So Mike, can you tell us a little bit more about your background?
When I look back, two things in my life have played a big role since my early childhood: performance and technology.
As a 6-year-old, I discovered my passion for soccer through my parents. Over the years, the initial kick turned into a competitive sport: training five times a week, competitions on weekends and traveling thousands of miles a year. All this parallel to going to school.
In my heydays, I was under contract with the youth team of a German Bundesliga club and belonged to the extended squad of the German youth national team.
At that time, despite facing numerous hardships as a 15-year-old teenager, it was a lot of fun for me. Through sport, I was able to see much of the world at an early age. In addition, I learned how to set goals in life and actually implement them. I also learned how to deal with defeat and stay motivated.
Soccer defined my life at the time. However, I lacked the mental balance. That changed suddenly when I discovered computers in the early 1980s.
Amazing, many young boys dream of playing soccer and you actually got to live that dream. What a great kick start in life! What sparked your interest in technology at a young age?
What fascinates me about computers until today is programming. For example, a complex problem can be solved with just a few lines of code, which is just awesome.
Sure, things were quite different back then compared to today's possibilities. But it was not less exciting. Quite the opposite.
I still remember exactly how, as a 9-year-old, I had saved my allowance to buy the book "Computer Programming in Assembler". When I held it in my hands, I virtually devoured the content. Granted, I did not immediately understand everything at first. But dedication and constant experimentation brought me closer, step by step, to my first own computer program. That was a great feeling.
Today I know that computer programming was an important balance for me at that time. It proved to be more than that, when I had to give up my career as a competitive athlete at the age of 17 due to a serious accident.
Fortunately, despite this difficult time, I did not face a bottomless pit. My exploration of technology gave me a new perspective at that time. It helped me deal with emotional ups and downs after the accident.
So, I turned from performance sports to performance business. Over the years, I have established my own ventures and supported various technology companies.
I think you have just taught a great lesson here. It is good to have a diverse set of skills because you never know what’s going to happen in life. As an entrepreneur and angel investor, you build digital businesses together with talented teams worldwide, tell us a bit more about that.
I am involved in more than 15 companies and projects in different areas. With that in mind, it's not so easy to highlight a specific topic [laughs].
As an entrepreneur and angel investor, I spend much of my time helping build high-tech startups in Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia. The focus is on disruptive business models in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, SaaS, and financial technology.
In selected cases, I also serve as an advisor to companies from traditional industries to help them master digital growth.
As a globally recognized thought leader in the field of digital transformation, I work with executives of Fortune 500 companies, innovators and institutions. I also share personal insights with people across the world through keynotes, panels, media, and events.
265