3 ms·

i am surprised you could meet him and people could pitch … his website made it seem like he did not want anyone to email him or talk to him???

by b20000 3y ago

weinzierl 3y ago
This might have changed. There was a time when he wanted to create a startup hub in Germany and invited people. I remember an interview with him, which I cannot find anymore, where he expressed his frustration with German banks and their lack of openness to new ideas. I've never heard about his startup project and neither the software project he was working on back then (TimeDoubler IIRC) again, so I assume they didn't materialize and he retreated from public life. I also once read in a thread that his home castle and the one he was receiving guests for the startup hup where separate ones. I could not find reliable source for this, so it may or may not be true. EDIT: I just found that his website has something to say about it: "This is not a case of Luddite but Peace'nQuiet." http://kai.sub.blue http://kai.sub.blue
- solarkraft 3y ago
  How sad, maybe he was ahead of his time. Nowadays it seems like the institutions (mainly governments at all levels) are slowly but intently waking up to the idea of supporting new companies being valuable for society. Somewhat relatedly there's the german federal SPRIND initiative (https://www.sprind.org/en/ https://www.sprind.org/en/) with a great podcast (https://pca.st/podcast/4c1e6440-67ad-0139-341a-0acc26574db2 https://pca.st/podcast/4c1e6440-67ad-0139-341a-0acc26574db2), which Kai would be great to hear on.
  - Propelloni 3y ago
    Agreed. At least in Germany it is totally feasible by now to get your seed funding from local community banks, e.g. Sparkassen. Federal and country banks are covering up to 80% of the lender's risk nowadays, so getting a 100k EUR to get started has become rather easy and fast. You need a business plan and a pitch and off you go. (For perspective, we are still talking a few months of paperwork, but it is a marked improvement over the get-out-of-my-office of only a decade ago.) Sure, not all of the money is in grants, but you don't have to sign over half your company to some investor either just to get started.
    - b20000 3y ago
      that is the problem. you cannot get significant money to get anywhere. 100k is nothing to start a business. if you try to get 1MM you will personally be liable for 200k which is a huge deal in europe where salaries are low and it might ruin your finances for life and you cannot get rid of it. meanwhile banks play very risky in the market and when they screw up nobody is liable.
krater23 3y ago
I never met him, but hat some good talks per mail with him. All that sounded not like he don't want to answer emails. But the talk started with 'Your website is really meh, are you serious with that?' and he answered with 'yeay, you are right, it's just a overstated placeholder, here is the link to the real website, it's nearby done'....and then came a link to a website looking like a book, really cool in 1999.
virtualritz 3y ago
> i am surprised you could meet him [...] That's yet another Kai Krause story. I was just visiting Byteburg with a friend who was a big Krause/KPT/Bryce etc. fan and had told his partner about him, a few years before. She was working as a journalist for German Max magazine at the time AFAIR. So she convinced her editor and they did a piece on Kai. This friend and her flew to California and interviewed Kai in his villa. Max also booked a super hip local photographer to shoot him. Now the photographer brought some perspex sheets or the like to do a setup where Kai would walk 'like Jesus' over the surface of his pool. Kai told the guy he should do it in Photoshop instead, no setup required, no one getting wet. The photographer said it wouldn't be the same and one could always tell. To which Kai replied that he could show him how and you wouldn't be able to tell. This led to a discussion and the photographer loosing it and ultimately leaving in anger (he likely thought he was just shooting some unknown C-level celebrity geek but Kai was quite famous at the time). So the shoot went sideways because of Kai having offered his superior Photoshop-Fu. :P AFAIR my friend himself took the pictures that were ultimately used for the article. But I may misremember. Kai and him became friends over that interview and that's how we ended up at Kai's castle, a year or so after. In any case, months later, when the photographer found out whom he had been booked to shoot, he wanted to re-negotiate his compensation after the fact with Max magazine. They refused ofc. Go figure.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > To which Kai replied that he could show him how and you wouldn't be able to tell. You would probably be able to tell. You know what else you would probably able to tell? Someone walking on ao perspex sheet :) > In any case, months later, when the photographer found out whom he had been booked to shoot, he wanted to re-negotiate his compensation after the fact with Max magazine. Lol :) after they have blown their own shoot? Mind you it is the photographer’s job to make their subjects comfortable with their ideas. I don’t know about Kai but if it were me my first question would be “what made you think i want to project that image of myself publicly?”
  - b20000 3y ago
    one time a photographer came to my house to interview me about the hardware i developed. he asked me to put it on my head because that would be cute or interesting. naturally i refused.

i am surprised you could meet him and people could pitch … his website made it seem like he did not want anyone to email him or talk to him???

by b20000 3y ago

i am surprised you could meet him and people could pitch … his website made it seem like he did not want anyone to email him or talk to him???

weinzierl 3y ago

This might have changed. There was a time when he wanted to create a startup hub in Germany and invited people. I remember an interview with him, which I cannot find anymore, where he expressed his frustration with German banks and their lack of openness to new ideas. I've never heard about his startup project and neither the software project he was working on back then (TimeDoubler IIRC) again, so I assume they didn't materialize and he retreated from public life. I also once read in a thread that his home castle and the one he was receiving guests for the startup hup where separate ones. I could not find reliable source for this, so it may or may not be true. EDIT: I just found that his website has something to say about it: "This is not a case of Luddite but Peace'nQuiet." http://kai.sub.blue http://kai.sub.blue

solarkraft 3y ago
How sad, maybe he was ahead of his time. Nowadays it seems like the institutions (mainly governments at all levels) are slowly but intently waking up to the idea of supporting new companies being valuable for society. Somewhat relatedly there's the german federal SPRIND initiative (https://www.sprind.org/en/ https://www.sprind.org/en/) with a great podcast (https://pca.st/podcast/4c1e6440-67ad-0139-341a-0acc26574db2 https://pca.st/podcast/4c1e6440-67ad-0139-341a-0acc26574db2), which Kai would be great to hear on.
- Propelloni 3y ago
  Agreed. At least in Germany it is totally feasible by now to get your seed funding from local community banks, e.g. Sparkassen. Federal and country banks are covering up to 80% of the lender's risk nowadays, so getting a 100k EUR to get started has become rather easy and fast. You need a business plan and a pitch and off you go. (For perspective, we are still talking a few months of paperwork, but it is a marked improvement over the get-out-of-my-office of only a decade ago.) Sure, not all of the money is in grants, but you don't have to sign over half your company to some investor either just to get started.
  - b20000 3y ago
    that is the problem. you cannot get significant money to get anywhere. 100k is nothing to start a business. if you try to get 1MM you will personally be liable for 200k which is a huge deal in europe where salaries are low and it might ruin your finances for life and you cannot get rid of it. meanwhile banks play very risky in the market and when they screw up nobody is liable.

krater23 3y ago

I never met him, but hat some good talks per mail with him. All that sounded not like he don't want to answer emails. But the talk started with 'Your website is really meh, are you serious with that?' and he answered with 'yeay, you are right, it's just a overstated placeholder, here is the link to the real website, it's nearby done'....and then came a link to a website looking like a book, really cool in 1999.

virtualritz 3y ago

> i am surprised you could meet him [...] That's yet another Kai Krause story. I was just visiting Byteburg with a friend who was a big Krause/KPT/Bryce etc. fan and had told his partner about him, a few years before. She was working as a journalist for German Max magazine at the time AFAIR. So she convinced her editor and they did a piece on Kai. This friend and her flew to California and interviewed Kai in his villa. Max also booked a super hip local photographer to shoot him. Now the photographer brought some perspex sheets or the like to do a setup where Kai would walk 'like Jesus' over the surface of his pool. Kai told the guy he should do it in Photoshop instead, no setup required, no one getting wet. The photographer said it wouldn't be the same and one could always tell. To which Kai replied that he could show him how and you wouldn't be able to tell. This led to a discussion and the photographer loosing it and ultimately leaving in anger (he likely thought he was just shooting some unknown C-level celebrity geek but Kai was quite famous at the time). So the shoot went sideways because of Kai having offered his superior Photoshop-Fu. :P AFAIR my friend himself took the pictures that were ultimately used for the article. But I may misremember. Kai and him became friends over that interview and that's how we ended up at Kai's castle, a year or so after. In any case, months later, when the photographer found out whom he had been booked to shoot, he wanted to re-negotiate his compensation after the fact with Max magazine. They refused ofc. Go figure.

krisoft 3y ago
> To which Kai replied that he could show him how and you wouldn't be able to tell. You would probably be able to tell. You know what else you would probably able to tell? Someone walking on ao perspex sheet :) > In any case, months later, when the photographer found out whom he had been booked to shoot, he wanted to re-negotiate his compensation after the fact with Max magazine. Lol :) after they have blown their own shoot? Mind you it is the photographer’s job to make their subjects comfortable with their ideas. I don’t know about Kai but if it were me my first question would be “what made you think i want to project that image of myself publicly?”
- b20000 3y ago
  one time a photographer came to my house to interview me about the hardware i developed. he asked me to put it on my head because that would be cute or interesting. naturally i refused.