In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Tim Höttges CEO of Deutsche Telekom: Future for connectivity, 5G and AI

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Deutsche Telekom is the largest telecommunication provider in Europe. Tim Höttges has been a successful CEO since 2014. Tim is a very curious and outspoken leader about the challenges and opportunities for the telecom sector, so tune in!  We own over 2% of Deutsche Telekom. This translates to 21 billion kroner or 2.1 billion US dollars, and we have been invested in Deutsche Telekom for over 25 years.   The production team on this episode were PLAN-B's Nikolai Ovenberg and Niklas Figenschau Johansen. Background research was done by Sigurd Brekke with input from portfolio manager Stephanie Werner Vardheim. Links:Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to our podcast, In Good Company. I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Suburban Wealth Fund. In this podcast, we talk to the leaders of some of the largest companies we are invested in, so that you can learn what we own and meet these impressive leaders. Today, I'm speaking to Tim Hutches, the CEO of Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecom provider in Europe. Deutsche Telekom has 250 million mobile customers in more than 50 countries. We own over 2% of Deutsche Telekom, translating into 21 billion kroner or 2.1 billion US dollars.

And guess what? We have been invested in Deutsche Telekom for 25 years. Tim is a very impressive and strong leader of Deutsche Telekom. It's a fascinating company, and he is a super interesting person. Tune in. Guten Morgen, Deutschland. Alles gut? Good morning, Nikolai. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for having me. Fantastic. Now, we are here with Tim Hotkus, the visionary leader of Deutsche Telekom. He has transformed how millions connect and communicate. And so, it's very interesting to have a deep dive into the world of telecommunications. So, thank you for coming on. Now, what are the major trends in the telecom sector that really excites you today? The first thing is 5G and fiber is the enabler of the next generation wealth.

Everything is getting connected. Everything is connected. And without networks, nothing is working. So our company has a big purpose. We are connecting not only societies, but we are connecting as well the flying wheel for the business industries in this environment. What are the big trends? The first trend is more data available everywhere, always best connected. Second, it's about new business models.

We have on the one side the Web 3.0 development, digital twins in the B2B area. On the other side, AI is enabling a lot of new services, as well our industry. And on top of that, the world, the globalization, only works while people are talking. And today, 5.3 billion people of 8 billion are connected, and we are at the verge of it. I believe for a society which is living better together,

connectivity is a must. What are the challenges now? Look, the challenges are big. Our industry, because people think connectivity is a human right, a lot of, let's say, political influences are taking place on our industries everywhere. And I think the biggest challenges

are different on the continents. Deutsche Telekom is only operating in the Western world. I think that's a big advantage. Why is that a big advantage only to be in the Western world? The values are the same between the US and Europe. The cash is easily transferable between this Western world. The decoupling and the geopolitical situation which we are facing this year, this times, is something which is affecting telecommunication as well. 60% of the internet today is not anymore an open internet.

It is politically limited in its possibilities. But we, as Deutsche Telekom, are only operating in the Western world, in the US and in Europe. And that's a strong advantage. On top of that- Do you think these splits between the two parts of the world will become stronger? I see that every single day. And I believe this world is fragmenting more and more. Individual interests are more important than the global society.

And therefore, yes, I strongly see a trend that the fragmentation will go on. See what's happening with the BRIC states in Africa. Think about, let's say, Russia and its allies. Think about China. And therefore, being the North Star for the Western world with regard to one of the most important products, connectivity, I think that's an asset. Did 5G actually change your life? Look, change your life.

To be honest, we haven't really found a business case for 5G because people like to have more connectivity. They like to have it faster. And they don't see the advantage of low latencies yet. But it was always the case. I'm a veteran in this industry. So I'm here more than 25 years. And there was a question, why should we send pictures? Somebody needs that? Why 3G services? services and today if we have a 3g service

we're already complaining because we need the data throughput we want to see the videos we want to share everything with our um spouses you know and the industry is getting connected and the same is happening with 5g you know i see this that this low latency is getting important for um the car industries um to be always best connected it is an issue which we see um in um the connection of uh with home offers and the way of collaboration across uh different countries so therefore yes um the 5g cases um will show their impact especially in in the IoT sector. No, no, I can see that from my own family WhatsApp group. There are no limits for what a family can share in terms of potentially uninteresting things.

But what's coming up next? What's next after 5G? By the way, we see a 30% to 40% data traffic increase every single year. And our industry is producing this without any additional revenue increases. So therefore, Moore's law is hitting us even more than in the classical IT industry. So we have to find ways of being more productive. We have to automate our services.

We have to make it as well in the 5G space easier for developers to connect to the infrastructures. We have started an initiative from the whole mobile industries, GSMA, to open up APIs that developers can work on the different slices, as we call it, in the 5G. So if you don't need low latency, you don't get it. If you need high latency for highly automated services in the production area, you can experiment that. If you want to have, let's say, just the connectivity,

you can work on the different features of the 5G ecosystem. So this will be a new trend that developers can access the 5G APIs directly in a fully automated way. You mentioned you've been around for some time here.

But if we go back and look at the telecom sector in the 90s, it was really booming. But then over the last few years, it's been a bit different. So what happened here? By the way, the first thing is we have to split between the US and we have to split between the US and we have to split between the European market. And by the way, that is even, you know, historical way of dealing with things. In the 90s, you know, the margins of the telecom industries were very high. And by the way, I think

our industry made a big mistake that time with very high roaming charges, not opening up the market. So the regulator had to intervene and highly regulated that market at that time. While in the US, you know, this market was growing. It was not regulated at all from the beginning. Different policy was taking place. Spectrum was not rented. Spectrum was sold. So different ways of dealing with the same environment. different ways of dealing with the same environment.

Now, from that time, Europe created a market of 27 markets where the political idea was in every market, we need something like four players. Now, that means we have more than 100 players for a continent like Europe for 500 million people. In the US, you have only three and a half players for a market of 330 million. So, the industry is today totally different. You have economies of scale

in the US, while you have a fragmentation over competition in Europe. Will you get more consolidation than in Europe, you think? It is needed. It is definitely needed. 35 players in Europe have less than 500,000 customers on the infrastructure.

So they can never play. They're only interested in contribution to margin. They're only trying to survive the next quarter, but they're not investing strategic long-term. So the return on capital employed in the European market is half of the return on capital employed in the US. The prices of the US market are three times higher per customer than in Europe. So that is good for customers. But the consequence of this is the industry in the US is investing significantly more into modern infrastructure than they're able in Europe. Let's talk about the infrastructure. So you say we now have 30% growth in traffic. You do all the work.

The big tech companies take all the profits. How happy are you about that? That's right. How happy are you about that? That's a quote which Eric Schmidt, the former Google manager, did once. He said, you know, you build the networks, we take the profit. And this is exactly what's

happening. And what do you think about it? I think it's totally wrong. And we have started a fair share debate from our industry and we have just published a letter from the 20 biggest telcos here in Europe where we

said, look, guys, the industry is growing by 30 to 40% capacity every single year. You know, we expect now a 4K video coming across the YouTube channels. We expect, let's say, that everything is a video. The Netflix and the streaming industry is booming. And all this traffic is going into our networks and they're not, you know, taking any cost

on the infrastructure. So this is a construction mistake when the World Wide Web was built. At that time, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, the big telcos connected their networks. And they did that on a free basis. Why did they do that? They said, you give me traffic, I give you traffic, we balance this out, so we make it a net sum game for zero cost. What can you do about it?

Today, 80%, 80% of the whole traffic in our infrastructure is coming from players who don't provide any kind of infrastructure in exchange, which are, you know, 10 big players from the US environment. These are the GAFAs mainly and the streaming services. of the total traffic, only the ones who have more than 5%, they should contribute and they should give us as an industry or as a tax, I don't care. They should give us a contribution, which is helping us to build the capacity for the next generation. And how will you get that contribution? What are you going to do about it? Look, the first thing is we do not want to increase the prices for our customers because they simply say by the way if you want to if you want to reimburse your cost just increase the end customer prices but you know in this political landscape in europe um and with the the customer

orientation which we are having we don't want to increase the prices of the end customers so therefore we want to let them participate they should pay us for the traffic they are putting into our infrastructures a certain termination fee um as we know it from the past and in other places of our industries and this is then helping us to to stem this huge billions of cost which we have in our industries we call that fair share um only for the ones who have more than five percent of the traffic look one last sentence it cannot be that our networks are spammed with advertising and they always do this to take out data from consumers which they monetize then in the US. And what you have seen is

the European telco industry, and we are the biggest player, we have a market cap of 100 billion, while the US players in these industries are all trillions of market cap. And there is an asymmetry in our industry, which we have to balance a bit. They should contribute and help us to build this next generation networks.

Clearly a job to do here, Tim. But when you look at Deutsche Telekom, huge success. What's the secret sauce here? Why have you guys been good? Always willing to transform, always willing to go new ways. Second, focus, being very focused on the classical connectivity part. Thirdly, it's about the attitude which our people have with regard to we don't want to be good. We want to be leading, leading in every category. Our aspiration is always to do things not in a good way, in a leading way. So always compare that. If everybody in the company would apply to this aspiration, the jigsaw of the whole organization will be leading. And that is what we are trying to arrive. How does Deutsche Telekom look in 10 years' time? How do you look differently? That's too fast for me. But I'm not ready with where we are striving for.

I think this issue of being number one in the markets and this attitude of always wanting to be leading, I think this is good. But now we have to face customer satisfaction in comparison to the big internet companies so therefore for me the new benchmark is not anymore the telco sector then benchmarks is the service which you can get from from the highly digitized companies and therefore full automation of our services the way of you know bringing new adjacent service to our connectivity, easy to use for our customers,

even the way of the capabilities of embracing new technologies like AI for us, this becoming a leading digital company, leading digital telco, this is our new strategic imperative, which we are driving here in the company. And therefore, I'm more comparing me now with the digital ecosystem

than with the classical telcos. So fast forward 10 years, what does Deutsche Telekom look like, you think? Look, we own the majority of the most valuable telco company in the world already, which is our T-Mobile US business. We are in all the markets where we are operating, except one. You know, we are number one in mobile and fixed line services. So Deutsche Telekom will be number one in the world for telecommunication services.

We keep our focus, keep our focus on the connectivity part. That is the basis for whatever we are going to do. This is where our core capabilities are. The second thing is i think there will be a european market consultation where deutsche telekom is best positioned to create a european a central european player in this very important industries with its values um with its um legacy with its knowledge and its skills based in Europe for the Western world.

That is, I think, my aspiration going forward. I don't see immediate acquisitions or mergers in Europe. I think we are still in this phase of very federal ambitions, but I think in 10 years, this will have changed. If I gave you a lot of money, like a lot of money, where would you deploy it?

By the way, I think we have a lot of money. So we are a 100 billion company. I have BBB plus ratings in all regards. So I have a high credit worthiness in the market. So if we need money, if we would ask for money, we can easily get it.

But look, the money should be spent in areas where you gain appropriate profits. So therefore, find the right way. And on top of that, don't go in areas which you don't understand. So don't jump on something and burn the chips and then think, now we are in the cloud era or now we go into a new consumer service or we go in software development for applications or whatever. I can tell you we will lose a lot of money.

So therefore, it should be expanding the adjacency. If I would have more money, I would spend it at the edges of our connectivity piece. Because I believe there is a certain commoditization of 5G service and fiber going forward. So that means every year we are investing, but there is a certain way that the prices for the services will be flattish or will decline. So therefore, the question is, to create a growth company, you have to work on the use cases around this connectivity. And that is what we are thinking about. How will artificial intelligence change the way you work? Look, artificial intelligence is a game changer.

And ChatGPT was this kind of moment which we all witnessed. I can tell you, it will change the world. Now, there was a long time development of AI as well in our companies. We are using bots for years already in our organization. We have machine learning functionalities but chat gpt the the automation of natural language so by the way the reason why the homo sapiens is superior to all the others living on this earth is because of our language, because of our communication. Suddenly, we have a tool which automates that. This was a breakthrough,

and it's definitely an inflection point in history. So therefore, it will affect everything. Now, what are we doing? There are areas where you have a lot of data. These are the areas where you should start with AI. In our case, it's the custom interaction. So we are modernizing our bots, it's the customer interaction. So we are modernizing our bots

on chat GPT basis. So we are learning from the classical protocols, from all that say the the tape or the known customer interaction. The system learns from that one. And in the connection and the prompt which we connect to all the knowledge which we have

about the network functionalities, the products, the tariffs and the like, we create a new bot. By the way, we will have that bot already this year as an MVP here in Germany to experiment with this new way of interactive customer service via a machine. And what kind of device do you think we will need to really communicate with AI? I mean, you have the likes of Sal Maltman and so on now developing completely new things. What do you think it will be? We will talk.

Everything else is not natural. We will talk. Everything else is not natural. You know, our screens, our keyboards, everything is something we have learned to communicate easier. We don't need that. Everything will take place via your natural speech. Will it be a phone or what do you think it will be?

No, you're just talking to a mic. And what would the mic be connected to? It will be connected to a machine and the machine will understand what your needs are. Whether you have a request towards your telco bill, whether it will be a request towards a technical issue in the machine, whether

it will be a command which you give to change maybe a protocol or change software, you will do this with the most natural way of communication, just with your mouth. And this is the first one. It will be multimodal. So we will not only have speech to speech, we will have as well a speech

which is creating presentations, speeches which is creating pictures. So the machine will transfer our language into doing, into the automated way of making our life easier. And that is the purpose of it, making our life easier. And that is the purpose of it, making our life easier. It will take over first routines, but prospectively, it will even help us to be more creative.

You can easily fine-tune the models, yet you're not only getting the average of an answer, but even the edges of answers in the LLM models. So therefore, you will get as well new kind of creative inspirations. It will be always a human-machine interface. I don't believe that the machine is taking over. I don't believe that. It will be always that I'm easening my life.

I get new inspirations. I get new ideas, new knowledge with the machine. And then I transfer that and transfer that into my daily work. It will get us faster. It will get us more skilled. Think about program languages and other things which you cannot work on today. It will help us to simplify our living, and it will definitely take away routines,

which gives us more time to create more important things, more creative things. It will create new jobs. That is what micro-invention is. Yeah, I love that optimistic vision. I share it totally. But how do you think artificial intelligence will impact the geopolitical tensions, which we touched upon earlier?

My biggest worry, and you know, excuse me, I'm a German, and for the Germans, the glass is always half empty. There's nothing to excuse her, you know. But, you know, I very often hear, you know, ah, come on, you know, the Americans, we are positive, you know, while the Europeans are always in this kind of mode of saying the glass is half empty. And at the end of the day, if the glass is not half empty, if the glass is half full, you know, we are always surprised by the good things. You know, to be a pessimist is always the better surviving strategy because you're never disappointed. Anyhow, that said, you know, everything in this times get used as a weapon we have seen oil we have seen gas we have seen grain we have seen um food data everything is used as a weapon and it seems to be that in this world where kind of you know the the classical organization is somewhat the kind of, you know, the classical organization

is somewhat the kind of the caudal alignment between our values is a little bit, let's say, getting fragmented or falling apart. In this world, AI will be used as a tool as well to manipulate. And therefore, you know, we have to find new ways. What is the answer? By the way, it's even a business answer.

ID management, very important, you know, so that you have to certify who is talking to you. It might be that you are sitting here with my avatar and you don't recognize that. So therefore, how can you make sure that it's Tim talking to you right now? So this certified protocols, not only on persons, but as well on data, is something which is getting more importance in the future. And to make sure that we don't have fake news and other things.

I have to say, Tim, I have to say, if you're an avatar, you're a pretty clever one. other things. I have to say, Tim, I have to say, if you're an avatar, you're a pretty clever one. I'm not sure because, you know, I'm not so easy

to predict for a machine. I hope at least, you know, but maybe the experts are looking at that one. But what about, but moving on, stay unique.

Absolutely. In the, but in the connection to that, what about equipment? You know, who are, why, how is this going to play out with the equipment providers in the various parts of the world?

The first thing, as I said, we should not be naive. Everything is used as a weapon. And therefore, you know, we cannot run in the Western world technology where you have a kill switch in the software or kill switch somewhere in your technical infrastructure. So therefore, you know, on top of that, you cannot be dependent on only one single supplier. You have to build a multi-supplier strategy, which gives us easy. This world is getting more difficult, more vulnerable. And therefore, you know, for us as a company, we are taking actions on this one.

When you say kill switch, you mean that a country can turn off your infrastructure? Yes. Think about if somebody would be able to turn off the emails or the data traffic for a day. The economic effect would be detrimental. It would be significant. So that said, you know, we have to make sure that we are having control about critical infrastructure at any time. And that is what we're doing.

We have, for instance, in the mobile network, our core network, where the data is aggregated. In the IP aggregation network, where data is transferred, we have full control. We only have Western providers.

Now, it's not against the Chinese, but it is better, you know, from this in this political world, you know, to have a multi-vendor strategy, which is providing on this one. I don't believe it's a good idea to shut down the doors to China. Their innovation, their creativity, the way how they have, you know, performed in our industry in the past was as well a great learning impact as well for Nokia and Ericsson. It brought innovation to our industries.

And on top of that, I believe that being open, talking to these people, working with these people, using these people will keep globalization intact. I don't believe if we are banning Huawei that this will not have an impact to other

industries. And if we are closing down or decoupling our industries, what do we have? What is this society about? I don't believe that's the way forward. So therefore, don't be naive. Critical component securities, focus that you have them always under control, even if you run them your own with your own software. And on top of that, use the globalization for the competition of technologies and to learn how different continents are evolving. In addition to AI, what other innovations do you think will define the telco sector in the next decade?

Multifold, by the way, multifold. It starts with the, in our industry, by the way, the development of the own software, which is running the antennas, which we call Open RAN, where we do a lot of coding, a lot of things. Artificial intelligence will help us to develop that code faster.

The whole management of cloud infrastructures, our networks are operating from cloud infrastructures. We call that disaggregated infrastructure. In this disaggregated infrastructure, the protocols which we are using there will be supported by AI. The way how we are interacting with our customers, I mentioned that already,

bots will be based with ai tools the by the way teaching our agents teaching our service people will work with ai we have already tool based in hungary and in germany which we are using to learn from the talks we had with our customers in the past to understand what the best interactions were for these individual cases and teach our service people that they have more success in the interaction with their clients. So it's not only for the customers as well as for our own people to learn from that one.

And then we have this whole area of internal processes. And I can tell you how many processes big companies have who could be automated. How many services, you know, where artificial intelligence can be used. I'm using ChatGPT-4 on a daily basis. By the way, I'm doing a lot of letters where I'm saying, by the way, I want to say this this this this and this do that in a friendly manner and by the way consider that you know I'm writing this letter to South Korea

or whatsoever and you know I get a draft letter then provided by by CHPT I love it and I change a little bit but then I send it out I look forward to seeing the letter.

I hope I get one from you. There are a lot of ones, you know. Maybe you get one, you know, and you will not find out that it was, you know, quickly, you know, re-agent by the system. Absolutely.

Moving tack a bit here and moving on to corporate culture, which I know you are very, you know, is high on your agenda. How would you describe just in short the core values of Deutsche Telekom? In short. are very, you know, is high on your agenda. How would you describe, just in short, the core values of Deutsche Telekom? In short.

First, the cultural change of Deutsche Telekom is the most important, the most important driver of the success of this company. The first one is, by the way, everybody would say customer first. Okay, you can say that, but you have to live that.

That is definitely the thing. The second one, curiosity. Always been curious about new things. The third one is the element of, you know, purpose and belonging. We are very tied to each other. We feel like, I would not say family. That is too much, you know. But we feel togetherness.

And by the way, history is, we were always, you know, a kind of state-owned company, you know. We were always the one who were attacked. This created this kind of mentality of a castle, you know, where people were defending themselves. And we have used this now for getting extroverted. Look how many people are on social media talking about the company. If every employee is the communication department of this organization,

and everybody's showing his T and his magenta, the message is very strong. We believe in our products. We believe in the strength of our company. And customers are recognizing this. And customers always want to be with the winner. Success is a formula of discipline plus talent times attitude. The attitude of the way how we're doing that, and I'm coming back to leading.

Leading is our attitude. Everybody should have this attitude to do things in a better way than the others so performance oriented um this is the way we're doing and to me for me a lot has to do with empowerment you know i cannot run a business in seattle 9 000 kilometers away from here and tell these people how the tariff of the next proposition should look like. I should trust these people that they are doing the right thing. So, I would say 80% of our business is driven by empowerment of local people, building the right networks, having a great service, having good propositions for their customers,

being, let's say, aggressive on the competition, and considering the appropriate return on investments but centralize the ones which you have to do so i would say 20 central 80 percent decentralized gives a lot of empowerment to the people how does this tally with um being a german company you know we think about a german company as being very process oriented um you know top-down structured no i think hierarchically look i always said demystify the ceo you know and i can tell you when i see the ceos in the us you know they sometimes behave like gods you know i always say you know i'm i'm one employee everybody else, and I always have to own a discipline.

If I'm not good in one discipline, if I cannot be a role model for doing practical work my side, how can I be, you know, telling the other people how they should do their work? So everybody is a worker. Everybody, you know, is a worker. I always say guard horse you know everybody should be a guard horse we do not eat escutuina see us we need guard horses in this organization and how do you stay connected with the ground how do you try to stay grounded look my my whole my whole business is that way you know i i can tell you i have daily interaction with young people of the organization.

I'm on the front line. Please follow my Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn channels. I was one day digging the ground and putting fiber into houses. So I was doing the practical work. I drilled the walls. I was digging the grounds so i was trying to understand you know how our processes are working i always want to be on the lowest you know the operational level of this organization to under house where the money is going um and and that is that's the way how i'm trying to stay grounded. I'm spending significantly more time with customer service, with the technical infrastructure, and with, let's say, new business models than I'm spending, for instance, with capital markets.

So what do you think is the most important part of your CEO job? By the way, the most important is the shadow of the leader. I know about that principle. So if I'm not committed, if I'm not living up to the values of this company, if I'm not the role model, 100% applying to the rules which we have communicated,

nobody will follow the rules. So I have to be visible and I have to be very authentic in the way how I'm coming across. I should be part of the organization that the authenticity means people should say he understands the business. He understands what we are doing. He understands as well, hopefully, most of the problems which we are having. problems which we are having uh he's not you know somebody who's a superstar you know uh sitting in in in talk shows or hanging out with celebrities all day long he should be a worker in this organization i think this is it i earn i don't want to be loved i want to have respect for what

i'm doing and this comes from the from the jobs i. Being, let's say, deals like the US deal, being like operational team in the communication, being that fighting outside for political topics for this company. This is, let's say, how I want to be perceived, respected, that I'm always 100% committed. First, always Deutsche Telekom. How do you make decisions? Do you need a lot of analysis

or are you more a gut feel, pattern recognition type of person? I have to say, people always say to me, Tim, follow your intuition. Tell me what your intuition is because we love your intuition about things. To be honest, I'm personally different.

I analyze everything. I always, you know, looking on the pros, the cons, you know, the opportunities. You know, I'm always listening to a lot of people. I want to get, let's say, a full picture of a holistic view, cubistic, a holistic view about, let's say, what are we talking about? And then, you know, I'm drawing a conclusion of that one. Interesting wise,

sometimes the conclusion comes automatically. So you do not have to always, you know, show the organization, I'm calling the shots. Let the discussion maintain and organize a discussion in your organization. And suddenly the organization falls into a conclusion where you can say that's the right one go ahead and rather sitting there

and calling the shots all the time are you a perfectionist i'm i'm a perfectionist yes i have what are the what are the what are the disadvantages of being a perfectionist you're too slow and uh because you know you always want to you know improve things you know until the uh to the ultimate um sometimes you hate i'm never happy i'm never satisfied i think this is the the biggest negative by the way it's good for the company because you know i have i can never and that is psychologically maybe one of the biggest issues you can analyze, is I'm never happy about something. I did a big deal, successful sprint, and to be honest, I enjoyed it maybe for an hour,

and then I was thinking, what are now the complexities, the problems which are coming from that one, and what do I have to solve next? So I'm relentless. How do you think it is to work for somebody who's never happy? To be honest, I have a lot of people who are working for me for quite some time.

I think at the beginning, it is demotivating. I think at the beginning, it's hard. Then people understand. I have a good humor. So I'm always easy. I'm always, you know, I like to laugh a lot in the office. I make a lot of jokes as well. Maybe not always the best ones, but you know, at least, you know, I'm trying to be as funny as possible. So people have always this warm and cold a little bit. Now, after a while, people have always this warm and cold a little bit.

Now, after a while, maybe if I don't appreciate their work, people are learning that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing this because I want to make this Deutsche Telekom even more successful. I always stand for the company. And then they start organizing themselves and they don't become dependent on constant appreciation for me they find you know their satisfaction in the achievements which we jointly have and then

after a while they say by the way it's normal that tim is not appreciating that you know that is how he is let's move on and follow him i think you know we are on a good track i think that is this three phases of of how i'm not i'm not somebody who's really applauding and appreciating all time but nevertheless i'm very happy in the way how the organization is striving for awards how the organization is striving for success and how ambitious this organization became over the last 10 years i read an interview with roger federer the tennis player he said when he was young and he won a game he just moved straight back on the court and

continued to train now when he got a bit older he stayed the night had a glass of champagne with his wife and celebrated success so it probably is important you know from time to time that's your advice you know so i don't have any advice you know i from time to time. That's your advice, you know, so... I don't have any advice. I don't want to go into Goethe's Faust, you know, but Goethe's Faust and in Goethe, you know, there's Faustus and Faustus makes this deal with Mephisto

and the deal is, you know, Mephisto says, the moment where you stop striving for better, the moment where you are saying, I want to enjoy that specific moment that moment you lose your life to the devil and therefore the mentality of of me is a little bit like dr faustus who is constantly you know curious constantly striving for something you constantly driving this organization and maybe the moment where I stop and enjoy that moment, you know, I will lose my life

to devil. So therefore, please, I hear your advice, but so far, I haven't adapted it. Now, Tim, you started your life in strategic consulting. And some of these companies, such as McKinsey, they say that, you know, they hire insecure overachievers. such as McKinsey, they say that they hire insecure overachievers. Is that where you were when you started your working life? I think I'm still an insecure overachiever.

So I admit that. I said that in front of my leadership team. I don't think that's wrong. I'm unsecure because a lot of challenges are coming. You never have a kind of white and black answer. Everything is gray and you have to navigate companies, you know, 200,000 employees, including

their families, through this fog. And therefore, you know, there is no kind of security in this one. But, you know, I'm always, you know, and I said it earlier, I always, you know, I'm always, you know, and I said it earlier, I always, you know, anticipate the worst. And then when it turns out, you know,

that it's getting better, I'm happy. And if you anticipate the worst, you prepare yourself, maybe more diligent, more deeper than the others. At least, you know, that was my recipe so far. And then you are surprised if you overachieve at the end of the day. So therefore, I don't think it's something bad with this.

Nevertheless, you know, I think, you know, we can be, there is a lot of, let's say, self-conviction in me of, you know, being now in the operations for more than 35 years. And therefore, I have a lot of, let's say, stamina and a lot of, let's say, convictions that this company is very successful. And on top of that, I have to say all the ingredients, market structure, spectrum positions, Ingredients, market structure, spectrum positions, the leverage situation of the company, capabilities, technology know-how, all they say the ingredients for a future success of Deutsche Telekom are very strong today.

And therefore, I think we are at a good place. How do you define success at the personal level? For me, stay happy as a person. A bird can only fly with two wings. That is a classical American example, but there's a lot of truth in it. If you have problems with your health, if you have problems with your family, if you have problems in your private life, over time, it will eat into your business life as well. So it is very important that you keep a very balanced personality, that you take time for yourself, that you have your own life aside from the company. Second, it is very important that you are happy with this. side from the company. Second, it is very important that you are happy with this. You know, don't try, you can fight in difficult situations. It's not that I recommend that if you don't like your

situation, immediately throw it away and try something new. You have to fight through this, but you should set yourself limits and say, by the way, if it's not improving after a year, after one and a half years, whatever timeline you have, and it's still the situation, then move on and do something different. And on top of that, you know, find your interest, your private interest. Always stay curious, you know. We like to travel. I like my sports. I'm very intensively, you know, balancing.

I'm now 60, and I have to work on my body on a constant basis. I have three times a week a personal trainer in the company that I stay fit for this job. And, you know, so this helps me to stay happy as a person. How do you relax? In activity. You know, I'm not somebody who can sit, you you know for too long on the beach or sometimes i have this moments you know of you know an hour or you know doing nothing but i'm a very active person you know my wife you know it gets mad with me but she's with me for 30 years so she gets mad with

me because i'm constantly you know thinking about you, don't waste your time. You know, what can we explore? Is there something which we can find? And I think that it gives a lot of energy. It gives a lot of power, which I can then even transfer into the company. And I'm always exploring new things. What do you read? This time, by the way, I read these days a lot of um newspapers and about psychology um and the book which i'm reading recently you would be love is called the inner

game it is the question you know how your your inner um um perception your inner mentality is influencing your doing, your activities in sports, in this case, for instance, in golf, or as well in your business. And I'm trying to understand a little bit more what is driving attitude. So, this is an interesting book and I always try to draw analogies for my business out of this. Lastly, we have tens of thousands of young people listening into this. What is your advice to young people? The first thing is stay curious. Always, you know, not, you know, being it in your private, in your business life.

Explore the world, explore people, explore new areas, go deep in certain things, but as well, you know, look right and left of it. And always, you know, stay in this momentum of that changes, that things which are transforming is something good. Enjoy them than rather being afraid of it. Train your muscles for change. Get out of your comfort zones. Get out of your comfort zones

on a constant basis. And do things, you know, if it's a marathon or I had to get off my comfort zone last year and I sailed with five friends and a 48-feet boat from Gran Canaria to San Lucia. This was 20 days on the ocean. I had to get out of my comfort zone to challenge myself and say, by the way, I have to broaden my horizon.

Very good. Tim, this has been super interesting and very, very the way, I have to broaden my horizon. Very good. Tim, this has been super interesting and very, very inspiring for us all. Big thanks for taking the time and good luck with everything. Thank you, Nikolaj. We keep on running and we won't stop.