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How Hard Is It To Stop Using American Tech? · Never Post

0:10
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
0:13
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
0:16
Grigneta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 04/28/2026 at
0:20
09:01PM eastern, and we have an independent show for you this
0:27
week. In this episode, I chat with Alexander Smolianitsky, the
0:32
head of open source product and delivery at Germany's Federal
0:37
Center for Digital Sovereignty, aka Zendis, an organization
0:42
focused on divesting the German state from technology products
0:47
they cannot control, which means many American technology
0:53
products. Zandise and its aims are part of a larger movement
0:56
we've mentioned on the show before that's called digital
1:00
sovereignty.
1:01
But first, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen
1:03
to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we return,
1:07
we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have happened
1:09
since the last time you heard from us. Look at all these movie
1:13
stars. They're so beautiful and clean.
1:16
When the housemaids scrubbed the floors, they get the spaces in
1:19
between seven stories this week. Brazil has banned almost 30
1:27
prediction market platforms from operating within the country.
1:30
This includes such standouts as Kalshi, Polymarket, and
1:34
Robinhood's prediction market feature. The ban goes into
1:37
effect May 1 and fully prohibits the use of such markets tied to
1:41
quote, non economic events such as elections, sports, and
1:45
cultural outcomes according to crypto news website
1:48
Cryptopolitan. The Lula da Silva administration has characterized
1:52
the move as one aligned with an overall goal of reducing
1:56
indebtedness in the country, saying unregulated prediction
1:59
markets are indistinguishable from gambling and present too
2:03
great a risk to financial stability.
2:06
Dario Durrigan, the executive secretary of Brazil's finance
2:09
ministry, has said the move puts an end to the regulatory, quote,
2:13
anarchy of 2018 to 2022, roughly the period during which hospital
2:18
lover Jair Bolsonaro served as president. Meanwhile, Gannon Ken
2:25
Van Dyke, a US special forces soldier involved in the capture
2:29
of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro was charged with using
2:32
classified information to win $400,000 from polymarket bets
2:38
related to the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas
2:42
Maduro. In doing so, Van Dyke has breached a number of non
2:46
disclosure agreements, prosecutors say. For their part,
2:50
the prediction market service that has been struggling with
2:52
rampant insider trading issues over the last year, especially
2:55
as it relates to the operations of the American government
2:57
released a statement saying, insider trading has no place on
3:01
polymarket. Okay.
3:04
Rednote, the Chinese social platform is looking to break
3:07
into The US. The service saw a surge in international
3:10
popularity during the so called TikTok ban of 2025 and has
3:14
started making moves to more earnestly expand into The
3:17
States, hiring domestic staff and staging events at colleges
3:20
throughout the country. RedNote has 300,000,000 monthly users in
3:24
China, and third quarter projections put its 2025 profits
3:27
at around $3,000,000,000. Analysts speaking to rest of
3:31
world say the platform will have trouble breaking into the
3:34
crowded calcified US market, and that a meaningful entree will
3:38
cost the company hundreds of millions, if not billions in
3:41
advertising. Maybe they should consider starting a prediction
3:45
market.
3:45
Okay. Apple violated the first amendment rights of Mark Hodges
3:49
when it illegally removed his ice tracking app, Eyes Up, from
3:53
the app store following a pressure from former US attorney
3:56
general and haunted Barbie doll, Pam Bondi, as was ruled by a
4:00
federal judge in Illinois. Court documents reviewed by Indiana CW
4:04
affiliate, Wish TV, revealed that Apple cleared the app for
4:07
review in August only to then pull it down for violating
4:10
guidelines against defamatory, discriminatory, or mean spirited
4:14
content after Bondi's public wails, moans, and chain
4:18
rattlings. Court documents read that Apple quote, had knowledge
4:21
of the purpose of Eyes Up of actual videos available on it
4:25
and how it worked before government intervention, yet no
4:29
violations were found. At time of writing, Eyes Up remains
4:32
unavailable on the App Store.
4:34
Oh, yeah. Okay. Autocomplete changes how you write according
4:39
to new research presented at the twenty twenty six conference on
4:42
human factors in computing systems. Researchers describe
4:46
how while writing, if the computer places a phrase after
4:49
the one you are currently writing in an attempt to
4:52
complete your thought, your mental mode changes from
4:55
generating to responding. Instead of thinking, Morneiman
4:59
writes on Blue Sky, you react to what AI is suggesting using it
5:03
as a starting point, end quote.
5:06
The research characterizes this as a shift to reactive writing.
5:10
Though writers may adapt suggestions, quote, the
5:12
underlying framing and concepts from the AI survived into the
5:16
final text. Researcher Ad Vaid Bhatt writes on Blue Sky,
5:20
continuing, even in passages writers composed themselves.
5:24
Alex Smolianitski: Okay.
5:26
Mike Rugnetta: Archive.org hosts the steadily growing Adam Jacobs
5:29
collection. Jacobs began attending and taping live
5:33
concerts in the Chicago area in 1984, and in the following years
5:38
recorded over 10,000 shows. Volunteers are digitizing the
5:44
archive including various ephemera and uploading it for
5:47
your listening pleasure. And this collection is incredible.
5:52
Matmos in 2006, Faith No More in 1987, Nico Case in 2001,
5:57
Minutemen and New Order in 1985, Kim Deal in 2012.
6:01
It is wild. I cannot recommend highly enough giving it a look
6:06
and a listen. It is an unbelievable cultural document
6:09
and what the internet is for. Link in the show notes.
6:13
Alex Smolianitski: Okay.
6:15
Mike Rugnetta: And finally, Europeans want digital
6:18
sovereignty. ZDNet reports that at this year's SUSECON, 98% of
6:23
people surveyed want to move away from centralized,
6:26
proprietary, and US based technology solutions. SUSE is a
6:31
Luxembourg based provider of enterprise IT solutions based in
6:35
Linux, and at their annual trade show, they learned the vast
6:38
majority of, quote, IT leaders worldwide are looking to divest
6:43
from hyperscalers and hyperclouds, and that over half
6:47
have already started the process. This is at a time when
6:50
the American government has ordered diplomats to combat
6:54
various digital sovereignty initiatives around the world,
6:57
claiming that the shift will disrupt global data flows and
7:00
act counter to the goals of product development in
7:02
artificial intelligence, an industry currently propping up
7:05
the national economy. We've mentioned digital sovereignty a
7:09
few times on Never Post, but what does doing that work
7:12
actually look like?
7:13
What are governments and other enterprise IT consumers really
7:17
worried about if they engage in an ongoing relationship with
7:20
proprietary US technology? Given the American technological
7:26
hegemony, is it really even possible to fully divest? After
7:31
a short break, I discussed this and more with Alexander
7:34
Smolianitsky of Germany's Federal Center for Digital
7:37
Sovereignty. In the last couple years, for reasons which will be
7:57
obvious if you listen to this show, many groups and European
8:01
governments chief amongst them have began to despair of their
8:05
overreliance on US tech products. Not just Slack and
8:10
Zoom and Microsoft Office, but Google Cloud, AWS, and other
8:16
offerings which represent more deeply embedded digital and
8:19
network infrastructure.
8:25
This concern has only grown under the shadow of AI, the
8:28
fundamental premise of which contravenes many of the EU's
8:32
strict regulations around moderation, data sharing, and
8:36
deletion. As such, a growing coalition of politicians, policy
8:40
groups, organizations, and governments are seeking to
8:44
diminish or outright remove their reliance on foreign,
8:48
meaning American, technology. They seek what's called digital
8:53
sovereignty or sometimes technological sovereignty.
8:57
French president Emmanuel Macron famously said in 2020, if we
9:01
don't build our own champions in all areas, digital, artificial
9:06
intelligence, our choices will be dictated by others. These
9:11
efforts appear increasingly essential given an increasingly
9:16
erratic American administration and its trade policy.
9:20
Critics of the various efforts to divest from foreign tech
9:23
products may point, say, to China or Russia, both of whom
9:28
famously practice a strict form of technological sovereignty,
9:32
exercising authoritarian control over their citizens' access. Is
9:36
this what Europe wants? A restrictive draconian tech
9:40
policy? And furthermore, aren't American tech products simply
9:45
the best in the world? Why settle for anything less in the
9:49
operation of something as significant as a government?
9:53
And I mean, how does one even stop using AWS? Is that even
9:58
possible? To find out the answers to these questions, I
10:02
reached out to Germany's Federal Center for Digital Sovereignty,
10:06
who put me in touch with their head of open source product and
10:09
delivery. Joining me is Alex Smolianitski, a digital
10:18
strategist currently serving as the head of open
10:21
source product and delivery at the Federal Center for Digital
10:25
Sovereignty. Could you tell me a little bit about what Zendesk
10:28
is?
10:29
Alex Smolianitski: So we are some sort of a unicorn in
10:31
Germany, but also maybe globally. We are a private
10:35
company which is owned by the federal government of Germany,
10:39
and we are basically the ones who are responsible for
10:44
analyzing and figuring out solutions whenever it comes to
10:48
critical digital dependencies. There was a study a few years
10:51
ago in which the public administration, the federal one,
10:55
analyzed and and figured out that there is actually a lot of
10:59
that within the software ecosystem, which we are using on
11:02
a day to day basis. And, basically, legislation as well
11:07
figured out that we should have some sort of an answer on that
11:11
regard on a German, but also on a European level, and that's
11:15
what we are doing every day. We we try to provide solutions or
11:19
platforms for these solutions to get rid of critical
11:23
dependencies.
11:25
Mike Rugnetta: And so what do those look like? Like, what is a
11:29
critical technological dependency that needs to be
11:32
ameliorated or addressed?
11:34
Alex Smolianitski: One of them is, for example, or or the way
11:37
that you can analyze or or feel that you have a dependency is
11:41
whenever you wanna switch to a different product, but you feel
11:44
that you are super accustomed with whatever you have and you
11:48
have some sort of inner or an outer sign that you don't wanna
11:53
switch. And and this is where you feel that you have a
11:56
dependency. In in the German administration, it's, for
11:59
example, whenever it comes to workspaces or the operating
12:02
systems, we do use a lot of Microsoft products, for example,
12:10
or databases which are based on on other big providers. And
12:15
Sure. People understood that it's not really useful to rely
12:20
on just one provider for for these types of solutions.
12:24
Mike Rugnetta: And is that just because you get you get locked
12:27
in, and then you you can't change, and there's, you know or
12:30
the change is extremely difficult or expensive?
12:33
Alex Smolianitski: It's many things. One of them is that you
12:36
cannot really rely on having some sort of a dependent or or
12:40
independence in regards to the financial models. Everything
12:44
right now is moving into the cloud, and you have, like, some
12:48
sort of a cost explosion which everybody is feeling. That's one
12:52
part. The other one is obviously that whenever you are using
12:56
software, and that's where the the change from offline
12:59
bureaucracy to online bureaucracy comes into hand
13:03
maybe, is that you have to have the ability to change the
13:07
processes and maybe change software.
13:10
And it's really difficult if you have a big player to actually
13:15
ask them for some sort of a change request within their
13:17
software. And so what comes out is that very often, the process
13:23
is being adapted according to the tool and not the tool
13:27
according to the process.
13:29
Mike Rugnetta: Sure. Yeah. So I wanna just read something that
13:34
is stated on the Zendesk website, and then maybe go,
13:38
like, just like section by section a little bit to try to
13:41
understand some of these things. Mhmm. So on the Zendesk website
13:46
it says, our state is highly dependent on a few large tech
13:50
companies, resulting in a serious loss of control over
13:53
state IT, With a comprehensive sovereignty package consisting
13:58
of a platform, products, and consulting, the Center for
14:02
Digital Sovereignty and Public Administration supports federal,
14:06
state, and local authorities in freeing themselves from critical
14:08
dependencies and securing their ability to act.
14:12
So who are the large tech companies upon which the state
14:16
is highly dependent? You mentioned Microsoft. So is it
14:19
sort of like all of the usual suspects that you might think
14:23
are at a similar level as Microsoft?
14:27
Alex Smolianitski: Yeah. It's it's everybody who who runs IT
14:30
knows that there are a few providers which are, on
14:34
everybody's mind. It's obviously Microsoft. It's, whenever you
14:37
come to databases, it's, something like Oracle. And if
14:43
you go on a more infrastructural level, it's, VMware.
14:48
Mike Rugnetta: Mhmm.
14:48
Alex Smolianitski: And these are just a few. These are the the
14:51
really big ones who are super deep within the infrastructure
14:55
right now.
14:56
Mike Rugnetta: And so are you talking about trying to remove
14:59
dependency on, like, a few large pervasive providers, or is it
15:05
many companies, big and small?
15:08
Alex Smolianitski: It's less targeting a company and trying
15:11
to replace it, but more providing an alternative to the
15:15
processes which which are being used on a day to day basis.
15:18
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. That actually gets to my next
15:19
question, which is what is state IT? Like, what sorts of products
15:23
and services are we talking about?
15:25
Alex Smolianitski: So everybody has some sort of a digital
15:27
workspace right now. Email, you do need to edit some texts,
15:32
phone calls, video calls, need to chat. But then there's
15:35
obviously also some sort of a software when it comes to, for
15:39
example, storing files, doing some sort of a service for for
15:44
citizens when it comes to forms, databases, and and, like,
15:48
workflow tools.
15:49
Mike Rugnetta: So, I mean, is this at every level of
15:51
government? Like, we talking about taxes and population and
15:55
demographics checking and transit, and it's just a totally
15:59
pervasive problem?
16:01
Alex Smolianitski: It is a totally pervasive problem. It
16:03
was actually a decision which was based, and there was a
16:06
unanimous vote on that regard by all the states and also the
16:09
federal government to start getting this sort of technical
16:14
independence on all levels of government. There are different
16:18
decision makers and also different types of IT
16:21
infrastructures and also people who are responsible for that.
16:24
Zendesk is something that is primarily focused on the federal
16:28
government, but we do work a lot with the different states
16:31
Because people understood that we should not focus on some sort
16:35
of a random tool which is being used by parts of the
16:40
administration, but we should focus on basically the heart of
16:44
of the everyday workspace, and that's the main application that
16:48
people are using.
16:49
Mike Rugnetta: It just feels like such a it feels like such a
16:52
massive undertaking.
16:53
Alex Smolianitski: It is super massive, and it's really
16:55
interesting because, obviously, this is also the the most
16:58
emotional part of an of a public servant or so if you you
17:03
basically touch what they are they've been using, I guess,
17:07
since school or or for some people of of the younger
17:10
generation or or since they joined the workforce. We all do
17:15
that. We do know where where a button is located. Sure. And we
17:20
do know what kinda I don't know, where there is a buggy situation
17:24
or something like that, and suddenly you just come strip
17:27
everything that they knew and replace it with a new piece of
17:30
software.
17:31
Mike Rugnetta: How much of the work that you're doing is, like,
17:33
software development versus, say, procurement versus, say,
17:37
you know, purchasing? Is it all of the above?
17:40
Alex Smolianitski: I would love to say that we are focusing on
17:43
one of them, but it's actually all of the above. We do need
17:46
development. We do need procurement. We do need,
17:49
basically, also some sort of convincing people to join the
17:53
the movement. And I think it's really important to understand
17:56
that we are not just some sort of a young fresh start up within
17:59
the government which which tries to rebuild out their existing
18:03
software components, but we are working with the market and with
18:08
different tool providers either in Germany or somewhere within
18:12
Europe who are building software for years or sometimes even
18:16
decades and are some sort of a market leader in their niche in
18:20
regards to what product they are building.
18:22
The Tendus part or the Tendus magic which we are integrating
18:25
into these products is, getting all these different partners to
18:30
actually work together and to provide some sort of a suite
18:33
which feels like it's one tool rather than you have a, like, a
18:37
list of eight or 10 different companies, who are providing you
18:41
tools. So you do log in through one window, and everything
18:45
within the suite, looks the similar. It's the same colors.
18:48
It's the same navigation. It's the same place where the data is
18:52
being stored.
18:53
Mike Rugnetta: I noticed in the suite of tools that is listed on
18:56
the website, and in, you know, some of the other things that
18:58
I've read that it's it's all open source. And is that because
19:03
you're able to, make these changes? Is that a sort of
19:07
philosophical standpoint that inspires that relationship?
19:10
Alex Smolianitski: I wouldn't call it philosophy. I would call
19:12
it, pragmatism. First of all, if you work with open source, you
19:17
are able to read all the lines which which are being produced.
19:22
So it's really interesting for us out of a security aspect
19:25
Mhmm. Because we we are able to harden the software.
19:30
We are able to find out if there is some sort of a security
19:33
breach, and and we can fix it much faster than just rely on
19:37
some report which we cannot verify. That's one thing. The
19:42
other one is that you can adapt. That's what you also said. And
19:46
we are able to customize basically according to our
19:49
needs.
19:50
Whenever we are investing into these products, we do have some
19:55
sort of a commitment that if we are building something, it's
19:58
actually sustainable because it can be reused either by other
20:03
users or by completely strangers who are also using these tools.
20:07
So it's actually, if the state is investing into this product,
20:11
it's not license fees, which which we are losing but not
20:15
owning anything, but but actually it's some sort of an
20:18
investment into a product to make it better.
20:20
Mike Rugnetta: And, like, you're through this, you're able to
20:22
ameliorate the threat of future dependency.
20:26
Alex Smolianitski: Yes. Even with open source software, you
20:28
are able to be in some sort of a dependency. And and that's
20:32
where, actually, the community and the the aspect that you have
20:36
to have some sort of a a vital open source market or an IT
20:41
market out there is super crucial because, we all know
20:46
that, companies can change their minds or stuff like that. And
20:50
with open source software, we do know that if we invest into
20:54
these tools and they are out there and we do have the source
20:57
code, either we or someone else, can pick it up if we lose a
21:03
partner along the way and continue working on that. It's
21:06
super cool to know that you are not just investing into a tool
21:10
for the usage, but actually for, like, some sort of a wider range
21:15
of benefits which you can can have by having that code
21:19
actually readable and installable or pluggable into
21:23
different environments.
21:25
Mike Rugnetta: Open source plagued by maybe a slightly
21:27
different problem of, like, you know, the individual person who
21:30
maintains some tool changing their mind or abandoning it, but
21:33
there's a much there's a safety net there in that, it's all
21:37
available. I'm curious, how hard has this been?
21:42
Alex Smolianitski: We are still laughing. I think convincing
21:45
that it's a reasonable solution is easy, but then it's just as a
21:51
writer like some sort of a writer's blockade whenever you
21:53
have an empty page and you need to start writing. I think the
21:57
same applies to change processes. So, actually, during
22:00
the launch keynote, we did receive the first few 100 and
22:04
then the next thousands of inquiries from from different
22:08
public bodies who are eager to try it out, and I think it's
22:12
really important. And the first step is actually to convince
22:16
them, and then them getting them on the track of moving.
22:21
You do not just switch a software, but you have to
22:25
explain, you have to convince people actually to start rolling
22:30
it out within their different public agencies, and that's
22:33
something that that is out there. And I think even the
22:36
feedback that we receive is, giving us enough energy to to
22:41
continue moving. And we do see that there is some sort of
22:44
energy which is out there in the public, sector, but there is
22:47
also the same sort of energy or or, the same topics which are
22:52
out there not only for the public administration, but also
22:56
obviously for the private sector. You just have different
22:59
names for the same thoughts or worries which they have. They
23:03
they don't say it's maybe digital sovereignty or so, but
23:06
they talk about espionage of their products or something like
23:10
that or or obviously all sorts of regulations which which are
23:14
out there, for example, on the financial sector, which keep
23:18
them somewhere within close proximity to the conversations
23:23
and the topics which we have.
23:25
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And like the idea of any bureaucracy,
23:28
really, looking at fundamentally the way some things are run, and
23:32
then saying, like, oh, we should change this. It feels like such
23:35
a remote possibility, but I guess the willingness speaks to
23:39
just the risks and the frustration with being locked
23:42
into a bunch of these tools Yeah. Or, you know, locked into
23:46
their feature sets.
23:47
Alex Smolianitski: Yeah. And it's super important also out of
23:49
the perspective of a state or of a government. You do need to
23:54
have a functioning state Sure. All the time. You cannot say
23:58
that there is some sort of an outage, and you cannot, you
24:02
know, provide social welfare or something like that.
24:04
Mhmm. So it's really interesting to change or or to have this
24:08
sort of mindset, but also technical change within a fully
24:12
functioning and working body.
24:14
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And to know that the risks if it doesn't
24:16
work are quite high.
24:18
Alex Smolianitski: Yes. Yes. That's something that I learned
24:20
during the time when I was CDO at in the city that I used to
24:24
live in. It was always I think it was actually like the the
24:29
social welfare department which explained to me that I do have
24:33
one shot, and if it's not working, you you are you are
24:38
going to be responsible for child support or so not being
24:41
able to be paid.
24:43
Mike Rugnetta: No pressure.
24:43
Alex Smolianitski: Or if there's the fire department, they need
24:45
to pick up the phone within, like, I don't know, like, three
24:48
seconds or so, and you cannot provide a tool which might be
24:52
ideologically better but but not working.
24:56
Mike Rugnetta: Mhmm. What does the next five years look like
25:00
for you?
25:00
Alex Smolianitski: Sometimes I do not know what the next week
25:02
is going to look like.
25:03
Mike Rugnetta: We can start at the next week or month if that's
25:06
easier.
25:06
Alex Smolianitski: I do not know what the next week is going to
25:08
look like. I think I think it's really interesting to see. I do
25:13
not know about the numbers within the US public
25:18
administration, but in Germany, we do have a big chunk of
25:21
workforce which is going to go into their retirement. And we
25:27
need to pick up the work that they are doing maybe in
25:32
different ways. And I think it's something that, obviously, in
25:35
regards to AI and what we are seeing right now on a day to day
25:39
basis where AI is changing the way that we are working, is
25:42
going to take also over certain typical processes of of
25:48
governments and most certainly of the workspace that we are
25:52
working in.
25:53
Mike Rugnetta: Mhmm.
25:53
Alex Smolianitski: That maybe is even not the five year plan, but
25:56
maybe really something between the week and the five years
25:59
because the speed is amazing. I feel like that. And I and I
26:04
really hope that we continue to grow and to scale. And we see
26:07
that also. We do have also this platform on which public
26:12
administration is able to develop.
26:15
And we see that since we took that platform over, there is a
26:20
larger amount of actually new projects which are being started
26:23
there and being deployed from there. And that makes me at
26:27
least some sort of hopeful that we are not the only crazy ones
26:32
out there, but actually many others are also going to
26:34
continue on this journey in regards to, open source tools.
26:39
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I'm curious what you know, when you think
26:41
about the challenges that you're about to face and, you know,
26:44
having had interactions with folks doing similar work in
26:49
France and maybe other parts of Europe, like, is this how many
26:52
of these problems and their solutions are distributed
26:55
across, say, like, the European Union or the world? Like, how do
27:00
you see this playing out in other places? Or is this problem
27:02
the same across the board, or is it different?
27:05
Alex Smolianitski: If you call digital dependency a problem,
27:09
then I guess it's something that is out there basically
27:12
throughout the entire world. I would say the question is how
27:16
you are, whether it's bothering you and how you are working
27:19
against that feeling, not against the dependency itself. I
27:23
am we see that, that that serenity is something that is,
27:27
not ending at the state's borders, but it's a common issue
27:31
that some countries face more than others. We did pick up
27:35
slack, obviously, within the European Union with with all the
27:40
neighboring countries right now because out of all the,
27:44
criticism which you can always hear about Germany and their
27:47
maybe, speed in regards to digitalizing, like, everyday
27:52
life. Actually, the idea to found, some sort of a center for
27:57
digital sovereignty is something very progressive, And that's
28:00
something that many countries are looking into or are
28:06
fantasizing of having something like that.
28:08
Usually, whenever we have colleagues also in other
28:11
countries, it's some sort of maybe, like, a team within a
28:15
department, which is working on that. And here, we we have an
28:19
entire institution for that. So that's really cool. We started
28:24
first with France, and then we also had the colleagues from
28:28
Netherlands joining us. And then throughout, I think, or or over
28:32
the course of six months, each public administration had to
28:36
face reelection, some of them multiple times.
28:40
Mike Rugnetta: Oh,
28:40
Alex Smolianitski: wow. And and we had to keep it all going, and
28:43
it was really interesting because we always thought that
28:46
we do need to have some sort of an international partner to have
28:49
some sort of continuity and stability, But we all kept
28:52
going, we all, survived and got sometimes even stronger, out of,
28:58
out of these elections, with with more political backing, I
29:02
guess, because this is not only just some sort of a
29:05
hallucination, but it's actually some sort of a dependency which
29:07
is being taken very seriously.
29:10
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. It's incredible. It really speaks to,
29:11
I think, the commitment that Yep. Everybody feels to the
29:14
process. Do you foresee Zentis being an sort of increasing hub
29:20
for this kind of work in Europe?
29:24
Alex Smolianitski: First of all, obviously, our main client is
29:26
the German
29:27
Mike Rugnetta: Germany. Yeah.
29:28
Alex Smolianitski: German administration, but we do work
29:30
with other countries, together. And actually, one of the
29:33
outcomes of this cooperation, which we started with France and
29:37
Netherlands and then many other countries within Europe, was
29:40
some sort of a consortium, which is also backed by the European
29:44
Union in which there is a public body which cares about digital
29:49
commons and is able to connect, these sorts of initiatives
29:54
between, or among different European states, but also with
29:58
the private sector.
29:59
Mike Rugnetta: I'm curious what what you have to say to folks
30:02
who might hear about this work and hear about, you know,
30:06
digital sovereignty generally, and say that this is like, this
30:10
is the opposite of what we should be doing. You know,
30:12
people should be we should be sharing more technology. We
30:15
should be pushing the bigger companies to be more open, and
30:20
more transparent as opposed to just switching to different
30:23
tools. And like, you know, maybe the state is, the best to be
30:28
able to push those companies to do that, and that what you're
30:31
doing by going open source and going, you know, like trying to
30:36
move things closer to closer to home or within the border, that
30:41
this is like, you know, isolationist or protectionist,
30:44
or you're just sort of like retreating from a larger
30:47
problem, and just focusing on your own thing. Okay.
30:51
Alex Smolianitski: I think it's super important to understand
30:53
that digital sovereignty doesn't mean that you are building a
30:57
wall, but actually are providing maybe some sort of a I always
31:02
try to explain that it's some sort of a market stand or so
31:05
where you have different products which are out there.
31:08
And by that, you do not try to get isolated from the world, but
31:13
actually just try to have some sort of stable and sovereign
31:18
standing among partners. At the same time, everybody is still
31:23
super sovereign and has their own opinion and actually the
31:26
abilities to change the products. So even though that
31:30
the product might be used also in a different country, it could
31:33
look completely different, and that's, I think, the benefits
31:37
which are out there.
31:40
Mike Rugnetta: Alex, this has been fascinating. I really
31:42
appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. Thanks for
31:44
coming on.
31:45
Alex Smolianitski: Thank you, Mike, and thanks to the team for
31:47
having me.
31:48
Mike Rugnetta: If our listeners want to learn more about Zendesk
31:51
or Digital Sovereignty or any of these things, where are the
31:54
places that you would send them online?
31:56
Alex Smolianitski: Go to our websites. They are all also
31:58
available in English. So Zendesk DE and OpenDesk EU, actually.
32:02
Check out our websites.
32:04
Mike Rugnetta: Great. Perfect. I'll put those links in the show
32:06
notes too. Thanks. Thanks again to Alex and to Lutz Nehemiah at
32:12
Zendis.
32:13
You can find out more about the organization and the work they
32:16
do in the show notes. That is the show we have for you this
32:32
week. We're gonna be back here in the main feed on or around
32:34
Thursday, May 7. As of this week, at the April 2026, we are
32:40
currently offering a deal, a promo as they call it. We have
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That's right. You can subscribe to all four outlets at once for
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or more, it's even cheaper. You can find a link in the show
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and get thirty day discount membership. And when that's
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over, you can renew whatever you like.
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There's no commitment to stay subscribed to all four outlets.
33:23
This is just the first of a bunch of collaborative efforts
33:25
that we're getting underway with these folks and others, and I'm
33:29
just I'm really excited about it. We've been working on a lot
33:31
of stuff, kinda like behind the scenes trying to figure out, you
33:34
know, as a collective of websites, what can we even
33:38
actually do together? I And feel like this is a really fun,
33:42
exciting first step. So get in on this while it's still
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available and see what all of these sites have to offer their
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members.
33:54
Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton,
33:57
and the mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior
34:00
producer is Hans Buto, our executive producer is Jason
34:03
Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rignetta. The
34:10
body falls from the eastern sky into history and breaks apart.
34:13
Lost on earth headless teeth biting toes and doesn't stop
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falling, falls through. In hell, a pile of limbs waiting to be
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fed.
34:21
Here, the furnace set that points the passage through tents
34:24
the only place it ever meant and makes a descant of the eyes
34:28
turning on the boundary of speech. A round thing on the
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poverty of wish that cannot love to die and sets in fear behind
34:37
the new factory. Excerpt of Excavations by Peter Reilly.
34:43
Never Post is a production of Charts and Leisure and is
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distributed by Radiotopia.