Ten years ago today, Klaus Oberlehner, Helmut Nachbauer and I sold our company ecx.io to IBM. At the time, it was a perfect match – not only financially, but also culturally. IBM had a long tradition of being an open, valuable, and progressive company – long before DEI became a household term (and now a cultur war topic). Most importantly, IBM also seemed to be an excellent opportunity for our employees. After ten years and exceptional growth, I think I can safely say that it worked out very well for almost everyone on the #bestteamever. (By the way, we invented that hashtag!)

The last 10 years have been the best years of my life. After leaving the company that I loved so much, I was able to see my boys grow up and be there for them during the last years that they lived at home. They are both doing really well. My eldest son, Glenn, is studying to be an engineer at KIT in Karlsruhe and – more importantly – he is one of the best skiers I’ve seen 🙂 And he clearly got the „let’s do it“ leader genes from my wife and me. Neil, our younger son who had a life-threatening illness 14 years ago, is now studying to be an artist at renowned Goldsmiths, University of London. This makes me especially happy (and proud) and every time I think back to that time of sorrow and pain, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that our family came through that disaster so well. We only managed to get through that time due to the support of our family and friends, as well as everyone at our jobs. I would also like to acknowledge the support of our clients. I especially want to thank Rudolf Kaiser, who told me – after I quit an important meeting because of an emergency call: „Nothing is more important than family.“ I’m not sure if I ever thanked him!

From a career perspective, I decided to step away from the crazy rat race IT business and focus on what I have always wanted to do in life: Making music. Today, I’m thrilled to work with exceptional, young and diverse artists and enjoy my time hanging out in my own recording studio. What I love most is working with young people who help me stay open-minded and interested in change.

While I’m talking about all the ups, I also have to talk about the downs. In 2016, the world seemed nearly perfect to me. But in 2026, on the verge of turning 60, the world I knew shattered. This is not only because of the war in Ukraine – my son Neil’s girlfriend is from Kyiv, so we’re closely monitoring the situation – but also because of the situation in the USA, which has fast-tracked to a fascist state. The reason for this is not only the convicted felon in the Oval Office, but also because of the industry we helped shape. The most successful players have turned out to be the driving force behind the authoritarian, fascist movement. Whether for personal gain or some weird ideological mental confusion, I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s not sane for young people to get insanely rich so fast. I can also tell you that these people betray everything we dreamed of when we started the digital revolution in the 1990s. ICE raids, terror and killing are only possible because of the massive use of Palantir software, the incarnation of every dystopian movie we’ve seen in the last 30 years.

Today, we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to consider how to preserve our democracies and open societies in our beloved (mostly united) Europe. One mandatory step is regulating social media use. This regulation should apply not only to children (typically boomer move…), but more importantly to adults eligible to vote. Algorithms that spread hate and lies are not divine, but are programmed by developers to enrich their companies. We cannot allow people like Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk to destroy our societies and literally walk over dead bodies for their personal gain. 

We also desperately need to become independent from US technology. You can start by avoiding US services whenever a European alternative is available. For example Proton is much better and safer than Google. Mistral can handle most of your daily AI needs, and DeepL is far superior to any US service. Super easy: You could use SMS instead of WhatsApp to avoid supporting rotten Meta.

More importantly, our industry must provide solutions that allow our clients to become independent of US technology. SAP has a strong foothold throughout Europe, which is good, but that is just the beginning. You must rethink using Azure, AWS, and other services because there are European alternatives. Lidl’s Schwarz Digits is paving the way with an interesting and hopeful approach! We need more of this.

To my former colleagues and everyone working in the industry: Instead of looking to the Valley and the US, you should actively work to support a pro-European IT landscape. Start your own company. Work for a European company. Show your clients alternative ways. If you are still working with IBM (which I believe is still a great company): Talk to your superiors and ask where the company stands on ICE and the fascist movement in the US, and if it supports them. Be vocal.

You might think this is an overreaction. However, as Jacob Fry said only last week:

„Recognize that your children will ask you what side you were on. Your grandchildren will ask you what you did to act to prevent this from happening again to make sure that the foundational elements of our democracy were rock solid.“

LOVE – c.