh but that’s not the case, right? Most people are in that cloud where they just need to focus

32:35 on the most important stuff and we can help with that. Is there any commitment after? So you’re just basically a consultancy service or is there also a have you got an investment arm of your business? So sweat equity. Um I’m I’m asking because I’m interested that’s all. Yeah. I mean there’s no sweat equity, right? We also in the past we always have been open uh to to reduce our rates for for some equity but what we uh never did uh because it just goes

33:09 into a wrong direction is working 100% for equity and no service provider that has experience does that for simple reason most equity is worthless. Mhm. Right. And so basically what we sometimes do is yes we reduce our rates say okay let’s uh do 50/50% is risk on our end 50% is paid right um but often times like when you actually think you’re building something worthwhile you want to keep your equity right so if you’re actually

33:46 convinced of what we’re what you’re doing then you don’t want to give away a single% And since that you can cancel any time and you get the last week refunded, we are already very accountable to the value that you receive, right? Which means if you’re not happy while the engagement is over immediately. No, it’s a super interesting model and I I agree with you about if you if you really think you’re building something worthwhile, you’re probably less likely

34:17 to give over equity. So I was just trying I was just exploring the realms of that. So it’s it also would help people with funding because if they have some good like if there’s some good names and people who have a very long like a good CV let’s call it a CV they got a very good that also helps them with fun getting funding as well. that will help them to secure that. And it’s almost like there’s a bit of mentorship in that

34:44 as well where they over time you’re actually helping them to be self-sufficient. So the point is not to be the vampire that keeps leeching. The point is to get them really to that point coming back into I was once wanted to be a teacher

Chapter 08

35:01 for you. I meant I’m the same. I also I also wanted to be a teacher but Oh great that you started a podcast. Well, I I teach in a middle a middle school as well. So, um Okay. So, that’s really interesting. And then the Q&A we kind of covered already, which is is that also a monthly subscription Q&A or is that a per per sort of do you have to scope it out and then like there’s a price for hourly rate or we we do both like a

35:32 fixed price. Hey, tell me what you want to have. Yeah. Uh but we also do have a subscription for ongoing Q&A. Cool. And is this is the Q&A part of the 300 subscription or is it a separate product? I mean uh it’s a separate uh subscription at 750. So it’s targeted at uh larger companies. Yeah. Uh but in the end in a fractional co-founder role we also do that if you ask us to but usually it’s not a wellinvested uh time because the fractional

36:03 co-founder actually on an hourly basis uh on how much time you actually spend on that is more expensive for you right would be an add-on like when you get to that point it would be the add-on so okay that’s really interesting so I’m I am very excited about your business and I’ve always been excited about the business and I’ve always been really I’ve always been positive about what you’ve doing. So not from the from I mean the educational thing was the

36:33 first thing we looped on. I was like wow this is really interesting that it’s not just about let’s go out and let’s try and get as much money. I mean there is a a strategic angle to the blockchain which I love because you think so far out. So for me, I also think really far out. I love that part of it. And your business I really love in the fact that I think you are filling you’re filling a gap and this is where I want to lead it

36:57 to is to lead the conversation to Austria and then obviously EU as a wider sort of discussion because I think everyone is so US- ccentric Asia as well but Asia is kind of a little bit away but when we look at the majority of it we’re looking at like the US is driving the innovation. Is that the same feeling you have that everything is driving out in the US or is it just easier for the capital markets and for legislation out

37:23 there that you see all this innovation? Yeah, 100%. And I think everyone is aware of that except of some exceptions of course right because uh Europeans also have their their niches that I’m not fully aware of but in in physics and so on where they are leading uh partially as well I think. Yeah. No, I just it’s I haven’t seen what you’re trying to produce in Europe and I think it’s I think you’re front running the pack in

37:57 the fact that there’s there may be companies in the US doing it but I don’t see people in the Euro zone doing it and I think that’s what we need. We really need to start driving that the biggest problem I have with the Euro zone especially living here for so long is where is our Google? So why have we not got that yet? I mean the closest thing we have is Mistl in the in France. Now that’s probably the biggest thing we’ve got in

38:24 Austria. We had what what was it called? Um was 400 million was that the valuation sold off to Nike. Runastic that’s the biggest one I know of in Austria was Runastic. That’s like the biggest company created but they eventually moved to the US anyway. Europe now knows like actually on all levels like even the politicians see some urgency now to do something. I think that recent uh defense package of course that has a uh

38:55 different uh reasons but I think the uh Europeans wake like even politicians wake up now a little bit uh but I don’t see a way of how we can compete with Asia or or the the US simply because we have too many regulations right just thinking about I I was evaluating if I could add a heat map tool to our website to see, okay, where do people click and whatever. And once I dug into it a little bit, I thought, okay, wow, to

39:32 make that GDPR compliant, it. Right. And and it’s just a lot of times this way. And then you have a super high tax rate as well. Um it it’s like it quashes you on all fronts, right? So there’s no it not a lot of incentive to go high risk then there’s less capital but although the capital would be available but it’s not being deployed at the same rate as in the

Chapter 09

40:01 US and uh like we have a lot of smart people here but why would you make your life very difficult when you could just go somewhere else? Yeah, that’s the thing, right? Like just because it would be in theory possible here, why would I do that? Why would I pay 50% tax? Why would I go through the GDPR as a tin teenytiny startup? Why would I do all these things when I just could just go somewhere else and make my life a lot easier? Yeah. and

40:35 then maybe later on support that market which is a tiny market in comparison right like for a lot of companies uh that’s why USDT the stable coin doesn’t really care if it’s available in in the European Union or not that’s the thing like eur Europeans think they are super important on a global scale they’re not necessarily in all all areas anymore they are in a lot of areas but not in all. And I mean I I think I saw that but

41:12 please don’t don’t nail me on that. So take it with a grain a grain of salt. But I think that G G8 G6 whatever it is called I used to be the biggest uh economic let’s say uh conglomerate. Yeah. in the world but now it’s I think just 22% of the gross uh domestic product in the world and the bricks have plus 50% I think even like how do we dare to think we are so important yeah well I think the uh the last one I saw for the bricks and again

41:53 I might be wrong was that they are over 30% so they’re larger yeah so they they they account for a third I think of the output But when but that was before the other countries joined. So um it bricks has been a silent a very to move off into a different realm and it plays into Europe has been some a silent one that nobody’s really spoken about and you can see the US positioning for that and the reason why it’s important is because um

42:25 where money’s flowing in on a global scale and where that money flows is obviously where innovation is going to eventually land up because there’s going to be like more capital flowing in those regions. So the defense budget which you brought up which is like 800 billion is is one said like really exciting because you can see innovation will come out of that in defense purposes. Uh the other side is a little is quite scary as

42:54 well because where is that going to come from from the when your economies aren’t that great? Where is this 800 billion going to come from? So that’s another part other side of the the scale I look at. Yeah. So what is the what do you feel the startup scenes like? Because you’ve obviously you talk you visit places in Austria and around Europe. What is the startup scene like? Are there a lot of startups or a lot of people leaving to go elsewhere? I mean,

43:25 so of course we we do have a startup scene and it it’s good, I would say, right? Like if you go to Vienna and and Munich and so on, there’s definitely good tech cups and so on, but it’s it’s just not a comparison, right? It’s uh the first thing you always have to think about is regulation. Some people might disagree with me here, but that’s just the case. Like, whenever you build a software product, GDPR is one of the first things you have to

44:00 think about. Collecting a a dumb email is an issue or cold calling or emailing someone can result in fines in Austria and even in Germany. Like, what the hell? like how hostile can you make uh economy environment like that that’s just because uh companies from the UK can still call you but it doesn’t save you from cold calls just Austrian businesses for example are correct yeah so it it’s kind of just stupid on all ends my

44:38 personal experience was going into startup weekends and then realizing with the people who were offering the money so you obviously For those who haven’t been to a startup weekend, you go in, you formulate, you sit with a team, you decide like they pitch, people pitch ideas, you join a team and then you work for the entire weekend and there’s a presentation and maybe you can win some money and the company actually starts um and you have

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45:02 each night you have investors. So you have people who are willing to give you you know capital essentially and every conversation of those capital when they’re talking about your idea especially on the second night a lot of people are asking well how what’s your compliance and they’re asking you all these questions about compliance before you even get to investment they want to have compliance which is builds back into what you said

45:28 the investors are worried about compliance because they don’t want to put money into something that’s going to land up being a problem or sunken cost and then you’re in a legal battle or something occurs out of that. So that’s one of the reasons for it. When you come to AI, I don’t know if we’re we may be behind in developing AI. It could change of course because I think there are other approaches to AI. So I think aenic AI is the problem we’re

45:57 going to have is that it’s going to be stifled again by the same regulation. You won’t be able to do those things because the aenic AI will have to conform to the exact same regulations which means a we’re going to miss out on products and services because they’re not going to come here because of regulation which then makes it harder for us to build as in Europe. And it also means that students and people learning are going to have even

46:21 less access to these now. So we’re going to fall behind because it doesn’t conform to our regulation. I mean, even as as it is at the moment, every time you want to send something in the EU crypto-wise, you have to write who the person is and what country they’re in. Like, it’s that detail now that you have to give. Even just if I sent you crypto, I have to say that I sent it to you and where you reside in the world, which

46:48 is defeats the purpose sometimes of that fair trade and being able to build it out. So, I think Yeah. So future trends if we move away from a world level future trends we can see agenic AI as being the hot buzzword at the moment and then we can see going out founders are going to need expertise like yourself and Chris to help them on their journey because AI is basically giving you this really easy way of building the things you imagine and

47:21 solving world like problems in the world and then there’s also the speaking to your business is obviously the QA side of it as well. So testing it, making sure everything works like you’re going to need that expertise. Are there any other trends that you can see on your radar? I mean there are a lot of uh things that I’m personally super excited about, right? Uh some things may take uh many more years. Some things might be around the

47:48 corner. In the end, nobody knows. Correct. But of course, robotics, humanoid uh robots especially super interesting. Uh quantum computers, they also have like it’s overshadowed by AI and robotics, right? But they also made uh larger breakthroughs in the last few months. Like a lot of crazy stuff is happening. And then we shouldn’t forget that we also have uh all these other almost forgotten uh growth sectors where you basically have

48:24 uh where create fake food in some way for example where you don’t have to kill an animal but you can just create your own flesh or whatever which is great for maybe even uh medicine purposes but also for for uh food itself. So there’s lots of crazy stuff that I think we we all don’t have much idea on and I think we’re especially now with AI you can accelerate these things. It’s it’s just now we really start to feel like what exponential really means.

49:01 Yeah. And I think nobody can predict the next year anymore. Like except you’re really on on the bleeding edge, but who knows? Like next year maybe we have the robots at home or maybe we don’t. But who knows? The problem is there’s so much noise in quantum computing around like the fear factor. Like everyone’s got the fear factor. So it’s very difficult to cut through that noise and actually identify like well where is where are

49:30 these use cases going to be derived from. So I I understand it can compute a lot more but what is the actual use case at the end of that? So where is the application and you’re probably best placed to answer that. I mean the the core use cases for quantum comput computing uh from my knowledge definitely are everything around nature especially right uh simulation coming up with proteins uh all that crazy stuff that we know

49:58 from science fiction right like once you

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50:00 have quantum computers you can in like of course in combination with AI especially you can uh create proteins like you can invent and materials like you you can really form reality in a lot of crazy ways that have been on trial and error before but in future it could be understandable addit like we can really form our reality in a lot of ways um you can simulate uh realities the universe like of of course I’m just like

50:37 going lots a lot in the future but that is what quantum computers are for. They are not for not necessarily for our daily use. Yeah. But that’s why a lot of people propose these hybrid approaches like where you maybe have a quantum computing uh processor in addition like like a graphics card, right? In addition to that for some use cases. But uh like especially for science, it’s it’s crazy. pharmacy, medicine, these things. That’s

51:11 where quantum computers excel at. It’s more in the in the science and industry field. Okay. So, is it because of the raw compute power and speed and what it like the volume it can hold or is it actually a completely different way in which it’s because it can hold two states. That’s what I remember. So still I am not an expert by any means and it’s really difficult. Maybe I have to play with it a lot but I I learn it through

51:42 use case. So I go I know there two states and you can have both of those states simultaneously and play them out. So it’s almost like having you could run two realities at the same time and then you can exponentially depending on how many what are they called again? Super superp position or what do you mean? Yeah. But they’ve got the you can have multiples of those. Can you not a cubit? Yeah. So each cubit has two states, doesn’t it? So it can hold two

52:09 states at the same time. Yeah. It’s a like what you’re like a bit itself has zeros and ones. I think we all know that. But the cubit basically has in addition to that the superposition state which basically means everything in between. So, it’s kind of uh okay, as long as we don’t measure it, uh it’s everything, but it’s um and that’s why quantum computers can be so incredibly powerful because um it like the the calculation power

52:44 grows exponentially. Like for example, if you have uh I hope I don’t make a mistake now, but if you have one cubit and uh or let let’s start with two uh two cubits uh it’s uh not just like as you would have uh two bits but it’s like uh exponential it’s like four bits equivalent something like that. If you have three cubits, it’s eight, but it doubles again. Okay, really like it’s exponential. It’s literally straight a line straight up.

53:22 Yeah. of compute power. Well, not even it’s not even compute power anymore, is it? It’s so it’s so you have the possibilities of everything between a zero and a one as we put it in like terms we have today. That means it holds all possibilities in one state. Yeah. Okay. But how do I use that? Now, this is where I get in the weeds. Maybe I need But so if I have all possible states all at the same time, what does that give me?

53:56 I mean, I said again, I’m not an expert, right? But um when once you like you of course have to measure it at some point, right? And quantum entanglement also plays into that because if you entangle two uh cubits like one spins into direction up for example and the other one spins down or like Yeah. Like they’re always in the opposite direction if they’re entangled. Yeah. Which means uh right now they’re both in super

54:25 position. Yeah. But if you measure that one, you also at the same time influence that entangled cubit just in the opposite direction. Like uh when you measure that one and positive and a negative I’m getting really layman’s terms now like yeah for example like it’s just the opposite like it’s it’s like an arrow that points into some direction and if it points here the other one points here for example. Okay. And that of course also has uh for other

54:56 use cases really interesting like for information itself really interesting

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55:00 use cases because the information itself through that travels instantaneously it’s not light speed it’s instant which means uh in theory you could I don’t know I actually that should enable you to develop communication systems that work across the universe in an instant actually Right. And also lots of other crazy stuff I could imagine. So it’s it’s kind of really really yeah madness and that’s why I love it. But I mean yeah I know

55:37 the quantum entanglement thing I’ve read about and that’s it’s crazy. So where we think we can light is we can sense information through light beam. Now, it’s like we’re going to get to quantum entanglement where I will have a conversation with you and it’s instantaneous, but you’re on the other side of the universe, but it’s as if we’re together. And then the next part of that is can we will that open up teleportation for us? In other words,

56:03 could we take ourselves digitize it and move it across? Like can we actually take particles and move them across that communication beam? Uh I remember like teleportation of course I think most people would agree that it would take so much energy that it’s uh not really feasible uh from my knowledge but I remember uh a doctor as a dissert dissertation or what’s dissertation. Yeah. Yeah. um where someone had to calculate the

56:38 probability that you vanish and suddenly uh appear on the Mars. Yes. Because uh there’s a teeny teeny teeny tiny probability Yeah. that uh through quantum uh mechanics that you just vanish and pop up somewhere else, right? Okay. And like how am I getting to that now? I mean, yeah, through teleportation, but I mean, yeah, like I’m definitely not knowledgeable enough, but all I’m doing is watching YouTube video, like a lot of YouTube videos, admittedly, but

57:19 it’s just pseudo knowledge. That’s all. Yeah. No. Well, I I said uh so cuz I’m really interested in robotics as well because as soon as I saw AI, I mean Boston Dynamics was the first one that kind of gave me the clue and then watching Black AR was the next thing was like ah okay I understand now and then AI and then you’re like okay now it’s layers. So question is would you have like a Tesla bot and or like Optimus Prime or

57:55 any other actually in your household doing chores for you like cleaning and doing the rest of it? Uh counter uh question. Do you think it makes a difference? Because if my neighbor has one and they all are start to rage and destroy humanity, I think it’s just a small walk to my house. Like of of course they’re they’re not necessarily directly here when they sleep, right? But uh once they actually want to kill us, I I think AI figures

58:28 out much more efficient than the fact. I wasn’t going dystopian. I was just saying like I I wasn’t thinking that way. I was thinking like I can see the opportunity K like the opportunity play out. Um, mine was more would you have one in your house? Because the thought the thought thing that I had, especially I can’t remember her surname. I was watching her the other day. The woman who co-founded Signal, she was talking

58:50 about privacy and how aenic AI, you’re going to have to give access to information that’s potentially sensitive. And because of the blackbox nature and you’re not running on device, it’s actually pushing off somewhere else. Not that we don’t do that already, but there’ll be a lot more access. And the question was, a bot now has even more intimate potentially access to your environment versus your phone you can turn off or put away. So, it actually

59:19 has this more yeah access in your private space. That was where I was kind of going. Would you have one with that privacy concern? Would you not see a privacy concern? It is important, but in the end, you don’t really have a choice. I I think that’s the harsh truth. It’s coming anyway, right? There are a lot of people that said, "Okay, I’m definitely not going to use a smartphone. I’m definitely not going on Facebook or Instagram." Yeah, no

59:49 Uh they are. or like when when cameras like video cameras uh started to observe us on the street, people complained, well, they are everywhere now. You don’t

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1:00:01 really have a choice. And I think that’s the the harsh truth. Yes, you can be bothered by it. Yes, think about it. Yes, try to mitigate it. Uh if you value your privacy, uh so if you really value your privacy, you better don’t acquire one. But uh sooner or later it will be uh competitive disadvantage. It will be uh just such a boost for your life in every way that you will that that it just outweighs the privacy uh concerns.

1:00:40 the biggest impact it’s going to have is aged care because as we look at a population decline in the fact that there aren’t as many babies being born that’s or we’re not yeah we’re not replacing ourselves quick enough you’re then going to you’re going to require these things so whether it’s by design or not we can have a debate we can talk at length about those things but I think this is actually going to help us with aged care because we have

1:01:07 got a massive body of people in in the population that are going to move into those types of spaces where they may need more assistance and there less people available to help with that because obviously we’re building the future. it it I I personally like having worked uh as ambulance man myself of course which is no qualification but um I just could imagine that it that this will will be an industry which might take the longest

1:01:37 for the robots to to be good enough for because people are really easy to hurt right if they actually need someone to care for them and That’s maybe and and also for emotional support and these kind of things. Although humans treat elderly in tendants unfortunately quite badly. Well, I’m wondering if the loneliness factor is the lowhanging fruit. So that would be the beginning of it is that AI would be your friend and then

1:02:13 girlfriend. Well, we already have Yeah, girlfriend. I meant companionship but not that way. But yes, well maybe it will be maybe that’s the that’s the 100% like uh I’m 100% sure that we get robot girlfriends 100%. You already have it. I’ve this Telegram te what do you call it? Telegram app like they’re bots now that are your girlfriend. You can literally talk. She sends you voice messages. You can send her a voice message. It’s already there. Like all of

1:02:42 it’s there. We already have like what was it? Uh S uh what is it? CES was it last year and this year they had the the companion bots. So, you know, we’ve got I think it’s there. I was just thinking that was a really good use case. So, I’m wondering if Europe will break out into robotics cuz that would probably be We’ve got the manufacturing facilities. We haven’t got the GPU or like silicone wafer. Mhm. Are we produc I’m asking a question you

1:03:13 probably don’t know. Do we produce can we produce the quantum computers here? Like uh in inspok we like we we do have quantum computers. Yeah. And we and it’s produced in Europe as well. I don’t know but uh there are a lot of companies with quantum computers like a lot of comparably uh like more than you would think of. I think in Italy there’s thei uh quantum computer then we have like IBM which I guess is also a European

1:03:44 company. um like there like in inspok I think we also have uh we even have inspok like in Austria uh one or two uh quite advanced quantum computing startups. So yes I I would guess that we that we have something yeah know I’m just thinking about the advanced manufacturing because Europe is lucky that we still have relatively more I assume we have more advanced more of it like manufacturing. It’s like the US is still ramping up

1:04:17 like they’re trying to build their manu rebuild their manufacturing that’s been outsourced. I don’t know if we’ve outsourced as much because we had the maybe that was a good part of the tariffs potentially that everything was so expensive for us but it actually allowed us to build out manufacturing like to reinvest in manufacturing infrastructure for the future. I’m wondering so I’m thinking out loud with you. Sure. Okay. Um, so as part of this podcast, I

1:04:45 have the final part, but before we get to the final part, is anything you want to share with the audience? May maybe just uh some free support like if you think there’s uh is a question I could

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1:05:00 answer or in some way connect you with some people or help you in some way. I’m not charging for that. I’m not taking any referral rewards, fees, whatever. uh just reach out to me on LinkedIn or wherever. Happy to help. So really do check out Kevin on LinkedIn. He has got loads and loads of cool stuff that even I really enjoy. So thank you Kevin. And coming to the end of it, we have what’s called the final scribble. So obviously

1:05:24 this is called blank page is the podcast. So what would you say? How would you sum yourself up in your journey in a single word or phrase? Madness. like there there are lots of things that just didn’t fit in into the podcast. Um like on my dating profile, uh I always had I have the craziest stories you have ever heard, but I’m responsible AF at the same time. And so far like I haven’t been pruned one like I really have some crazy stuff and

1:06:03 that’s not to brag or something. I don’t think that’s necessarily positive, but I think that’s a great summary of my life. So the question there in lies and I have to follow on from because you dropped such a bomb there. So in your dating profile, that’s what you have there. Okay. So had or still have uh had. If there was a question that you could leave the audience with as an opportunity for them to think about something or something you really want

1:06:33 to know from the audience, what would you have as a question for them? What actually drives you? Because it sounds like such a shallow question, but if you go if you ask why often enough and actually try to answer and you won’t be able to actually go deep enough uh if you have never done that. Uh you will like you see life completely differently. And that’s something over the last 10 years uh I’ve I I think my life changed like every year like

1:07:13 360° because I got one layer deeper through that question. You are right. It sounds very simple but it if you really take it to heart and you really explore it, it you’ll find something very interesting about yourself. a lot of insecurities, a lot of uh deeper motivations also around egoism, reputation, uh pressure from society, lots of stuff. So that that’s really a big question and I think a lot of people would really

1:07:50 benefit from. You’re one of the few people that I found that is very genuine, cares about other people. So I want to give you I want to give you your kudos and I want to give you your flowers here as people say you know I think it’s really important that people forget in especially when we talk about um starting a business startup space doggy dog web 3 especially when we talk about web 3 people often forget through the sensationalism and the noise they

1:08:19 forget about the people who are actually building the people who are contributing the people who actually offer a tremendous amount of value so I wanted to give you your flowers and say thank you for giving giving so much value on on LinkedIn. There’s a tremendous amount of value and if people go through your timeline, it’s not just the last year. This is you’ve been giving value for many years now. So, I want to thank you

1:08:39 for that and I want to make sure that people go and have a read of what you actually put out because it’s important and I’d really like to have you back at some point if you have the time because I know you’re a very busy man. Of course. So, I’m going to link all the information for you down in the show notes. Please go and check it out. I also put down Kevin’s business that he has with Chris which is also amazing business if you’re looking for somebody

1:09:04 especially in Europe who understands the landscape here. Um they are probably one of the best companies to go with and look for um either helping you starting your startup. You’re going to have a wealth of experience there and especially if you’re looking for from a software point of is looking for that QA element of it. So somebody to really go through the product and sort out the product for you. So Kevin, again, thank

1:09:27 you for your time today. I appreciate it.