From Fintech CTO to Co-Hosting Startuprad.io’s Deep Tech Track | Startuprad.io E 402

Startuprad.io
Startuprad.io
Published in
24 min readNov 9, 2023

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“I built the tech behind it to make it work, and, we got quite some revenue through through that, and, yeah, it was one of my first businesses that I really incorporated where it really went to the notary, Form the legal entity and all these things.” — Mario Hachemer

Executive Summary

In this episode of Startuprad.io, we are joined by the newest co-host, Mario Hachemer, who brings a wealth of experience in technology and entrepreneurship to the table. Mario’s journey has been nothing short of fascinating, from the rise and fall of his subscription box business to his role as CTO of FastBill and later for unicorn FreshBooks in Germany, eventually leading to his exploration of the world of AI as a freelance consultant and mentor. Mario’s insights into deep tech and AI’s impact on businesses and society are both thought-provoking and enlightening. Moreover, the hosts share a passion for science fiction and discuss the works of literary giants such as Ian Banks and Terry Pratchett. They also delve into Mario’s love for spicy food and his experiences in various countries. Join us as we delve deep into the world of tech, AI, entrepreneurship, and a touch of spicy cuisine with our new co-host, Mario Hachemer.

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The Entrepreneurial Spirit: “I had trouble finding like-minded people. I studied my 1st university was in Koblenz, and it just there wasn’t that much of an entrepreneurial spirit.” — Mario Hachemer

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The Impact of Cost in the Age of AI: “Cost plays a huge factor when dealing with AI, when dealing with the modern systems.” — Mario Hachemer

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The Impact of AI on Society: “Like just Yesterday, my kids were talking to the chatGPT, bot on my phone, which is it has now this voice-activated option where you can just Speak to it, and the latency is good enough that my kids enjoy the conversation.” — Mario Hachemer

Questions Discussed in the Interview

  1. How did Mario Hachemer’s experiences with Musclebox and the web development agency shape his perspective on entrepreneurship and technology?
  2. What were the key challenges Mario faced as the CTO of Fast Bill, and how did he navigate them to lead the company to a successful sale to FreshBooks?
  3. How has Mario’s transition to a freelance AI consultant and mentor allowed him to pursue his interest in deep tech and its potential impact on businesses?
  4. What insights did Mario offer about the role of a cloud economist and its importance for companies in managing their technology costs?
  5. How does Mario’s experience with organizing the first startup weekend in Frankfurt highlight the potential for such events to impact the local startup ecosystem?
  6. In what ways did the hosts and Mario discuss the impact of AI on society, including its effects on supply chains, search engine optimization, and the potential for AI-driven attacks?
  7. How did Mario’s background in science fiction and love for audiobooks shape his interest in technology and deep tech?
  8. As Mario becomes a new cohost on the podcast, what types of future collaborations and discussions does he and the hosts express excitement about?
  9. How does Mario’s passion for generative AI and its potential impact on software development reflect his broader perspectives on technological innovation?
  10. What do Mario’s experiences with Musclebox, the web development agency, Fast Bill, and his work as a freelance AI consultant reveal about the evolution of his entrepreneurial journey and his expertise in technology?

The Implications of AI-Driven Attacks: “You can basically, do everything that a knowledge worker can do if you Call it AI-driven X. Then you can see the same thing just a 1000 times cheaper at the scale of a 10 a 100 thousand times.” — Mario Hachemer

The Video Podcast is set to go live on Thursday, November 9th, 2023

The Impact of AI on Search Engine Optimization: “It’s the repercussions of AI being the omnipresent force driving things.” — Mario Hachemer

The Audio Podcast is set to go live on Thursday, November 9th, 2023

You can subscribe to our podcasts here.

The Future of Technology: “Deep tech is just so interesting to me because it can fundamentally change your, how you reason about technology, in the sense that it might be that just Changing out a piece of your court infrastructure reduces your costs by tenfold.” — Mario Hachemer

On Spotify

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On the Global Podcast Network (Formerly NY City Podcast Network)

https://nycpodcastnetwork.com/podcast/startuprad-io-the-authority-on-german-startups-joern-joe-menninger/

The New Co-Host

Mario Hachemer, (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahachemer/) the co-host of Startuprad.io’s Deep Tech Track, was involved in the successful startup Fast Bill. During his time with Fast Bill, the company raised significant venture capital, allowing them to develop innovative technology stacks and rapidly expand their operations. The company’s success eventually led to its acquisition by FreshBooks, a major player in the accounting and invoicing software industry. Fast Bill’s ability to attract venture capital and subsequent successful integration into FreshBooks showcase their achievements and position them as a standout player in the technology and startup landscape.

Fast Bill set itself apart from its competition through its ability to not only raise venture capital but also develop and implement groundbreaking technology stacks. This allowed the company to create a competitive edge in the market and ultimately led to its acquisition, highlighting the company’s distinctiveness and impact within the industry. Additionally, Mario Hachemer’s leadership and expertise as the CTO played a crucial role in Fast Bill’s success, demonstrating his ability to drive technological innovation within the startup and deep tech space.

Learn more about Mario or reach out to him:

https://twitter.com/MarioHachemer
https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/grunderstammtisch-founders-table-frankfurtrheinmain/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahachemer/

mario@startuprad.io

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The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:

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Automated Transcript

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:00:00]:

Hello and welcome everybody. This is Joe from stutterbreak. Io. Today I do have the great pleasure to introduce you to a new cohost, to Mario. Hey. How you doing?

Mario Hachemer [00:00:12]:

Hi, Joe. Nice to meet you. Nice to hear you. We’ve known each other for a long time, and I’m happy to be to drop about this, yeah, this trip trip. I always enjoyed being a guest on your podcast, and, yeah, we spoke about this joining and cohosting 1 hosting 1. It’s gonna be fun. So thank

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:00:34]:

you. Totally my pleasure. I have to admit, I have tried to get here as a cohost on the very start of Startup rate dot io. So it took only 400 episodes around that to get you on board. Easy peasy.

Mario Hachemer [00:00:50]:

Kind of you have the determination, and that’s always what I loved about the show and this podcast. So yeah. I, always I’m really grateful that you Kept plugging away at it. Now I’m here.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:01:02]:

That is great. Let us go a little bit through what you’ve done, what qualifies you for being the cohost of DeepTech Germany here. I have met you at the very 1st startup weekend here in Frankfurt. And, actually, you you’re one of the fathers of the Frankfurt startup scene. You got the first startup weekend, to come to Frankfurt, maybe in one of the first in Germany. But can you tell us a little bit the story, the background, how this all got started here.

Mario Hachemer [00:01:37]:

Okay. Sure. So let’s go a little bit farther back. So I was always a nerd. Meaning, I I’m one of these kids that learned programming at the age of 12. I Basically, I was always interested in take not just playing games, making games, like writing code for websites. I got, Like, next to school, I got a job writing one of the first web, one of the first mobile websites. I was always interested in playing around with technology.

Mario Hachemer [00:02:12]:

And so around when I when it came to time to go to university, I realized that, Yeah. When I was in the 1st semester at university, I realized, yeah, like, the people around me aren’t, like, that interested in tech at one hand, but also not interested in, like, building something, actually. Like, they were just Interested in getting a job, and I was more in at the time, already had, like, written work, have had worked on 3 d engines, had worked on interesting web projects. So I I wanted to start something, basically, and learn more the business side of things. So in university, I had trouble finding like minded people. I studied my 1st university was in Koblenz, and it just there wasn’t that much of an entrepreneurial spirit. Luckily, I lived in Frankfurt at that time for several years and already had, like, some friends in the tech community. And so 1 good friend of mine basically sent me a mail.

Mario Hachemer [00:03:13]:

Hey. There is this event in Amsterdam called startup weekend. This sounds like you should go there. We basically both bought tickets, and then, yeah, just went for it, drove to Amsterdam, and had an amazing weekend where we basically met lots of like minded people, and that was basically the point of it. Like, finding people that are interested in in not just in building a business but also Interested in raising a community of business innovators and business, business focused technologists in in a certain sense. And I was from this weekend, was so inspired. I came back and said, like, I need to do something here. I need to do something with that.

Mario Hachemer [00:03:53]:

And, Koblenz wasn’t the city for me to organize this because I just I’ve I’ve I’ve had lived in Frankfurt for so long, and I had community there. So I said, okay. Let’s let’s Try to organize the 1st startup weekend in Frankfurt. And

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:04:08]:

It has to be back in something like 2012. When was this?

Mario Hachemer [00:04:12]:

That was in 2012. I still have some flyers around here of that event, just for memory’s sake.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:04:18]:

Mario, I I just realized that was 11 years ago.

Mario Hachemer [00:04:22]:

Yes. We’re old. We’re getting old. We’re getting old. And so, yeah, in Yeah. So in 2012, I basically, yeah, found founded, this, let’s say, Lou’s organization. We didn’t even, like, incorporate anything, of like minded people. I just went to several events of different, several events of different, yeah, business minded, folks.

Mario Hachemer [00:04:55]:

Most of them were more like 40 plus that was the business community back then. Like, not the typical start up 20 plus third Student kind of crowd that you see in, like, many start up events, that was not Frankfurt. Frankfurt was a very serious community around the time, and I wanted to Little bit break the mold. I, stumbled upon a couple of students at the university in Frankfurt. And, Through one way or the other, we started even the Frankfurt we call it back then FRAPPE, the Frankfurt, university entrepreneurship program. And, yeah, that student initiative is still running to this day. Like, they’re organizing trips to Berlin, trips to Silicon Valley. They, doing great great community events, so I’m very proud of that.

Mario Hachemer [00:05:45]:

But, yeah, around this, with this group of some students, some are from the tech scene. We could organize the start up weekends. We the Frankfurt Innovation Center For Biotechnology was actually the 1st, like, organization that kind of bought on. They basically said, yeah. You can have the location. We just give you the location on that on that weekend. We know it’s gonna be because you have to imagine, like, getting a location, not just for an evening or a day, but for a full weekend, Friday to Sunday, evening is something that’s not that easy to get. And the Frankfurt Innovation Center and, especially the manager back then, Rafael Schlepper, he was really, like, just in on the idea and basically gave me, permission to host the event.

Mario Hachemer [00:06:32]:

And, basically, that kick started a lot of things in my career. Besides, all the tech stuff, I just got an entrance through that to speak to people in, pharma and biotech. I got an entrance to speak to a lots of, yeah, let’s say, people I would need for that event. Like, I was speaking I was I’m just find myself speaking to lots of CEOs because I kind of needed a jury and judges And these types of things, I needed mentors. So I was basically it was for me personally a very, career career building, but also, like, personality shaping environment. Because to organize such an event, you kinda have to get out of your comfort zone. And To make it a good event, you have to not just expect that people will come, but be out there, be selling it, be selling the idea, be selling the concept, and, yeah, get in contact with the right people. And yeah.

Mario Hachemer [00:07:31]:

So that was starter week in 2012. We organized it. A 150 people came. We had Great food. Great, great, yeah, some talks, mentors. It was a big jolt for the start up Ecosystem here in Frankfurt. I think that’s what many people tell me to this day. And I think the winners of the 1st start up weekend, They just celebrated, like, the 11th year, in, existence, and they’ve just were awarded a prize.

Mario Hachemer [00:08:01]:

Startup called Betavist. I’m still, like, one that I’m still proud of, like, just being the place where they came together in a sense. So that was something that’s always, like, good to know. So at the time, I was, working on start ups that I was building, basically, after we’ve organized this event. Like, some of the, one of my co organizers of the event, Clemens, He said, like, you know, we’re helping all these people start businesses, but we’re kinda not really starting 1 ourselves. And, I have this idea. And I said, oh my god. You said, yeah.

Mario Hachemer [00:08:38]:

I want to have the I want to, do something for, like, something really masculine. I want to do, something around protein powders and so on. I was like, Okay. Where is this going? And he was like, yeah. There is this subscription box ID. You have heard of this, like glossy box with, like, perfumes and samples. Let’s do this for pro for bodybuilders, for protein powder samples and so on and call it Musclebox. So I said, come on.

Mario Hachemer [00:09:05]:

That’s much too easy to do. Like, it’s just a simple ecommerce business, not that interesting. And he said, well, if it’s that interesting, then let’s see how he could do it. And then, yeah, he registered the domain. I built the tech behind it to make it work, and, we got quite some revenue through through that, and, yeah, it was one of my first businesses that I really incorporated where it really went to the notary, Form the legal entity and all these things. But, sadly, the start up failed for reasons that, are mostly in the, yeah, dynamism, us being, like, very, Not flexible enough to pivot to the point where it would have worked. We kinda, held to held that idea too too, strictly. We kinda wanted to sell that box if we would have, like, pivoted and probably created our own brand because the brand will work was really well done.

Mario Hachemer [00:10:05]:

We probably could have made that work, but we were too young to see that and go for it. With that off my shoulder, I basically took over, the agency that I was working for most of, yeah, my time that I was Since school, basically, it was a web development agency, we did marketing projects for larger brands like Red Bull and VW and so on as a subcontractor. And, basically, those, that agency, I kinda grew very quickly to, like, 6, 7, employees, lots of customers in all all over Europe. And that, Yeah. That went just well, but it wasn’t something that I was interested in because it was just building other people’s dreams, ideas, and thoughts. This is something where, I basically said, okay. Like, I just need something else. And I basically got in the habit of organizing events out of procrastination.

Mario Hachemer [00:11:08]:

Meaning, I organized the monthly founders table. It was like an event where company company founders could get together, share a beer, and talk about their sorrows. I try to become part of that, like, bartender Personality. Just come to me, tell me, and we’ll just talk shop, stuff that you maybe your friends won’t understand, but we will. That was the idea behind it, and it worked quite well. It was one of the largest, meetup groups in Rhein Main for the longest time.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:11:38]:

Mhmm. I’m I’m just just checking the website. It’s still around on Meetup, and it has more than 5,100 members.

Mario Hachemer [00:11:47]:

Yes. But, ever since COVID, we stopped organizing this. That’s I wanted to get to later than that, but, basically, Yeah. It it was a good time. And then startup weekend 2015 rolled around. I know it’s once again on the hunt for judges, on the hunt for, mentors, and so on. And one of The mentors I had for, the start up weekend in 2012, was Rene Mauderich. He was the CEO of Fast Build back then, And we just got to talking different things.

Mario Hachemer [00:12:24]:

Like, I tried using Fast Build for muscle box for certain reasons, And, we just talked shop a lot. And, basically, before the start up, we can roll around. You kinda asked me, like, Mario, why don’t you become my CTO? And then I said, like, actually, I’m not really happy being a CEO as a of an agency Changing running from project to project, not being very technical in most of my tasks. And I I was always admired, Fazbo, for the not just not the technology itself, but, like, the division and the, yeah, the focus to helping founders just be founders and be, yeah, Supporting be, basically, the person that clears the pathway for the you know, running a business in Germany with all the tax regulations, with all the financial duties It’s not that easy. And having a piece of software that aims to make this easier to understand and easy to manage was something that It was just a nice goal. So I could I could see myself doing that and could see myself supporting Rene on his mission. And so we I joined Fast Build as the CTO with my entire staff. Like, the entire staff just merged into that company.

Mario Hachemer [00:13:44]:

And Ever since then, that was end of 2016, I was the CTO of Aspen. And So, yeah, that is basically how I got into that role. So just being present, being Very technical in the day to day work that I do just because consulting different larger entities on how they should develop their projects and, like, actually being hands on in the code with them, just so I could then, like, be the person certain people trust with complex technical problems, technical questions, and then basically being there when, somebody’s needed and making that jump into the unknown, as they say in frozen.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:14:34]:

Yeah. What People people can already tell you have children.

Mario Hachemer [00:14:37]:

Yes. Yes. Yes. 2 of them. Very happy about that. So, yeah, that’s how I got into, Fast Build. At Fast Build, we kinda devised the plan on how to Grow and win the market. We raised venture capital, through 2 rounds, basically, and, ultimately, developing multiple interesting technology stacks of multi banking solution, All kinds of regulatory hurdles on the way.

Mario Hachemer [00:15:09]:

Tough, tough, some tough times, some beautiful times. And at the end of it, basically, was the exit. We sold to FreshBooks, one of the largest North American players in the accounting accounting market. And at that stage, I was already, let’s say, basically, I was already in the mood for the change, so to say, and FreshBooks offers that, basically. They said, hey, Mario. You don’t have to stay CTO of FreshBooks Germany. You can do something else. We are looking for somebody that helps us integrate all the companies we wanna buy around the world, and that sounded interesting.

Mario Hachemer [00:15:49]:

So It came with lots of flights to Mexico, for instance. They acquired a company there. Also of Canada, Toronto, there, where their main office was Orest. And, yeah, after, roughly one and a half years of doing that, FreshBooks went through a phase of downsizing, and, basically, we decided to just part ways because, I was already doing at this point, what was it, 8, 9, eight and a half years of accounting where, I was wanting to see different things In the tech landscape, AI was just all the rage. I had spent already basically 90% of my free time that I didn’t spend on my kids. I spent playing around with all the, generative AI topics. I built built some retrieval augmented generation tools. I just wanted to know, like, what can be done.

Mario Hachemer [00:16:46]:

And so, I kind of part parted ways, and now I’m, like, kind of a freelance AI consultant for some companies, but also a mentor for lots of tech company smaller tech start ups that just have a CTO and just that person also does not have the decade basically of experience that I have. So once somebody on the side and I do that a lot these days.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:17:13]:

Mhmm. I see. What kind of deep tech topics are your main interest. You already mentioned, AI. I I remember vividly when we’ve been in Barcelona at EU Startup Summit, You went on into a lengthy, but for me, understandable, explanation what large language models are, like in terms of pills and valleys and so on and so forth. By the way, great evening. And Ever since I associate you with AI, but not only AI. Right?

Mario Hachemer [00:17:51]:

No. Like, that was actually the gift that I received from my tenure at Fast Build. I always had to have the on the one hand, the long term technological strategic view, but also the day to day, How do we keep this from, like, burning all down, view of the technological piece? So I Had to have a 3 60 degree and all kind of things take. And deep tech is just so interesting to me because it can fundamentally change your, how you reason about technology, in the sense that it might be that just Changing out a piece of your court infrastructure reduces your costs by tenfold. And suddenly, you you have enough resources to hire 2 additional people, which then can scale other things in your business. But you may not be aware of this if you do not have that overview, if you do not know where is my money going if you do not know. Where is how is my tech even built? Like, I’ve I’m speaking relatively often with, CTOs that do not know how the infrastructures actually comprise because they, think they can abstract the way that understanding and some senior architect who has different goals than the CTO has, and that is something where I always, Yeah. We’re always interest I’m always in interested in keeping up to speed and keeping an understanding of how things work, how they or put together what they cost is a very big point.

Mario Hachemer [00:19:26]:

Like, that is something that many, many people around the whole AI debate currently have Out of the, view, they just look at the possibilities, but not how that fits into the whole cost structure of building software. That is something which is deeply fascinating to me.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:19:42]:

You can, as I would say, be an external CTO plus, obviously, a software development accountant.

Mario Hachemer [00:19:52]:

A software development account. Like, this is that is one of one of the people I admire on Twitter. It’s isn’t it? His Twitter handle is Queenie Pick, Corey Quinn. He’s, he calls himself a cloud economist. Basically, what he was is was a software architect, and he basically decided, hey. Calling myself software architect doesn’t get me as many leads as Calling myself the person that saves you money by on your cloud spend. And that’s just a beautiful way of reasoning about his part of the, yeah, infrastructure. Because, yes, the if you’re a good software architect and you can reason about cloud spend very well, You can save companies 1,000,000 of dollars.

Mario Hachemer [00:20:36]:

But if you basically say I’m a software architect, you get you can build them like, What? 15,000, €20,000 a month. If you say, hey. I’m gonna save you 2 1,000,000 a month, I’m gonna bill you 200,000 that for that month, and it’s still gonna be reasonable for the company. So That is something which, I found always admire always to be admired. And it’s also something which just goes to show where If you can bring these different points of views together of of technology and how it works, Then you can, like, make a mash a material difference into it, not just the business, but also, like, the lives of the entrepreneurs and then employees.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:21:21]:

2 questions. 1, did did you try poutine in Canada and did you like it?

Mario Hachemer [00:21:29]:

Actually, it’s kind of funny. I the thing, I have to say, I love Canada. Every time I was in Canada, I love Canada. I love poutine, but I didn’t love poutine for, like, the reasons that, The Canadians suspected it is just good. I I had childhood memories of it because my mother used to make a dish that was very similar to poutine unknowingly. It’s just very common to, was very common for my mom to, like, make, pork roast, Have some gravy left over, and the next day, hand some schnitzel or something, with fries and this, gravy from the pork roast. So the gravy and the fries always, like, were very nice childhood memory. And then just just Adding some cheese is not actually, some cheese curds is not that far off.

Mario Hachemer [00:22:22]:

So I was always, like, happy with, poutine. And Whenever I get a Canada, I gotta have it. It’s just a thing.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:22:31]:

And second question, you talked about Mexico. How spicy could you get in Mexican food. Oh,

Mario Hachemer [00:22:39]:

that was that was that was an experience. Like, I like spicy food. I I really like spicy food, but, when, the Mexican team, basically, when they invite you to and and they invite you to a Mexican restaurant And you say, please give me the spiciest thing you have, basically. They don’t give you the spiciest thing they have. They don’t because they know. And then you try the spiciest thing, and it’s hot, but it’s it’s it’s manageable. And usually after, like, a couple of drinks. They say, hey.

Mario Hachemer [00:23:12]:

We we’ll get you the thing that’s actually spicy, and then you get afraid. And yeah. So, I didn’t sleep very well that night. Let’s just say this. But I was man enough completely finish that dish. I didn’t I did not say I I was the that didn’t finish the dish. I had beautiful times in Mexico. I really miss the Dean there, was beautiful.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:23:40]:

How much beer did you need to get that spicy food down?

Mario Hachemer [00:23:47]:

It was probably it was at least a leader, at least.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:23:53]:

I see. I see. What what type so, people can expect you to do an interview, like, once a quarter, maybe a little bit more frequently from time to time. Yes. Maybe we’ll get together from time to time and discuss some technologies or you can spot me up on technologies, and we will also broadcast that. I would be curious what are for you the most exciting topics going forward? Because right now, everybody seems to do AI, as you said, a lot of people don’t give thought to the prices associated with it. How much do I have to pay for it in terms of startups? Do you think AI is the topic of the next year at least?

Mario Hachemer [00:24:44]:

The thing is AI in itself, yes. But not just it’s not just AI in itself That is interesting or valuable to talk about. It’s the repercussions of AI being the omnipresent force driving things. For instance, If you just look at the whole search engine optimization landscape, there’s content farms out there dropping hundreds of thousands of, let’s say, half halfway decently written articles into Google, and Google doesn’t seem to cope very well right now. I see websites ranking in Google that shouldn’t be ranking or that wouldn’t have been ranked with the same quality of code just a year ago. So something’s off there. That’s just a tiny aside of AI being able to do things at scale that would have been a 100 or a 1000 times more expensive than it than they have become. And that is something where I’m really interested in in also other angles.

Mario Hachemer [00:25:44]:

And That has technological implications, meaning how do I, as a business, defend myself against attacks that are AI driven. And you will hear like, you will hear me use this phrase AI driven a lot because you can basically, everything that a knowledge worker can do, if you Call it AI driven x. Then you can see the same thing just a 1000 times cheaper at the scale of a 10 a 100 a thousand times. And what does that mean, and how does this that change the fundamental technology in so many different ways? That is something that deeply inspires me. That inspires me when I think about how software development should work. Like, GitHub Copilot is one of the applications that has been thrown around there, but there’s many more in that area. And that is just that is, to me, not a discussion about How does this whole thing of generative AI that we’ve been talking about work? That is an interesting subject in itself. Like, what can you build with it.

Mario Hachemer [00:26:53]:

Like I said, retrieval augmented generation tools and so on, lang chain, these frameworks around agent generation. There’s all interesting topics in itself, but this is a whole, let’s say, game changer for how our technological Society works. And that doesn’t mean we will just talk about AI, but that just means we will talk about How how does a world with AI look like? How does a world with Gen AI in everyone’s pocket look like? Like, just Yesterday, my kids were talking to the chat gpt, bot on my phone, which is it has now this voice activated option where you can just Speak to it, and the latency is good enough that my kids enjoy the conversation. So that is something That wasn’t a thing even month ago. And with this, how do we going are we going to interact with this? There’s carmakers out there trying to implement software to have a version of this running locally in the car. What does that mean for the supply chain of the comp of the car manufacturing? Like, everybody is trying to get GPUs that can do, Gen Hey. I’m going into the weeds here. You know, I can talk about this far.

Mario Hachemer [00:28:13]:

My quest I’m just saying, like, we’re talking about a world with AI. That doesn’t mean we just talk about AI. But for instance, one of the guest up a guest set up upcoming, he’s built an amazing, log management software, which sounds relatively boring, but his software is so so technologically advanced advanced Compared to other solutions that is a 100 times cheaper when it comes to storing your logs than any other solution, Which if you have to store a 1000 times more of data that’s been thrown into your systems because the AIs are doing that, Hippogon’s very relevant. And this is what I’m talking about when I say cost plays a huge dip will play a huge factor when dealing with AI, when dealing with the modern systems. And that’s gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:29:11]:

I when you’ve been talking, there is another secret I can spell out here. We are both pretty geeky in loving science fiction, to especially audiobooks.

Mario Hachemer [00:29:22]:

Oh, yes. Yes. We’re both fans of the, expedition 4th books. Yeah. Crackle.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:29:29]:

Maybe we shouldn’t have told that.

Mario Hachemer [00:29:34]:

Yeah. Those books are really good, but there’s like I I’m a huge fan of I I Ian and Banks books. Like, Consider Flavors and all of those culture series novels, they’re beautiful. The Murderbot Diaries. I love them as well. Yeah. So many books. But, also, I mean, you’re like, Not just sci like, the only fantasy series that I love is Terry Pratchett.

Mario Hachemer [00:29:56]:

Like, the this quote’s books, they kinda like, if I wanted The main influence on, like, my cultural upbringing, I would say, the Discworld books, they if I have something cons something that Could be considered a conscience. I would say my mother and the disc workbooks are equally responsible for that.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:30:18]:

I have to admit, I’ll I’ll like Peter f Hamilton, he got me into all the audiobooks because I have to admit I only started ready to to listen to audiobooks with his books. By the way, We link it down here in the show notes a few of the books. Mario, it was a pleasure talking to you. Looking forward to our future collaboration and just Wishing you a very nice November day even though it it looks like the sun never came out today.

Mario Hachemer [00:30:47]:

Yes. Let’s see. Thank you so much, And I’m looking forward to what we’re gonna do together.

Jörn “Joe” Menninger [00:30:52]:

Yes. Everybody would like to learn more, down here in the show notes, there will be Mario’s LinkedIn profile as well as his email

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