Latest / The Dutch Investors / #62 | Interview w/ Nedap CEO Ruben Wegman | The end of an era

Transcript

#62 | Interview w/ Nedap CEO Ruben Wegman | The end of an era · The Dutch Investors

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another interview by the Dutch investors.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are moments in life when you're extra excited, and I would lie if I told you I wasn't very excited and even a little nervous today.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: To make matters worse, I missed our first appointment.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know, how stupid.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: But Ruben was nice enough to reschedule.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Wehman has announced that he will step down as CEO in 2026.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we are very grateful that he took the time and effort to come on the show and talk about his journey as CEO, the future of NADOP, AI, and much more.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy today's conversation with the CEO of NADOP, with Ruben Wechman.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is one of the I have too many EPCs connected to too many devices.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's not helping me very much.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Technology.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is always a thing.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It must have been a busy or hectic period, rather, recently, with the Q3 results coming out, and of course the news that you'll be stepping down as uh CEO somewhere next year.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, how have the past few weeks been for you?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty intense.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the first time I had to make this announcement, so I didn't have a lot of experience.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have to be very open about my current situation that uh that I have Parkison since 2018.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we all know that the time would have come, that that time that I would have to make an announcement that I would leave the company.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: But we uh apparently it was had a bigger impact than I expected within the organization, or perhaps it was an estimated impact.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we also have to be on the uh clear that this this organization will run also without me.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just passing by for the last couple years, and I'm quite confident that Hope and Viana will take over as the management team going forward.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so that's about me.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's focus on the company at the third quarter.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: The third quarter was uh just uh the confirmation about the fact that we're on the right track going forward.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it is about the company, and we'll talk about a lot about uh NATO, but the company is attached to you, and so um you joined NADUP in 1997.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even around back then, so I can only imagine what it must have been like uh back then.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: But can you tell us a bit about what NATO was like when you joined and how it's different now?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So NATO NATO was very much a factory at that time, so we were the large part of our business was contract manufacturing, so we manufacture in uh in the order of uh defined products for certain specific customers, like the electronics for a power supply or the electronics a sunroof, or these sort of things.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the problem with that was and we always already had a part of our own products going forward, and we saw in 1997 that already manufacturing for third parties is not the most profitable business, so we started to focus on getting our own brand out there, but it was still early days.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh if you walked around, 80% of the floors were covered in this white plastic ESD floors ready for manufacturing, that has changed completely.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever visited uh NIDAP?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you mean uh in Grunlo?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the new Not yet, no.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were planning on going there, but it's always on a Wednesday.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was on a Wednesday at least.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I usually work uh when the investor and the capital market days are feel free to to come on another day, and uh you get an impression about the company that has changed completely.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's very much more an IT software company than a manufacturing facility.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: We quit our manufacturing already many years ago, so the company has changed completely.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can I can imagine.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take you up to that.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll schedule something and uh we'll visit it and we'll make it something for our members as well.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Take some pictures and uh talk to some uh employees maybe.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: We'll make a fun day out of it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're more than welcome.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So thinking about all of what happened and you and you leaving in 2026, let's say we skip ahead 10 years.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you hope or where do you see NATO going?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: What do you hope will remain the same or maybe change?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or somebody told me that predicting was pretty difficult, especially when it's about the future.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is I find it very difficult.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you imagine 10 years' time, 10 years ago, when we didn't have ChatGPT, we didn't know about COVID and the whole thing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very difficult to predict.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that the the same cultural aspects will still be there.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: The culture needs to change, need to adapt to the new situation, but it still needs to be a curious bunch of people trying to be entrepreneurial and to have a real impact in the life of people with technology.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that will be the constant going forward.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the company will need to grow and will need to be more successful, more international, and we are on the track to do that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But uh it's very difficult to look forward and be ready to do how the world is changing going forward.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So those people that already can predict what will happen in the next 10 years, I'm not rather jealous, but I think it's very hard for me to do so.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you can make all the graphs and continue the graphs.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing about continuing graphs is that it will go differently than expected.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes it's easier to just look at the things you don't want to see change.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, what you said, the culture, you just want to keep like the entrepreneurial spirit the same, which is far easier to predict, I guess.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll share the other thing with that as well, is that if you put things in forward, you you almost it's like that you promise certain things and it reduces your agility.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So your your our strategic agility is the thing that has really set us apart in the last 15 years.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Although if you look back, it looks like a very consistent thing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know from from very close by that the strategy setting is way more agile than you than you than you would think about when you look back in the history.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as most of our listeners and most investors in NADAP probably know by now, NADAP is focused heavily on four key markets now: healthcare, retail, security, and livestock.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you said that you only want to operate in niche markets where you can become a market leader.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why is being a market leader in a niche so important to you in NADAP?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty standard business rule.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you be the number one, it's far easy to generate enough cash to outspend the competition on the research and development.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So being the number one is a strategic advantage.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say a new competitor comes along in one of these markets and wants to take on NATO, take market share, perhaps try to become market leader themselves.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: What separates NATO from those startups or those competitors?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing that we already market leader that makes life more much much more easier.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But also the fact that we have that that really it's just a big chicken and the egg.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a market leader, it's far easier to remain market leader, unless you become uh uh too lazy if you if you truly believe that you are inconvincible.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you become vulnerable.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody steps in, it's very quite often they can step in with new technology, a new idea, but they don't have the reach, they don't have the the trust built up with the with uh with our customers.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we have a long-established relationship with our customers really sets us apart from a startup.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The only problem is if you're if you're getting big, you can become lazy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the when we the that's the reason why we're now successful in the healthcare business, because the big competitors, both in the retail and all the big markets, they become all lazy or they were convinced about their invincibility, and then you become vulnerable.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's the biggest lesson.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are ourselves the our biggest enemy if you go forward.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you avoid NADAP from becoming repeating that?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be uh functional schizophrenic and permanent paranoid.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that means that functional schizophrenic, you need to be proud about your results, but at the same time be very worrisome looking forward.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we still making the right decisions?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing paranoid means that whenever you're you're really confident going forward, then you look back over your shoulder whether some competitors approaching you from the backside.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a pretty uh really puts you on your toe consistently.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but that that that's uh the last couple years it turned out to be pretty successful if you manage to combine those characters in one person.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: During our research, NATOP is uh is a holding for our entire team, uh the four of us.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: You did pretty well this year, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's done pretty good, yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're happy shareholders, yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um we found that NATO uh often talks about the added value per employee uh by focusing on the superior software based on customers' needs.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you decide and figure out what customers need?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine, for example, healthcare professionals run into certain problems and maybe even have great ideas for the software, but perhaps leadership or other institutions run into entirely different issues.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you decide what to create or implement and listen to customers?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: How would you do it yourself?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you you would need to get feedback from them, I suppose.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You uh visit them, go there, and go out there, and instead of behind your desk thinking what they need, go forward and just visit them and ask them.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just ask them.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what NATO does.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh Right.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We also have a lot of farmers, a lot of people with a nursing background, cardiology background, and need that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the most important thing is keep going outside to get them, but just ask the customer.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And don't do what the customer tells you to do.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to do is uh some thinking yourself.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do you need to get a lot of observation, and then the magic happens, then you combined with your ideas about technology and the feedback from the market, you make the right decision.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't do not bespoke uh customer-specific solutions.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: You want to have generic platform, generic products, which are if you like the Apple approach.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have an opinion about the market, you love to create opinionated products.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do potential customers find made up solutions?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can improve on that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're hitting the the sour spot on that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we can do a way better job in finding the customers letting customers find us.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the most important thing is that we need to find the customers.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if customers find us, that's wonderful, but we should not trust them to find us.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: We should go out there and find the right customers for us.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we spend a lot of people with boots on the ground, or we spend a lot of money and time on getting our boots on the ground and visit those customers in their local habitat, if you like.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes that feels a bit of a difference between like US companies and your European companies, where European companies sometimes feel a bit more I wouldn't say laid back, but like US companies are always trying to push themselves in your face, and it's it sometimes it feels a bit different where I think NADAP can do that a little bit more since their solutions appear to be very good, so you can push yourself a little bit more to the customers, I think.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But you think so?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I fully agree.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, we're on the one of the big things about culture, culture needs to change.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're although we have been founded in Amsterdam, we moved many years ago to the eastern part of the country, you know, in the eastern part of the country, we used to be modest.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let other people brag about you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't talk about yourself, let other people find out what if what they think about you.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go to the state, you need to be full, full of you know full of yourself and full of confidence, if you like.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not, and you say, Well, we don't know how we do the problem with this right now is that customers that buy our product are a few months later more satisfied than just when they bought the product.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of our competitors the other way around, the marketing itself gives them a huge uh uh uh expectation and they don't meet expectation quite often.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We exceed or you usually expectation, which is a positive thing.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It also means that we could boost our expectation by improving our marketing.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're really focusing on that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the the fact that the fact that we just announced on the capital markets that we want to be the number one in the markets, that's pretty new thinking for our company as well.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in our DNA as an at least the company that you need to be modest to claim that you wouldn't be the number one.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But from a strategic perspective, it's crucial.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So people understand from a business perspective that you need to be ambitious with being number one without bracking too much.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: There need to be a right balance between this American mindset and this European mindset.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've said before that you prefer organic growth, which makes sense over acquisitions.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, what made you decide to acquire uh Medikit and how's the uh implementation going so far?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh we don't want to be dogmatic.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we believe autonomous growth is the way forward.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's conventional entrepreneurship.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have an idea, create a product, and try to sell.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at history and all sort of uh research that we've done, that's the great best way to create value.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you have this opportunity where you can easily do a bolt-on.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't expect us to buy a completely new key market, but bolt-on acquisition is something we we contemplate if it makes sense.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why we did Medikit is because we fell in love with the product and the philosophy of the founders of the company.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: We knew that we from a strategic perspective we would move to we would like to move from the health from the care industry for the elderly care, the handicapped care, and the mental health care organization into the general practitioners because house arts, the general practitioners, are pretty crucial in our in our business model.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: We could develop something ourselves, but the the founders of the company had great ideas, and we just found each other and we decided that one plus one turns out to be three.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it worked out because they were a small company with great ideas, and we had a company with a reputation and the money to put where put money where your mouth was, if you look at the research and development.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And now from a trust perspective, customers are now far easier to convince to switch over to Need of Matakit.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we really are making a lot of progress.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, this was also a product early stage, so we had to also invest a lot in the underlying architecture to make it very stable, secure, and also from a privacy and security perspective, up to our standards.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But now we're hitting the standards and we have a lot of market tracking going forward.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Great to hear.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: The next question you might not want to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway, and uh we'll see.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Over the years, uh NATO has shifted more towards recurring revenue.
• 15:20
  unknown: So far.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: So far, so good.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So far, so good.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our job as investors can be a bit different from a CEO standpoint.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, how high can that number realistically go, you think?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Realistically, it can go to 100% if we only sell uh recurring revenue.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But is that our objective?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, from a from a business perspective, we see that larger part of the business will be SaaS.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not aiming to sell only SaaS recurring revenues.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that software will be a bigger part of the pie, software services.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can sell uh smart uh smart tags where we have the uh real added value and then real we can create a lot of value, we will do that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we can keep on doing that.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we have both hard to software really sets us apart.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're not so much a SaaS company, because as you probably have read, that SaaS companies are really under threat by AI coming up, software is being generated.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: We position ourselves as a digital twin company.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's both software and hardware.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we are the unique position is that we not only do the software, we also create the data on which the software is based.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we are able to make a digital twin from Macau sets us apart from competitors that only provide software.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't understand, so the fact that we both do the same for retail, the fact that we can do the RFD readers and the software, so we can create new opportunities, new technological opportunities really sets us apart.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So because that will have a positive impact on the margin.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know everybody that's looking from a investor perspective has this same spreadsheet.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's your turnover, top line growth, how your gross market, your costs will develop.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I do understand that that uh software as a service is very attractive, not only from a business perspective, the fact that you have a continued relationship, but also from a valuation perspective.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the other way around.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: We we try to create products that fit the market, and then you have a result that you have this recurring revenue or not.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: The fact of the matter is that we expect that the recurring revenue will grow because of the the character of the solutions, will be way more SaaS-based.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we we're not gonna develop a lot of new hardware, that is for sure.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the mix of hardware and software.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think the mix of hardware and software, which you see in Apple and uh and Google, for example, is more powerful than just software alone.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um the the four key markets uh NADAP operates in, is there a reason why NATO doesn't publish a P ⁇ L per business unit or gives more transparency inside each market?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or the reason is uh the reason is that we don't look at NEDAP as four separate parts, although we position it as separate parts, we see it as an integral business.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We share a lot of know-how and we don't want to be bothered by making sure we put all the we calculate all the FTE being put on which projects.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: That goes pretty fluently.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So from the front side, it's very much a very focused organization per key market, but we don't uh we don't see uh from the backside it's way more integrated than people expect.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But also people love to have uh love to have more insight, but also has a uh has a downside as well.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the downside as well that all smart analysts can judge within a three minutes that there's one performing the least of the all four market groups.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what their suggestion is going to be?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Quit that business and your average will go up.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the problem with a lot of companies giving their quarterly results is that the the long-term perspective occurs to be way short-term.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the key differentiator currently in our market is that we are able to make investments with sometimes with a five to ten year time frame.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the investment we have made as software as a service, we put all the money, we did that for the first time with healthcare, but then we reap the rewards for retail and security management right now, and livestock management.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we did all the investment gearing up, getting all the know-how and experience in the healthcare business.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how can we calculate how should we charge that to livestock and retail?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: That makes it from a from an admin perspective very complicated.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the reason why we consider it to be one need app, and we don't want to cross uh charge all sorts uh investment to other market groups.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, with all the things going on around the world, you know, America and um all the wars going on, and uh security is becoming security and privacy is becoming more of a thing every day.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: NATO, I suppose I can imagine NATO uses quite a lot of cloud storage.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking at cloud solutions?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are you using cloud providers in Europe or outside of Europe as well?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And are are is there any thank you for asking this question?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because you did an assumption which was not right.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: We started with our own cloud to the technology, we have a private cloud.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the lot of companies that start now with the cloud technology, when we started with healthcare, there's not much of a public cloud.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we have developed our own cloud technology based on open source, all the technology right now, but we own our own cloud technology stack that really sets us apart from other companies.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you see that some competitors they come along and they put everything on AWS, we've seen yesterday what happened because the system was down.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We own our own stack, we even own our own hardware in the healthcare business.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we also, within retail, we know exactly it's it's it's a hybrid architecture.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can use Amazon, Google, and the other Azure as well.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And especially with security management, if you're a lot of people offer now a cloud-based, public cloud-based solution, then never will be successful in Europe.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because in Europe, if uh uh meaning never, not at the high end.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk in high-end security, you talk about private cloud, perhaps sovereign cloud that they have in their country in the sovereign cloud.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the key thing in this case you have to invest way more.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you outsource all your cloud know-how to an outside company, you will be screwed as a as a SaaS provider.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the security management, you need to own the stack, you could leverage the investment of the of the cloud providers, but always in charge of your own destiny.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there's another very important uh more uh economical perspective as well.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that we own our own hardware means that we there's a lot of margin leakage if you use the software SaaS uh the cloud services of those big companies.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: They start very friendly, but the moment you scale up, you bave through your teeth for all the capacity.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've they're the most brilliant people who work in the pricing department.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They know that's a big so we see a lot of competitors that start as a startup, they grow very quickly and they have a margin problem because we always have the option of running it on our Own hardware, which is also not free, but it's way more scalable in cost price, we have a really a price competitive price competitive advantage.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinating.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't know that, so that's that's that's good to know.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I could have known, but I I don't know.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Could I could I have known?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the story we we can improve in telling uh the outside world.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can be damn sure that we talk to uh we explain our customers that it works like that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at customers like Airbus, uh Volkswagen uh Total, they're never gonna go use the public cloud.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good value proposition for sure, yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to have the cloud technology.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can still leverage the cloud technology to create your own cloud or a hybrid cloud.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: To do the simple stuff, you can use the flexible capacity, you go outside, but the real critical stuff you run on your own or your client's uh uh cloud.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the downside of having your own?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: The downside, it uh the downside is that you need to invest a lot in technology.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we really spend more on research and development, that's what you see, 20% of turnover, and making sure that we have this cloud technology ready, our own cloud technology stake.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then again, we not uh invent every reinvent the wheel, we leverage the investment in the open source community where there's a lot of cloud technology available and we integrate that in our solution.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the key thing is that we own our stacks and we we can leverage the investment we have done with healthcare, security management, and other departments.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the trick of the trade with the need app is that we invest a lot in a certain technology or vision, in this case uh the cloud technology, and we can so we can really have a big advantage in our if you look at one single competitor that's only active in security management, he cannot leverage the cost over four market groups as we can do.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we have better technology in each and every market group because we leverage the investment over four market groups, so we can uh we are having a big technological advantage in one of the specific markets.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would like to switch gears and talk about technology, but also AI.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it seems like you can't go a day without hearing the word AI on the news or whatever on the socials.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: How is NADUP actually using AI today, either in your products but also internally?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen some use cases in livestock, and as a follow-up, is AI more about efficiency or is it about creating like new capabilities that weren't possible before?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there will be a huge trough of disillusionment going forward, I'm quite sure.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: But AI is a key technology.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fact is I is I used to study computer science and I specialized in artificial intelligence back in the days in 1988, so it has been around for a while, but it's really expanding.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the key technology we have been using for the last 20 to 30 years.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the the smart tech we apply, there are neural networks in there.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the next generation, the generative AI, that's pretty new, we use that in certain ways.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's already integrated in our product offering, but we can we also use it in our own uh processes.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the product offering, like the new product we have for lameness detection, which use visions to determine whether Cow walks difficult and whether she should be treated.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that's pretty everybody understands that you can enhance your product.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have some great ideas, uh more ideas.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the key thing we invested on is now how we can leverage AI to boost the added value per MPE.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty difficult.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty difficult.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: We find it's we still struggling to find the proof that the investment in the added cost is turning into higher added value per MPE.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what we do see is that we have a lot of margin leakage.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: We spent already millions on uh external AI providers.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're also looking to reduce those costs and start running our own models internally.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: But we we need to be there.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you we cannot lose out on on finding out what works or not.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the jury is still out how you can leverage AI to make product that have not only efficiency.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Efficiency is pretty straightforward if you automate certain tasks.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you can boost development uh capacity, that would be wonderful.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do you use AI yourself or employees internally?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Serious?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just wondering what do you use it for, and uh just out of curiosity, because um, you know, it seems like everybody is just trying stuff and working with certain things and testing certain AI models and features, and I'm just wondering what sort of things we the employees are you using.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying, I'm piloting and testing everything myself.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing I did yesterday created a song to thank my receptionist.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's too long where you can generate a song just the I I love technology, I love trying to try out what really makes a difference.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think the most important thing is uh note-taking that we use a lot of there.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We spend a lot of time in making sure that because there's a lot of uh disadvantages of the current AI setup, for instance, OpenAI doesn't have a European setup right now, so all your data is still going to over the sea to the states.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big problem.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we are focused on that how can we solve that before we really can use it at a huge scale.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: We already start testing.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: There has been a research from MIT: 95% of the AI investment is failing to generate any sort of added value.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the 5% of added value is especially for simple day-to-day tasks which are being automated.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often the people that are struggling with those automated tasks or tasks that could be automated, don't have have access to AI.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we introduce an AI enablement team within the just focusing on those simple tasks which can be automated, can be can be uh fully uh that no human uh human being should be busy with that.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that's something we don't.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, the first thing we did within a couple months, we allowed everybody, we know we we offered everyone an uh OpenAI ChatGPT account.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: We we really pushed that.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're one of the first companies in Holland to do so.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that 85% of the staff in NeedAp uses AI on a daily basis.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're still struggling how to find or fully leverage the opportunities, but we we think that if we have the right people and we have the right know-how, we can really improve our productivity.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still difficult to prove, to be honest.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the sort of what you will see in the next year is that people will see that they spend a fortune on tokens.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows the ChatGPT accounts, but you will be amazed how many tokens you will sp you will spend how much money you will spend on tokens if you start to generate code.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So where they all were the first guy who was able to spend 3,000 euros in one afternoon by having the wrong prompts.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is going to be using that in a proper way, it's gonna be a new uh skill set which we're currently working on to develop.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting to see where it will all take us.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just uh find AI a fascinating thing where I can definitely see it being very useful and perhaps even like underappreciated, but I can also imagine just five or ten years from now, looking back, we're like, wait, it was such a bubble, but I don't know.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I am no CEO, I don't run a technology company, so what do I know?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, but you you're not completely wrong in the sense that there's a lot of promise.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I talked to a professor a couple months ago, I said AI is just like statistic 2.0, 2.0.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of using technology to make certain smart decisions.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not real eternities, the generic eternities that's something of general that that's still one mile away.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it still can be a useful tool if you know the application area where you can apply it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, but right now, if you look at all the money being spent and the way it's being spent, that people are spending fortune on chips and then they get shares back, it's pretty it there's a lot of elements of a huge bubble.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's for sure.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps a more of a philosophical question, and uh I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh NATO, like I said, operates in those four niche markets, which naturally put some kind of ceiling on how far you can grow.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: So let's imagine a scenario where NATO reaches full saturation, you're the market leader in all segments.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: What happens then?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Would you focus to continuously add value, or uh would you perhaps my question is would you consider stepping into an entirely new market when you're saturated and market leader, or how do you think about uh I'm quite sure that my successor will make a smart comment at that time.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you ask me, um I think that uh it's very difficult.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it will be saturated at the end.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think because we took I think 15 years ago we thought that the healthcare market would not be bigger than 10 million euros, and now we start to redefine the markets.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what we see is that we are getting active not only in the administrative part, but also in helping people to live longer at home by using smart technology.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you always can redefine the market that it's going to be bigger.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you could imagine that that I don't think that we will, because of new growth opportunities, we will start a new market.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: It could be logical that from a conceptual perspective, one market turns to about B2, and if you approach it separately, retail has got a store perspective, but also a distribution perspective.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: That could be split into two separate markets.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that splitting markets in uh in set two separate markets is a more attractive concept than starting a new market overall.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because the risk of starting a market is is pretty high.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm enjoying this interview, so let's have some fun.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, well, thank you.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: What is one thing you think most people or investors misunderstand about NADAP?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh boa, that that's that that's a difficult question.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Misunderstand about need up.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: You want to get back to it later?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that misunderstand is um or not truly understand.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Misunderstand but truly understand is the the reasoning behind that.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are we are the driver, uh the most important driver is adding value for the customer.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people consider us as a as a company, especially management, that is looking from a financial perspective to business.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, financial perspective is important, but as a result of all the things we do in the market.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often you see, especially with people that use it from a stock perspective, they have a different different perspective about the reasoning why you do certain things.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're not here to improve our to improve our profitability.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: We see profitability as a as an indicator that we're successful adding value.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different reasoning.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often, if you come from a different perspective, then especially this long-term perspective.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that while I'm talking, the most important thing is that people underestimate the long-term perspective we need to have.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: You need to have in order to be successful.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: People all talk about Instagram, the overnight success, but in one year, a billion dollar valuation.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's the exception.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often it takes five, ten to fifteen years to grow a new business.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be very patient.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's people what a lot of people misunderstand.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love to reflect and look back at your journey over 9 95 years of NATO, if I'm correct, and your 16 years tenure as a CEO.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: 16 years is a long time.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: When you look back, what are some things you are most proud of?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Most proud of is that uh it can be many dimensions that uh that that a lot of people that the the the people that I have inspired to do great things.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think money and a position that's all nice, and but if it looked the the real impact is the people around you and the sort of personal growth they all made they all went through, me including.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you compare to the last 16 years ago, what kind of company you are we are right now?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: You see a lot of people that have just seen shown a great personal growth.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that's inspiring other people to grow.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's something which at least inspires me myself personally the most.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a year during your tenure as CEO that that comes back to mind that you could 2009, the first year?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was the that was.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I took over CEO, you remember 2009 when we had the youth crisis?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the moment I got the keys of the company, you take over as a CEO, the 20% of the revenue went 20% down.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you can be a very excellent CEO with a poor timing.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was pretty exciting.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: The good thing is that I've been a member of the board of directors since 2002.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew the company by heart, I knew the company pretty well, so I knew what we had to do.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if we reflect the last couple of days uh quite extensively on the first year, I really had to make a big change in the organization.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: We really had to hit a ground ground learning.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, if I knew at that time what I know now, then I'm not quite sure whether I make all those bold decisions.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's good not to have too much know-how.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: What would you have changed looking back?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that I would be way more uh knowledgeable about the risks.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, if you don't take any risk, you uh take the biggest risk.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps paralysis by too much know-how is can be that's that's one of the things you can be paralyzed by too much analysis.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you see a lot of organizations.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Paralysis analysis, yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what they call it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's something that uh Mongo used to say uh a big inspiration to us, where uh having a high IQ doesn't mean always making good decisions.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it hurts.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's especially with the training of the newest new generation leaders.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's about so you they are all very smart.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: But on a certain level, IQ doesn't make a difference.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to it doesn't feel right and you make a different decision, although all the analysis tells you to do certain things.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: In order to get this customer, you have to do something which is perhaps not something we had thought about, but what is what is needed right now.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think being a great CEO is also a lot about gut feeling?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um gut feeling is uh a lot of experience.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that thinking fast, thinking slow.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Gut feeling means that there's a lot of uh deep thinking that is turned and turned into reflexes.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you can your judgment is quite in the beginning, you have to think about everything is new, you have to get all sorts of new patterns in your head.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: But once experience is getting all those patterns into your your um Ruffemir in your system, so you don't have to overthink all the decisions.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can make 80% of decisions on based on gut feeling, and you know exactly when gut feeling doesn't cut it, and you need to make a decision based on uh spending as well more time on analysis.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at 2026, Rob Schuuman will take over, uh will run the ship.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: What makes him uh a good follow-up to you?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he will not take over just uh at that time.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: He already has been a has an important job the last it will not that he will start at that time.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's been involved in strategy, he's already with Nina for the last 21 years.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have been closing working together, not only from a strategic perspective, but also grading a lot of business.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that he's very well equipped and a lot of experience, but at the same end, he's different from me.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: He has a different personality, different experience, different perspective.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that also after so many years, it's also important to have somebody with a different perspective.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that that you don't get blind, you make sure your blind spots are being uh covered as well.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think Rob and Rian and the NL team, the near the leadership team, are very well equipped going forward.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish them all the best.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I won't be around to be an advisor or somebody in the supervisory board.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that they don't need that.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's a good way forward, so I'm quite sure that they will be very well equipped going forward.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Over the past few years, last 16 years, was there a time where you felt a lot of pressure from shareholders or um where you felt a lot of pressure?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um how do you deal with such a thing?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh to be honest, never.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of expectations.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the most pressure is not so much from your supervisor board or from your shareholders for your MPEs.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the most important thing.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you take care of your MPEs, then the shareholders and customers will be satisfied as well.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of pressure, a lot of expectations that you want to be open, but you cannot be completely open about especially big changes.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the the pressure has been when we had to do big changes in the organizations, like outsourcing the manufacturing and logistics.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole group of people that has been loyal with NIDA.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: They have to say, well, thank you for your loyalty and your commitment, but we're going to say goodbye to you because we go to the next stage.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: That put a lot of pressure in explaining to them to these people and also meeting their expectation that they will be taken well care of.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: That I think that if you talk about pressure, those were the days where the pressure was really intense.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But also, people, if you are very clear about your objectives and you share your objectives with a lot of people going forward, the people at least understand what you're doing.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most important thing that people understand what you're doing.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the same for the shareholders, to have a very consistent group of shareholders that have been involved for many years with the need app, they understand what we do, and most importantly, we don't go for the short-term results, we always long-term, uh long-term focused on long-term, and they know what to expect from us.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that that means that of course we have a lot of discussion with our comp with our shareholders, but I never felt the real pressure.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you have high expectation from yourself.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a good thing.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you put too high expectation, it's they did a lot of studies to make sure that this mix is right.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: You should not be lazy and laid back, I have no expectation whatsoever.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: But your own expectations are the most important ones.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you oh, I have too high expectation for yourself, that's having too a lot of stress, that's resulting a lot of stress and a lot of problems, which you see right now.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: People that come from a university or their studies, they start with their job, they they want to buy a house, they want to go on holiday.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: That puts a lot of pressure, but it's pressure you put on yourself.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to pressure in the right amount, but not more than that.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And how to do that, I've no idea.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: I always end with a bigger open question to the people listening, to the people reading, whether they're entrepreneurs, leaders, investors, employees, whatever it may be.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: What would be your number one life lesson to to the people listening?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: What what is something you would like to speak out and give to the world before uh that's pretty ambitious.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: My big lesson.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Just something you've learned over the years, whether it's as a CEO or just as a as a human being or living on Earth, something you I think that the I wish you knew earlier.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know the you know the 8020 rule, 2080 rule?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, also the the the 210 rule?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that you overestimate what you achieve in two years, but underestimate what you do in ten years.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: So be very consistent.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't be afraid to to to strive for something for a very long time.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: The urgent patience, that's the other thing.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: People want to have instant gratification.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: All the beautiful things don't come easy.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be a lot of patience and working diligent a certain way.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you chase every couple years, a couple months, you will never go so somewhere.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something we learn when the people join Nina.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: You will be you will be over as you will be disappointed in two years' times.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: But you will be, if you continue to go through this disappointment, continue down the right route, you will be uh amazed what you will achieve in ten years' time.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So urgent patience, that's what I wish everybody has.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And on that note, I think this would be uh the perfect place to wrap up today's uh conversation.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Ruben, I really want to say thank you for taking the time and uh having the patience to come after me missing our appointment.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I appreciate it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And also from our team and from uh some other investors you you've talked to over the years.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's been uh it's been fun, it's been a privilege to look back at you on 16 years being a CDO, the transformation NADAP is going through.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I know I'm speaking on behalf of many of our listeners and the investors.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for everything you've done so far for the company and uh for us.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: So uh all the best in the next chapter and good health and happiness.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Riven.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.