The Episode

Markus: A perfect morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to Future Weekly. Today with me and Waldy Ptäuftag, is a great guest! And that is Chris, Chris Bernkopf. Hello Chris!

Chris: Hi, hello.

Markus: We are very happy that you are with us. Let’s start with a look at LinkedIn. There is Chris Bernkopf, Building Podero. We are hiring, and previously, YCombinator, Circ and Alpas AI, and CERN. Now tell me, what does Podero do?

Chris: In short, we control flexible consumers, i.e., heat pumps, electric batteries, and air conditioning systems according to the electricity markets. If we expand more, we can say that we make sure that your electric device consumes about 25% of the electricity that the end customer uses. We build this software for energy suppliers, who in turn use our product to offer this electricity-controlling product to the end customer.

Markus: In other words, these energy providers can then offer their customers an additional product, so to speak, which in turn reduces their electricity costs. Did I understand that correctly?

Chris: Yes, exactly! The end user will have their energy supplier app. You then install Podero as an API in the background, and then you will be prompted to “add your device”. You then log in with your Tesla account, email password, or your Huawei inverter account, and from then on, we can control the device in the background so that it consumes electricity in an optimized way. What we are actually doing in the background is electricity trading. In other words, we then send information to the energy supplier so that they can buy electricity more efficiently, which in turn results in savings for the customer.

Markus: Super exciting. Let’s take a step back… When you think about young Chris. When you were maybe, I don’t know, seven, eight years old. Did you already have a passion for energy, for electricity perhaps, or did that only develop later?

Chris: I don’t think it was electricity. I built small transistor radios with my dad, to build toy railroads. I was always very enthusiastic about flying and the idea of the space. In fact, I wanted to be an astronaut back then… but trading electricity was not top of my priorities yet.

Markus: You wanted to become an astronaut….And how did you go about it? What were your steps towards potentially becoming an astronaut?

Chris: I don’t think there were any concrete steps, so a lot of reading and research. I think I then concentrated a lot on flying, had model airplanes, then started actually flying when I turned 15. That’s when I took, let’s say, real steps, but then quickly realized that I didn’t want to go in the direction of being an astronaut.

Markus: So…

Chris: I wanted to become a pilot to a certain extent, between 15 and 18, because I flew a lot of gliders there, mostly in the Hohe Wand or in the Schneeberg or the Alpine region. But I also saw that as a pilot you have to stick to lots of rules in the airspace….So my classic path was not to become a military pilot because I didn’t necessarily want to go to war. The options weren’t the best so I then decided that I would study physics. And then I read The 4-Hour Workweek, and that’s how I got into entrepreneurship.

Markus: You studied physics! Did you always have a connection to science or perhaps a talent for math and physics, or did that only develop later?

Chris: I shouldn’t praise myself too much. Most people in my family have been involved in science for generations. In any case, physics has always been exciting. I really liked math. That is, in any case. Back then, I also wrote a dissertation on particle physics, on the standard model.

That means flying also taught me a lot about physics in practical terms, how air drums work, and how an airplane flies. In other words, the enthusiasm had increased again, because you simply had to study hundreds of pages to pass the exams. Maybe that’s a very practical approach to physics.

Markus: Ok… So you read something and then got interested in entrepreneurship. Looking at your CV, I see that you then went to work at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Why did you go there? What brought you there?

Chris: I gave up flying when I was 18 or 19, and then I set up a merchandising retail company for three years and kept it going. We did 10-20,000 euro clothing deals with clubs, supplying them with clothing. And that was a pure B2B sales operations business. And after three years later, I noticed it was so stressful!

Markus: Hm.

Chris: If you make a 10% - 20% margin on these clothes, and that’s more than the total assets at the time…. All the exciting companies are in the software space, so I also watched these YouTube videos from YCombinator back then…. I was also present at an Austrian Startup Summit 10 years ago… That’s when I realized I had to learn all about software, so I went to CERN and started writing software.

Markus: So you actually set up this company while you were studying physics?

Chris: Exactly, exactly. The company was three or four at its highest point, so it wasn’t particularly big. In order to fund my airplane and skydiving era, this probably wouldn’t have been enough income to survive as an adult with extra costs.

Markus: Okay, but there was definitely an entrepreneurial drive there already. And then you have your physics background but also the will to explore the software world. That was the combination at CERN. What exactly did you do there? How can we imagine that? CERN is, of course, the particle accelerator. And what exactly did you do there?

Chris: Yes, CERN has various particle accelerators. There’s this one main tube, the LHC, and there are four large detectors: they’re huge, larger than subway stations.

Markus: Right!

Chris: I was one of the few thousand people who worked on one of the four. You measure in different layers, like in an onion. You measure the particle in the first onion layer, in the second this other thing, in the third that other thing, and so on. There are some people who are in charge of measuring electrons, i.e., through this collision of two particles, a shower of particles, a kind of explosion. Then these particles fly out and through these onion skins of the detector. My task was to simulate how the particle flies through, and then, to check how the detector’s accuracy could be improved.

In concrete terms, you learn the difference between the measurement and the real simulated particle, and then you say, “If I have now measured detector X, then I can say that my measurement accuracy is now even higher thanks to my state machine model because I can predict what the particle probably was.” That was a machine-learning-enabled measurement of electrons.

Markus: I can imagine that the world of physics is a bit like Olympus. You spent a year there. Why only one year? Why were you drawn elsewhere after that?

Chris: I flew over again and again. But in the meantime, I was in Berlin, where I saw this contrast between research and my first attempt in the start-up world.

In research, it’s very much about finding out a certain thing with your group, but of course, also a lot on your own, but you see, in my eyes, I didn’t see the direct date-of-impact. I’m now somehow more interested in building something together with a small group, a product where you can also feel that you are improving something and also get a lot of direct customer feedback. Research was not the right path for me.

Markus: Did it appeal to you to potentially commercialize certain research findings that you gained there and to somehow make a… I don’t know anything about CERN policies, but to somehow make a CERN spin-off?

Chris: I think there were a few data processing spin-offs, because of course a lot of data is stolen. I was a bit too far away to combine that. I probably didn’t have the intellectual capacity back then to go under the bridge.

I was still very close to physics and less to pure software engineering, where perhaps the application is a little easier. Or let’s say I wasn’t in production engineering either, you somehow build detector parts and then you say you can now comment on a coating process.

Markus: You then sort of realized that, for yourself, research was not it in the long term. You wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. What was your next step?

Chris: The next step was, in parallel, at the end of the core, I founded the education platform, where we scraped thousands, tens of thousands of YouTube videos and articles and then used machine learning to try to learn to create paths.
That's exciting because I had learned coding through Audacity back then, which was a slightly more expensive platform. I must have spent a few hundred euros or up to a thousand , and then, of course, there were all these YouTube learning videos, and I thought, maybe there's still a market in the middle? I can use all the free content and create personalized learning. How does it work then? It gives me the Youtube video so you can jump in but we noticed that somehow, people who are more willing to pay more or maybe buy a single off-the-shelf product on the cheaper platforms but this mid-priced market was just very difficult to conquer exactly, which was one of the things where I failed.

Markus: Yes, I think it's probably similar to many people's first startup experience, that it doesn't work the way you want it to. How did you deal with that?

Chris: I took a bit of a break for a few weeks. Because we were in a cycle where we were working extremely hard and we didn't see the horizon. I think that was very important.

I was still studying at that point, so I had to take exams. Then, I was looking for a kind of community where I could learn new things and perhaps improve, which would help me achieve success next time.

Markus: And that's how you ended up at Circ, if I understand correctly, a well-known Berlin startup back then. Why Circ?

Chris: At the time, I had a mentor on the Education Tech Staff, Markus Müller, who you also know. And back then, he built up the product team and it was then that I decided to start up again or to try to learn from good people. And because I worked there as a data scientist, I started working there and helped build up the data team.

Markus: Yes, Markus has also been on the podcast before. You can listen to him out there, Markus Müller. Also a great episode, I think, two or three years ago, definitely worth a listen. Well, how did that end with Circ? How long did you stay there and was it a good experience?

Chris: It was interesting, I believe they raised 52 million and used them in a year. Let's say, for example, I was in the Circ warehouses and there were, I think, in one city there were only 2 or 3,000 scooters that were just lying in a heap and they were all broken. So...It could have been a bit more efficient. I think it was also a difficult market, because it was often about gaining a certain amount of space. There were maybe 12 providers at the beginning and then three were chosen.

In a way, this shows that we have to go market to market to win. At the time, the strategy was Play To Win, i.e. to try to roll out as quickly as possible and perhaps push out competitors. The exciting thing was that it then turned out that you actually only had to be in the market and survive until you lost the city in the winning position and then you had a semi-monopoly position in a way. The play to win strategy, is probably a bit too capital intensive, because you are holding out until your territory allotted by cities.

Mark: That's a phenomenon that we've seen in a couple of cases in this heyday of zero-interest rate policies. Instant grocery delivery was one such case. The general conditions have changed massively in all of these sectors as a result of the interest rate turnaround. How do you see it? Is it another wave of Play-to-win models or was that a one-off period that is unlikely to return?

Chris: There are always these dry powder statements that there is still a lot of capital that is not being used. I also see that the fans of this model are still raising money. Of course, the question is, this is anecdotal evidence? Who knows how many fans are raising it and how many are not? But I think right now we're seeing this AI boom, where, of course, you can still raise a lot of money. When we started Podero, we saw that interest rates had just risen from 0% to 4%, and we said "we don't want to turn around a bit with one where we need an extremely large amount of capital", because the chances that we will be able to achieve this are, of course, relatively low. But of course, others, like 1.5 degrees, can also raise a lot. That means it's difficult to make a good statement without knowing the statistics. Of course, the anecdotal evidence: it still works. But you can never be sure how many do. 

Markus: In your case, after Circ, there was another startup on the Alpas AI program. Why Alpas and why did it work there?

Chris: Exactly, I then met my co-founder through a contact at Circ and an ex-colleague of mine also joined, and then there were three of us. It was a company that was looking for supplier data. For example, a large corporation wants to buy 3 million euros worth of screws and is looking for the best supplier for precisely this size, alloy and product parameters.

We then searched the entire world's suppliers to find the best ones using data science. The connection was that I had to look for 18 suppliers. To a certain extent, I'm not familiar with this problem in this large corporate sector, but rather in the start-up sector. But there were certain parallels to supplier searches.

Markus: And that's how you got into the Y Combinator. If, as they say that CERN is Olympus for physicists, the YCombinator is probably Olympus for start-ups. How was that? Is it worth the hype? Was it a really moving experience for you or is it overrated?

Chris: Yeah, so my highest education is probably Y Combinator. I never finished the masters. And it's kind of an apprenticeship in a way, where you're very hands-on, and you have an extremely close mentorship. 

I tried to show which was one of the two remote groups, so not in San Francisco, but remotely, which was a shame in a way. But we had a lot of conversations with the partner, with other companies. Of course, I read all the VGram articles and I think it was the single biggest learning experience I've had so far. So for sure, totally worth it.

Markus: It sounds like a very smart idea. I had two combinator supports and still it was only 18 months. Why?

Chris: Well, the company still exists... I then left. Exactly, so there were perhaps two reasons. On the one hand, there were differences in the team and, let's just say, two very different strategic directions. And on the other hand, it was also somehow a question of, let's say, what do I want to do for the next 20 years? Is it a procurement topic, or is it a different topic?

Markus: I think that's a super important question, in the end founding a start-up and actually seeing it through, that requires a lot of focus for quite a long time. If you have the feeling that you don't have the passion for a topic, then I think it makes a lot of sense to develop as early as possible in a direction that you are really passionate about. For you, that was probably Podero. Why was that the point where you said, I want to go all in now?

Chris: So... I had just turned 26 when I left YCombinator. Sorry, it was the day after I turned 26. And then it was a bit of a question of what do I do with my life now? First of all, I had a 5-week phase where I didn't work at all, just to get myself together again. And then I sat down and spent 47 days just reflecting and writing down what I wanted to say, what my goals were, what had happened to my life, what direction I wanted to go in, who I wanted to work with.

It was clear that I wanted to start up with someone else, that I didn't want to go at it alone and that I wanted to ride a big wave. Something where I can see that I can swim along naturally and be a small ship, you know, a huge change.

And back then, there was this crypto hype and climate, and I quickly saw that many of the crypto products were not being implemented as advertised. There are exciting projects in the crypto sector, don't get me wrong, but there are also many, for example stable coins, that are not stable in terms of content if you look at the formula. And I then decided for myself that I didn't necessarily want to go into this area and then started bootstrapping a company where we installed heatpumps in large buildings. In other words, any type of building from 10 to 40 apartments. 

But this whole operations game, which I got to know back then with the first clothing company, was not what I wanted to get back into. I met my co-founder in Frankfurt, at WeWork. We quickly realized that he was an electrician and autonomous driving engineer. We said we were good at software data science and B2B sales.

Then we got to know E.ON from the conference and they told us thatif we were able to control the devices and not install them, then they would want to work with us. That was the starting signal to say "get out of installation and into control".

Markus: What was it? So it makes sense, you had the experience with the heat pumps yourself, you were somehow able to make out the case very well, I believe due to your own experiences. If you look back now, moving away from the initial hypothesis, was there something where you were completely wrong, where a completely different direction was taken in the end?

Chris: So I think everything I initially believed was wrong to a certain degree. I mean, there was never this moment when we had an idea; it was more like an archaeological site where I was slowly digging something up. There was never this one moment of truth, of saying, "woah! I just came up with something great!". But it was very much this slow approach. If I were to say, from the moment we decided to steer to where we were talking, one of the big assumptions was that you can also do it B2C, directly for customers. It turned out that electricity trading without an energy supplier is very difficult or de facto impossible at the same intensity. That was the main learning and pivot that we made.

Markus: Very exciting. You are now a good two years old. How did you bootstrap and was it clear that you wanted to bring potential investors on board at some point? Or was that something clear from the start that you didn't really want to do? Or how was the topic of financing for you?

Chris: Exactly, I just said back then, as soon as I raise the first round, I have to run the clock. Of course, I was running the clock on the private money I had saved. But of course you don't spend that much per month. I can just keep my head above water for a certain amount of time. I wanted to brazen. First, it was kind of clear what the business part could be. Not super validated, of course. But when we then said, we're going into this area, we control devices, we can calculate the market potential. We knew that our aim would either be energy suppliers or private customers.

We had proven that we can control these devices, we can also switch on certain functions of the devices that are necessary for electricity trading. Then I said I want to raise external money, because of course as soon as you raise money, expectations rise. It's probably worse to raise too early without having a plan, because you don't get another chance to reset it. But of course you can switch the idea when you're Leiner, but not when you have it then. So easy.

Markus: So a certain amount of bootstrapping is needed up to a certain point out of conviction. When you look into the future, do you see a clear venture case, or is this something where you have the feeling that it might be more of a family business?

Chris: Yes, good question. So 18 months ago we raised a small amount of funding, let's say 860k, and received another 1.6 million from the FFG. There would probably be the possibility of bootstrapping that, but we just see that the market has a lot of swing, a lot of momentum in it right now and a lot is happening right now, so if we bootstrap, we can just have, let's say, less market share of the future. 

Maybe if we raised right now, we're on the Banshee Track right now, that's just what we want to do. I also think it's very exciting. Of course, every time you give a share, you will of course get different opinions in the company, so you have to have better day color management. But we're used to that from the energy suppliers, because of course they're also big companies where you have to follow their say, too. And we are relatively good at day-color management.

Markus: And now on the market side, is this something where you can scale relatively quickly internationally or is this something where every country has different, I don't know, different heat pumps, different electricity markets, is this something where it's more piecemeal.

Chris: We have come a long way with the electricity markets in the EU. For example, we use the same API for some of the electricity markets across all EU countries. There are still certain licenses we need for difficult electricity markets, nut these are also the same physical regulations and the same EU regulations. Sometimes they are not 100 percent implemented, but only 95 percent, but within Europe, Podero is now present in Austria, Sweden and Germany, and we are seeing that the other countries we are in communication with, don't have major differences.

Markus: So the business model is simply a software license? The electricity providers pay or somehow earn a variable share, depending on how much it is actually used or how much electricity is saved?

Chris: Yes, exactly! As I said, there are three components. It's a license fee, then of course a user fee. But of course the exciting thing is, and the big money is now being made on the market share. So in a way, we're in the, if you go up five levels, then we're actually like an Avalon ladder company for trading.But of course, all the software underneath, right down to the device, that's our core: we first have to onboard the trading partners because they're not yet ready to trade.

Markus: Theoretically, what you're doing is something that can clearly be used to counteract climate change. It's also about optimizing capacities: how do you use less electricity overall? Is that something where you have the feeling that you are doing something useful, that it will also help you let’s say, in the job market when you’re looking for good people, or maybe on the investor side, or is it something that is more in the background for you?

Chris: So, the basic idea of Moritz, my Co-Founder, and myself, was that there has to be a climate-driven approach because, of course, that helps you get through the toughest days. The direct benefit is that when everything gets difficult and you feel like everything is going to fail, you’ve still done something for the climate—at least you’ve tried. That means, even if everything falls apart, you still have that. And that’s pretty cool because it gives you a certain confidence and peace of mind, so you don’t have to constantly worry about things not going well.

It definitely helps us with hiring and fundraising. Of course, we work in climate and energy, and with the energy crisis and this sort of shadow war with Russia, you notice how relevant the energy transition really is. The cool thing about our work is that since we operate in the electricity market, we know exactly how many grams of CO2 we are saving for each device at any given hour. So, we can very precisely pinpoint where our impact is and to elaborate a bit more on this: my fundamental hypothesis is that the energy transition can only succeed if it makes sense for each individual. Whether it’s financially the right decision or environmentally the right one, it has to work on both levels. The cool thing is that solar and wind power are, by a good margin, the cheapest sources of electricity. And that means if we only optimize for price, we are actually also optimizing for CO2 because the correlation is so strong. That means, for every homeowner, we just need to do what’s best for them to see the benefits.

Markus: Cool. What I’m curious about—you’ve spent a lot of time in Berlin, you’ve been in Switzerland, you were probably with YCombinator in The US, or was that during the COVID time when you were there? Okay. But still, maybe the question is why—and correct me if I’m wrong—but I think you are based in Vienna?

Chris: I was remote, yes, from Berlin.

Markus: And in that sense, it’s basically an Austrian start-up. Why did you decide on that, and why didn’t you, for example, stay with YCombinator and base yourselves in San Francisco?

Chris: Yeah. There are three main reasons. First, at the time, I was self-financing, so I could live most cheaply in Vienna. That was the bootstrapping phase. The second reason is that Europe, particularly Scandinavia, is much further ahead in energy supply compared to Europe as a whole and even more so compared to The US. And the regulations. Especially in Austria, there is an advantage in the area of renewable energy, which is a very complex energy market.

This means the most advanced energy systems are in Europe, in Scandinavia mainly, but also in Central Europe. You can already see the future there. And by enabling energy supply across all of Europe, and eventually in  The US, we can offer this product or these innovative and cutting-edge systems, and stay at the forefront of the field. So, just like Silicon Valley is the hotspot for AI, Sweden is the hub for device optimization and flexibility.

And the third reason is that the FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency) gave us a grant, which required us to be based in Austria to a certain extent. So those are the three reasons for being located here so far.

Markus:Very interesting. And if you look a bit into the future, where would you like to see Podero in five years?

Chris: So, I think, ideally… I mean… Ideally, we would be present on every continent because the energy transition simply makes financial sense. Solar power is so cheap that there’s solar energy in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Argentina, just as there is in California and Austria. Of course, electricity accounts for a much larger share of expenses for people in South Africa or, for example, in North Patagonia. We were there last year; people earn about a tenth of what they do elsewhere, but gasoline is 30% cheaper, and electricity costs about the same. That means optimizing energy usage in such countries, with frequent blackouts, would be extremely exciting, especially in the area of air conditioning, which is very common there. Naturally, electric cars are also becoming more popular there because they are so affordable.

I think we definitely need to continue in Europe because many devices are already in place there, and there’s a lot of trading potential. And here, let’s say, the power system cannot function as it currently does without control over the devices. Exactly, we need to bring all companies on board.

Markus: Cool! When you look back at all your experiences in different roles, what is your biggest learning?

Chris: I think… I was the Tech Guy, studying physics, then becoming a programmer. I had some sales training, but it didn’t really resonate with me. And I was told at the time, “You should be a CTO again; you should be the technical co-founder—leave the business stuff to business people.”

But then, you look at Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc.—all tech people. So, especially for the technical audience, I want to say that I was often told that maybe this role wasn’t suitable for me. But I believe that with enough training, learning, and of course, learning from colleagues (since I know less about business and sales than a businessperson), you can still take that path, and nothing is stopping you.

Realizing that was a big step for me at 26, after leaving the last startup. That was probably the biggest insight of my life.

Markus: Maybe a follow-up question. Do you enjoy building products more or building a company?

Chris: Oh, that’s a good question. I think I probably enjoy building products a bit more.

I mean, I last did some programming about a month ago, and it was two days of firefighting. So, I’m not really meaningfully involved as a programmer anymore. I think what’s exciting in our field is working closely with customers. And that was really drilled into us at YCombinator: talk to the customer. So, if you’re talking about product development and working with customers, yes. Speaking with customers is, I think, where I feel the least nervous because I know that when I do that, I’m at least doing something right, even if many other things might be going wrong.

Markus: Very interesting. That’s something we often discuss in our leadership programs: what’s the actual role distribution in a startup? Who is responsible for product vision and, by extension, speaks a lot with customers because getting direct feedback is so important? Who’s actually building or programming, or in the case of hardware, who’s physically building? And who is more focused on team management and sales? It’s important to understand that these roles are dynamic, and there can be different combinations. I think it’s a fascinating field, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. We should probably move away from classic role definitions. Second question: what’s your best life hack?

Chris: I think it’s something pretty basic, but the bicycle is the fastest mode of transport in the city, except for taking a taxi—and taking taxis gets expensive pretty quickly. It’s often faster than the subway. It’s very simple, but I ride my bike every day. Especially because, unlike the subway, you actually get to see the sun in the morning and evening, which can be pretty uplifting.

Markus: That leads us to a book recommendation for us.

Chris: A very interesting book I read was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*. It’s not about living nihilistically but about focusing on what really matters. There’s this mental image of an Italian mafia boss in New York, who can cut through all the noise and find the core truth in a very practical way. I think this book brings that concept a bit closer to you—it helps you not get blinded by certain statements and instead focus on what’s essential.

Markus: Do you have a favorite product?

Chris: My La Sportiva climbing shoes that need to be laced up. You can wear them for 10 hours straight, and if you’ve been climbing for 10 hours, you can quickly loosen them without needing to take them off. Your feet hurt less that way.

Markus: Now imagine you’re about to climb an amazing route, but suddenly, you realize someone has stolen your climbing shoes. What’s your favorite curse word?

Chris: Oh, that’s fitting. Actually, one time my shoe did fall while I was climbing—it was super annoying to get down. There’s a term Sacklpicker in Austrian, which refers to someone in prison whose job is to stitch sacks together. That would be a fitting punishment for someone who steals shoes. So, yeah—Sacklpicker would be the one. Bye!

Markus: Great! A hearty Sacklpicker. Wonderful, we haven’t had that one yet. A first for Future Weekly. Very innovative! Now, we come to our last section: Moonshots and Predictions. We need a Moonshot from you—a big vision for the future. You once mentioned you wanted to be an astronaut. JFK once said, “We’ll land a man on the moon before the decade is out.” Now it’s your turn to announce a Moonshot, making it a bit more real just by saying it. And we also need your prediction, something you’re absolutely convinced will happen in the next few years.

Chris: Yes, my Moonshot would be space-related. Stripe’s tagline is Increase the GDP of the Internet, and I think there’s massive potential for a company to Increase the GDP of Space. A company like SpaceX or other space tech companies could do it. I think we need to find something similar to what happened in the past—Europe turned India into a trading powerhouse, Canada had the fur trade, Mexico had gold. The question is, what will it be in space? Maybe a product that can only be made better in space than here on Earth, like a drug or some new material.

That would be something I’d love to see. Once we have a profitable space product that can be mass-produced, it will reduce all other costs, especially transportation. We probably just need one product to make humanity multiplanetary. That’s something I’d really like to see.

Markus: Fascinating. And what’s your prediction?

Chris: I think typing and reading are still excellent interfaces—whether on PCs or smartphones. While voice technology is exciting, I can’t imagine most of our work or interactions with information happening through voice. Listening is super slow, and sometimes reading or processing things another way is better. That being said, I do think we’ll speak more to our systems, as sometimes it’s tricky to express something precisely by typing it out. But my prediction is, we’ll still be reading a lot and sitting in front of PCs for years to come.

Markus: Very interesting! That’s a prediction that goes a bit against the trend. I love contrarian perspectives like that. Chris, thank you so much for an incredibly insightful conversation and a deep dive into the world of energy optimization. Best of luck with Podero. And thanks to all of you out there for joining us again. We wish you a fantastic start to the week, and we’ll be back on Thursday with a new news episode.