What Actually Works in Ukraine — Florian Seibel, CEO of Quantum Systems - The Defense Brief

From Helicopter Pilot to Defense CEO: The Founder's Journey Hardware is hard and that it takes a decade minimum to build a hardware company. Speaker 2 Will Quantus Systems IPO even next 24 months? Speaker 1 Very good question. Speaker 3 Florian Seibel is the Co founder and CEO of Quantum Systems. What started as a drone company has become one of Europe's most remarkable defense stories. Over the past year, Quantum Systems valuation has tripled to over 3 billion, not because of buzz but because of execution. Florian built an unmatched presence in Ukraine with more than 400 local team members and on the ground production expanded deliberately from hardware into software and multi domain systems and scaled globally with major contracts across Europe, the US and Australia. Let's dive in. Speaker 2 Hi Florian, it's a it's really a pleasure to have you here. You're by far one of the most successful defence funders globally actually, so I'm deeply honoured to have you here. Speaker 1 Thank you, Louise, for having me excited to discuss and I'm excited to to go over some of the things that matter to me and that should matter in these days. Speaker 2 Yeah, well, we'll start with an easy one, talking about your background, because you and you started your carrier as a helicopter pilot in the German armed forces and today we see new defence companies being built by a bunch of difference defence founders. Profile In your view, do you think need to be experienced is essential in building a credible defence company or can anyone really become a successful defence founder? Speaker 1 I think you know, it's founders qualities that in the end make you successful and if you have a background in in military for sure it does not hurt. I am sceptical if it's really necessary. I would say no for sure. You do understand the military a little bit better. But then again, also the military is a is a big, huge organization and there's so many different fields and, and topics where you can end up while doing your service. Like you said, I was flying helicopters that for example, has zero to do with procurement. And you need to understand how procurement works. And just because I was a pilot for some years in the Army and for sure does not mean that I understand how the procurement system works. I just experienced that it does not work and that something is broke. Obviously we did not have enough material material and everything was outdated, but you do not know why. I would say it's it's a plus to to have a military background, but it's not a necessity. Quantum Systems' Decade-Long Journey: 'Hardware is Hard' And so actually it's what you founded so Quanto Systems nearly a decade ago and so well before, let's say defence became an investable category. And looking back, there's some advantages in starting that early that would be difficult or almost impossible to replicate to date. Speaker 1 I mean back then when we started like you said in 2015, especially in in Germany or Europe, there was no defence venture capital landscape. There was not even a dual, dual use landscape. Actually even hardware was downhill. I mean nobody wanted to invest in a company that does hardware or has a CapEx heavy product and that did not change until 2021 to 22. Then suddenly it became interesting and the whole world, you know, realized at 1.0, maybe we should not outsource our last companies that we have in these domains and have that also being made in China. I mean that that's part of the problem that we have today also in defence that a lot of the materials and the underlying technologies that you need to build these category finding companies have been outsourced and, and, and to correct that takes a lot of effort and a lot of money. And for sure, China is not just watching, you know, for sure, they, they, they see us now, you know, trying to, to correct the mistake, but it's not in their interest, right to, to, to allow us to do so. So it's a competition now. It's really about technology. Technology wins wars and but also technology prevents wars. And so to prevent the next big war here in Europe, Europe has to play catch up. Now it's it's not just a big defense primes that I'm glad we do still have them, but it's also more so about new technologies that we now need to bring to the. Speaker 2 Table, sure, but the fact the fact that you started earlier did it enable you now if you need to be stronger than some. Speaker 1 Absolutely. Speaker 2 What mistakes you've made or like things you've learned. You're like, well, thank God before the way. Speaker 1 For sure, and that's, you know, my, my confidence and my, my experience and my, my know how and learning how hardware works and how hard it is. I mean, that's for a reason why I quoted and I'm not just quoting it to annoy some of our competitors who just recently started in hardware. I quoted because I truly believe so that hardware is hard and that it takes a decade minimum to build a hardware company. And that's nothing that you can immediately do and just jump on the defence train now because I'm glad that we started it 10 years ago and that we now get rewarded for these very, very hard years that we had to survive and push through. And that's why we are in in a, in a very good position now. Quantum Systems' Deep Commitment to Ukraine's Defense Ecosystem But conversely, the fact that you started, let's say, pre EI or at least preacher DPT, even pre Ukraine war, I mean like, did you like, you know, inherit from technical organizational constraint actually later had to unwind, but new players don't have that. Speaker 1 I mean, for sure, we also had to speed up, you know, when Ukraine hit or when Ukraine got attacked by Russia. We had no idea, you know, how massive of an implication that would have for us as as as Europe, how long it would actually take. And it's still not over. I don't see it that this will end very soon. But it's always easy looking back and saying if I had known in 2022, you know, then I would have invested more. And I think the reason why Quantum is so successful, we acted basically on day one, not hesitating the going all in, risking it all, investing our money there, bling, construction, building, manufacturing facility there by, you know, by hiring people, by spending money, by putting lives at risk. Because what we do, obviously it does interest others also. And, and, and, and, and they're targeting these facilities. So, and a lot of companies shield away from that and they, they shield away in year 1 and they said, Oh, no, now it's too late. We're not doing it. In year 2 they said, ah, no, it was 2 years. Now we're not doing it for sure going to end in year 3. And now we are in Year 5 and still some of us or some of our competitors are like now, now we don't have to do it for sure it's going to end now. And you know, if I had argued the same way, we'd still be not in Ukraine. And quantum, I have learned now one of the, the generals in, in Ukraine last week basically said is those are the only drones outside of Ukraine that we still procure because the rest doesn't work period. And that came at a big investment of risking it all and going all in and learning it the hard way and not, you know, by just telling your investors we are deployed in Ukraine. I mean, basically, you are correct if you say we are deployed in Ukraine, if you just ship one drone via FedEx to Kiev, then you're not lying. You you are in Ukraine, But that's about it. And that's about what most of the companies did and that even some other companies, and I hold them accountable for this. You know, for sure, we all need to make money on this. And we have bills to pay and teams to build and companies to grow. But you're not doing this on the back of Ukraine for marketing purposes is something, you know, that's why I'm sometimes so pissed at what is ongoing there and all that. A lot of Western companies just use it as a marketing vehicle to tell their investors. Yeah, yeah. Rest assured we are in Ukraine if they're not. Speaker 2 Yeah. I think that like the difference that you yourself, you went there a lot at the beginning. No, you spend time there personally to understand and to build from there now. Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, while others were figuring out, you know, how their security should work or would work or which insurance would pay in case something happens. And of course you can figure all of that out. But while you do so, you're missing out also so. Speaker 2 That's what you have, local teams, local production you have done ventures with. I think it's frontline robotics. When the war ends, how we still be linked to the Ukrainian ecosystem? Speaker 1 I think and that was also, that was not clear in the beginning and obviously we did not go to be in a better position later. We went there because we believed it's the right thing to do and we got rewarded for that bravery. And that is fair. You know, that has nothing to do with luck. That has nothing to do with we are profiting from war. It's the reward of taking a risk and and being rewarded for it economically. But also, you know, I have built so many deep relations. Then even more so, he's in Ukraine, even more my tears. These guys, you know, those are friendships that will last forever beyond any ceasefire, hopefully, and beyond if that war would even continue. We do this for a purpose and we have a team of, yeah, more than 400 now in Ukraine, different facilities. So trying to correct some of the mistakes distributed across the country. So in a way also resilient and but also in a way set up now with the complete Ukrainian management that you know, that will last. And we're there to stay because even if the war ends or when it ends, there's so much still to learn from Ukraine to make these products better. And and Ukraine will be the place to be where all of the experts that have real world experience, yeah, are home and work and give feedback on, continue to give feedback. And so I think there will be a super vibrant defence ecosystem that's also playing in a different league when it comes to cost. So hiring excellent Ukraine comes at a much, much lower cost than than hiring Munich based or let's even say San Francisco based AI engineers. And that's fair, you know, because the cost of living and everything else is, is much lower there. And we pay them very fair and above market average. But still, it's, it's also very good economic decision on top of having the mindset of these people and the commitment. It's crazy how committed they are. I mean, they're literally fighting for their survival. And obviously that brings people to to, you know, develop superpowers and come up with solutions. That may be a German engineer. And I don't want to talk bad about we have great engineers here in Germany. But sometimes if, you know, if the water is rising, you cannot go for perfect. You have to go for finish. And that's something that that you develop this quality being in a war zone. Speaker 2 I mean, I agree when I, when I went, there was one thing like, you know, usually when you meet founders, you ask them like, no, what does the drive conform? What's your ambition? Why they do that? When you were there, like after one meeting, I was like, no, you, you understand why we're doing that. You understand why they're working day and night. There's no personal professional life balance. It's all about solving this issue, but actually doubling down on that, as you mentioned. So like this, you can end products now. They're all battlefield tested. They put it at scale, they're cheap. There's a lot of talk about what happens when these companies will be able to export. So during or after the war, how do you think this will change very, you know, the global competition landscape and how influent these Ukrainian companies will become? Forging a European Defense Prime: The Unending Founder's Mission So I mean that's why we are starting some joint ventures, that's why we have started investing in some of these companies and we continue to do so. Actually, there will be two more announcement coming pretty soon because we believe or I believe that as it was hard for us to get into Ukraine and be there and be successful there. It will be probably even more so in a, in a different way, also hard for Ukrainian companies to enter NATO market. They probably won't believe their their eyes and ears anymore if they're confronted with, you know, 1000 pages of documentation for a four kilogram ISR quadcopter. What do you have to provide to some of the NATO countries on? Yeah, on the topics of ESG, does the the keys on your laptop have the exact same space as the Dean Norm calls for? And there's is. Speaker 2 That a real data point, yeah. Speaker 1 That is a real data point that we had to select a different laptop because otherwise we would have had to qualify a perfectly market available racket eyes laptop coming from, I don't know, Panasonic and re qualify it to be able to sell it to the German an army. And so we just went for a different model that came with these qualification documents. And you know, if you have optimized your country for in the last 50 years for work life balance and going on vacation. And then I'm not blaming us now for for how we have acted. I think human beings are naturally at one point you become lazy and but if you are in a war, it doesn't matter if the laptop is whatever the light is bright enough in sunlight or not. If it's bright enough, you'll buy again. If it's not bright enough, you won't buy it anymore. In Germany, if you don't have the paperwork, then you don't buy more or you buy more. And but just because it's good on paper does not mean it works in reality. And so Ukraine is very different in that regard. Speaker 2 You're partnering now also Ukraine companies doing joint ventures also to help them export like in the long term I. Speaker 1 Think they have relevant more than relevant? They have absolutely leading technologies and experience and products that that are battle proven. And so I think it's very smart to partner with them in JVS or by minority stakes or maybe even by majorities and enable them to grow into the European market and become an even stronger group of companies that that is, you know, build around Quantum or with Quantum in the center core. And that's where we're trying to position ourselves now as a new defense prime, coming with a bottom up approach of, you know, connecting with like minded people in companies that share the same values of respect and honor and honesty and, and, and no, fake it till you make it because that, that, that that does not work in defence. People get killed if you fake things. And so by building this ecosystem of like minded companies, I think we can build a momentum here that is needed in Europe to have ultimately maybe a new defense prime that eventually also will become slow and big and then history will repeat itself. But at that point in time, I hopefully won't be at the helm of it anymore. But that's history and that it will repeat. That's also clear as you grow and get bigger. Speaker 2 I was wondering because you mentioned humans end up being lazy at some at some point just natural. When will you become lazy then? Speaker 1 Yeah. So maybe with me it's a little bit different because I think, you know, as a founder, you're not representing the average worker in a, in a society. I mean, obviously you're very driven, you're never satisfied. You're the mission is never done or completed. So I think that does not count so much for me. But as as I did say that more in in reference to the how societies change and why the Romans failed and not the great empire does not exist anymore. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's not the topic today. And so we talked about the vibe shift and to the change among defense like is visible politically also with investors. Building a New Company: The Stark Spin-Off Story So 18 months ago roughly you had to spin off stock to be able to develop strike abilities. Given how much of the environment has shifted, do you think that spin off would still have been necessary if stock were launched today? Speaker 1 So I could probably launch stock within Quantum today. Yeah, because things have changed in the last, yeah, almost two years now since we had the idea of building strike elements or were asked to build strike elements within Quantum. And then talking to investors, it became clear even though most of our board members of basically all board members said, yeah, we should do it, it was impossible because of some of the mandates they had from their respective LP's and funnel side was not possible to do so. And that was the reason why we had a spin off. We, we started with complete, yeah, clean sheet approach. No, IP from Quantum was not possible. I mean, would have made sense, a lot of sense to take a lot of the stuff that we have had back then. But we decided to go for open source on the flight controller side, for example, which Quantum did not do. But that's a different story because when we started in 2012 playing around with the vertical takeoff landing systems, there was no vital mode in Pixar Core or Audupilot. So we had to do it ourselves. But for stock that was different. All of that access that much more components are today available to everybody, which was not the case when we started. Yeah. So I could do it, but would probably do it within quantum. But then again, you know, a different company always develops a different vision and a different speed doing it within quantum. We could probably have, we could probably, especially in the first year, we could have been faster, I would say than Stark, because Stark also had to do a lot of mistakes on their own and themselves and learn from it, fail and, you know, build that identity and being proud of things work And not just because Florian says you have to do it like this and that and then, OK, now we do it like this and that. And engineers are not proud. I they, they also want to come up with that on themselves. And but for me, it was hard to watch, you know, them making a lot of, in my opinion, a lot of mistakes that I would love to not see them having been made. It is what it is in the end. Now. I think Hoover and his team have built an incredible company that that that is, you know, I don't know if it's public, but it's quite a few 100 people now and very well funded and a product that is starting to work. Because again, I think this is something we share with the two companies. We share the same values and and DNA of failing and iterating and not being shy about it. And that in the end will make them a successful company. Yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I hear only good things about them and looking at the different types of go to market due to the time. Navigating US, Australia, and European Defense Markets So Quintus Systems, I think you know, nailed, let's say not only sending to Europe but also globally, US, Australia and for defence companies starting today in Europe. Is it better than to expand and say country by country within Europe, so benefit from the European tailwinds, or to fill global day one as you did with Quantum? Speaker 1 So I mean, we decided to go to the US because the US still is and will be the biggest single defence market. And so we had to go there and having Dave Sharpen, who's our USCEO coming from the industry, being with our Tyrion and before that even more so importantly being the VP of Aerovironment, he knew exactly where to go and which programs to tackle, which is probably impossible for a German startup or founder to hit the US market and be successful. And so that's also how we won Australia because Dave Sharpen had good connections into Aerovironment, into Australia by our Aerovironment who was the contract owner there before us. So that's. The honest answer to why were we successful in Australia and the US? The question about, you know, how do you tackle Europe? I think two ways, bottom up like we do it. We try to win tenders in Spain and Norway and others in Romania and and then Bolton top down. I think, you know, we should really think about the US something that has to reinvent itself now in many ways. And defense is one part it's we need to unify it financial market, we need the EU Inc that allows founders to establish, you know, their companies across Europe with the same legal conditions and boundaries. But it would also mean, you know, procuring together and ultimately maybe even having the European armed forces. That's the top down approach. And those two will meet ideally somewhere in the middle. I do not believe that either one can solve it, but we need to do both. With quantum I can do the bottom up and the politicians, they have to do the top down and make sure this works. And of course we can try to influence them and tell them what is needed. But the EU is slow. And I mean part of the problem where we are today is because the EU is so slow and I cannot wait for them. So obviously we try to win country by country. Part of our strategy is to to invest and buy and merge with companies in the EU to have local footprints in new member state countries and becoming truly a European company by doing so. And France. To be honest, is is is probably the hardest one to crack. Speaker 2 When you're a German company, I'm sure. When you're not a French company, actually. Speaker 1 When you're not a French company, that's the right way to put it up. Speaker 2 But today you're putting more efforts trying to win other European countries or are you putting more efforts to win other global countries? Speaker 1 I would say that's probably evenly distributed to the US. We are for sure pushing on some bigger programs and tenders there. The most important country in Europe is Germany for sure. Also for countries that are for, if you're not in Germany and you have AEU startup and defence in Germany, it is a door opener into many countries I believe because of the volume of these contracts. We for sure have the biggest defence budget together with with UK and France, but Germany is the single biggest spender in in defence budget, especially in the years to come. So I think you have to be in the German market otherwise Europe will be hard to crack. So we have, we have a bonus here, I would say, because we are a German company. Speaker 2 Right place, right time. Yeah. Securing the Right Investors for a Defense Technology Company And I wanted to talk about a bit about the capital needed to build a near prime because I think you have an interesting cat table. You know, you have family offices, you have, let's say more traditional VCs like Baltotone. You also had support from well, deep pocketed investors. Peter Thiel. I also think you mentioned that you had some Ukrainian high net worth financing the vector and so you could an expansion. Each type of capital you know comes with different timelines, different expectations, and in your view to build in your prime, what's the best suited kind of capital? Speaker 1 So we do have a lot of European money. I mean even though some of the funds are are UK based or Germany based, some of their LP's again also come from the US. So I think it's very connected and you cannot really distinguish between is a company funded in, in, in the EU or is it, you know, some of our competitors not try to spin against us that we have Teal on the cap table. He has a minority shareholding, less than 5%. You can look it up. It's public seat doesn't even have a board seat. So I mean, just being an investor or shareholder in a company does not mean you own the IP or you have access to the IP. So, so you can only compare apples to apples. So what is the best setup here is probably to have some German investors that that that can open doors for you in Germany that connect you with banks. Was impossible to even open a bank account a few years ago as a defence company. But things change and we actively help those things to change so that others that follow us have it easier. And then I think in the end to be the winner or one of the winners, there is no way and we should be realistic about that. There is no way around US venture capital because the volumes and the sizes that these bold investors are willing to put behind some of their bets are necessary to build category finding companies has built many great companies and most of them actually failed and becoming like the world leader in some of the topics because they were not able to, you know, really hit Europe as a unified market. And then they had to compete with the US company that has a much, much bigger home market. And that that's part of the crooks. Why having a European startup? Maybe it's harder than being in the US in a way. You need to have US investors period, even though it might, you know, seem easier now in these politically interesting times. Let me put it that way to, you know, get rid of all US. And that's not the way to go. I think the world will also outlive Trump and eventually we will hopefully can go back to some normal relationships again. And you know, having AUS investor base also helps to build that transatlantic connection and keep it live, even though if there are there are some different political views at the moment. Speaker 2 Well, I agree, I think the the debate between European and US capital makes no sense because the LP base of the big US funds are mostly European pension funds and vice versa. The big endowments from the US are investing into a large frontier. It's just that, you know, like family offices, I guess are more passionate capital. Maybe private investors have a different net worth but have a different, you know, DNA Just like no, it was great for you to have this is, but you didn't always have this is some type of, you know, type of capital you think are better to build. Speaker 1 But we had the first investor we had actually was a strategic investor from the broader defense industry. And that was a problem because, you know, a strategic investor always has a strategic interest and that is not necessarily in line with the interest of the company can be ideally, but mostly I would say purely strategic investor has a strategic interest. And so it almost killed us not being able to bring on new investors. Having one investor gives them basically a veto right in any with with every regard, which makes it hard for a founder to make decisions. Now you I have a very balanced board. I do not have the majority votes, but I do not need them because I can build majorities with different votes. It's in the best interest of the company what we decide together. And that might mean you're deciding against one of your investors. So be careful if you're building a startup by taking a venture, by taking a strategic investor as your first investor. That will be my advisor. Strategic Decisions: In-House, Acquisition, or Partnership? Looking at Hamilton here. So Quanto systems and stock you know have become more, you know aggressive M&A. You also expend from within. So I know you're building a maritime team for instance and sometimes you almost like incubate companies while you invest personally as you know Zero Phase World Radar and you leverage Quanto systems and stock to help these companies scale. How do you decide like what to build in house versus to acquire a partner on them? Speaker 1 It's a different discussion and sometimes it's really I think you're only successful whether you do it in house or partner. If the team that does or takes or tackles the topic is happy with the setup and some of the companies you just mentioned, of course, I also, you know pitched them hey, do it with in Quantum, you have unlimited funding. You don't have to go fundraise. Don't worry about whatever reporting's, don't worry about having AP and L at the end of the year, just go build. But if, if a founder or an engineer believes that he should try and work his own company, he would never be happy, you know, working in quantum. So the second best thing is that I stay close. I help him, I even invest in it and you know, connect the two companies and make them stronger together. Eventually it could still mean that these companies, you know, merge at one point and form something bigger together. But at that point, I would say they have made their own experiences. They know how hard it is also to found a company. If they need more money, they need to come back and need to refinance and dilute more. And so, but it's, you know, it's a little bit like with a kid, you can tell him don't, don't touch, don't until the kid touches it and burns his or her fingers And and then you know what start up life is about and nobody can tell you about it. You have to to survive it and you have to live through it in order to say, yeah, check, done, seen that, done that. Been there. Florian was right. Probably been easier to build it within Quantum, but then he would have been missing out on, you know, learning so many other things. And some others, they approach me and say, hey, I'm so sick and tired of fundraising. Spleen Lab is a good example and we acquired them excellent company, excellent tech, great team. We've known them for years. And Stefan just got tired of fundraising because he said been there done that. It's not what I want anymore. I just want to build great tech and I want somebody who really appreciates that. And that was me because I saw him for many years how how he struggled. And so we were able to provide him a safe harbor, I would say. And now OnePlus One can become something much bigger than two. And so there's no blueprint for what is the best setup with, you know, some you have to spin out, some you have to spin off, some you have to integrate, some you have to help get started. And and I try to listen at least that I think, I try to listen carefully and find the best solution to make the founder or that individual happy, because that's the only way how it can be successful. Counter-UAS, Lasers, and Deep Vertical Integration Strategy And are there some themes you're working on then next or is it more about serendipity? You're like what your team needs or the teams that approach you. Speaker 1 So I try to be, you know, so humble in a way. I think I have a broad experience now in in some some of these areas where we work multi domain software, sensors, propellers, motors, whatever, manufacturing radars, data links, but I do not see myself as like the Super founder who who claims that he knows it all right. So I I try to stick very close to what I know and where I have a network and and I get approached every day with interesting ideas where I think, oh cool. I, I would love to invest just because I'm curious and I like the founder, but I try to stick to that principle of if I have no, no idea about it, I, I'm probably a very bad investor or would be a very bad investors because I get to see so many defence stacks also every day that I think, you know, they're not worth pursuing. And assuming that that I would kind of like make the same mistakes in a field where I have no experience, for sure I'm not going there. Speaker 2 But now, I mean like you're building the maritime team, there's some other domains like big topics you're going to work on in the future. Speaker 1 Oh, I think counter US is a big topic. We started investing heavily, but then we started to, oh, now we need drones that we can counter. So we, we put a team behind building our own Shahed. So you probably saw it a few days ago. And so that leads to the next. And then that leads to, oh, maybe we need a training Academy that provides these aerial threats to other counter U.S. companies. And so this evolves. Counter US is big. I think laser weapons could be a topic that becomes interesting. Data links, gimbal, sensors, motors, propellers. Speaker 2 The whole component stacks. Speaker 1 The whole component stack and it sounds maybe boring, but I think you know this is the only reason why DJI is such a successful company, because they own the complete vertical integration. Speaker 2 Yeah, for real now. Speaker 1 And not only do they own it in a way that they can build a better complete product, that is, you know, very much it's adjusted the components, the sum is better than the sum of its, its parts. Is this what you need to achieve? Otherwise it will be too heavy, too slow, too expensive to whatever. So all these pieces have to come together to make a perfect product. That's one thing. And the other thing is, you know, by just working with suppliers, you always lose quite a bit of margin on all your on all your components. And in the end, I think you can make a much better cross margin by also doing a deep vertical integration, even though it's very tiring and you have to learn a lot and you fail a lot. But it's the long term strategy I think is perfectly working out here. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's the whole the whole thesis. Quantum Systems IPO and AI's Role in Future Warfare Yeah. I have a few things I wanted to ask you before our time is up, but we'll Quanto Systems IPO in the next 24 months. Speaker 1 Very good question. Never say never for sure, not this year. I don't know about 27, but it's always on the table. And we have investors that that went all in that had high risk, especially the early ones. And at one point, you also have to hit a target date on when and how and where do you reward them. Is it my number one priority, for sure not my number one priority to build a great tech company, tech category defining company out of Europe that will be successful. And the question is how do you define success? Venture capital funds that defines success with an exit. So for sure that's on the table, but there are no definite plans here. Speaker 2 Well, there's a window, definitely, but I guess you know that and. Speaker 1 There's a window for sure, and that window won't be open like for 100 years, but I think it will be open more than 24 months, so maybe between 24 months and 100 years. Speaker 2 That's a fine estimation, yeah. 1A technical side. Whatever, like the last barriers for AI to really master the kilchain. Speaker 1 It's possible today and there's countries who actually do it. And I think we have all possibilities here in Europe to, to basically copy that or, or, or also have it. The question is, you know, what guidelines and what rules of engagement and principles of operation and what moral do we put behind that? And I think this requires a political discussion also now on these kinds of weapons. And we had that on ABC weapons and, and we had that on on other topics that the international agencies agreed on certain topics how to handle them. But that is missing for AI weapons. And there's a general agreement, I think that which should be treated very carefully, but there's no clear principles on how to apply those. And I think that is necessary because for sure our adversaries will work on it. And right now I think it's a, it's a big grey zone, which you could argue is in favor of the companies because they they can just continue what they do, but the sooner they get, no, I would not say limitations because limiting something without, you know, really discussing it and what what is necessary and maybe how to implement it. I think that's a, that's a very valuable discussion to have in the next few years, I would say, but. From War's Reality to Europe's Resilient Comeback Even in Ukraine, well, like they have less new luxury to think. Speaker 1 About, you know, normal. I think the history of warfare always was that, you know, in World War 1,000,000 of people got killed using weapons that we then banned afterwards because we saw how cruel they are. And you know, that millions of people got slaughtered on the battlefields and in the trenches. And after the war is over, people look back and say, no, we cannot have that happen again. Yeah, But during a war, agreeing on something, you know, with your opponent while you try to survive or while the other one is trying to kill you. I think we just have to be realistic that while the war is waging in in Ukraine, I just don't see that happening. Probably afterwards and needed as I said, and. Speaker 2 One last question, you know, you know Nikki to be a contrarian character, quite outspoken. Speaker 1 Maybe that's why Teal invested he likes these. Speaker 2 People outspoken. He was like, I mean, you know what I mean. It's true that you build hardware when it says to be was cool. You build drones when nobody cared about defence. But now these views are more mainstream, foreign and So what I like to contrive and believe that you still hold today. That will make Peter Till proud. Speaker 1 So actually when I met him for the first time, I met a person that deeply cares about Europe and not so much. He does have German roots and that is publicly known. But he shook my hand and said Europe is going down, my friend, and that was five years ago. He saw that coming in a way and I did not have a feeling that he said it with the with the tone off. You deserve it. I had the feeling more like that he is deeply concerned and that he would love us to take that fortune into our own hands and solve it. And so I would like to work on that. And, and we're doing this day in and day out. And so I think even though there's a lot of negativity in Europe and and the challenges we have ahead of us, my contrarian view would be your will come back stronger, okay. Speaker 2 Great. Thanks a lot for and that's a great way to end. Speaker 1 Thank you so much. Yeah, Thank you. I think that went well. Thank you. Bye. Bye, Luis. Ciao.