December 15, 2024 • 44 mins
Discover the incredible journey of Anders Insett, a Norwegian-born keynote speaker, author, and former elite athlete, whose diverse career path spans from tech-savvy entrepreneurship to global philosophy discussions. Anders shares how his early curiosity in technology and his experience as a semi-professional Olympic handball player paved the way for a career that now bridges business and philosophical thinking. Learn how his insights into the popularity of European sports like handball in the U.S. and the influence of global sports icons have shaped local sports culture.
Join us as we explore the philosophy of progress and success with Anders, who believes that true fulfillment comes from focusing on the process rather than the outcome. He shares how intrinsic motivation and a love for learning contribute to the surprising success of Norwegian athletes across various sports. Discover his perspective on reframing goals, finding happiness in small, incremental progress, and eliminating inefficiencies to concentrate on what truly matters in life.
We also venture into the future landscape of innovation and education, examining the evolution of breakthroughs from AI and quantum technology to scientific advancements emerging from the corporate world. Anders and I discuss how these shifts impact the balance between academia and industry, emphasizing the need for education systems to adapt to the modern job market. With an increasing focus on generalist skills, critical thinking, and soft skills, this episode offers a compelling look at how to navigate a rapidly changing world with vitality and insight.
Here's what you'll learn:
❗ Success is often defined by external metrics, but true fulfillment comes from within.
❗ The journey of entrepreneurship is about progress, not just outcomes.
❗ In a rapidly changing world, learning how to think is more important than what to think.
❗ AI and technology are reshaping the landscape of education and business.
❗ The process of building is often more rewarding than the end result.
❗ Organizations should focus on activating human potential rather than punishing mistakes.
❗ Innovation today often involves optimizing existing ideas rather than creating entirely new ones.
❗ The future will see radical breakthroughs in science and technology driven by AI.
❗ A culture of performance is essential for organizational success.
❗ Understanding the underlying problems is key to finding effective solutions.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Anders Indset
02:37 The Journey of an Entrepreneur and Athlete
06:32 Finding Meaning Beyond Success
11:52 The Process of Building and Growth
17:17 Innovation vs. Iteration in Business
20:51 The Future of Education and Learning
32:12 The Role of AI in Shaping the Future
39:05 Activating Human Potential in Organizations
Anders Indset
Website - https://andersindset.com/
Brandon Amoroso
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Anders Insett,who's an internationally
acclaimed keynote speaker,norwegian-born author, deep tech
investor and also a formerelite athlete.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Brandon, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So before we jump into things here, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on your rather
diverse sort of history andcareer up until this point?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, I mean I was always very curious, a learner
in all paths, I think.
When I grew up in Norway anddid very different sports and we
were very active that was ouryouth we participated in
multiple sports because that wasin a small village, small city,
so we had to participate inother sports in order for them
(00:56):
to have a team, so they wouldshow up in my team Fairly early.
I got into the whole aspect ofbusiness and entrepreneurship.
I was curious about technology,started the internet wave
really early.
I was a nerd, programmedwebsites and learned the first
HTML, got the image tag andstarted at a terrible bandwidth
(01:18):
to upload some kind of mediadata onto the then new fancy
thing called the internet, andit was always about that
discovery and about progress andlearning.
I had a background as a hardcorecapitalist, built some
companies, had an agency,founded an online print house
(01:38):
and, as you said in thebeginning, I have a background
as a professional athlete.
As you said in the beginning, Ihave a background as a
professional athlete, so it wasalways about the active part of
life.
But I never really felt success.
To many from the outside worldit probably wasn't like a
successful career or peoplewould say that you know you're
good at sport, you're good atsome decent things within the
(02:00):
business field, but I never feltthat it was all about just
chasing goals and dreams thenext thing.
So I let go of that.
I sold my company and I startedto write.
I was always very interested inphilosophy and I saw that on
the plates of leaders around theworld, philosophical questions
was a part of the daily business.
So I decided to just unite twoof them, the art of doing
(02:23):
business and philosophy, andthat took me to the speaking and
writing, having now finished mysixth book.
So that's a very short, rapidwalkthrough of my youth and my
professional career.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
What sport did you play as an athlete?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, so this is the thing in the US.
You know, I came, I lived ayear in Nebraska and I came
there back in 1994.
And I said that play handball.
And they resonated with that asa prison sport.
You know, you kick the ballwith your hands.
But I've learned that this isnot the sport that I did and I
played over Europe.
It's the team handball.
That was the first thing Ilearned, but now I refer to it
(03:04):
as Olympic handball.
So there is even an Olympicteam from the US.
It's for the people that don'tknow the sport, it's a very
fast-paced game, kind of likebasketball, but instead of
shooting hoops you're throwingthe ball into a goal, kind of
like soccer.
So you have a goalie and youhave defenders and you have you
run plays similar to footballand there's like a very rapid
(03:25):
pace to it, kind of like icehockey, going back and forth
high scoring games.
So it's a.
It's a very interesting sport,very popular in Europe, draw
crowds similar to some of theNBA matches in the US.
So it's a.
It's a very interesting sport.
I played, not at the veryhighest level, but I had a
almost 10 year career where Isemi-professionally played it
(03:47):
alongside building my company,so it was a juggling training
and workouts with uh, buildingtech companies and and being an
entrepreneur that's awesome,though, and I feel like more and
more entrepreneurs are alsovery active outside of you know,
business.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It seems to go with the personality, whether they're
professional or notprofessional the weekend
warriors even.
It sort of goes hand in handwith entrepreneurship, but I've
seen more and more sort ofsports from overseas starting to
make waves in the US, like atleast here in Miami.
Padel has blown up over thepast year, year and a half, and
(04:28):
I had never even heard about itbefore I moved to Miami, and
you're starting to see someother sports that are making
their way here.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's funny.
You say that.
I mean the paddle tennis part.
It just went past me.
I have a friend of mine, Ispoke at his conference and I
meet him a year later and he hasliterally just rolled out,
together with some, you know,investors and former
professional athletes, a networkof pedal.
You know courts and I go to theuae and I see the hotels
(04:56):
haven't rebuilt the tenniscourts to have it sounds like
whoa, where did this come from?
Right, it's just a hugeindustry overnight, very
fascinating, uh.
And of course, in miami you also, uh, drew messi, so it was a
lot of attention to soccer.
That is, you know, made thatpopular.
So, yeah, I, I, I hear you, anduh, uh, the same things for
some in europe, some of the ussports have also caught some
(05:19):
interest.
But I think you know, ingeneral, the, the football,
basketball in particular haven'treally, you you know, made the
next level.
I think basketball in Europe.
Now, if you look at the NBA,there are a lot of European
superstars, so that's somethingthat's established.
But as for football, there is,like I just spoke with one of
the former professional soccerstars, oliver Beerhoff, and he
(05:43):
was with the management of theSoccer Federation and he's very
curious about football.
So they're doing some events,playing some games in Germany.
But I like football personally,but it hasn't really caught on
in Europe.
But I see the same.
I see that some of theseEuropean sports are now making
it to the US.
So where there is money andmarketing value, it's obviously
something for the US market.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I think you've seen more NFL games being played
in, like Mexico, london, I wantto say.
They even played it somewhereelse as well.
They're definitely trying toexpand it, but it is very much
so a US sport and a little bitof Canada as well too.
But that'll be interesting tosee how it progresses.
But you mentioned one of thereasons you sold your business
(06:25):
is because you were looking forI think you mentioned trying to
find not necessarily meaning,but you were struggling with
feeling that sense ofaccomplishment that others who
were looking from the outside inmight say, oh, this person is
very accomplished, oh, thisperson is very accomplished.
(06:47):
How have you worked to overcomethat and be more comfortable
with not necessarily who you are, but what you've done?
Because this is a common themethat I hear from entrepreneurs
ranging from small exits togiant exits it doesn't really
matter.
There's this common theme of,oh, we really feel like we
haven't done that much, whereaseveryone else would think, oh,
you've done so much, you'rehaven't done that much, whereas
everyone else would think, oh,you know you've done so much,
(07:09):
you know you're so accomplished,everything should be perfect
for you.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean, probably you can resonate with
this because you have done someamazing stuff.
But I think to me, seeking thatfinite answer to a question,
you know you spoke about meaningand purpose in life.
You know the one one you knowthing that you're made for, you
(07:30):
know who you are.
I think it's the other wayaround.
I think you know you cannotmake yourself happy, but you can
make yourself less unhappy.
So if there are things that youdon't like or that are holding
you back, you don't have to havethe answer, what is right.
But you can figure out thatthis is something that I do not
want to do.
So that sense of agency in aworld where we have all become
(07:51):
very reactive, so everything wedefine as success is in
measurement to something else.
So when I wrote the Viking Code, my latest book, it was about
figuring out how did my homecountry, norway, bring out all
these superstars in disciplinesthat have very little to do with
snow huge sports tennis, golf,running, soccer.
(08:16):
We have the two best beachvolleyball players in the world
coming from way up north inNorway, and that was to me very
fascinating.
So I thought how can you buildthat success, high-performance
culture.
And when I started to dig intothat I realized that it wasn't
(08:37):
about the finitude of results,so much more the outcome of the
process, the path, if you lookat it from an Eastern
philosophical way, was what wasthe magic of their success.
So I think the experience ofyour own experience, the
experience of learning, theexperience of progress that is
fully detached from anextrinsically motivated
(08:58):
definition, that becomes a partof the liveliness.
In Germany we say lebendigkeit,you know the vitality of life
and that, I think, is a verysuccessful way to live for
yourself.
So today I consider myselfhighly successful.
To me, because I'm privilegedthat I get to get up every
(09:18):
morning and learn, I get toexperience progress, and that is
, you know, the quality of theinput of a process like running
the marathon.
You don't look at it at the endgoal, you look at it in the
perfection of your next step.
So the reflection of perfectionis a quality of the small
things that you do thataccumulates into results, into
(09:41):
whatever that is, and if youlook at that, you're always in
comparison.
Everyone alive is poor incomparison to Elon Musk right
now, right.
So if that is the measurement,you will only have that one
lucky smart monkey that made itall the way to the top.
So if you play that optimizationgame, the maximizing, the art
(10:02):
of being right and that is adefinition of what it means to
be you as a man, as a humanbeing then you're always going
to be bad off, because it'salways a binary way of looking
at the world, as in comparisonto looking at the path or the
progress or the dynamism of lifethat we are always in the
becoming like a wonderfuljourney to nowhere but filling
(10:25):
that with substance from anintrinsically motivated action
or activity.
I don't know if that makessense to you, but this is how I
look at life that you freeyourself from the things that
you are holding you back andthen you put yourself in a
position to be struck bysomething called happiness,
because you're aware, becauseyou are present, you are tuned
(10:47):
in or whatever you want to callit, without necessarily having
taken that spiritual path, butjust resonating with what do I
not want to be?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, and I think the reframing of the mindset is
really important as well, andasking yourself what are the
goals?
Do these really actually matterto me?
Or is it this binary one ornothing that might be easy to
latch on to if you look at themedia or the news headlines or
(11:18):
things like that, but what doyou actually care about?
Is it really just money andtrying to make as much as
possible, because you're stillgoing to end up not in first
place, as you mentioned earlierwith somebody like Elon?
And I think the process ofbuilding is the most exciting
part of entrepreneurship and,sure, sometimes it culminates in
(11:42):
an exit, sometimes itculminates in the business
failing too, but the process ofactually building is the most
exciting and is something that Ithink we all just need
intrinsically as well, becauseI've met people who have tried
to take a step back from thatand then they're sort of lost
and they don't have that samepurpose or passion because
they've let go of the process ofbuilding.
(12:06):
And it doesn't have to be.
You don't have to build to bethe next Facebook or the next
LinkedIn or whatever it may be.
I think that there's anover-glorification of these
unicorn exits, which is not thenorm, it is the outlier, whereas
there's tons of smallbusinesses that are very
successful, that produce a lotfor not only the economy but the
people that work for them, andalso that happiness factor that
(12:29):
I don't think is highlightedenough, because not every
business has to be a billiondollar business.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No, I totally agree.
But again, there is nothingwrong with big visions or goals
I mean, I think that's good.
But the problem becomes when itdefines you.
You know when you become thevision or the goal.
So that is your definition ofsuccess, so that is where you
(12:56):
compare to others.
So you know, if you sell off acompany, you're never fulfilled
to that extent.
So you know, if you sell off acompany, you're never fulfilled
to that extent.
And that's why I think that youknow, as we have those goals and
(13:16):
visions and the finitude ofthose measurements, the finite
games of life, there is no ideawhere I'll be heading in life,
you know.
But I think one thing is forfact is that we could say that
never in human history have wehad more time and more
potentiality to influence ourown reality as our generation.
Or just now.
We have technologies that neverbefore.
(13:36):
We have, at least in theWestern part of the world,
wealth like never before and weliterally have more time than
ever to be active.
But we fill it with a lot ofcrap that takes out our energy
and sucks us out of thatrealization of the normality of
life.
And I think if you could justthin slice a lot of things that
you don't like, at least just Ithink everyone could write down
(14:00):
three things that they wouldlike to remove or don't do or
find as inefficient.
If you could take out one ofthose, you know, you're one step
closer to be in a position tosee something new, to experience
something beautiful toexperience or be struck by
happiness.
So if everyone is trying tosolve that one, you know,
(14:22):
billion trillion dollar question, you will, you know, most
people will be miserable,miserable, miserable, off.
But if you're trying to solveprogress, you can have the
smallest progress.
You know, if I can continuethat over time, everything is
life is compound interest.
So if I could, just, you know,thin slice that and continue
(14:43):
those small steps.
And I think that's what youtalked about before the beauty
of the building process, theachievement.
I always like to draw an analogythrough the Statue of David by
Michelangelo and he was askedhow could you produce, create
this masterpiece?
They were looking for theanswer Right, and he said, very
(15:06):
beautifully, so that I just cutout everything.
That was not David, you know,and I think this is a very good
way of looking at life andlooking at progress.
So you don't necessarily knowwhere you're going, but you can
figure out where you don't wantto go, and the better you are at
doing that and the quality ofthe input that you then put into
(15:29):
whatever thing that you aredoing then accumulates into
something successful, and Ithink you as an entrepreneur
would resonate.
The business at the end is verydifferent than where you started
off.
The business at the end is verydifferent than where you
started off, and that holds tobe true today much more than
ever in human history, becauseevery product needs to be
world-class and everything canbe copied literally within
(15:50):
seconds.
So the pivot that you do withthe business over and over again
becomes your identity.
So there is nothing solid,there is nothing of static or
balance.
It's a continuous dynamism, andI think to understand that is a
deeper way of looking at theworld as a philosophy, more so
as an answer was day one versusyear four when we sold.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It could not be further from where we started in
terms of the markets that wewere working for, the services
that we were providing, the teamstructure.
Just everything was completelydifferent.
And the same would be said evenfor the new company, which
hasn't even publicly launched itlaunches in about a week here
but we've been researching andbuilding for almost two, two and
a half years now and throughthat arc of research and
(16:47):
development, so many things havechanged from what the original
vision was.
As we've gotten closer to, youknow, the customers, to the pain
points, et cetera, et cetera.
And if you know, if you were tosay, oh, you could go back and
you back and fast track some ofthese things.
Some of these things just can'tbe fast tracked.
It is an evolution, and part ofwhat makes it so exciting is
(17:08):
the constant changing, and whenyou wake up, every day is
different.
It's not the same, monotonousover and over again, and I think
that's what keeps thingsexciting too 100% and I don't
like to talk about solutionsbecause the finitude of things.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We don't solve problems right At the very
fundamental part.
The only thing we do isprogress, so we create better
problems.
We are trying to find theperfect answer very quickly.
So we're trying to find theperfect answer to the wrong
(17:49):
question because we don'tunderstand the underlying
problem.
So, if I play with what youjust said, you got closer to the
actual problem of the clientsand therefore could figure out
how to monetize or to implementor to launch something that
improves the state of thisproblem.
That is a better problem thanit was, you know, just a while
ago.
And that holds for all thingsin life.
(18:10):
Because if you play withknowledge, you know you have to
understand your underlyingassumptions Because at the core,
you know the foundation ofreality.
We are not standing on solidground, so everything we know
has some kind of underlyingfoundation and I think, coming
back to elon musk, this is hismagic, this is what he's really
good at.
The first principle thinkingjust to you know, cut out
(18:32):
everything and just drill downto the actual problem you know,
and then to anticipate if thisis the problem and we have had
exponential growth in technologyfor the past 80 years.
Where will we be in 5-10 yearsfrom now?
And you can add some hype to it, some marketing to uplift and
get some money and all that, butin general you know, this is
(18:55):
what entrepreneurs also shouldbe looking for.
You know how can I get a betterunderstanding of the
complexities, interdependenciesand spend more time on the
problem?
And I think many people todayjump into a quick solution and
want to monetize that andrealize, well, this didn't work
out because I didn't get theproblem.
(19:15):
So I think it's a very healthypath.
How do you describe and I thinkmany entrepreneurs and startups
can learn a lot from that as,in comparison to trying to build
the next ABC exit, where theyfeel miserable because they're
just trying to hype somethingthat will never launch?
So, yeah, I think that's a verygood way of looking at business
.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What do you think of?
And there's a term for it, butI'm forgetting what it is
exactly, but it refers to theconcept of, you know, from like
the let's call it the 1920s tolike 2000,.
You know, most of the thingsand businesses that were being
created at that time weretotally net new.
Like this is a first of itskind.
(19:57):
You know, for example, to use amore recent one, like the
iPhone.
When the iPhone came to market,nothing like that had ever
existed before.
But now, fast forward, whateverit is, 20 years later, we're
just getting differentiterations of what is the same
underlying concept, and there'snot, I mean, outside of some of
(20:18):
the stuff that Elon is doing,and now AI is complicating it a
little bit, because that'sobviously net new, but, like
most things that are coming tomarket, they are just better
versions of what already existsversus being a completely new
something, if that makes sense.
Um, do you see that pathcontinuing or do you think there
will be another period where, Idon't know, there's like flying
(20:40):
cars and there's like otherthings that you know have never
been done before, Because thelast 20 years really has been
just iterations or improvementsupon what already exists?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I see your journey here and I used to tend
to call that.
You know, innovation is packedknowledge.
You know that's the actioneconomy, that's the optimization
game, right, that is, do morewith less.
And this is basically whatyou're referring to.
First, you had a period of timewhere you had true foundations
(21:14):
of a product.
So you have a lot of that inGermany and in Europe, companies
called hidden champions thatare world market leader in their
industry.
So instead of melding theairplanes because of the
pressure, they created a superglue, so they have like 90%
market share.
You know, even going all theway to.
You know, the Flexi line yeah,so there's the dog leash.
(21:37):
Yeah, so they have an insanemarket size.
And it came out of a chainsawcompany that had free capacity
and the guy that foundedFlexiLine he fell in love with a
woman who had five dogs, so hetook the dog for a walk.
It was just chaos.
So he decided to use that freecapacity to build that mechanism
(21:59):
and he went to his boss and hesaid you know, I think I'm onto
something here, because everyonekeeps asking me and he wanted
to have a small profit and hesaid, well, that's too much.
So he decided to set up his owncompany and he built this huge
global brand with Gucci andVersace, with leashes and
everything.
So that was a part of thatproduct economy.
And then there was a phasewhere you have that optimization
(22:21):
game and obviously we enterinto a making money with money
kind of economy.
You fuel a value-drivenorganizations and make more
money outside of products andservices, just to digitally
influence the market and makemoney with money.
So we have gone from thatoptimization game where we now
(22:42):
have entered a point whereeverything that you can optimize
is a part of AI or anautomation game that we cannot
compete with.
There are huge investmentswhere we have to do and what I
think will happen is that willobviously continue.
You see, you're fueling theLLMs with more training data.
You might have the argument nowthat it's kind of sort of
(23:04):
reaching its limits, but I thinkthere will be breakthroughs in
other ways to do this.
One could be in the realm ofquantum technology, where I've
also invested.
I see some opportunities here.
But what I think will happen isthat, yes, we will have
breakthroughs.
Where do I think they will come?
We will have a huge disruptionon health and finance and
(23:26):
education in terms ofdecentralization, especially now
with the new president comingback or coming in, who will be
very opportunistic on theeconomy, having teamed up with
all the tech companies I thinkyou know the Fed, the whole
structure of having thatnational economy and economics
(23:49):
of the dollar, the euro, theEuropean Central Bank.
That is something that is veryrisky at the moment because if
the decentralization is fasterthan that they can digitize
their currencies.
Then we're up for adecentralization.
The same you could do forhealth.
I think the health systems willbe data-driven, measurable
things that young people willdrive the change.
(24:10):
So these are radical changes toold structured systems.
You could also have theargument for organized human
life altogether, a younggeneration opting out in some
kind of network states and so onand so forth.
But I think breakthroughs inscience will be much more
radical in the next year thanthey were the past 20 years.
Why?
(24:30):
Because of computation and AI.
We will drive material sciencesin a completely new way.
Other things in research thatwould have taken 20, 30 years
and billions of billions ofdollars can now be run on hybrid
computers or quantum computersor through some kind of AI
models, and you will discovernew materials within the
(24:55):
periodic system.
So today we have 118 elements,probably go up to 130, 140,
which will then again open upfor new ways to do batteries,
efficiency on solar and so onand so forth, which will
eventually lead to the marginalcost of energy plunging towards
zero, because we will have anabundance of energy, and that
(25:18):
will, of course, make a radicalshift to how we do business and
how we live.
So I think we're up for someradical changes to the realm
that you just mentioned.
Will it be small startups or apart of those huge conglomerates
?
That I can't answer because alot of these things will take a
(25:39):
lot of money and probably,coming back to Elon, he will
probably be the firsttrillionaire.
If you look at Nvidia, if theymake some kind of switch towards
some quantum chip or whateveryou know, they would just have
insane access to growth, andthat probably makes it even
(25:59):
harder for young startups andcompanies.
So I'm not quite sure how thestructure will be.
But, to answer your question, Ithink there will be radical
breakthroughs in science thatwill open up for some very, very
new ways to do things.
I mean wiring up the mind,playing with some kind of
upgrade apps to enhance ourskills.
There are so many things thatlie beyond what we would
(26:20):
consider just optimization andinnovation.
But again, if you look at itfrom a strictly technological
standpoint, that is alsooptimization.
It's just much faster and moreradical.
So we could call it disruptivecreation instead of optimization
.
So however you want to defineit, but I think, coming back to
(26:42):
your business model structures,I think the next 10 years will
be much more radical than thepast 30 years.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, and to your point about where that will come
from, I think more and moreI've been hearing the term
intrapreneur, which essentiallyis somebody who would be a part
of one of those largerorganizations, and they don't
necessarily want to take therisk, nor do they have the
capital, like wherewithal, topursue whatever it is they may
(27:10):
want to pursue.
But you know a lot of theselarger organizations, whether
it's Google, apple they havealmost subsets of their company
where they're essentiallycreating companies and you can
almost look at it as like anincubator, and I think Google
has like hundreds of differentcompanies that are underneath it
that they provide investmentand runway for.
(27:31):
I think we'll see more and moreof that as well, because some
of these companies are just, youknow, they just get larger and
larger every year.
It just continues to grow.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, but it's even more radical.
Like four or five years ago, Iwas with a group of scientists
that was speaking at a scienceconference and I think I really
pissed them off literally,because what I said was in the
future, nobel lecturates willcome out of corporates, not out
of academia, which was a verybold statement back then.
Look at the two last NobelPrizes this year chemistry and
(28:05):
physics, both coming out ofinformatics.
So a lot of engineering, likefor AI.
So it's just and it's obvious,because you have a lag.
So when you're in academia, youhave to file for a grant, you
have to define your thesis.
It takes a year and a half toget going, you know, and that's
not the speed we're working at.
And the second part is whywould I, as a quantum physicist,
(28:27):
go to a university or anacademia today if I can get more
money and do the same thingwithin a corporate?
So if I work at a quantum techstartup today, I can work with
100 smart quantum physicistsmuch more you know IP and
potentiality than even within anelite university.
I get more money, I havecompletely freedom to do R&D at
(28:50):
the same level like a Google orwhatever, but it goes down to
even the you know the big AIcompanies.
They're doing the same thing.
So we are taking the scientistsand taking science and progress
into the corporate world, whichwas a very bold statement back
then.
But we are seeing now how thisis evolving and shaping.
When I predicted this, it wasradical To me, it was obvious
(29:12):
and that we will see much moreof in the coming years.
Would mention is that it's notonly the Googles but the
Databricks or some kind of AIcompanies from the Valley.
You know they are doing amagical new threefold of running
a business.
I call it like the magical newthreefold, but it's actually
really old.
So one is you incubate your ownclients so you see grants and
(29:40):
investments in your clientsbecause if the clients are
successful, they make morebusiness with you.
This is an old model that weuse for gastronomy and beverages
, so the food and beveragesindustry, in particular, the
breweries and beverages.
They sponsored marketingservices to set up restaurants
and bars in order to have theirproduct within the bar, so they
(30:01):
helped the customers of the barsget going.
It's an ancient model that wasa successful model for our
industry.
Now you see that with allcompanies you can take this and
find use cases on how you canmake your clients successful in
every industry.
So that's number one.
Number two is in terms ofdynamism of industries and the
(30:21):
rapid change.
You want to invest in companies.
So one is obviously theincubation part that you talked
about, the entrepreneurship, butalso to take assets, even if
they're small assets.
So every company has a venturebranch that some of these
companies could be integratedlater as a part of your core
business or you can participateon an exit to have some more
(30:43):
asset opportunities, to havemore buffer for difficult times.
And the third one is obviouslyyour products and services that
you offer.
But, as we already talked abouthere, nothing is set in stone.
So you have to have thatecosystem understanding the
client, seeing the opportunitiesbeing at the tip of your toes
to see the next thing in tech inyour industry where you have
(31:05):
invested.
So the investments and theincubation of your clients put
you closer to the client and themarket and therefore you are in
a better position to understandthe problems and pivot your
product.
And I think this is a structurethat we are seeing more and
more on how to set up a companyas, in comparison to build a
(31:25):
great product market and sell.
You have that dynamism of that.
I call it the magic threefoldof modern companies or
entrepreneurship.
So I think that is those twothings.
The science part, and also thestructure, is something that we
will see more and more now.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Back to the first comment on the science part, and
this is something that Ithought was already happening
even before AI.
But now it feels like the gapis widening even more between
what's actually happening in thereal world and what skills are
needed versus what is beingtaught at universities.
Where do you think theeducation around you know the
(32:05):
new frontier of AI comes from,because I really don't think it
is universities, but there'sseeming there's an ever,
seemingly like wideningknowledge gap between those who
are like in the industry and whoare at the frontier, versus
those who are not.
And how do you think that getsaddressed?
And I mean, where do you thinkeducation goes when, to your
(32:29):
point, even the grants, you knowa year and a half, you know
things change in like a week now.
So, yeah, where where do youthink that education is going to
come from?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It struck me as one of the absolute elite
universities in the world,us-based, that brings out a huge
AI study every year, and youhave their managing director
talking in September, october of2024, about the trends of 2023.
And I was like you know the mostadvancement in this field
(32:59):
happened in June, july, augustthis year.
You know what you're talkingabout is outdated, so it's.
It's just that the speed ofthings is so radical.
And it's not that they're notsmart people, but they're just
don't have that access.
They're not in that space.
They have a different operatingmodel and this model seems to
(33:20):
be outdated.
You cannot wait two years toimplement a new educational
model to teach people what tothink.
So you want to sell a productthat you concept today to find a
finance, you build a businessmodel for executive education
and you're going to teach peopleknowledge two or three or four
years from now.
You know what could that be?
(33:42):
You know we have an infiniteaccess to free knowledge.
So to your question, I thinkthe model of education changes
from the old model of educatingexperts and building knowledge
to a radical shift to not toteach people what to think but
teach them how to think.
So learn how to learn becomes anew model.
(34:02):
What does that mean?
It means that we are in an eraof generalists, where we have to
see the interdependencies andwe have to know how to
facilitate and navigate and usethe tools collaboration, network
, experiences in a liveenvironment.
These are the skills that, atleast in the near future, seems
to be of advantage, and theknowledge part becomes less
(34:27):
relevant because it's just thelaziness of not tapping into
this thing or having it wired upto our brain.
Yeah, I mean, literally, wecould be having the same
conversation with a pair ofglasses and everything.
I would say something BS, bs,or you would say something BS.
We would have the red lights goon inside because we have
something called egos.
But, theoretically speaking, wecould validate anything that
(35:05):
comes out of our mouth today inreal time and therefore, I think
, you know, the validation partof the realness and the
validation part will just, youknow, get rapidly implemented,
um, at least in a sane way, uh,world, because that is where we
(35:25):
can validate what politiciansare saying.
We could, you know, put them ona blockchain validation
criteria and have some kind ofrealness criteria.
I mean that's that would be.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
that would cause quite quite a bit of ruckus,
uhus, if we saw that over theperiod of like 30 years.
But yes, no, no, I meantechnologically speaking, it's
there.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
We can have a sign-off on the blockchain of
the realness.
We take out all the AI-createdcontent.
We can have validation ofauthenticity.
We could tap into a real-timevalidation.
You would have the presidentspeaking and you would have a
light where you can have sourcesin real time.
Everything he's saying is likethis is not true.
This is not true, and the onlydefinition of that is we have to
(36:12):
have a will to truth, a commonground to stand on, and if there
is no common ground to stand onin society, then we have a huge
problem, then it's a mad, madworld.
But if that is given, that,that would be the intention of
humanity.
Whatever the truth is, you know, a computer would never make
the same mistake twice, becauseif there is a mistake that is
(36:36):
experienced by a human being, itwould be corrected Right.
Is a mistake that isexperienced by a human being, it
would be corrected right.
So this is the you know.
So so, theoretically speaking,we're in a beautiful place that
we could have that um,practicality and implementation
and society in general at large,something totally different,
but, uh, at least fromtechnology.
We're already there.
(36:57):
We drifted off from theeducation, but I just want to
say that I think that this isgoing back 250 years to Hegel
and Kant and the foundation ofphilosophy.
It's about the vernunft and theverstand, the society of reason
, and not one of knowledge, thatwill prosper.
So, theoretically, ai is in aposition to force us to learn
(37:20):
how to think basically.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, no, I love that because even I mean it's a
small example, but as I'm goingthrough a house remodel right
now, it's not like I went toschool, you know, to learn how
to be a building engineer or youknow a contractor or whatever
it may be.
But quite literally any email Iget or text I can take, just
copy and paste into ChatGPT andit will tell me what.
(37:45):
You know what the vernacular isthat's being used.
I mean even to the little nittygritty of how to lay certain
tiles and what it goes on.
And it essentially is like a BSdetector for people in the
professional services and trade,because you can just say, no,
this actually isn't true.
Look, people in theprofessional services and trade.
Because you can just say, no,this actually isn't true.
Look at the internet or chat GPT.
I mean 25 years ago that wasnot possible.
There is still some lag andlatency in that process.
(38:08):
But you know that real time,you know validation, I think, is
going to be coming sooner,sooner rather than later, and
we'll we'll be better off for it.
But you know it's the same waycompanies are hiring now.
They don't necessarily hire forthe hard skills, they hire more
for the soft skills, becausethe hard skills can be taught.
It's the soft skills that aresignificantly you know, more
(38:29):
intrinsic and also harder toteach.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and I think that is.
I mean coming back to my lastbook, to the Viking Code.
It's all about that.
It's about activation.
You know, how can you live avital life?
We have created a society that'sa new kind of existentialism
that has emerged, various to20th century, with Sartre and
Camus and all the existentialistphilosophy from going back to
(38:54):
Kierkegaard and talking aboutthat, fighting the anxiety of
death.
We are now in a world where weare becoming more and more
undead, the philosophicalzombies walking around where you
know.
The lights seem to be on, butthere are no one home to
perceive them.
Right?
This kind of society, so itunfolds basically also on a
(39:17):
biological as well as atechnical level.
We could theoreticallyoverwrite our consciousness, so
I could be a perfect AI.
My initials are AI, so thereare evidence for that.
But I could claim that I wouldbe conscious, but you couldn't
tell the difference, right?
So there is a technologicalcomponent, but I also look at
the societal component, where weare just reacting to impulses.
(39:38):
Go to YouTube and watch a video.
It doesn't say these are videosof interest, it just says next
video.
So you're kind of being draggedthrough life reacting to
impulses, your dose, yourdopamine, your ossitory and
serotonin, your endorphins, andthat becomes us more and more
detached from the ordinarywonders, the normality of life,
(40:00):
the experience of life itself.
So I think you know those skills, people that are motivated,
leaders that can activate humanbeings to like to perform, to do
something, because I think atthe bottom you know the
foundation of what it means tobe a mensch, a human being, is
our capability to come up withbetter explanation, to
(40:23):
experience progress.
We are born with kind of sortof an empty storage and we start
to navigate.
We are per se active, we areper se creative and we are
chaired on by our parents thatclap their hands every time you
make the next milestone right,and this we are trained out of
through our systems and ourstructures in society, holding
(40:46):
on to our old, self-evidenttruths and trying to be
something that is solid.
This is who I am as acomparison to something in the
making right, and I think thisis very valid to get out of that
undead state and to take backthe agency and therefore these
skills, people that can supportor lead or create an environment
(41:11):
, a culture, if you like, toactivate and give people back a
sense of agency, what it meansto be alive.
I think that is really, reallyimportant and I agree with you,
everything else can be learned.
So, an active, intrinsicallymotivated, passionate person,
you know if you take away thefire, you know that's the
(41:33):
dumbest thing you can do as aleader.
They can make mistakes, but youknow and this is where I also
write about in the book we havehad a lot of notion about
failure culture, particularly inEurope and Germany.
Talk about we have to have afailure culture.
No, we don't.
We want to have a performanceculture.
We want things to function, tobe efficient.
I don't want to have a pilotthat is trained on failure
(41:56):
culture.
You know, flying into theairport of Frankfurt, right, we
want it to function.
So as long as the incentive forprogress or for moving on or
for change is higher than thepain of a loss, a short-term
loss, losing a finite game, youwill always get back on your
feet and these type of peoplethat's the ones you want to have
(42:19):
in your organization.
You want to activate andmotivate for progress and you
don't want to punish mistakes.
That's obvious.
But it's okay.
If you lose, it's painful.
If you get slapped in the face,it's painful, all right.
But as long as the motivationand the intrinsically drive
towards progress is higher, youwill always get back up.
(42:40):
And this skill to activate thatin human beings or the people
that bring it to the table,that's what I think you want to
have in your organization today.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, I completely agree.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
these insights.
I know we only got to touch thesurface level of some of them.
So for people who want to learnmore about you and the work
that you're up, sharing allthese insights I know we only
got to touch the surface levelof some of them so for people
who want to learn more about youand you know the work that
you're up to, could you leteverybody know where they can
find you online?
And we'll make sure to includeit in the in the show notes as
well.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Sure, yeah, first of all, thank you for having me on,
brian.
I like the conversation and,yeah, my last book is titled the
Viking code.
It's found under viking-codecom.
It's about building ahigh-performance culture deeply
rooted in values, about thatdance of individualism and
collectivism.
I have a forthcoming bookcoming out in March 2025, titled
(43:33):
the Singularity Paradox.
It's much more technical,bridging the gap between
humanity and AI, where I,together with my colleague, dr
Florian Neukert, quantumphysicist, do what we call
sci-fi, phi, science, philosophy, and we look at creating
artificial human intelligence asa necessity for the next path
(43:54):
towards AGI or singularity.
And most of my work, orreferences to such, is found on
my website, andersinsetcom.
I'm also occasionally onLinkedIn, so if you ever want to
link up, I'm always happy togrow that community.
So, again, thank you for havingme on, brandon.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Awesome.
Well, thank you for sharing andagain for everybody who's
listening, as always, this isBrandon Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandAmorosocom or Scalistai.
Thank you for listening and wewill see you next time.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Anders Insett,who's an internationally
acclaimed keynote speaker,norwegian-born author, deep tech
investor and also a formerelite athlete.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Brandon, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So before we jump into things here, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on your rather
diverse sort of history andcareer up until this point?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, I mean I was always very curious, a learner
in all paths, I think.
When I grew up in Norway anddid very different sports and we
were very active that was ouryouth we participated in
multiple sports because that wasin a small village, small city,
so we had to participate inother sports in order for them
(00:56):
to have a team, so they wouldshow up in my team Fairly early.
I got into the whole aspect ofbusiness and entrepreneurship.
I was curious about technology,started the internet wave
really early.
I was a nerd, programmedwebsites and learned the first
HTML, got the image tag andstarted at a terrible bandwidth
(01:18):
to upload some kind of mediadata onto the then new fancy
thing called the internet, andit was always about that
discovery and about progress andlearning.
I had a background as a hardcorecapitalist, built some
companies, had an agency,founded an online print house
(01:38):
and, as you said in thebeginning, I have a background
as a professional athlete.
As you said in the beginning, Ihave a background as a
professional athlete, so it wasalways about the active part of
life.
But I never really felt success.
To many from the outside worldit probably wasn't like a
successful career or peoplewould say that you know you're
good at sport, you're good atsome decent things within the
(02:00):
business field, but I never feltthat it was all about just
chasing goals and dreams thenext thing.
So I let go of that.
I sold my company and I startedto write.
I was always very interested inphilosophy and I saw that on
the plates of leaders around theworld, philosophical questions
was a part of the daily business.
So I decided to just unite twoof them, the art of doing
(02:23):
business and philosophy, andthat took me to the speaking and
writing, having now finished mysixth book.
So that's a very short, rapidwalkthrough of my youth and my
professional career.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
What sport did you play as an athlete?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, so this is the thing in the US.
You know, I came, I lived ayear in Nebraska and I came
there back in 1994.
And I said that play handball.
And they resonated with that asa prison sport.
You know, you kick the ballwith your hands.
But I've learned that this isnot the sport that I did and I
played over Europe.
It's the team handball.
That was the first thing Ilearned, but now I refer to it
(03:04):
as Olympic handball.
So there is even an Olympicteam from the US.
It's for the people that don'tknow the sport, it's a very
fast-paced game, kind of likebasketball, but instead of
shooting hoops you're throwingthe ball into a goal, kind of
like soccer.
So you have a goalie and youhave defenders and you have you
run plays similar to footballand there's like a very rapid
(03:25):
pace to it, kind of like icehockey, going back and forth
high scoring games.
So it's a.
It's a very interesting sport,very popular in Europe, draw
crowds similar to some of theNBA matches in the US.
So it's a.
It's a very interesting sport.
I played, not at the veryhighest level, but I had a
almost 10 year career where Isemi-professionally played it
(03:47):
alongside building my company,so it was a juggling training
and workouts with uh, buildingtech companies and and being an
entrepreneur that's awesome,though, and I feel like more and
more entrepreneurs are alsovery active outside of you know,
business.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It seems to go with the personality, whether they're
professional or notprofessional the weekend
warriors even.
It sort of goes hand in handwith entrepreneurship, but I've
seen more and more sort ofsports from overseas starting to
make waves in the US, like atleast here in Miami.
Padel has blown up over thepast year, year and a half, and
(04:28):
I had never even heard about itbefore I moved to Miami, and
you're starting to see someother sports that are making
their way here.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's funny.
You say that.
I mean the paddle tennis part.
It just went past me.
I have a friend of mine, Ispoke at his conference and I
meet him a year later and he hasliterally just rolled out,
together with some, you know,investors and former
professional athletes, a networkof pedal.
You know courts and I go to theuae and I see the hotels
(04:56):
haven't rebuilt the tenniscourts to have it sounds like
whoa, where did this come from?
Right, it's just a hugeindustry overnight, very
fascinating, uh.
And of course, in miami you also, uh, drew messi, so it was a
lot of attention to soccer.
That is, you know, made thatpopular.
So, yeah, I, I, I hear you, anduh, uh, the same things for
some in europe, some of the ussports have also caught some
(05:19):
interest.
But I think you know, ingeneral, the, the football,
basketball in particular haven'treally, you you know, made the
next level.
I think basketball in Europe.
Now, if you look at the NBA,there are a lot of European
superstars, so that's somethingthat's established.
But as for football, there is,like I just spoke with one of
the former professional soccerstars, oliver Beerhoff, and he
(05:43):
was with the management of theSoccer Federation and he's very
curious about football.
So they're doing some events,playing some games in Germany.
But I like football personally,but it hasn't really caught on
in Europe.
But I see the same.
I see that some of theseEuropean sports are now making
it to the US.
So where there is money andmarketing value, it's obviously
something for the US market.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I think you've seen more NFL games being played
in, like Mexico, london, I wantto say.
They even played it somewhereelse as well.
They're definitely trying toexpand it, but it is very much
so a US sport and a little bitof Canada as well too.
But that'll be interesting tosee how it progresses.
But you mentioned one of thereasons you sold your business
(06:25):
is because you were looking forI think you mentioned trying to
find not necessarily meaning,but you were struggling with
feeling that sense ofaccomplishment that others who
were looking from the outside inmight say, oh, this person is
very accomplished, oh, thisperson is very accomplished.
(06:47):
How have you worked to overcomethat and be more comfortable
with not necessarily who you are, but what you've done?
Because this is a common themethat I hear from entrepreneurs
ranging from small exits togiant exits it doesn't really
matter.
There's this common theme of,oh, we really feel like we
haven't done that much, whereaseveryone else would think, oh,
you've done so much, you'rehaven't done that much, whereas
everyone else would think, oh,you know you've done so much,
(07:09):
you know you're so accomplished,everything should be perfect
for you.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean, probably you can resonate with
this because you have done someamazing stuff.
But I think to me, seeking thatfinite answer to a question,
you know you spoke about meaningand purpose in life.
You know the one one you knowthing that you're made for, you
(07:30):
know who you are.
I think it's the other wayaround.
I think you know you cannotmake yourself happy, but you can
make yourself less unhappy.
So if there are things that youdon't like or that are holding
you back, you don't have to havethe answer, what is right.
But you can figure out thatthis is something that I do not
want to do.
So that sense of agency in aworld where we have all become
(07:51):
very reactive, so everything wedefine as success is in
measurement to something else.
So when I wrote the Viking Code, my latest book, it was about
figuring out how did my homecountry, norway, bring out all
these superstars in disciplinesthat have very little to do with
snow huge sports tennis, golf,running, soccer.
(08:16):
We have the two best beachvolleyball players in the world
coming from way up north inNorway, and that was to me very
fascinating.
So I thought how can you buildthat success, high-performance
culture.
And when I started to dig intothat I realized that it wasn't
(08:37):
about the finitude of results,so much more the outcome of the
process, the path, if you lookat it from an Eastern
philosophical way, was what wasthe magic of their success.
So I think the experience ofyour own experience, the
experience of learning, theexperience of progress that is
fully detached from anextrinsically motivated
(08:58):
definition, that becomes a partof the liveliness.
In Germany we say lebendigkeit,you know the vitality of life
and that, I think, is a verysuccessful way to live for
yourself.
So today I consider myselfhighly successful.
To me, because I'm privilegedthat I get to get up every
(09:18):
morning and learn, I get toexperience progress, and that is
, you know, the quality of theinput of a process like running
the marathon.
You don't look at it at the endgoal, you look at it in the
perfection of your next step.
So the reflection of perfectionis a quality of the small
things that you do thataccumulates into results, into
(09:41):
whatever that is, and if youlook at that, you're always in
comparison.
Everyone alive is poor incomparison to Elon Musk right
now, right.
So if that is the measurement,you will only have that one
lucky smart monkey that made itall the way to the top.
So if you play that optimizationgame, the maximizing, the art
(10:02):
of being right and that is adefinition of what it means to
be you as a man, as a humanbeing then you're always going
to be bad off, because it'salways a binary way of looking
at the world, as in comparisonto looking at the path or the
progress or the dynamism of lifethat we are always in the
becoming like a wonderfuljourney to nowhere but filling
(10:25):
that with substance from anintrinsically motivated action
or activity.
I don't know if that makessense to you, but this is how I
look at life that you freeyourself from the things that
you are holding you back andthen you put yourself in a
position to be struck bysomething called happiness,
because you're aware, becauseyou are present, you are tuned
(10:47):
in or whatever you want to callit, without necessarily having
taken that spiritual path, butjust resonating with what do I
not want to be?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, and I think the reframing of the mindset is
really important as well, andasking yourself what are the
goals?
Do these really actually matterto me?
Or is it this binary one ornothing that might be easy to
latch on to if you look at themedia or the news headlines or
(11:18):
things like that, but what doyou actually care about?
Is it really just money andtrying to make as much as
possible, because you're stillgoing to end up not in first
place, as you mentioned earlierwith somebody like Elon?
And I think the process ofbuilding is the most exciting
part of entrepreneurship and,sure, sometimes it culminates in
(11:42):
an exit, sometimes itculminates in the business
failing too, but the process ofactually building is the most
exciting and is something that Ithink we all just need
intrinsically as well, becauseI've met people who have tried
to take a step back from thatand then they're sort of lost
and they don't have that samepurpose or passion because
they've let go of the process ofbuilding.
(12:06):
And it doesn't have to be.
You don't have to build to bethe next Facebook or the next
LinkedIn or whatever it may be.
I think that there's anover-glorification of these
unicorn exits, which is not thenorm, it is the outlier, whereas
there's tons of smallbusinesses that are very
successful, that produce a lotfor not only the economy but the
people that work for them, andalso that happiness factor that
(12:29):
I don't think is highlightedenough, because not every
business has to be a billiondollar business.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
No, I totally agree.
But again, there is nothingwrong with big visions or goals
I mean, I think that's good.
But the problem becomes when itdefines you.
You know when you become thevision or the goal.
So that is your definition ofsuccess, so that is where you
(12:56):
compare to others.
So you know, if you sell off acompany, you're never fulfilled
to that extent.
So you know, if you sell off acompany, you're never fulfilled
to that extent.
And that's why I think that youknow, as we have those goals and
(13:16):
visions and the finitude ofthose measurements, the finite
games of life, there is no ideawhere I'll be heading in life,
you know.
But I think one thing is forfact is that we could say that
never in human history have wehad more time and more
potentiality to influence ourown reality as our generation.
Or just now.
We have technologies that neverbefore.
(13:36):
We have, at least in theWestern part of the world,
wealth like never before and weliterally have more time than
ever to be active.
But we fill it with a lot ofcrap that takes out our energy
and sucks us out of thatrealization of the normality of
life.
And I think if you could justthin slice a lot of things that
you don't like, at least just Ithink everyone could write down
(14:00):
three things that they wouldlike to remove or don't do or
find as inefficient.
If you could take out one ofthose, you know, you're one step
closer to be in a position tosee something new, to experience
something beautiful toexperience or be struck by
happiness.
So if everyone is trying tosolve that one, you know,
(14:22):
billion trillion dollar question, you will, you know, most
people will be miserable,miserable, miserable, off.
But if you're trying to solveprogress, you can have the
smallest progress.
You know, if I can continuethat over time, everything is
life is compound interest.
So if I could, just, you know,thin slice that and continue
(14:43):
those small steps.
And I think that's what youtalked about before the beauty
of the building process, theachievement.
I always like to draw an analogythrough the Statue of David by
Michelangelo and he was askedhow could you produce, create
this masterpiece?
They were looking for theanswer Right, and he said, very
(15:06):
beautifully, so that I just cutout everything.
That was not David, you know,and I think this is a very good
way of looking at life andlooking at progress.
So you don't necessarily knowwhere you're going, but you can
figure out where you don't wantto go, and the better you are at
doing that and the quality ofthe input that you then put into
(15:29):
whatever thing that you aredoing then accumulates into
something successful, and Ithink you as an entrepreneur
would resonate.
The business at the end is verydifferent than where you started
off.
The business at the end is verydifferent than where you
started off, and that holds tobe true today much more than
ever in human history, becauseevery product needs to be
world-class and everything canbe copied literally within
(15:50):
seconds.
So the pivot that you do withthe business over and over again
becomes your identity.
So there is nothing solid,there is nothing of static or
balance.
It's a continuous dynamism, andI think to understand that is a
deeper way of looking at theworld as a philosophy, more so
as an answer was day one versusyear four when we sold.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It could not be further from where we started in
terms of the markets that wewere working for, the services
that we were providing, the teamstructure.
Just everything was completelydifferent.
And the same would be said evenfor the new company, which
hasn't even publicly launched itlaunches in about a week here
but we've been researching andbuilding for almost two, two and
a half years now and throughthat arc of research and
(16:47):
development, so many things havechanged from what the original
vision was.
As we've gotten closer to, youknow, the customers, to the pain
points, et cetera, et cetera.
And if you know, if you were tosay, oh, you could go back and
you back and fast track some ofthese things.
Some of these things just can'tbe fast tracked.
It is an evolution, and part ofwhat makes it so exciting is
(17:08):
the constant changing, and whenyou wake up, every day is
different.
It's not the same, monotonousover and over again, and I think
that's what keeps thingsexciting too 100% and I don't
like to talk about solutionsbecause the finitude of things.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
We don't solve problems right At the very
fundamental part.
The only thing we do isprogress, so we create better
problems.
We are trying to find theperfect answer very quickly.
So we're trying to find theperfect answer to the wrong
(17:49):
question because we don'tunderstand the underlying
problem.
So, if I play with what youjust said, you got closer to the
actual problem of the clientsand therefore could figure out
how to monetize or to implementor to launch something that
improves the state of thisproblem.
That is a better problem thanit was, you know, just a while
ago.
And that holds for all thingsin life.
(18:10):
Because if you play withknowledge, you know you have to
understand your underlyingassumptions Because at the core,
you know the foundation ofreality.
We are not standing on solidground, so everything we know
has some kind of underlyingfoundation and I think, coming
back to elon musk, this is hismagic, this is what he's really
good at.
The first principle thinkingjust to you know, cut out
(18:32):
everything and just drill downto the actual problem you know,
and then to anticipate if thisis the problem and we have had
exponential growth in technologyfor the past 80 years.
Where will we be in 5-10 yearsfrom now?
And you can add some hype to it, some marketing to uplift and
get some money and all that, butin general you know, this is
(18:55):
what entrepreneurs also shouldbe looking for.
You know how can I get a betterunderstanding of the
complexities, interdependenciesand spend more time on the
problem?
And I think many people todayjump into a quick solution and
want to monetize that andrealize, well, this didn't work
out because I didn't get theproblem.
(19:15):
So I think it's a very healthypath.
How do you describe and I thinkmany entrepreneurs and startups
can learn a lot from that as,in comparison to trying to build
the next ABC exit, where theyfeel miserable because they're
just trying to hype somethingthat will never launch?
So, yeah, I think that's a verygood way of looking at business
.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
What do you think of?
And there's a term for it, butI'm forgetting what it is
exactly, but it refers to theconcept of, you know, from like
the let's call it the 1920s tolike 2000,.
You know, most of the thingsand businesses that were being
created at that time weretotally net new.
Like this is a first of itskind.
(19:57):
You know, for example, to use amore recent one, like the
iPhone.
When the iPhone came to market,nothing like that had ever
existed before.
But now, fast forward, whateverit is, 20 years later, we're
just getting differentiterations of what is the same
underlying concept, and there'snot, I mean, outside of some of
(20:18):
the stuff that Elon is doing,and now AI is complicating it a
little bit, because that'sobviously net new, but, like
most things that are coming tomarket, they are just better
versions of what already existsversus being a completely new
something, if that makes sense.
Um, do you see that pathcontinuing or do you think there
will be another period where, Idon't know, there's like flying
(20:40):
cars and there's like otherthings that you know have never
been done before, Because thelast 20 years really has been
just iterations or improvementsupon what already exists?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, I see your journey here and I used to tend
to call that.
You know, innovation is packedknowledge.
You know that's the actioneconomy, that's the optimization
game, right, that is, do morewith less.
And this is basically whatyou're referring to.
First, you had a period of timewhere you had true foundations
(21:14):
of a product.
So you have a lot of that inGermany and in Europe, companies
called hidden champions thatare world market leader in their
industry.
So instead of melding theairplanes because of the
pressure, they created a superglue, so they have like 90%
market share.
You know, even going all theway to.
You know, the Flexi line yeah,so there's the dog leash.
(21:37):
Yeah, so they have an insanemarket size.
And it came out of a chainsawcompany that had free capacity
and the guy that foundedFlexiLine he fell in love with a
woman who had five dogs, so hetook the dog for a walk.
It was just chaos.
So he decided to use that freecapacity to build that mechanism
(21:59):
and he went to his boss and hesaid you know, I think I'm onto
something here, because everyonekeeps asking me and he wanted
to have a small profit and hesaid, well, that's too much.
So he decided to set up his owncompany and he built this huge
global brand with Gucci andVersace, with leashes and
everything.
So that was a part of thatproduct economy.
And then there was a phasewhere you have that optimization
(22:21):
game and obviously we enterinto a making money with money
kind of economy.
You fuel a value-drivenorganizations and make more
money outside of products andservices, just to digitally
influence the market and makemoney with money.
So we have gone from thatoptimization game where we now
(22:42):
have entered a point whereeverything that you can optimize
is a part of AI or anautomation game that we cannot
compete with.
There are huge investmentswhere we have to do and what I
think will happen is that willobviously continue.
You see, you're fueling theLLMs with more training data.
You might have the argument nowthat it's kind of sort of
(23:04):
reaching its limits, but I thinkthere will be breakthroughs in
other ways to do this.
One could be in the realm ofquantum technology, where I've
also invested.
I see some opportunities here.
But what I think will happen isthat, yes, we will have
breakthroughs.
Where do I think they will come?
We will have a huge disruptionon health and finance and
(23:26):
education in terms ofdecentralization, especially now
with the new president comingback or coming in, who will be
very opportunistic on theeconomy, having teamed up with
all the tech companies I thinkyou know the Fed, the whole
structure of having thatnational economy and economics
(23:49):
of the dollar, the euro, theEuropean Central Bank.
That is something that is veryrisky at the moment because if
the decentralization is fasterthan that they can digitize
their currencies.
Then we're up for adecentralization.
The same you could do forhealth.
I think the health systems willbe data-driven, measurable
things that young people willdrive the change.
(24:10):
So these are radical changes toold structured systems.
You could also have theargument for organized human
life altogether, a younggeneration opting out in some
kind of network states and so onand so forth.
But I think breakthroughs inscience will be much more
radical in the next year thanthey were the past 20 years.
Why?
(24:30):
Because of computation and AI.
We will drive material sciencesin a completely new way.
Other things in research thatwould have taken 20, 30 years
and billions of billions ofdollars can now be run on hybrid
computers or quantum computersor through some kind of AI
models, and you will discovernew materials within the
(24:55):
periodic system.
So today we have 118 elements,probably go up to 130, 140,
which will then again open upfor new ways to do batteries,
efficiency on solar and so onand so forth, which will
eventually lead to the marginalcost of energy plunging towards
zero, because we will have anabundance of energy, and that
(25:18):
will, of course, make a radicalshift to how we do business and
how we live.
So I think we're up for someradical changes to the realm
that you just mentioned.
Will it be small startups or apart of those huge conglomerates
?
That I can't answer because alot of these things will take a
(25:39):
lot of money and probably,coming back to Elon, he will
probably be the firsttrillionaire.
If you look at Nvidia, if theymake some kind of switch towards
some quantum chip or whateveryou know, they would just have
insane access to growth, andthat probably makes it even
(25:59):
harder for young startups andcompanies.
So I'm not quite sure how thestructure will be.
But, to answer your question, Ithink there will be radical
breakthroughs in science thatwill open up for some very, very
new ways to do things.
I mean wiring up the mind,playing with some kind of
upgrade apps to enhance ourskills.
There are so many things thatlie beyond what we would
(26:20):
consider just optimization andinnovation.
But again, if you look at itfrom a strictly technological
standpoint, that is alsooptimization.
It's just much faster and moreradical.
So we could call it disruptivecreation instead of optimization
.
So however you want to defineit, but I think, coming back to
(26:42):
your business model structures,I think the next 10 years will
be much more radical than thepast 30 years.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, and to your point about where that will come
from, I think more and moreI've been hearing the term
intrapreneur, which essentiallyis somebody who would be a part
of one of those largerorganizations, and they don't
necessarily want to take therisk, nor do they have the
capital, like wherewithal, topursue whatever it is they may
(27:10):
want to pursue.
But you know a lot of theselarger organizations, whether
it's Google, apple they havealmost subsets of their company
where they're essentiallycreating companies and you can
almost look at it as like anincubator, and I think Google
has like hundreds of differentcompanies that are underneath it
that they provide investmentand runway for.
(27:31):
I think we'll see more and moreof that as well, because some
of these companies are just, youknow, they just get larger and
larger every year.
It just continues to grow.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, but it's even more radical.
Like four or five years ago, Iwas with a group of scientists
that was speaking at a scienceconference and I think I really
pissed them off literally,because what I said was in the
future, nobel lecturates willcome out of corporates, not out
of academia, which was a verybold statement back then.
Look at the two last NobelPrizes this year chemistry and
(28:05):
physics, both coming out ofinformatics.
So a lot of engineering, likefor AI.
So it's just and it's obvious,because you have a lag.
So when you're in academia, youhave to file for a grant, you
have to define your thesis.
It takes a year and a half toget going, you know, and that's
not the speed we're working at.
And the second part is whywould I, as a quantum physicist,
(28:27):
go to a university or anacademia today if I can get more
money and do the same thingwithin a corporate?
So if I work at a quantum techstartup today, I can work with
100 smart quantum physicistsmuch more you know IP and
potentiality than even within anelite university.
I get more money, I havecompletely freedom to do R&D at
(28:50):
the same level like a Google orwhatever, but it goes down to
even the you know the big AIcompanies.
They're doing the same thing.
So we are taking the scientistsand taking science and progress
into the corporate world, whichwas a very bold statement back
then.
But we are seeing now how thisis evolving and shaping.
When I predicted this, it wasradical To me, it was obvious
(29:12):
and that we will see much moreof in the coming years.
Would mention is that it's notonly the Googles but the
Databricks or some kind of AIcompanies from the Valley.
You know they are doing amagical new threefold of running
a business.
I call it like the magical newthreefold, but it's actually
really old.
So one is you incubate your ownclients so you see grants and
(29:40):
investments in your clientsbecause if the clients are
successful, they make morebusiness with you.
This is an old model that weuse for gastronomy and beverages
, so the food and beveragesindustry, in particular, the
breweries and beverages.
They sponsored marketingservices to set up restaurants
and bars in order to have theirproduct within the bar, so they
(30:01):
helped the customers of the barsget going.
It's an ancient model that wasa successful model for our
industry.
Now you see that with allcompanies you can take this and
find use cases on how you canmake your clients successful in
every industry.
So that's number one.
Number two is in terms ofdynamism of industries and the
(30:21):
rapid change.
You want to invest in companies.
So one is obviously theincubation part that you talked
about, the entrepreneurship, butalso to take assets, even if
they're small assets.
So every company has a venturebranch that some of these
companies could be integratedlater as a part of your core
business or you can participateon an exit to have some more
(30:43):
asset opportunities, to havemore buffer for difficult times.
And the third one is obviouslyyour products and services that
you offer.
But, as we already talked abouthere, nothing is set in stone.
So you have to have thatecosystem understanding the
client, seeing the opportunitiesbeing at the tip of your toes
to see the next thing in tech inyour industry where you have
(31:05):
invested.
So the investments and theincubation of your clients put
you closer to the client and themarket and therefore you are in
a better position to understandthe problems and pivot your
product.
And I think this is a structurethat we are seeing more and
more on how to set up a companyas, in comparison to build a
(31:25):
great product market and sell.
You have that dynamism of that.
I call it the magic threefoldof modern companies or
entrepreneurship.
So I think that is those twothings.
The science part, and also thestructure, is something that we
will see more and more now.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Back to the first comment on the science part, and
this is something that Ithought was already happening
even before AI.
But now it feels like the gapis widening even more between
what's actually happening in thereal world and what skills are
needed versus what is beingtaught at universities.
Where do you think theeducation around you know the
(32:05):
new frontier of AI comes from,because I really don't think it
is universities, but there'sseeming there's an ever,
seemingly like wideningknowledge gap between those who
are like in the industry and whoare at the frontier, versus
those who are not.
And how do you think that getsaddressed?
And I mean, where do you thinkeducation goes when, to your
(32:29):
point, even the grants, you knowa year and a half, you know
things change in like a week now.
So, yeah, where where do youthink that education is going to
come from?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It struck me as one of the absolute elite
universities in the world,us-based, that brings out a huge
AI study every year, and youhave their managing director
talking in September, october of2024, about the trends of 2023.
And I was like you know the mostadvancement in this field
(32:59):
happened in June, july, augustthis year.
You know what you're talkingabout is outdated, so it's.
It's just that the speed ofthings is so radical.
And it's not that they're notsmart people, but they're just
don't have that access.
They're not in that space.
They have a different operatingmodel and this model seems to
(33:20):
be outdated.
You cannot wait two years toimplement a new educational
model to teach people what tothink.
So you want to sell a productthat you concept today to find a
finance, you build a businessmodel for executive education
and you're going to teach peopleknowledge two or three or four
years from now.
You know what could that be?
(33:42):
You know we have an infiniteaccess to free knowledge.
So to your question, I thinkthe model of education changes
from the old model of educatingexperts and building knowledge
to a radical shift to not toteach people what to think but
teach them how to think.
So learn how to learn becomes anew model.
(34:02):
What does that mean?
It means that we are in an eraof generalists, where we have to
see the interdependencies andwe have to know how to
facilitate and navigate and usethe tools collaboration, network
, experiences in a liveenvironment.
These are the skills that, atleast in the near future, seems
to be of advantage, and theknowledge part becomes less
(34:27):
relevant because it's just thelaziness of not tapping into
this thing or having it wired upto our brain.
Yeah, I mean, literally, wecould be having the same
conversation with a pair ofglasses and everything.
I would say something BS, bs,or you would say something BS.
We would have the red lights goon inside because we have
something called egos.
But, theoretically speaking, wecould validate anything that
(35:05):
comes out of our mouth today inreal time and therefore, I think
, you know, the validation partof the realness and the
validation part will just, youknow, get rapidly implemented,
um, at least in a sane way, uh,world, because that is where we
(35:25):
can validate what politiciansare saying.
We could, you know, put them ona blockchain validation
criteria and have some kind ofrealness criteria.
I mean that's that would be.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
that would cause quite quite a bit of ruckus,
uhus, if we saw that over theperiod of like 30 years.
But yes, no, no, I meantechnologically speaking, it's
there.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
We can have a sign-off on the blockchain of
the realness.
We take out all the AI-createdcontent.
We can have validation ofauthenticity.
We could tap into a real-timevalidation.
You would have the presidentspeaking and you would have a
light where you can have sourcesin real time.
Everything he's saying is likethis is not true.
This is not true, and the onlydefinition of that is we have to
(36:12):
have a will to truth, a commonground to stand on, and if there
is no common ground to stand onin society, then we have a huge
problem, then it's a mad, madworld.
But if that is given, that,that would be the intention of
humanity.
Whatever the truth is, you know, a computer would never make
the same mistake twice, becauseif there is a mistake that is
(36:36):
experienced by a human being, itwould be corrected Right.
Is a mistake that isexperienced by a human being, it
would be corrected right.
So this is the you know.
So so, theoretically speaking,we're in a beautiful place that
we could have that um,practicality and implementation
and society in general at large,something totally different,
but, uh, at least fromtechnology.
We're already there.
(36:57):
We drifted off from theeducation, but I just want to
say that I think that this isgoing back 250 years to Hegel
and Kant and the foundation ofphilosophy.
It's about the vernunft and theverstand, the society of reason
, and not one of knowledge, thatwill prosper.
So, theoretically, ai is in aposition to force us to learn
(37:20):
how to think basically.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, no, I love that because even I mean it's a
small example, but as I'm goingthrough a house remodel right
now, it's not like I went toschool, you know, to learn how
to be a building engineer or youknow a contractor or whatever
it may be.
But quite literally any email Iget or text I can take, just
copy and paste into ChatGPT andit will tell me what.
(37:45):
You know what the vernacular isthat's being used.
I mean even to the little nittygritty of how to lay certain
tiles and what it goes on.
And it essentially is like a BSdetector for people in the
professional services and trade,because you can just say, no,
this actually isn't true.
Look, people in theprofessional services and trade.
Because you can just say, no,this actually isn't true.
Look at the internet or chat GPT.
I mean 25 years ago that wasnot possible.
There is still some lag andlatency in that process.
(38:08):
But you know that real time,you know validation, I think, is
going to be coming sooner,sooner rather than later, and
we'll we'll be better off for it.
But you know it's the same waycompanies are hiring now.
They don't necessarily hire forthe hard skills, they hire more
for the soft skills, becausethe hard skills can be taught.
It's the soft skills that aresignificantly you know, more
(38:29):
intrinsic and also harder toteach.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and I think that is.
I mean coming back to my lastbook, to the Viking Code.
It's all about that.
It's about activation.
You know, how can you live avital life?
We have created a society that'sa new kind of existentialism
that has emerged, various to20th century, with Sartre and
Camus and all the existentialistphilosophy from going back to
(38:54):
Kierkegaard and talking aboutthat, fighting the anxiety of
death.
We are now in a world where weare becoming more and more
undead, the philosophicalzombies walking around where you
know.
The lights seem to be on, butthere are no one home to
perceive them.
Right?
This kind of society, so itunfolds basically also on a
(39:17):
biological as well as atechnical level.
We could theoreticallyoverwrite our consciousness, so
I could be a perfect AI.
My initials are AI, so thereare evidence for that.
But I could claim that I wouldbe conscious, but you couldn't
tell the difference, right?
So there is a technologicalcomponent, but I also look at
the societal component, where weare just reacting to impulses.
(39:38):
Go to YouTube and watch a video.
It doesn't say these are videosof interest, it just says next
video.
So you're kind of being draggedthrough life reacting to
impulses, your dose, yourdopamine, your ossitory and
serotonin, your endorphins, andthat becomes us more and more
detached from the ordinarywonders, the normality of life,
(40:00):
the experience of life itself.
So I think you know those skills, people that are motivated,
leaders that can activate humanbeings to like to perform, to do
something, because I think atthe bottom you know the
foundation of what it means tobe a mensch, a human being, is
our capability to come up withbetter explanation, to
(40:23):
experience progress.
We are born with kind of sortof an empty storage and we start
to navigate.
We are per se active, we areper se creative and we are
chaired on by our parents thatclap their hands every time you
make the next milestone right,and this we are trained out of
through our systems and ourstructures in society, holding
(40:46):
on to our old, self-evidenttruths and trying to be
something that is solid.
This is who I am as acomparison to something in the
making right, and I think thisis very valid to get out of that
undead state and to take backthe agency and therefore these
skills, people that can supportor lead or create an environment
(41:11):
, a culture, if you like, toactivate and give people back a
sense of agency, what it meansto be alive.
I think that is really, reallyimportant and I agree with you,
everything else can be learned.
So, an active, intrinsicallymotivated, passionate person,
you know if you take away thefire, you know that's the
(41:33):
dumbest thing you can do as aleader.
They can make mistakes, but youknow and this is where I also
write about in the book we havehad a lot of notion about
failure culture, particularly inEurope and Germany.
Talk about we have to have afailure culture.
No, we don't.
We want to have a performanceculture.
We want things to function, tobe efficient.
I don't want to have a pilotthat is trained on failure
(41:56):
culture.
You know, flying into theairport of Frankfurt, right, we
want it to function.
So as long as the incentive forprogress or for moving on or
for change is higher than thepain of a loss, a short-term
loss, losing a finite game, youwill always get back on your
feet and these type of peoplethat's the ones you want to have
(42:19):
in your organization.
You want to activate andmotivate for progress and you
don't want to punish mistakes.
That's obvious.
But it's okay.
If you lose, it's painful.
If you get slapped in the face,it's painful, all right.
But as long as the motivationand the intrinsically drive
towards progress is higher, youwill always get back up.
(42:40):
And this skill to activate thatin human beings or the people
that bring it to the table,that's what I think you want to
have in your organization today.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, I completely agree.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
these insights.
I know we only got to touch thesurface level of some of them.
So for people who want to learnmore about you and the work
that you're up, sharing allthese insights I know we only
got to touch the surface levelof some of them so for people
who want to learn more about youand you know the work that
you're up to, could you leteverybody know where they can
find you online?
And we'll make sure to includeit in the in the show notes as
well.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Sure, yeah, first of all, thank you for having me on,
brian.
I like the conversation and,yeah, my last book is titled the
Viking code.
It's found under viking-codecom.
It's about building ahigh-performance culture deeply
rooted in values, about thatdance of individualism and
collectivism.
I have a forthcoming bookcoming out in March 2025, titled
(43:33):
the Singularity Paradox.
It's much more technical,bridging the gap between
humanity and AI, where I,together with my colleague, dr
Florian Neukert, quantumphysicist, do what we call
sci-fi, phi, science, philosophy, and we look at creating
artificial human intelligence asa necessity for the next path
(43:54):
towards AGI or singularity.
And most of my work, orreferences to such, is found on
my website, andersinsetcom.
I'm also occasionally onLinkedIn, so if you ever want to
link up, I'm always happy togrow that community.
So, again, thank you for havingme on, brandon.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Awesome.
Well, thank you for sharing andagain for everybody who's
listening, as always, this isBrandon Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandAmorosocom or Scalistai.
Thank you for listening and wewill see you next time.
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