Time for Serious

It’s been the season for solemn gatherings of business leaders. Geopolitics, security, and energy—oh dear, these are serious times indeed.

Here's the summary.

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The Draghi Report. Yes, we have read the Draghi Report, and we are deeply concerned about Europe’s ability to innovate. We take a bleak view of our capacity to create valuable startups. We acknowledge that among the continent’s largest companies, there are far too few in tech and even fewer that have emerged in the past twenty years. The Americans are landing reusable rockets while we Europeans are preoccupied with petty topics like privacy and regulations of plastic bottle caps.?

But we’d also like to point out that Northvolt’s fate was inevitable. Too ambitious. And about those startups that don’t succeed—didn’t we tell you so? All of that was never going to work. As executives and board members, perhaps it’s time to say “keine Experimente” when it comes to anything non-core. It’s simply not our job to lose money on unproven ideas. Better to focus resources on what we know works. Cutting the R&D budget never hurt EBITDA, amirite?

The Energy Transition. Yes, we take this very seriously. We are committed to the Paris Agreement. We understand that the world is in a critical transition to a renewable society, where everything will be electrified, and all electricity will be green. It’s alarming that 2024 was the warmest year on record, and the first year to surpass 1.5 degrees of global warming. We are deeply concerned that this energy transition is progressing too slowly. We acknowledge the urgency.

But we’d also like to say “energy trilemma.” To us it sounds reasonable that energy wouldn’t simultaneously be carbon-free, stable, and cheap — something has to give. Turns out the woke crowd hadn’t figured out the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t blow all year. Range anxiety, Dunkelflaute, the grid, process industries, chemicals—there are limits to green. And with China dominance being what it is, renewable energy is more red than green, innit? Plus, let’s not forget public resistance. The regular folks won’t want this. Yellow vests and populism will kill the transition if we try to hard. And/Or it’s going to cost billions to pay them off to accept the change. Either way…

The State of the World. Yes, these are serious times. We see that Europe must quickly prepare to take responsibility for its own security and acknowledge that the peace dividend must be replaced with deposits. Resilience and security must be on the agenda; we can’t afford to be naive. Politics is too important to be left to politicians.

But also, don’t we have a uniquely poor generation of public leaders? Like, where are the adults in the room? We were told it was the end of history and everything would be fine, yet here we are, burdened with all this responsibility. The hand we got dealt is much worse for us than any generation before us. Just think of what we have to endure — the pandemic, inflation, geopolitics. Oh dear, how can we keep profits up if offshoring isn't enough to boost our cost income ratios??

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In Succession, family patriarch Logan Roy tells his children, “I love you, but you’re not serious people.” The aging billionaire watches his potential heirs play-act business leaders, utterly ineptly. I find it quite relatable when dealing with a business leaders that put on a solemn face, acknowledge the problems, and then do absolutely nothing to lift a finger in discomfort or controversy to address them.?

Leadership in innovation is grinding through even when you find yourself in the bottom of the J curve. Leadership in venture investment is backing concepts that are different. Leadership in energy is finding ways to build. Leadership in an unstable world is developing your own resilience while forging alliances.

In case we forgot: Serious is taking responsibility; serious is action; serious is standing up for a principle, even when it costs you something.