Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): My name is Wolf Schuman, and I'm optimistic about Germany's future of tech and our talent.

Station-Voice: The Optimist Conversations with leaders and industries Shaping Europe's future, exploring the ideas and innovations driving progress across the continent.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Welcome to the optimists brought to you by Tech by Handelsblatt. I'm Felix Seth. I'm your host. I'm a journalist from Germany, living in New York City. And I have the honor on this brand new format to take you all over Europe and explore the future of what is happening on the continent, together with its leaders. And our first seven guests today on the Optimists is the co CEO of Schwarz. Digits all is someone so exciting to have him not only because he is the co host of the Gus Skybus is Ian German for the tech funds but conference in May he's also a technology leader that for more than three decades has led teams and companies in Europe, in North America, in the Middle East and has returned to Germany to build what he calls digital sovereignty. What does that mean? What does it look like? Why is he so invested in it? This is what we're covering on this podcast. And we're also talking about his son that launched a business out of high school. We're talking about the apps Ralph uses on his phone, and we're talking about what Europe needs at this point and what he's most optimistic about. Enjoy this conversation with a digital optimist classroom and welcome. Close the tech conference by hundreds that is premiering in the high level on in May. I'm very excited that we are having the first conversation about this conference and everything adjacent to it today. The conference tech by hands, but will be gathering European leaders for the very first time in the middle of your campus, the Smarts Campus, to build a quote unquote cluster of optimism. That is really the the tagline of this event. Why did you decide to be the co-hosts of this new gathering?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): When you look to date in Germany, there's a lot of bad mood around the future and especially what what we mean about Germany and Europe. We have upcoming elections and there are also some parties who paint a really bleak picture about the economy, future and our prosperity. We all know that the growth did not meet our expectations. On the other hand, we see a very aggressive America with an America first attitude also in tech and digital. What we have to see, we have so many talented people, a lot of knowledge and absolutely courageous entrepreneurs in Germany, in Europe. We are still having our extremely successful midsize businesses with a lot a lot of hidden champions. We must. And this is really what we have to do. We must use this expertise. We must use this domain expertise and knowledge to succeed in transforming our society. The transformation is all about digitalization and AI. And you know what? This is the key aspect of Germany's and also Europe's future. Together with Handelsblatt. And this is what we do. We are creating a strategic platform with a text to strengthen the expected two things the innovation and also an economic ecosystem. And I think in Europe in the long term with a tech.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Wow. Very cool to hear that this is going to become an ecosystem even. And I'm so excited to be in Bonn. I have never been to Holborn. I'm based out of New York City. So when you just said very aggressive America, my ears perked up because I think I know what you're talking about. The news are full of it these days. But let's stay with Highborn for a moment, because for people like me who don't know how gone, what's what's your favorite thing about this place?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Well, Highborn is a kind of an underdog. And I tell you, there's nothing worse. When you're an underdog and being underestimated. So at the end of the day is a good thing. When you look at the home run, we have a broad network of partners and they're coming from private as well as public sectors, which are doing massive investments in infrastructure, education and also young companies around digitalization. What you find, O'Brien, is a really down to earth attitude. O'Brien Just build up something unique. A huge ecosystem around crucial topics for the future, including a strong focus on digital as well as, I guess, cybersecurity. And there's a huge ecosystem evolving around education research with the Buildings campus and the T you Munich as well, the ETF series. We had one 42 hour coding school and of course the EPO innovation park for artificial intelligence, believe it or not. O'Brien is really sexy.

Felix Zeltner (Host): But how did you lure Dmitry that to Munich? How did you draw them to. How do you make it sexy for them? Because you have to start with someone. And, you know.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Here's the point. When you want to do something around education and research, you have to build a melting pot and you have to get the right people together. And what happened with the buildings campus? We brought the right people together. We have also partnerships to Singapore, Stanford, Oxford and Jerusalem. So the point is, if you want to get attractive in the talent space or the research space, you have to bring the right people together. And this is exactly what happened here. And out of this, of course, the young people will come because they want to participate here.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Very impressive. Turning an underdog into a new ecosystem. How you're looking at that and I know that you are walking the talk. You have yourself lived all in Led companies all around the world. You are yourself part of this new ecosystem and in the center of it. But what some people might find a little bit confusing is that you are actually the Schwartz group is known more as a so-called discounter, that German English word that you're using just like handy to describe grocery consumer goods. And why is it so important to you and your group to build a new digital BMR That's both online and offline, as you just said, campus in the middle of Germany. How how come you that most people know from shopping or doing this?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think it's more obvious than people see it right now because with this what's called the Europeans largest retailer. And it's very simple. If you want with shoe company, stay relevant in the future, you need to mass attitude station for your business model. There's no alternative and there's no compromise. So digital transformation will have an impact on every single organization and company. So if you don't take it serious, you might not be relevant anymore. And then to be very clear, we have to get this done for one reason. We have the responsibility for 600,000 employees and the families as well, our complete suppliers and partners. You're talking about multiple tens of thousand entities, again, with families behind it. Well, and with all respect, we don't have to do this for the next 2 or 3, 4 or 5 years. We have to do this for this generation, the next generation and the generation after next generation. You really have to think long term doing this. And to do this, it's so crucial that you understand what the cloud means for digital transformation. This is what we came to the point that none of the hyperscalers could really fulfill our air requirements and needs we had how we would like to run a cloud and store data based on the GDPR. This is why we suddenly had to develop the cloud for ourselves, not choked. We developed it ourselves because what you find in the market from the hyperscalers couldn't fulfill our requirements. At the end we figured out we have a lot of values coming from sovereignty and independency. And then of course, as a consequence, we did this for ourselves. We did the same for cyber, the same for communication as well in the air space and now even in the workplace. So at the end of the day, we did this for ourselves and other companies certainly said, Hey, this is relevant for me. And they showed interest and this is how we started offering this for the external market and opened our doors and this is how we turned our activities into this company, which was digits. But at the end of the day, it was just to fulfill our own requirements to make sure our company was still relevant for the next two years.

Felix Zeltner (Host): I can't help to compare this with Amazon. I mean, they were selling goods and then they had to build data centers and then they now started to have us as the biggest part of their entire business. And they are among these hyperscalers that you just mentioned alongside with Google, Microsoft and others. So what do you say to people who are listening right now thinking our office just building an Amazon. He's just building a profit oriented monopolists in Europe?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think this is a big difference. Let's let's put it this way. We are both working in the retail space. But but the key difference is Amazon was building up tech capacity and they had an overcapacity. They offered for others and we were coming from different point of view. We were looking for submarine services so we didn't have to build a new Amazon. So what we did is we figured out that the digital services we have today in the market available, which you can leverage for a company, did not match our requirements for independence and serenity. So we had to build by ourselves. So it's a different dam. That's a starting point. But of course, we both come from the retail, which is the only thing we have in common.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Okay. But of course that could be a thought around, well, there is already maybe more open data solutions, sometimes even provided from from regional and federal governments. And in Germany and Europe when you want to build your own digital ecosystem. So why not modeling with and after those instead why building it from scratch for profit?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Look, we will work very closely together with open source and also our cloud is based on open source, so we understand the initiatives and the advantages. This is why we leverage them. And we also have. A lot of money for the other companies and organizations who run on the ticket. So, for example, there are some different offerings from the office space which we are hosting because of our and cloud infrastructure. But one thing we always have to keep in mind, a very important aspect of serenity is the freedom of choice. So one insight is independency, but also the freedom of choice. And this is exactly essential to have different approaches. So you should have multiple alternatives. And this is also why we have this collaboration with Google. So on the one hand, some people say, hey, Google is on Sovereign. We said not at the first glance. When you define it from our, let's say, German perspective. But we found a way to run your data private and sovereign and protected in the Google framework of the workspace. So we make it on another level. Sovereignty. It's your keys. The keys are not shared that is exported to your cloud. So so this would be a saying. Sovereignty also gives you the freedom of choice. If you don't want to do this, you can always go with alternatives.

Felix Zeltner (Host): I saw you speak about this topic for the very first time just a year ago. And I think Smart Cities itself is is still in its infancy, so to speak. But you're you're growing quickly. And the thing that you're really talking about over and over again and I saw you talk about for the first time and was impressed by immediately is this topic of digital sovereignty. I hadn't heard that before. And since then I feel like it's become a label almost that you attach to yourself, but that also a lot of other people find relevant, find interesting, want to be a part of. So you are you are a coder at heart. You really know what digital sovereignty means. And I live in New York City and I lived this transatlantic life myself. And when somebody says it's the sovereignty, it means I trust Europe or the heart of Europe or Hoboken is more than the U.S. I always my ears always perk up. So why do you actually choose Europe over the US or other place it When it comes to the future of digital infrastructure?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): This is a good point, but I would never say that we have chosen Europe over the US. The key thing is, and this is what we have to put on the table, international alliances are not lived according to the same values of all partners. What does it mean? Let's take the example of China first. So in China, the government of the state know says, Look, we know what's good for you and give me your data. And then based on the data I have about you, I will organize your life. And you know what? If you like to love and like to live in such a system, this is perfect. But it's very clear the serenity is there, controlled and defined by the state and government. When you go to the US. And this is what I mean when we go around, it's not the government or the state, but it's the companies. Look, there are some companies when you look at the issue, so companies from the Valley who say, I know what exactly good for you, who give me your data and then we will make sure whatever you consume is best for you. If you like this, that you trust full, the companies do it well. We live in Europe. It's different. We have a complete different perspective of the measures regarding data privacy and GDPR. And this is exactly why I'm saying the two, let's say, measure sense of the US as also China, who are the prominent providers of hyperscalers and infrastructure. There's infrastructure to match our perspective of easy data protection, obviously privacy, how we see what happens with your data, because this is a big difference of Europe. So all of these kind of digital services and whatever we have also what we are for under the GDPR is to protect the protect the individual, which means they want to protect our values. And the only thing what we did is. We realized that the I think everybody realized this, at least in the last year. I mean, look at the license cost. And there are some individual monopolists who are increasing and exploiting their power. And this is what we saw. And they don't do this because they're evil. They do this because they have a different perspective and mindset on data privacy. And at the end of the day, this leads into absolutely dependencies and an imbalance in power. And this is never useful for partnerships. And I never this is not how we work. We want to work. They come to a table, they can say to them whenever you want, if you can't send up anymore, if something goes wrong. And I give you one example when you remember when we had the dependencies of Russian gas during the conflicts the Ukraine. We were so shocked in Germany that 55% of our gas was from Russia. It was a disaster. But when you look at this, you go to the energy sector and out of the energy sector in this segment of gas, 55% came from Russia. If it now would compare this to the dependency on teacher solutions, I can tell you that 82% are coming outside Germany. So the question is, and this is the segment in the energy sector, it's across all digital dependencies. And the question is, why do we run in similar situations? We have faced just one year ago.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Wow. Well, I certainly understand the argument. However, I'm thinking is, is it even possible to be sovereign digitally? I mean, you Schwarz group just announced a few weeks back that you signed a huge agreement with Google. Is it even possible to work without the others?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): It is possible to do a lot of things sovereign. But in the case of Google, we realized that in a workspace, a workplace product cannot be redeveloped so easily. So we have to use it. But the question is, and this is why we have this huge partnership with Google, Google understood our value set and needs and requirements for serenity. And Google allowed us that we could, for our data, use our own encryption keys. Google allowed us and we can export the data in a case of Black Swan event that you then can use with other programs or solutions. So at the end of the day, Google understood that sovereignty is there. If we look at the workspace solution with Google. Of course the serenity is on the level of the data, not of the application, which is still running in the in the cloud massive by Google. But at the end of the day, and this is what I'm saying, you can build something. So when you start and this is what we did with known cloud, where you store your data, we process your data. Then you realize, of course, that in cyber security there's also dimension you have to uncover. And also here you want to have independent solutions. And then you continue with them. Complications, for example, or artificial intelligence. And this is how you get there. It's possible, but you have to start at one point in time.

Felix Zeltner (Host): I'm I'm a journalist, not a coder like you. And to me, someone explained once that the cloud is just someone else's computer. So in in Google's case, did you sort of manage? To be sovereign in a way that they put someone else's computer in that case. Close by to you. Is it a. European somebody else's computer or are you where are you actually storing the data?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): That's what we did. So first of all, we made sure that the data resides in our, let's say, defined infrastructure in Europe. And then, of course, we made sure that whatever is running on the systems, that's it hosted or offered by Google, even if they are in Europe, that the data can only be decrypted by ourselves and not even by Google. And this was the key difference to drive the sovereign data solutions for the work space.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Interesting. I would like to talk about your personal digital sovereignty for a moment, because you said in an interview that you completely changed the apps you're using on a daily basis. Can you can you just share what apps you deleted on your own device and what their replacements are?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): This is the transformation I did and I'm doing from from WhatsApp to wire because it's about communication. I'm totally I was totally surprised to see this kind of data, private data and location based and so on. You share when you used the WhatsApp and then was of course shocked about the fact to see how WhatsApp is using their own, let's say, tenses in a in a way which would match my expectation. So from a data protection system. So terms and conditions, the terms and conditions they have when they tell you what would we have to do to use on WhatsApp. And then for me, this was the point. So the first thing I did is, of course, I use a special dedicated number to be able to communicate with others. And nowadays we found an alternative which is SIM certified from Desire as well as from a confidential messenger which runs in our own cloud stickered and of course is fulfilling only our requirements. It's also not collecting other data. We came to the point that this is the right way to move forward.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Is WhatsApp the only app you deleted or the others as well?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I was very I was very sensitive even before, so I didn't have too many F's, which I which did not fit my mindset and my messages.

Felix Zeltner (Host): But on your phone, there would be no matter apps anymore, I suppose.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): They never had been there.

Felix Zeltner (Host): They never had been there because.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think I deleted them already some years ago when they had this huge scandal about the Cambridge Analytica.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Okay.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): This is the point. This is what I mean. A lot of people forget that people have these scandals around data privacy or data protection. The problem is this was not a technical issue. This is an issue about the attitude. It's the same look at the attitude of Microsoft in regards of cybersecurity, Microsoft's operating system or cloud system. Yes, from a cybersecurity point of view, and this is my quote, this is I'm just quoting Gartner from the last conference, this is the worst you can get. And they don't take it serious. Look, this is a difference, too, when you look at Google. Google had an incident 2004, and from this day on, they invested a tons of money that this didn't happen again. So sovereignty, data protection, privacy, security. It's a question of attitude. And as I said, those friends from from MIT who had the wrong attitude and this was the point where the apps already were deleted years ago.

Felix Zeltner (Host): But how did you find out? Did you just do something that nobody else does and calling myself guilty or actually reading the terms and conditions for once these pages long things that we all sign up for when we install a new app? Or how did you find out about this?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): First of all, you find them with smart journalists who write down what you agree when you put on the T and CS at the beginning when you open the app and then of course you can jump and go into this. But it's public knowledge that they are collecting what they can do with her name, data connections, location based shopping information. So it's common knowledge coming from some some great journalists.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Well, definitely journalists are smarter than me in this point. What's an app that you tried out or that you recommend are trying out? At the moment.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): It's wire the most secure message. And this is really what I can tell you. No personal information. Protect yourself. This is the app I'm trying and I've seen the team is really very motivated. They will bring some new versions and the new one. So I'm super happy.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Why are just to understand is a software that was or a company, a software company. It was started in Switzerland and there were some people involved who previously worked for Skype. That's how much I know about this. Why? Why is it so important to you? Did you even invest in the app? What?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Schwartz No. After we identified this as the most secure messenger, the odds invest in wire because we are using this for for and we are right now preparing the roll out for all employees. And then, of course, we did an investment, not a big one, but to make sure that there won't be any compromise on sovereignty and security, because we do not want to go into technology. But you can make sure that the motivation way of choosing this might be getting a little bit blurring over the time.

Felix Zeltner (Host): You said so brilliant in the beginning that everything we do right now, we are at the mercy of these platforms and it includes our own homes and includes when I step out on the streets in New York City, those dozens of cameras filming me. My phone is tracking my steps. It's just everywhere. When it comes to your own home, do you have a favorite technology that you use actually at home that makes you maybe sovereign in your own four walls?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I'm not sure if it makes me sovereign, but it makes me happy. It's absolutely ultra high tech coffee grinder for my coffee and espresso.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Is it connected to the Internet?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Absolutely not. Okay.

Felix Zeltner (Host): So there's even in your life, there's a piece of analog technology that's that makes me optimistic.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): The funny thing is I have I have a gap. So I will send updates by downloading them and putting them in kind of I would never I would never put my grind a match and somebody is changing the settings and the coffee does and tasting more. It would be disaster. Complete disaster.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Are you an espresso kind of guy or more like just plain pure poor coffee?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): No, no. I'm the espresso guy, so.

Felix Zeltner (Host): I'm not a drip guy. Okay. Just to know because I turned into somewhat of a coffee snob just by living in York City. There's so many people you would take this very seriously. And this press all machines are now car sized in some cafes here. So I'm very happy that you're you're following that trend. You have lived and worked yourself outside of of Europe. You have lived in the Silicon Valley in Israel. What did you just coming from Germany, what did you have to unlearn? When you got there, when you left the continent for the first time?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think the first thing I learned in moving to the Silicon Valley, but also to Israel, is that you do not ask for permission. You ask for forgiveness. When I came from Germany, we are so overengineered and bureaucratic, and this takes us all this openness and creativity, which we really need for entrepreneurship and a little bit of kind of risk taking. As an entrepreneur, and this was the first thing I totally, I would say, unlearned, as he said or asked on the other side. This doesn't mean that you are completely running into an energy. It is between us a kind of attitude to take a little bit risk and really try things first. And then if things don't work, you can commit to that.

Felix Zeltner (Host): It sounds a little bit like moving fast and breaking things, which right now has a little bit of a gotten a bad rep here since the last couple of weeks. Yeah.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): They were saying fail fast and early. This is what I can tell you.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Yeah. And you just said that when you left Europe, you learned to not ask for permission, but ask for forgiveness. Can you share an example from when you returned to Germany, how you actually applied that?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): When I returned back to Germany. I will speak at ACP and the. Of course, would. What you have to do is develop new technologies when you have new ideas. In the old days, you first were discussing in a lot of teams, but in today's world, way or more age or you have the idea you take a small team, you try it out and then you bring up to the next level. So, so this was a key example. And this whole transformation also to development is a little bit trying to do this, not to have any more top down decisions, like in the days before we first asked the board what to do and you bring it up more bottom up. And then this is definitely what I've seen when I came back to Germany.

Felix Zeltner (Host): But this does this also affect how you built smart institutes? I mean, a company is very new. You started from scratch in 23. Is this something that really people can feel when they when they work with you?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Well, absolutely. I mean, the way we take decisions, the speed we have there, I mean, you feel that this is different. The very, as we say, could of Vegas short pathways to to 3 to 2 people, very quick in decisions. And also if a decision is wrong, we are super quick in taking the correct the right decisions.

Felix Zeltner (Host): I want to to for the final part of this podcast and thanks again for being our first guest to talk about your calls to action for leaders all over Europe, because these are the people that are going to be in this on this podcast in the future. And tech is, as we said in the beginning, building a community of European leaders who will be on this show, but then gather in Holborn, gather where you build your campus right now and do very impressive work. A cluster of optimism this tech calls it. What kind of homework would you give the European leaders who will be on this podcast after you to build a kind of Europe that that you want to live in as life?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): It's tough to do to give them guidance, let's say more wishes. Then let's turn this into wishes. Which kind of wishes do I have for leaders instead of just giving them an advice? Because everybody has to figure out if advisors are relevant or not. But I wish everybody can can ask for. And the wishes I have is in Europe and this is really what I feel from the bottom of my heart. We need to be more self-confident and we should not get lost. They get lost all the time in small details. And we should face the big picture because in the small details you will always find the reason why things don't work because you don't see the big picture anymore. And we always see the glass half empty. We have to change this because I can tell you we have so much more to do and to bring to the table. The other thing is, and this is what we have to always understand. When you try to change things, you have to accept that the right way is usually a bit more inconvenient than the ECB. And for our digital sovereignty, this definitely is exactly the situation. We have to get out of our comfort zone. We are really in a comfort zone and really almost very complacent right now. And I'm always saying the only place you find success before work is in the dictionary. So let's really change our attitude and get there. And the biggest and most important point in this, let's say context, is we have to change our mindset. And we have to believe. If not. I'm so convinced that we become a dead a colony from some U.S. or Chinese tech companies. The U.S. already started the colonization of Europe in the hand of data. We should stop this and really get back in our attitude and be proud on what we have.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Decolonizing Europe. That's an interesting phrase that I've never heard before, but in a digital sense, it's definitely true. I talked to a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a German Silicon Valley entrepreneur yesterday about this very topic, and he said, Well, when I moved to the Silicon Valley 20 years ago, Europe was ahead because we were the first in Mobile, for instance, and the Silicon Valley was looking at us for inspiration and for for talent. So it was a completely different way from going from Germany to there just 20 years ago and something happened in the meantime. And I also asked him, just like you, what what should we do? And he said, well, one one idea that I that he has is he wants to go to the schools in Germany, all across the country as schools. Of course, education is is regional from the states and say, why don't you have startup as a subject. Why don't you have entrepreneurship as a subject? And why don't you have a competition that goes from your school to your city to your region where you can actually start a company? Could that lead to thousands, tens of thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs to a country that has the most entrepreneurs in the world? That was just the suggestion he had for Germany and a very interesting idea, I thought, to entertain and of course, a very inconvenient one, changing all curriculums. But is there one idea that you have where you say this is a concrete application, maybe it doesn't even have to do it? Schwartz In the first place, where I say this is how we change and how we can become more self-confident, as you said, better in what we're doing, less colonized.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): Look what's funny, which just said is what I mean. I have now a 19 year old boy. But you know what he did in school? They founded their own company and I was the investor. So this startup topic is already here. We have to see that we have this to it's already in Germany, but obviously we didn't talk about it good enough. The point is we have this and the education is great. I mean, look today and the first team who developed the quantum computer at Google from the 15 people, seven came from Germany. So education is not so bad. We really have just to keep the people here and do it right for the startups. We don't need to change the curriculum because it's already there and we have it. And then the other side, what we should do is again, we have to get to a startup culture. What is the problem of our startups? It is not that we don't have good schools or we don't have enough entrepreneurs. The problem is we have not the appropriate way to finance them. And I have to discuss with our governments, instead of giving us a little bit funding at the beginning, give them a clear invoice or to their software or to their solutions. So this is how all the companies in the US were funded and they were funded from the military, from the secret services, from the government, and they got more or less the bills paid because they were the largest customers. And what we do is we give them a little bit money and then when they want to sell the solution to the government, which is a really good customer, at the end of the day, they say, you don't have enough reference customers. So we have to change the attitude how we as government and our companies are supporting startups by becoming their clients. And also at the beginning having the influence that the solution is fitting much better. What I want. So this is what I think we have to do because again, our education system, we have great education. We have great universities. We have great schools. People can find a professional job and being educated in there. We have this. The question is, what do we offer those young people? And they have the idea to become an entrepreneur, that they have the chance to find customers and clients.

Felix Zeltner (Host): It sounds a little bit like you're calling for a sovereign wealth fund, like Norway has it, where startups can find money that's somewhat coming from the government and then can come and turn into a revenue source for the government itself. Is that something that you would think Europe should have more of?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): There's nothing bad. If they have a startup that they have funded, they can even get a kickback. Why not? But instead of just making funds at the beginning and then see them dying of starvation over the time of the course. It's absolutely the wrong approach. So this could be an option, but this is just how to get the initial fund started and start. For me, it would be more important that when they have a startup, they have a solution that the government would order 10,000 to 100 thousands of seats. Then I can tell you this companies will definitely become successful.

Felix Zeltner (Host): And what's the company that your son started that you invested in?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): It was funny. They made a kind of Instagram and social media agency for restaurants. I think they did this. I think they did this only because then they got free lunch all the time and they visited their customers. But it was really funny how successful. And there was this seed investor.

Felix Zeltner (Host): That's how you keep your team motivated.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): So I was really like every day he came back. So they made the pictures of the meal and says, you made all these great pictures, but who need to eat all this food out? You said, Look, well, we are great. So it was it was fun.

Felix Zeltner (Host): It's fun. But next to your son, is there another European that inspires you? Maybe a European where you say this is a leader? I really look to for inspiration that you maybe recommend to follow and learn more about what they do. You meet so many people here and so many conferences and so many rooms where important things happen. Just asking for an inspiring European that you recommend.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I tell you one thing about motivation and young people and inspiring thoughts. I think we have so many great people and great content, but if you really want to make a difference, you should look every morning into the mirror and just use the day to make it a better version of the person you see there. This will make you successful. It's not that you follow or imitate us. I really can tell you we have so many great people and this is what I see. What make believe in yourself. It's a question of core belief, but you have to start every day. To become better. And I'm always saying, you know, excuses make a day very easy, but the future, very hard. And discipline makes the day hard for the future. Easy. It's a choice. And this is for me, the only recommendation I can give to young people instead of following or imitating or doing others because they will be always a step ahead.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Hey, this is this is like self-help. Isaiah. This is very inspiring. I like that. My last question to you as it's a big one. When you think about this continent, in ten years from now, 20, 35, can you can you paint a picture for us? That resembles. Your vision of our continent.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think I can paint the picture we are working in every day and every day in and out. And this is I'm definitely convinced that we will become a leader in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. And this will be made in Germany for Europe and beyond. And we will be leading definitively in sovereign digital solutions because we have the right digital ledger set.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Thank you. Was very inspiring listening to you, learning from you. And I look forward to seeing you in Holborn. I want to thank you for being the inaugural guests on The Optimist, and I think you really are one. Did I get that right?

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I'm definitely not the pessimist. And if the glass is empty, I think there's still the drop inside.

Felix Zeltner (Host): Thank you. And I like that. And I would like to thank you and your team and of course, Sinan Alexander and the Handelsblatt tech team and everybody else is co-creating The Optimist now. Any last words from you before we say goodbye? And obviously.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): It's just the last word. We see you and I'll.

Felix Zeltner (Host): See you in Oliver on the sexy Avon. Bye bye.

Rolf Schumann ( Schwarz Group): I think they came by.

Station-Voice: Thanks for listening to The Optimist. For more insights and updates about tech, visit us at tech-europe.org. The optimist is produced by Tech by as Blood Music by Kirsten Hindman. Stay curious.