Why Great Scientists Don't Always Build Great Startups with Antti Vasara

In this episode of Lab-to-Market Leadership, Chris sits down with Antti Vasara, Vice President, Quantum at PostScriptum, former President and CEO of VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland), and one of Europe's most experienced deep tech leaders, to explore what it really takes to transform scientific breakthroughs into successful companies.

Drawing on decades of experience leading one of Europe's largest research and technology organizations, Antti explains why successful founders are defined less by their technical brilliance than by their willingness to continuously learn, adapt, and evolve. He shares how research organizations can better identify entrepreneurial talent, why supporting founders requires far more than simply transferring intellectual property, and how co-founders, customer validation, and investor readiness dramatically improve a startup's chances of success.

Chris and Antti also examine the governance challenges unique to deep tech startups, including when founders should bring in an independent board chair, how great boards build trust rather than pressure, and why psychological safety is essential for CEOs navigating the uncertainty of company building.

The conversation broadens to Europe's innovation ecosystem, exploring why fragmented markets, inconsistent regulation, and conservative capital continue to limit the commercial success of world-class research.

Whether you're a researcher considering entrepreneurship, an innovation leader building commercialization programs, or an investor supporting science-based startups, this episode offers valuable insights into bridging the gap between laboratory discoveries and global businesses.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why a founder's ability to learn and adapt is often a stronger predictor of success than technical expertise alone
• How research organizations can identify which scientists have the greatest entrepreneurial potential
• Why successful spinouts require far more support than simply licensing intellectual property
• The three critical areas where RTOs create the most value: co-founder recruitment, customer validation, and investor preparation
• How effective board chairs build trust, challenge constructively, and help founders grow into CEOs
• Why Europe's fragmented markets and capital ecosystem continue to slow deep tech commercialization
• How policy, regulation, and investment can work together to unlock Europe's innovation potential
• Why shifting from risk avoidance to opportunity thinking is essential for building globally competitive technology companies

Antti Vasara is a technology executive, board chair, venture partner, and one of Europe's foremost leaders in deep tech innovation. He previously served as President and CEO of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, where he spent a decade leading one of Europe's largest applied research organizations and helping transform scientific research into commercially successful companies.

With a career spanning strategy consulting at McKinsey & Company and senior leadership roles at Nokia, SmartTrust, and Tieto, Antti brings more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and innovation. Today, he is Vice President, Quantum at PostScriptum. He also serves as Venture Partner at Kvanted, chairs several high-growth deep tech companies including QMill and SemiQon, and acts as Finland's Special Envoy for Technology while advising the European Commission on quantum strategy.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here.

Episode Resources:

• Antti Vasara on LinkedIn
• PostScriptum  Website

Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: https://www.deeptechleaders.com

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deeptechleaders

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How do we take this technology forward so that it's actually a solution to something and not just basically an answer looking for a question? Silicon Valley didn't start out by churning out these mega companies, unicorns and decacorns immediately, but they also started from the garages. If you had been 10 years ago saying that one of the coolest satellite companies is a Finnish company, I think you're kind of like that one-way trip to a mental hospital. People would have thought that you're just completely out of your mind.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast. Too many advanced science and engineering companies fail to deliver their innovations from the lab to the market. We're on a mission to change that. My name is Chris Reichhelm, and I'm the founder and CEO of Deep Tech Leaders. Each week we speak with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policymakers about what it takes to succeed on the lab to market journey. Join us. One of the things that makes the lab to market journey that much easier to endure is having the right people around you. It's kind of obvious. And it makes it that much easier when you've had people who've seen or experienced that journey from a number of different perspectives. And my guest today is one such individual. His name is Dr. Anti Vasera, and he is from Finland. And at a European level, there are few individuals as well known as spokespeople for advanced science and engineering and deep tech generally than Anti. He started his career in research, PhD in optical communications research. He used that to innovate within groups like Nokia back in the Heyday, Tieto and McKinsey. And so early corporate career. He then transferred over to the research sector and he became president and CEO of one of Europe's leading national research centers, VTT, in Finland. He became chair of the University of Helsinki. At a policy level, he has served with the European Commission as a board member in terms of innovation, as a spokesperson for quantum. There is very little about the European policy-making machine that Anti does not understand. And he has used the benefit of his insight and experience to help make it a better place for deep tech startups to thrive. And critically, he's also been on parts of the lab to market journey himself, chairing the boards and sitting on the boards of very well-known Nordic companies. I've known Anti for 12 years. I've had the pleasure of working with him before. I'm delighted to have him on the show. This is going to be a great episode. Let's get into it. Anti Vasara, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Chris. Really happy to be here. As my intro just laid out there, you have impacted or been involved in helping innovators understand and bring their innovations from lab to market for most of your career. Do you sometimes wish that you had led or founded a startup yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

In a way, yes. And of course, when you have a long enough career, of course, you think about many of the decision points that what if I had chosen another route? When I was doing my PhD at the university here in Finland, my professor was very much urging me to go to the US. So he was introducing me to a professor in Stanford, a professor in in USC. And I was thinking, oh, okay, I can do it in also in Finland. So why bother? And now I'm thinking that, oh wow, I could have gone to Stanford or I could have gone to USC. So of course, you think about that, and also many times about that. Of course, I should have founded a company earlier or gone into something like that. But I can still do that. And now what I'm doing is actually getting me involved there. So my grandfather started still a completely new career when he retired at an age close to 70. So I have lots of time still to do all kinds of things. So I'm looking forward rather than reminiscing about the past. So we're not ruling it out yet. No, no, and you can be, and I think in a way that I'm very much now involved in doing those things, but but in a different type of role. So I'm getting a feel for that now, and then I'm getting into that scene now, which is fun. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

I want to start out and talk a little bit about your time at VTT. And as president and CEO of the institute, you would have seen hundreds of different scientists going through, each with ideas, each brilliant in his or her own way, I'm sure, each with lots of ideas. Were you ever able to gauge the magic or what actually distinguishes a researcher who can become a real founder from those, you know, with all that that entails? And probably included in that, a real founder who is likely to have success from those who are perhaps less likely to have success. Is there anything about that, in other words, that's identifiable early on? Or is the proof kind of all in the eating? Is it all only observable after the fact?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

I think it's easy to see that when you look at the bill curve, the both ends, so that there are some people that you see that that's really not your thing to go into startup world or founding a company. And then you see some of these people who there's a magical aura around them so that they create the reality distortion field. And I think that it's more difficult than that. Most of the people are somewhere in between. And luckily, I think that a lot of the researchers are actually very good at learning new things. So that even though they had been uh really good researchers or very much putting their mind to just that I'm doing research, when they're thrown into a new environment, they start learning about that. And I think in a humble way, I'm also an example of this, that I've always been labeled in a certain way, because if I have a certain type of role, I try to get into that one. But then when I'm thrown into a new role, then I try to learn ropes of that one. So I think that it's more perhaps, and what we also were trying to do at VTT was that how do we provide support for the researchers that they can start learning that what it takes to be in that new role and also understanding that what are the other skill sets that they need, there are other people around them so that they don't need to do everything themselves. So it's also good that some of the excellent researchers who go to a spin-out that they stay as excellent researchers so that they don't try to turn into cool, suave CEOs, but they continue doing the research, but just in a new setting.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yes. Well, there's a whole bunch there that I want to kind of work through. You mentioned in the early part of your answer that it's clear that there are some people who shouldn't travel that journey or shouldn't make that journey at VTT. Can you give me an example of some of the kind of you know features or qualities of those types of individuals that help mark them out as those types, as examples of people who shouldn't be making the journey?

SPEAKER_00 7:23

In a way, I think that again, well, is it easy to give the criteria for that? Probably not, but you can sort of see that some people really get the kicks out of this, that they can focus on doing research. Don't bother me with anything else, just let me do my thing. And of course, when you go to startup, you also have to love the problem or have to think about that how do we sell this and these kinds of things. And some people are just so focused on the pure science. So maybe then you can sort of see that they will not like, in a sense, that type of stress, that type of pressure that's in a startup.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

The pressure that's beyond the science and beyond the discovery.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Exactly. That's what I mean. Because obviously, when you're a leading scientist or you're really into doing difficult things, there's of course a lot of stress and pressure there, but you can see that they can handle that one. But then in startups, you have to start worrying about some other things as well. And maybe that's not suited for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Are there some examples of spin-outs from VTT that are really good examples for you? And it seems that VTT recently has been extremely active. And I don't know if it's just a function of me looking at or paying much closer attention to what VTT has been doing over the last couple of years, but it certainly in the last 10 years seems to have increased its output significantly, a much stronger focus, particularly in advanced compute, but in all kinds of areas. But we've seen a lot happening in quantum, for example, and advanced compute. Are there examples of companies that have spun out in the last few years that you think, look, here's some really good examples of things of what we should be aiming for as research and technology organizations, generally speaking?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

First of all, it is true that sort of the spin-out momentum has been building up over the years. I joined VTT in 2015 and there were already been spin-outs before my time. But I think that both VTT as an organization has learned better how to enable that. But also then I think that the researchers themselves have also noticed that this is a viable career path. And also in the both in Europe but also in Finland, that there's much more attention also that we want to create spin-outs out of science or technology, so that it's more sort of an acceptable area. But then when thinking about that, why there are more now coming, it's also this that we also try to instill this thinking that when what sets apart an RTO like VTT is that even though that there is cutting-edge science being done there, cutting-edge technology, there should also be at least the thinking in your backhead that okay, where's the application? Why would somebody be interested in this kind of thing? And how do we take this technology forward so that it's actually a solution to something and not just basically an answer looking for a question? And when you get that mindset also into research and to that kind of work, it's a much easier and natural step then also to start thinking about that, hey, I could actually spin this out and become the founder. And also, VTT as an organization also matured in a sense, understanding that some of the technologies are basically have taken the path all the way then that how much we can do in just doing it as a research, so that they should become commercial entities. And in that sense, I think that it has been an evolution more than a revolution, but also I think that as an organization, and what you also see in the Finnish deep tech scene, that there are sort of certain steps that you have to go as a community, then that you mature. Also, Silicon Valley didn't start out by churning out these mega companies, unicorns and decacorns immediately, but they also started from the garages. Our garage has been the universities and organizations like VTT. But hey, there can be many different ways how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Let's take one that we work with that I know well, IQM, that spun out of VTT. I wonder if it takes a successful group, a group that has scaled successfully, that is commercial, that in this case is about to go public, for others within the institute, in the RTO, to look at and say, okay, now I'm prepared to listen to all of this advice and really absorb it and take it in because I can see what can happen if you do. Here's a real life example. We know some of these people because they were at VTT at one point or Alto University or wherever, but they were kind of in the vicinity, they're in the community. And we can see what happens if you're thinking about these things. And that looks like a really exciting journey.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, and in that sense, also, if we think about IQM, it's a really great example in the sense that there's the very, very long heritage of doing research in superconducting technologies first started at what's nowadays called Alta University. Then they needed help then to start manufacturing some of those superconducting circuits. So VTT got involved, and that work continued actually for quite a long time. And even when I joined in 2015 at VTT, the superconducting circuits were sort of, we knew that were leading competencies both at VTT and Alto, and it was interesting, and there was interesting science, but they were a bit on the sideline because it was sort of a seemed to be as a niche technology, and the folks working on it were a bit worried about then that it gets kind of like buried under all the other things that looked way cooler. And then five years later, it was completely flipped that suddenly people realized that there's a chance then to start building quantum computers. But I think that also, and now they can correct me if I might be completely wrong, but I also think that the original idea was that they would be more working on the sort of the tool side, but then started thinking then that hey, maybe we can build a full stack and build a quantum computer. And then comes in this that the Finnish government gave VTT the money to go and buy a quantum computer, and IQM got selected for that, so that it also helped accelerate. So, in that sense, also, if you look at that whole story, it's in one way it shows that how complex and how much things have to evolve into the right spot. But then, of course, you need those types of people like the founders there who are then see the opportunity that okay, the opportunity has come, so let's jump and do it, rather than then that the oh, it looks uncertain, then you don't know. So, of course, those founders like Jan Götz and Miko Metten and Kwan and others there, that they have the courage then to say that, okay, now we just go and do it. And that I think perhaps in many ways is really the thing that's where you need then that magical aura, that entrepreneurship, that you dare to do that. That's the piece.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

But you raise a really good point in that, which is the confluence or the involvement of not just the RTO, but of the Finnish government there with the early entrepreneurs. And then, of course, there's always the one of the most important factors of all is timing. And so if you get the timing right and you get a couple of these big players and then a young group who are prepared to risk something and say, Well, I don't know how to build a quantum computer, but hell, let's figure it out. We need one if we're going to get our chips to work. So let's just go build a whole quantum computer. We've never done it, but no one has. So let's just go do it. That's kind of that moment of serendipity that you want around which industries can be built.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

And that's also sometimes the difficult part for the researchers so that they might be so into doing that research so that they're still interested in that phenomenon that's happening there. But when you start then, when you get that pressure that, hey, we need to build a machine that works, it kind of like flips the mindset also then that, hey, there's a goal that's what we need to finish. And of course, that also happens in technology research quite a lot, that there's some equipment or lab set up that you're building so that it kind of like acts as a sort of a forcing mechanism that we need to get something done. But also, overall, that what's good in the IQM example is also that how important collaboration is and being able to build those kinds of collaborative consortia and and convince people, whether it's government or investors, then to be funding that so that you convince somebody to put money into an endeavor that you don't know even if it will work. That requires quite a lot of persuasion skills. And of course, then the timing. Maybe there have been other people already earlier there who have come up with the idea that, hey, let's build a quantum computer, but the timing was not correct or whatever. So we only see then the ones who have succeeded in doing and not the ones who who had an even better idea but didn't get it to fly.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, that's right. This discussion raises a good point around, I think, the role of RTOs. And I'm curious a little bit about what you feel the true role of a research and technology organization is at the moment of spin out. Is it if we take the typical things that are involved, IP transfer, talent transfer, I don't know, some kind of general transfer of legitimacy? This thing can exist now. I'd be curious for your view on that. And also as another part to that question, where do you think RTOs kind of overreach or underreach? We see this a lot. You know, some seem very passive, some seem very, very active. Do you have a view on how RTOs should meet those challenges or what their position should be?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

At least I think that underreaching, if they are only thinking about the IP transfer. So I think that there's a lot of this thinking then that there's some sort of a technology transfer office, or sort of then that it's all about IP licensing. And also in Finland there have been these waves of excitement that, hey, let's go and license IPR from the universities, or even from Nokia, there was a discussion, but that's such a small part in many ways about then creating a spin-out. It's of course an essential piece there, but still there's so many other things. But I think that also for RTOs, it is important to be thinking about sort of the whole sort of life cycle, and also that we were lucky in the sense at VTT that our owner, the Finnish government, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, they actually set the target that they want that the key way of proving that our research has value and creates positive impact in Finland was that we are able to generate, create these types of spin-outs. So they set the target. And they were wise enough to set the target in a way that it was not the number of spin-outs, so it was not a sort of numbers game, or sort of a quantity game in that sense, but they set the target that they want to follow that how much external funding these companies will be raising across their life cycle, which put then also the focus on more on the quality of the spin-outs rather than the quantity. And that led then that we set up our own incubator at VTT Launchpad that started then helping those that once the research groups had made a decision that there was some innovation or set of IP that could be licensed then to the spin-out, then the team, the founder team, the technical founder team could join Launchpad, where they then started getting help in finding co-founders, finding the commercial people, testing it with customers, how to create a business plan and how to present it then to the investors and all those kinds of things. So that in that sense, the RTO involvement there and the ambition level is it's longer time reach there. So how long the RTO needs to be working on that one, but also in a sense that the ambition level is then to try to help the founder team to as good a start as possible when they incorporate that, and then of course, after that they are on their own, but at least that an RTO can do its best then to help that they have as good a start as possible, rather than that hey, fill out the papers and cut any rough.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

But what seems very good about that, what seems very sensible about that is that the government was wise enough to not mandate a certain target in terms of numbers of spin outs or anything like that, which we've seen elsewhere in other countries. And so it strikes me that you've got to be comfortable with a little bit of this uncertainty. We want to create high-quality spin outs, but we can't apply a metric to that, which a lot of civil servants might like. It's very easy if we, well, we said we were going to have 50 spin outs, we haven't had 50 spin outs, therefore we haven't been successful, or we have had 50 spin outs, therefore we have been successful. Whatever. It was quite easy to measure that. But in these very important ways, if you're trying to encourage this sort of activity, I think you've almost got to be more comfortable with that uncertainty and say, this is a qualitative measurement that we're doing here. We're going to try to create the best spin-outs we can. We're still learning about what that is. And so that therefore strikes me as a very grown-up way of approaching it.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah. And then overall, I think that it is exactly this that the if you want to be dealing with these types of ventures and risky things, then you need to be able to take also accept the risk there, which is sounds like sort of a really self-evident thing. And that's actually the overall kind of when we think about Europe, then that we have enough capital in Europe, but we don't have enough capital that takes risk. So, in that sense, that too often you see people who come into this field thinking then that I want to be associated with this cool venture world, but I want to do it without any risk. So perhaps not the winning approach.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

No. Well, we're gonna come on to that. I'm gonna be very curious for your views on that. Let's change just a little bit. You've been a chair on multiple occasions for young companies in particular. When do you feel a deep tech spin out or startup actually needs a chair? At what point? When do you feel it really starts to matter that they're on board?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I also have to say that I still feel humble in the chair role, in the sense then that I'm also still learning that role and trying to learn that how board work overall happens in small companies and especially in startups. So I think that what I've gathered so far, and maybe in a year's time, I'm hopefully I've learned a lot more. But looking at the different startups, it of course, the companies are the founders' companies. So then the investors are the first foreign elements that come into that one. And that's of course in the beginning and in the very early stage, it ought to be more between the founders and the investors. So the part where the independent chair comes into the picture is obviously that when the company starts really growing up in the sense that you start needing that external challenge in terms of the strategy or sometimes perhaps external credibility, but that should not be the reason. But when you need somebody who can start sparring really about business and the growth and how to find the product market fit and put perhaps a bit more time to it. So, of course, many of the investors and people who come from the investor side then to the boards are really experienced, fantastic, fantastic people. But at the same time, they have quite large portfolios usually. So, in a sense, then that they can provide really good sparring for the founders, but eventually every company needs somebody who can then put more time into helping that, okay, this is how we build a company. And also then is looking for the best of the company, or sort of can be looking holistically at what the company is doing instead of just that they, hey, this is an investment that we need to be taking care of.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

So if we kind of build on that a little bit, if I think about many of the companies that we've worked with over time, and we mainly work with startups and spin outs, that scientific discovery phase, where that kind of observation of basic phenomena, how might we leverage or use that basic phenomena for a commercial purpose or just solve a big problem? And then working to early examples of prototypes of that in action. And either we're setting out at the beginning, as startups tend to, with we want to solve this problem, and therefore we're going to be technology agnostic, and we're just going to keep on developing technology until we have something we can use. Or in the path of many spin-outs, we start with a novel science, some basic phenomena, and then we think about where we might use that. And then in some way, shape, or form, thereafter, it feels like technology push, but we're seeking out that area, that domain where we can apply the technology that we've developed in some way. At the point where they've got, and this is kind of typically TRL four or five, but they've been thinking about commercialization, but they're starting to think about how this might look in the form of a product or a solution. Is that the point that you typically think companies should be acquiring a chair or getting a chair on board to help them think through the rest of the generating? Because in commercial terms, many would say that the commercial part of that journey starts then, when you've got a prototype working in a domain-relevant environment or close enough to a domain-relevant environment.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

That's probably generically quite a good place when to get in. But at the same time, at least looking at the companies where I'm involved, I think that all of them are having a little bit different stories in the sense then that the how they develop and for good reasons. So, in a sense, that it's almost like that, or maybe you need the chair at the point that when the CEO starts needing that kind of support that can really be helping him or her develop and build the company. And again, some of the investors are doing a fantastic job at providing that kind of coaching and mentoring for the CEO, but at the same time, they are, of course, all the time evaluating that do I want to put more money into this company? So, of course, the relationship between the CEO, founder, and the investors, there's always this, you're on trial all the time. The chair, in a way, can be much more thinking about that, okay, how do I make the CEO successful? What kind of help to provide there? And that, of course, can be linked into the development phase of the business idea, or also then linked into the development phase of the CEO, because he or she will also be on a journey and developing in TRL levels as the business grows.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

That's exactly right. But does that rely then on the CEO having the wherewithal or the emotional intelligence or the humility to say, I need help now?

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Absolutely. And of course, sometimes it of course might be then that the investors want an independent chair because they see that hey, that guy needs help or support. But of course, it can only work if the CEO, him or herself, is willing to work with a chair because if it's sort of a forced thing that, hey, now you get an overcoat from here, so it I would not want to be in that kind of situation, honestly. Yeah, that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I've been involved in those, and I can tell you that never works. The CEO has to be open to it. Absolutely. What do you think about the stage appropriateness of a chair? So, you know, startup is a loose term. IQM is a startup, still reliant on venture money, but it's about to go public and it's 350 people. So, you know, that's a startup and they've got 35 million in revenue. Now it's a startup, it's a very well-developed startup. And then you've got a recent spin-out from VTT. That's also a startup or spin-out. Does it make a difference, the type of chair in those situations? Or do you see the need for different types of chairmanship at different stages of the lab to market journey?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Absolutely. And of course, it also depends on then, at least to some extent, that what type of technology, what type of business model that there is, so that when to get what type of talent in. I don't think it's translated yet into other languages, but there's now in Finland this two of one of the most famous venture fund investors, Timo Ahopelta and Juri Engström, wrote this book on sort of the start-up guidebook for aspiring entrepreneurs and likes. And one of their recommendations there is that don't get to your board these old corporate mummies, like the Egyptian mummies. And of course, I'm probably a living example what they meant that, in a sense, that corporate mummy, but I still think there's this that every startup needs to be thinking about them that who they need on the board, who they need as a chair of the board at different stages. So, of course, also the people that you have on them working for the company may need to change as the company evolves. Similarly, I'm sure that the chair also needs to be selected always for the right phase. And at least I've assumed then that hopefully I'm doing a good job as the chair where I'm at the moment. But it might be then that there will be a face in those companies at some later stage that where they need some other type of person as the chair. So I hope that I can exhibit adult behavior then and accept then that, hey, now there's a time to time to pass on the baton.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Or perhaps you learn. Because in our experience, anyway, people have to move on because they get to a new stage. It's that the type of leadership needs to evolve within every function. And so to the point you made very early on in our discussion around that capacity to learn as perhaps being a distinguishing feature of really good entrepreneurs. And I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. I think the capacity to absorb information intellectually and emotionally quickly and apply it is a mark of really good entrepreneurs or people who can evolve on the lab-to-market journey. And so I think leadership has to change, but sometimes the leaders don't have to change.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

I think that that's the most rewarding and fun part about doing these kinds of jobs that you can all the time learn something new, or at least I'm hoping that I will be learning all the time something new, because it would feel almost like a sort of a slow death, or at least a mental slow death that the if you sort of reach a plateau that I'm not learning anything anymore or I'm I'm ready, kind of thing. So I hope I never get there.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

No, no, no, no. I know I don't think you will, Antie. I don't think you will. But I will say boards are problematic. Boards are a struggle. And I think I know of a few deep tech companies over the course of nearly 30 years of search that don't have issues with their board. And I think boards by their nature are difficult to get right. But a lot of the problems of a company can coalesce or can cascade down from a board if the board isn't operating in the way that it should, if it's not dealing with issues, if it's not dealing with people issues. The biggest issues are generally people issues in these kinds of companies. And then you've got cultural aspects that get in there too. Talk about stuff that might be too difficult, personally speaking, for cultural reasons, whatever it is. But I think the need for boards to have those open, clear communication channels and to be able to deal with issues and get through things quickly is so important for the health of the company. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

And also this, that the what's the role of an executive or an operative person in the company and what's the role of a board member? Because I've been on boards now for more than 25 years. And I think I have had a hard time learning then that how important it is that as a board member you're not trying to do the job of the operative managers. And even when you think that you're not doing that, then that if you're too forcefully pushing your own ideas first, then that asking questions or challenging then that how much actually damage you cause there. And especially when you go to small startups, I think it's even more important there that you let the founders, the or whomever is managing the company, then really do their job and you're there to support them so that you don't get too much involved. And I think sometimes also perhaps the startups also want the board members to get deeply involved there, and everybody should resist that, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I know that many deep tech startup CEOs fear being undermined by their chair or they fear the pressure of the board. And this is with young people who are founder CEOs for the first time. And I've seen it just as pronounced with more mature executives, too, that they just don't want someone watching over their shoulder. It feels like they don't have freedom. It feels like they've got parents again, they're just not happy with it. Is there a way of doing this role that you have learned so far where you create the relationship without them feeling like they're being undermined?

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Of course, there's sort of this trust building that takes time. Sometimes it happens really quickly, sometimes it takes more time. But I think that the it is this that how do you create the feeling then that everybody's the board, the founders, the company, everybody's on the same team? Because I think that there's a lot of this feeling, and perhaps it's more in the bigger companies, that the board is there to sort of control or judge that is the management doing a good job, and this overall this kind of like feeling that it's the board hires or fires the CEO, and we are watching you that you perform. And if you don't perform, then you're out. And I think that especially in startups, it can't be like that because the whole company is about building something new, so who knows what to do next. So it's anyway a sort of a joint journey there, trying to figure out that what to do and when to pivot completely or just stick to your guns. So it's really hard to be the judge there, so that hey, you have done a good job. But still, I think it's also good to accept that sometimes perhaps it's just also that the people chemistries just don't work. And then of course, it usually in those situations it's not the founders who get changed, but then it's the board that gets changed, and you have to just live with that. And then having good chemistry between, of course, also within the board, but also then with the founders is probably one of the most important selection criteria also for choosing people for the board. So if the people chemistry doesn't work, then I don't think there's a very good chance of success.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

In the process of a board selection process or board search, we're generally constrained by time. And I agree with you that the chemistry at board, the ability of that board to build and maintain those relationships, to communicate clearly, to be honest with each other, to clear issues and to work in service for the company is all of those things are mandatory. Do you have any guidance or insight, or have you learned anything through your years of serving on boards that you feel can help companies make better choices when it comes to their board members?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I said I've I've seen boards for 25 years now. And I think that the board selection process has gotten so much more thorough and in a way sensible over the years, because I think that for a long time, and again, especially in large companies, it was more about then that, okay, who do we know, or kind of like that. He's a big name, so let's take him in there. So now I think that the end, and of course, you're the expert in this area, but I think that there's sort of a profile, like when you recruit for an operative manager, an executive, there's a profile that what type of person you're looking for, so that there are sensible criteria that what we are looking for. And of course, for small startups, it sometimes is that you don't even know, of course, what's needed, and that also evolves as a company goes forward. So you have to make guesses. But I think that the important thing is that you try to sort of manage both the sort of the skill and the will part, but also you balance out that those who are selecting the board have a viewpoint on them that this is a good match, and and have the guts then to also say no then to even great candidates or with great profile if the match isn't feeling right.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Do you feel that people are arriving at that conclusion that almost behaviorally we want to select the individuals that have the best background? This person worked here and then they did this and then they did that. My God, that would look so good on our website. And that would look so good for prospective investors if we had them on our board, versus the reality, which is I believe this person's really going to contribute and support and work with the team and the board in the right way. We like them as an individual. I feel things are shifting towards that. Is that your view from what you've seen?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Well, maybe I should say that I'd like to believe that that's the direction. But of course, why those people with fantastic backgrounds get selected is also then that there's an assumption that if you have a consistent track record, so that you have been doing great things, then there's a like perhaps a higher likelihood that you continue to do that also in the future, so that they they are. But I think it's also good to see that you can sense that then when talking to them, that are they willing to really work, or are they just there to lend their name for the use of the company? And I think that that's the part that has to be assessed by talking then to the individual.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Absolutely. At some point, CEOs probably do need to transition, though. There are some CEOs that are gonna hold on by hook and by crook. And so you do see the rare founder CEO who makes it through the entire journey. But most individuals will generally come to the end of their tenure at a particular point. How do you manage CEO transitions?

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Well, let's see, I haven't lived through any transition like that yet in a chair role. What would I think about this? That of course in the large companies, it's usually thought about or that the CEO has to 100% trust of the board until he or she doesn't, and then kind of off he or she goes. But I think that in the startups, I would not do it that way unless there's a sort of a huge issue there. So I think that it has to be a really sort of a common journey between the board and the CEO so that there's an understanding that, hey, what this company needs, where we want to be going, and then have an open dialogue with the CEO that hey, if there starts to be a sort of a disconnect between that, what the company needs. So at least I hope that if and when that becomes relevant, then that I would be able to have that transparent, good dialogue early on with the CEO so that he or she starts to notice also this: that hey, maybe I could do something different here and learn new things, or then that maybe I better stick them to some other role at the company and let's find a new one. I've of course seen from the side these kinds of transitions, and some have been clearly traumatic, and some have been really good, like this. One when we did the spin-out, for example, that where they seem to have done a really nice job at doing that, so that the founder CEO himself also realized then that hey, we need somebody new here. So they are obviously also very, very nice examples. Good.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Let's zoom out a little bit and get your view on the European deep tech scene, generally speaking. You've heard the saying, I'm sure multiple times Europe can invent it, but can it actually scale? What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 39:47

In a way, of course, it is true. So if you look at the amount of fantastic basic research and early technology development that has happened in Europe, and then how many of those companies or ideas have then ended up being bought or gone somewhere else, of course. I think there's reason for Europe to be flogging itself about this. I actually, in a sense, then that although it's a problem, I think that it's a fantastic opportunity. So if we learn to deal with this better, then we can really create a huge amount of successful companies into Europe. So I see this as a gigantic opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah, part of the scale-up question, and you referenced it earlier, actually, by saying that we lack the capital. We lack institutions that are willing to risk capital over an extended period of time, or rather the extended period of time required in particular for some of these deep tech companies to truly develop and flourish. It'd be great to hear more of your views about that. And in particular, why? Why won't that capital take a risk?

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yeah, I think that's the million or a billion euro question in a sense that as I said, I don't think that the capital poorness is not the problem of Europe, but it's this that the how to get capital to take risk. I think there is also sort of a sensible reasons that why the business cases look worse when the people with the capital are looking at this, because Europe is quite fragmented. So if you're in the US, US, of course, there are also state borderlines and these kinds of things in the US, but still if you're a food tech company or a health tech company in Europe, you don't launch into a market of half a billion people, but you launch into a market of 27 different interpretations of the legislation and all kinds of different regimes. So I think that that type of fragmentation immediately, in a way, lowers the business case, the value of those startups. And then the investors are looking at, okay, well, you look very small, so why should I put that much money into use? So I think that that's one issue to be fixed. And there's also been this talent question, so that we train and educate a lot of fantastic people in Europe, but then they get better salaries by moving elsewhere. So, how to make it more attractive, so then that people can also believe that, hey, these startups have interesting teams together. The regulation gets mentioned a lot, and in a sense that that's also sort of a double-edged sword that the of course you need some of the regulation is really good and needed, but in a sense, that when is the time to regulate? So now I think that we're in a situation that we first regulate and then people have to start building there. So maybe we should experiment a bit more with this. That first we build, and then we are much more flexible and agile in regulating when we start seeing that what are really the problems, instead, now we kind of guess beforehand what the problems are and then regulate just in case. So, in a sense, that I've been saying this that we should have a target of creating such successful businesses and new product areas that the regulation gets needed. But then that's also a timing question. And maybe if we get those kinds of things also into place so that the opportunity and the potential of the startups start looking bigger, then maybe the capital also gathers up their courage and starts taking bigger risks because also, of course, the opportunity should look bigger. So, in the sense that nobody is on purpose trying to do a stupid thing here. So they have really smart people doing really smart things, but maybe also this that how do you get pieces together in the right way and then it just goes.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

But at some level, it's clearly a question of structure of Europe. Are we 27 different countries? Or are we going to be one? Are we going to federalize? And those questions are decided at the local level. And in many respects, yes, national level, but often you know they're also very local political considerations. If I think about the UK. There are a few things that are national, but generally people think about local first, national second. And people that are interested in the topics we're discussing are thinking of, okay, what kind of country should we be? We should be a region like Europe with a big common market and the foundation to grow wonderful, highly innovative, advanced science and engineering companies that can do good. And we should have some regulation, because regulation, by and large, is a good thing. But to your very good point, we have to balance that out with also, you know, the need for scale. And we want to encourage the growth of these companies. But then at a local level, you're going to go, well, I don't want to share a table with these guys over here. And we've never liked them. And I don't want to be spending for the Southern Europeans and I don't want to be bailing out these people over here. You know, and we get into all of these questions again. And around and round we go, inching forward to hopefully some kind of, I don't know, solution at some stage. And there's a question at the end of my rambling, I promise. But is this kind of a generational thing? Do you think that the young people coming up now are going to be the generation that fix this? Is this something that your generation or my generation can fix? It doesn't seem like it. Is it something that the younger people will see and think, you know what, those old ties, that old way of seeing the world, we don't recognize that anymore? Is that where the answer lies? Or is it more drastic? Is it when we're faced with a war, which is not out of the bounds of a possibility these days, but when the war comes much closer to home than just the Ukraine, will that finally change behavior?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

I have on my reading list now this book called Crisis Engineering, and it's apparently saying that nothing gets changed without the crisis. So maybe that's the solution. But in a sense that it would be nice to fix some of these things without a huge crisis, but maybe human nature is such that you need you need this. Like we noticed that how much got done with the when COVID hit, but then in many of these areas we flip back to or kind of like then that not being able to then carry through with some of those changes. But I think it's also this that whether we need to go federal in EU or or still something else. I I think that we can still also try to progress some things without going too federal. Like, for example, this that I don't, and of course I'm not the finance guy, but I don't understand that why we can't have a European NASDAQ, for example. I don't particularly care that whether I'm if I'm buying a share in some company, whether it's the Helsinki Stock Exchange or the Paris or Madrid, doesn't matter to me. Because I think many countries suffer with this, then that there's just a liquidity pool and all these things are so small. So that there could be these things that way we really understand that working together gives much better result for everybody. But of course it requires the political will, and the political will comes if if the voters share that. So maybe these are the things that we need to just continue pushing and explaining that and making the positive impact better visible. Because I still think that we have gotten all the time better in the past 10 years, for example, on these things. And so it takes perhaps longer time than it should, but as long as we're moving in the right direction, then at least we're making progress.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

We'll have to say, but I agree with you. I think in the last decade we have made progress, and I think some of that has been born of crisis.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah, and even here in Finland, which is a small country and small market, if you look at how many deep tech-related companies we have now, and many of these things that have happened in 10 years, and like we have now a number of these space companies like ISI, and if you had been 10 years ago saying that one of the coolest satellite companies is a Finnish company, I think you're kind of like that one-way trip to a mental hospital then, so that people would have thought that you're just completely out of your mind. So there are changes, and I also in the AI side now, there are a lot of really interesting AI companies across Europe and these hubs that where stuff is happening. Like if you look at Sweden and AI, then it's it's a really exciting story.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

There's no doubt. I think 10, 15 years ago, we were wondering if any tech company could actually scale in Europe. And now we know, of course, they can. And we've got some wonderfully scaled tech companies. Now we're talking about can we scale deep tech in the way? So we have made an enormous amount of progress, to your very good point there. And so on the broader political questions, we may not have to go that far, but of course, time is always there. Time is always applying pressure on us. And it's how much further could we go in certain situations? But maybe that's just the nature of life. Maybe we have to keep inching forward, we have to keep doing what we can, we have to keep working, applying pressure in the right areas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

And it's also that economics is basically psychology. So, in that sense, that I think that one of the areas that where the Americans perform so much better is that there is this much more sort of a go get them attitude. And in here we start analyzing and telling that all the things that are wrong. So I think that we should also kind of like a little bit change the mood here and talk about those things that are going really well. Or at least better.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

I think you're right. In the US has a sense of who it is, of what it is. That's being called into question right now, obviously, with everything, and we're not going through a good period of our history, that's for sure. But the US has nevertheless always had a vision of what it is. Americans are not a you know, they're it's more of an idea. It's more of something you kind of aspire to as opposed to a particular type of people. It's people that embrace that ideal, and they come from all over the world, but they're just people who want to embrace that ideal. Europe doesn't have that. And I think if Europe ever had that, Europe would have the kind of extraordinary success that America has had too. I think, but everything's more difficult. You've just got these histories, you've got these incredible histories, these very different cultures. And it's what makes it so fascinating in many respects.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

But at the same time, it's also, if you look at the US situation, that how proud Americans are about Apple and Google and those kinds of things. Of course, not everybody, but similarly, I think that we could also use in Europe then some of these upcoming successful startups that we're generating. So why aren't we proud about Spotify or IQM or those kinds of companies so that we could also build a European identity through it?

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Exactly. Well, that movement is definitely afoot. I think that's starting to change. People are definitely up on Europe right now for all kinds of reasons, and I think that's right. Auntie, I've loved our conversation. I could keep going, but I'm aware that I promised you an hour. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It has been an absolute joy to speak with you. Thank you, Chris. Pleasure was all mine. You've been listening to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast, brought to you by Deep Tech Leaders. You can find out more about us on LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.