#406 Christian von Koenigsegg

0:00 The first person to tell me about Christian von Kona side was actually Daniel Eck, who's the founder of Spotify. And Daniel was kind enough to be the first guest on my new show. And after we got done recording the conversation that we published a few months later, Daniel was telling me about a bunch of founders that he thought that I would like, and one of them was Christian von Koniseg. Koniseg builds some of the most expensive and highest performing cars in the world. And then a few months after that conversation, somebody on X suggested I should do an episode on ConeSeg and then they sent me a message with a bunch of source materials, including like a documentary and a bunch of interviews that Christian has done. And almost immediately, as soon as I started hearing

0:38 Christian describe his products, how he thinks about building his business. I knew I had to make an episode on him. So then I went and searched and I added about another dozen interviews and videos and essentially just consumed, spent a week consuming Almost everything I could find on him and how he built his company. And then I spent the last few days organizing all my notes into a list of about a hundred ideas that I think are very interesting and that jumped out to me. while I was studying Christian Bonkonseck. So the first thing to know is that Conoseg Automotive, it's a company founded by a man whose desire to build the world's best sports cars.

1:08 Reaches all the way back to his childhood. He's been running his company for over thirty years, and this is something that he's been repeating for at least a decade and a half. He says for as long as I can remember. I've been totally fascinated by cars. When I was five I went to the movies with my father and saw a Norwegian stop motion movie.

1:23 It was about a bicycle repairman who decides to build his own car to race against the established teams. And he won. I was intrigued by this movie. I said that looks like a lot of fun creating and building your own car. With a lot of unique inventions and then to go and compete with it.

1:39 Against the establishment. I remember that very clearly. I felt I wanted to do what the bicycle repairman was doing. Build his own car with a little team and do something fantastic. And so his entire childhood he's obsessed.

1:54 with cars and he talks about the very unique way That he learned how to build a car. And it started before he was eleven. He says I had stacks of car magazines in my room when I was a kid. full of post it notes of what I liked and didn't like, so he would go over every single car in the magazine.

2:09 And just constantly ask questions. The word why might be the one that he repeats the most. So he would ask, Why does the hinge look like that? Why are the brakes like that? Why is that mirror different? Why did that car choose to do it this way and this car chose to do the same thing a different way? He said he had stacks of car magazines meters high in his room.

2:29 He says I was a car nut. When I got older I had no Choice. That is one of the most important ideas I repeat over and over again. It is very clear this was a compulsion.

2:40 This is another example of the truthfulness of that saying by Jeff Bezos that you we don't choose our passions, our passions choose Us. When I got older I had No

2:49 Choice. And so he is going to start his car company with no experience at a unbelievably young age of twenty two years old. And he He always quotes the day. He goes on the twelfth of August, nineteen ninety four. I said I'm going to build the car.

3:03 It is a challenge big enough for a lifetime. This is a tangent on really what I wanna talk to you about, but it really just jumps off the s the page'cause you know, I've I've read I don't know, probably thirty pages of notes of Christian in his own words. And it is very clear if you just search online, he has a cult like following. And part of the reason I think he's able to do that is because of his incredible communication skills.

3:26 He doesn't just express ideas, he makes them memorable. Reminds me a lot of Charlie Munger. Reminds me of Elon Musk. Minds me of Steve Jobs. It is a challenge big enough for a lifetime. And so there's all these profiles written about Christian throughout the years that just do a great job of describing him. This is the brain child. They're talking about his car company. This is a brain child of a twenty two year old. With no background in the automotive industry.

3:46 Driven by a single Motivation. A lifelong ambition to make the greatest supercar in the world. So think about this, no engineering experience. No manufacturing background.

3:58 Limited funding. And he talks about what he was thinking when he was twenty two years old and he starts the car company. I wanted to build cars. I realised it was probably going to take a very long time before I succeeded. But I was young. And I didn't have any obligations.

4:13 I thought that if I didn't do it then I never would. And he sets the bar incredibly high from day one. This reminds me of James Dyson. Dyson, if you study him. And I just spent a bunch of hours with him.

4:25 He demands difference. He will he refuses to make me two products. He has a crazy line that he says it has to be different even if it's worse. And Koniseg is constantly saying that we will be different no matter what. He says I thought this is a He's describing himself at twenty two. He's still like this.

4:43 F fifty three. I guess this is something I wanna tell you because you're gonna see me repeat a bunch of these things. I I just had drinks with this very well known legendary investor. And I always ask these kind of people like out of all the founders that you've backed, like who are the most spectacular? Like w what are the The outlier of the outliers. And I won't repeat who this is, but he's been working with this person for twenty years and he says if you go back and you look at notes From our first meeting.

5:06 This founder was saying the same stuff. That he's saying today, he just never stopped executing on it day after day. Month after month. Year after year, decade after decade. There's a lot of that.

5:18 with Conoseg. And this is the first mention of this. I thought I could make Something Different. He wanted to make individually

5:26 Handcrafted machines. And at the beginning. He had to do everything. I did everything, designing. Drawing. Creating a business plan.

5:34 A development plan. Finding people around me who could help out. I had to find a chassis engineer, a designer who could help me make models of my sketches. It took me two years. From the day I decided to do it. to have a full running car

5:46 Prototype. talks about these early days over and over again in all these interviews. We didn't have any engine engineers. A truck driver from the company next door. Had half an engineering degree and started helping work by working nights. He had a father who was an engineer of Volvo. And so we got a drawing table from him.

6:01 And a book on drawing principles and details and tolerances. I started drawing the suspension. I became a modeller. I model the C C e S myself. With two other people.

6:13 We did not have any computers for engineering work until nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight. By then. We had already built a couple of prototypes. If you listen to episode four hundred, this is very similar to Jeremy Fry, who mentor James Dyson. Don't sit around and constantly plan out What you want to make.

6:32 Start experimenting immediately. Action produces information. And then another thing Christian has in common with the people that are really great at what they do, they just love. They love What do you do? There's a great exchange I found in this interview with Kobe Bryant a long time ago when he was asked like what is the one quality that all the great ones have?

6:48 And without hesitation, Kobe said, It's love. It's not rocket science to me, man. The quality that we all share is that we love what we do. We absolutely love it. And it's a pure love. It's not the fame. It's not the money. It's not even the championships. It's loving what we do and we do it all the time.

7:05 We study all the time, and а за результат. The championships Come. You're gonna hear a lot of comments. from Christian von Koniseg like that after seeing this is hit this is what he said.

7:15 After seeing his prototype after two years of incredibly difficult work, I remember a big smile on my face. I was aroused. With emotion. I had a pinch myself. sensation from a different interview that I found.

7:29 They were talking about, you know, he starts the company in nineteen ninety two. Unbelievably difficult. No resources. From the the w they was asked like the year the these years of intense struggle. Right, the these years between nineteen ninety four and two thousand Two.

7:42 What were these years like? When this is a period where you were struggling financially and had no product to offer customers yet. This is what he said. In hindsight, it was fantastic in many ways. Very tough at times, but also joyful and very creative.

7:58 I was fortunate enough to have a few willing souls and friends helping me out with little or no pay. I made a bit of money doing speeches and seminars. It was difficult, but I expected it to be. That's such an important sentence. It was difficult. But I expected it to be. Perhaps I didn't imagine it taking eight years

8:13 But I had a clear vision. Of making a fantastic car Whatever it took. To run out of money was one aspect of The whatever it took part.

8:22 I look back at those years with satisfaction and joy, even though it was extremely tough. I remember it as a very positive experience. This is so important. If you want to become an entrepreneur. In a field. Where you have to break new ground

8:36 And where no one is actually asking for the product. Then yes. An experience like the one I went through. Can be very Valuable.

8:44 He talks a lot more about how he got from prototype to his very first production model in the years that it took. before I get back into this incredible story, I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, which is Ramp. Christian von Koniseg, as you'll hear today, is personally involved in every step of the process. And he says he loves

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10:00 Told me that Ramp has helped him save Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars a month. And he has the documentation to prove it. Take the time and set up a demo of the product and you'll see why many of the world's top founders, including many people of the top founders that I've profiled on this podcast.

10:15 are running their company on ramp. Go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business today. That is ramp.com. Now let's get back into this crazy story. Six more years pass. Before the Kona Sig C C A S

10:29 This is their first production model. And the first time it was revealed was at the Paris Auto Show. In the interim, Conosic survived on the income from his business. grants from the Swedish Technology Development Board. A bridge loan from his father, which we'll get m into more. His father had sold his company and retired and thought that money was for retirement. Turns out it was It was Essentially key for Konusic to stay alive.

10:53 And then He raises funds from venture capitalists after that. На when they say funds from his business. When he's a teenager, like seventeen or eighteen, something like that, he starts a trading company and this is what he says about it. He says, I just looked for any opportunity I could find and I found it selling ballpoint pens and plastic bags and frozen chicken. It was the early nineteen nineties and the collapse of the Soviet Union had opened up new markets in the Baltics.

11:15 And so Christian sees the chance to export everyday goods to Estonia. And so he built what's called this odd little trading company, which made him enough money by the time he was twenty two to take the next step towards his true passion. He was not passionate about his trading company. He did that as a means to get to the ends that he wanted, which was I want to build cars I've been thinking, I'm twenty two, I'm still young. But I'm thinking about this since was five.

11:38 Now, I do want to focus on the first thing that he said that I thought was really, really smart about the the the benefit of just starting a brand new company against all of his competitors were incumbents. He could just start with a blank sheet of paper. And so he says I didn't have any heritage controlling what my next step would be. I could start with an open book and dream up the car I thought would be perfect.

11:56 And so he starts out making everything by hand, and as he continues, he learns this is a huge advantage. She says a labor intensive process makes us more adaptable. We don't have to change huge production lines or machines. Just because we changed the model. There's no machines. says perfecting the curves of the car

12:12 take craftsmanship and then they interview one of these documentaries. They interview the person actually molding the curves and he says I feel it by hand. And I think this also speaks the idea. It's like well You know, yeah, it's labor intensive, more difficult. But let's look at the bright side. I think that he's just a a pervasive optimist.

12:29 And what was so fascinating is This is one of my favorite parts of the story is the fact that he's starting a company in ninety four. This is a downturn in the economy and everybody says the sports car is dead. This is what he says. I am extremely stubborn. And I don't like to give up. It's just not in my DNA.

12:44 So I was reading about other car companies. When I started there was a downturn in the economy. The media said the sports car is dead. Many of the famous brands were struggling. Well, what am I supposed to do? I am going to build my car.

12:56 Listen to what he says here. This gives me goosebumps. It is worth it, even if it took everything I had. I am just going to do it. I need To do it.

13:06 I need To get it out of my system. I believed I could build a car That was interesting that someone would want

13:15 To buy. I think this is the absolute dream if you're an entrepreneur and a founder. Craftsmen. Artist, athlete, doesn't matter what it is. It's just like What is it that there's something inside of you.

13:25 It has to come out. It is a compulsion. I need to do it. I need to get it out of my system. I think it's obvious if you listen to a bunch of my podcasts. Clearly podcasting is this is like this with me. If you go back and look, Founders was not what I called the podcast when I started almost a decade ago.

13:41 The first name of this podcast Well, One of the worst names of a podcast anybody could come up with. But the meaning behind it was very important to me. The first name of founders was not founders.

13:50 It was auto telic. Auto telic is an activity done for the sake of itself. I was saying from day one. Even if nobody listens to this, I have to do this. I have to get it out of me. And I think this is related. Like the the reason I I I wanna spend when I think about the products

14:07 That I wanna buy or the services or the companies that I wanna patronise. Th there's a line Steve Jobs said I think is really, really important. And he he was talking about like you can really tell when the builder of a product cares. And he says the older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter.

14:21 If you don't love something. You're not gonna go the extra mile. And so eventually Christian's cars are very complex. There's like a thousand different parts, something like that. He figures out a way to manufacture almost all of them himself. I don't think he can help himself. I don't think this is a choice.

14:36 I don't think he can go through life any other way. And so he was asked the questions like when you start out, you know, other mega They're called the car this this cost of car. Sometimes they're called mega car, hypercar. I'm obviously not gonna talk anything about like the mechanics of it. I don't know anything about it. I'll leave a link to a bunch of the sources if you're interested in that and you have a knowledge base, it'll make his accomplishments even more impressive.

14:55 But what was fascinating is if you have a new upstart. And you wanna build a mega car and you even if you want to build it by hand. immediately partner with a bigger corporation. And so Christian was asking like, why didn't you do that?

15:05 And he says, Listen to this. My aim was to make the most extreme sports car there ever was. For anyone buying anything from an unknown brand, it has to stand out. This is genius marketing on his part. If I wanted a more powerful engine than anything that had existed, I can't buy it. From an existing manufacturer.

15:22 So if my aim was to make the most extreme sports car that ever was And I wanted to make a more powerful engine, anything that ever existed. How the hell can I buy that? It doesn't exist yet. I have to be the one that makes it. Besides, my budget were very limited. I had to make do with myself. I like to come up with technical solutions. Our way.

15:40 Not the way any other company does it. It is important that everything is not the same. This is why I keep talking about Dyson over and over again. He does he says this over and over again. It's important that everything is not the same. It is what makes Kone Sig different. And the reason I think most people don't do this

15:56 is one you have to have that love and that drive and you have to really want difficulty and challenges. And They're usually scared of problems. And listen to how he talks about problems. I love problems because it gives the company a chance to solve them. I prefer to call problems challenges. Life is just a big challenge.

16:11 You should not see life. As a problem. I think less so with entrepreneurs and founders. But regular people, general population, I think a lot of people see life as a giant problem.

16:21 And even renaming things. This isn't a problem, this is a challenge. Life is just a big challenge. You should build yourself up into a formidable individual to handle bigger and bigger challenges as you go along. No. This is where I wanna take like this weird tangent. It's not it's not a weird tangent, I don't know why I'm saying this.

16:36 One of the most interesting things. That popped up over and over again is this saying that Christian von Koniseg has, which is the show must go on, to the point where I'm watching, you know, I watch a bunch of his like factory tours. And I'll get into like the fact that it's on this air base, which air for former air force base, which is so cool. To me. Uh I want to go there.

16:53 But uh He he has like even like in the um in his headquarters, he's got giant signs on the wall that say that say The show must go on. And again this I don't I won't say this is my this might be my favorite thing about studying him.

17:07 And I don't think this mindset comes natural. I think you develop it. Acquiring the skill is one of the most important things that you and I can do. The show must go on. Christian von Konoseg uses the phrase the show must go on as a core operating philosophy, a mentality that combines resilience, improvisation, and an almost theat theatrical commitment to developing and delivering excellence no matter the obstacles. Hyper cars

17:30 Push the boundaries of physics and g engineering. Things will go wrong. What matters is how you respond. One of my favorite things that I say to myself over again. Problems are just there to be solved.

17:40 Problems are there to be solved. And so this goes into the show must go on philosophy. Here's one problems are not surprises. They're inevitable. KoneSeg has said that building a car with a thousand unique components, most of which you design and manufacture yourself, guarantees a never ending list of challenges. Materials fail.

17:57 prototypes break, supply chains collapse, regulations change. Customers expect perfection. Instead of complaining. He expects his team to pivot instantly. Keep momentum. And treat failures as part of the process.

18:10 The show must go on is an antidote. to paralysis. The show must go on is also a cultural motto at Konisig. People inside the company say Christian repeats that line whenever something breaks during testing. Or a deadline looks impossible. Think just think about like we'll talk about his views on leadership later on.

18:25 But imagine you're f you want to follow somebody. And Something breaks. He repeats the show must go on, means we will find a solution, as opposed to like he's staying calm. It's so somebody panicking, freaking out. So the show must go on is his shorthand for we don't stop. We find a way. We keep moving because the mission

18:40 Matters. This is why the engineering culture at KoneSeg is fearless. At Kone said the mentality is solve it today. Or solve it tonight. But solve it.

18:50 And if you think about it, it's the perfect mental model for a tiny company. And now it's a bigger company, I think they have like 600 employees, but still relatively small. At the beginning, it's like five people. They start out with like five people and we're like, Hey, we're gonna go compete against Ferrari Portion McClaren. You can't afford excuses if you're doing that. Your prototype engine's probably gonna blow up. The body panel was not gonna fit.

19:09 Your gearbox supplier might have went out of business. What are you gonna do? To show Has to go on. Christian went through years where the company nearly died.

19:18 He had fires. Bankrupt suppliers. The global financial crisis. All of these things threaten to kill his company each time he refused to stop. The show must go on. It's not bravado, it's survival. And when he says it, he's expressing the essence of his entrepreneurial religion.

19:32 Relentless resilience. continuous forward motion. And delivering greatness even under chaos. The people I most admired, they all think this way. There's another great line from Kobe's like when you're going through something, what's the alternative? Other than to keep going through it. When I had dinner with Charlie Munger before he died.

19:48 I spent three hours with them. I did not look at my phone once, even though before I got there I had like a list of questions. Didn't even pull out my phone. But as soon as I left his house and went back to my hotel, I took all these notes and thank God I did this. Briefing these notes all the time. And the first thing that is in the notes My biggest takeaway from spending three hours with

20:05 My hero. One of the people I most admire that I've ever come across living or dead. Which Charlie has an almost complete indifference to problems. Troubles from time to time should be expected. This is inescapable, so why let it bother you?

20:20 I then wrote this into a maximum that I could remember. And I said the most important lesson I learned from Charlie spending that night, uh sp spending that night having dinner with him at the house. was go for great. I'm gonna read this to you. In typical Charlie fashion, it is a combination of four simple ideas. Charlie looks at everything through the lens of history.

20:36 Human nature does not change. The same behaviors repeat forever. That's the first one. Number two. Charlie has a complete indifference to problems. Troubles from time to time should be expected. It's an inescapable part of life. Number three. Wise people do not whine about problems, they prevent them.

20:51 Charlie had the perfect quote on this. Three words. Wisdom is prevention. Wise people don't whine about problems they prevent them. Number four. Great businesses are rare. Great people are too. Great people and great businesses produce fewer problems.

21:06 Your mission in life is is to get into a great business and stay there. and build relationships with great people. Doing so. Will prevent the majority of problems that are under your control.

21:18 All of this can be remembered in a simple maxim go for great. So I love this idea of the show must go on. I want to get into how he organizes his company. He he's a huge admirer of Elon. He actually uh bought Tesla shares. at IPO and I don't think he ever sold them, by the way. So amazing foresight on Christian's part.

21:36 But he talks about like when when they're doing these factory tours and these videos that I'm watching. He talks about his love of in house engineering. How it may have started out as a need and then he understood the benefit later on, and I'll talk about how he organizes and uh like he he doesn't separate engineering design. Which again, Dyson doesn't either, Elon doesn't either. And now you see it again, that same idea with Kone Sig. But they're asked like you know you're doing those in house engineering, like why'd you do this? He says for many reasons.

21:59 It turned out that we couldn't afford for one of the large engineering houses to help us. We did not have the budget. It turned out That we could do a lot ourselves. And not only could we could do it in house, we could do it better. We make our own wheels, bla brake calipers, seats, wings, mirrors, all the electronic controllers.

22:14 All the software, cloud connectivity, infotainment systems. There is very little we don't do. Just because we can And we can improve on what is already out there. And it's amazing he never says this, but thank God I was actually watching the screen.

22:29 Because imprinted on one of the parts they make is one of my favorite Phrases and sentences. From all this research on him. It is impossible to lead by following. Therefore.

22:41 I am different. And you go back to what Steve Jobs said. motivations matter. You'll know if somebody actually cares about what they're doing. If they actually have love for what they're doing. And so in Christian's business, he's constantly trying to figure out how to increase power and decrease weight. I think the business equivalent of this is increased power is revenue, decrease weight is costs.

23:01 And I think there's an interesting analogy there, but listen to what he does. We weighed every nut and bolt on a scale. At first it always seems impossible to decrease more weight. But then we find a way to cut off a few millimeters of each screw. We could change out this aluminum bracket for a carbo fiber one. We could thin out this part of the body.

23:18 He's always finding opportunity for improvement. In fact, there's a great line in one of these interviews where it says Christian von Konus is above all A restless innovator. And he talks more about this. I studied how everyone else built cars. I figured out I could absorb what everyone else did and try to figure out why they did it a certain way.

23:34 So then I could figure out how I would do it my way. You can call that a crazy approach, but I think it set the tone and the mindset for how we operate. Come up with our own way of doing it. And we hope our way is better. I love. Technical solutions.

23:48 that make one thing do several functions to save weight. I love Details. He's asked again. The fact that he started a company

23:57 During a financial downturn. During a time where other car companies We're failing. This is what he said. Anything is possible if you really want to do it. If the market is dead, then I have to recreate it.

24:08 I will build something amazing. And someone will want to buy it. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. And you're willing to sacrifice anything normal about life. My philosophy is in the end we're all dead anyway.

24:21 So I try really hard. To work my ass off. To make it work. When you have that mindset, you're unstoppable. What is the worst that could happen? I could live in a tent in the forest.

24:33 And so he talks about the fact that he's making all these parts, you know, they're crafting their own seeds. They're sculpting their own manifolds. They're building their own engines. And he says, Was I schooled in engineering? No. Did I have a manufacturing background?

24:45 No. Did I have access to unlimited funds or a factory that could turn on my designs? No. What I had was a friend with a garage and a passion for cars. I had no choice.

24:58 But to build What I thought was the best car. I can make by hand. This guy just gets me fired up. Before I get back into this incredible story, I need to tell you about two tools. that I highly recommend that you should be using for your business. The first one is Vanta.

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27:04 And you can do that by going to collateral dot com. So let's go back to the very beginning of Konexic's company where he's finding out a way to finance this. It takes him two years to build a prototype. So he has two hundred he made two hundred thousand dollars, he had two hundred thousand dollars of his own from doing the trading company as he uses that as seed money, starts going through that rapidly. The next year his father loans him another three hundred thousand dollars. This is what he said. My father didn't know it then But he o would over the next few years invest his life savings of about two million dollars.

27:31 Naturally. My mother freaked. Out. It is remarkable that his father did that because there's no way at that point in time it looked like the survival or the future success of the company.

27:42 Was a sure thing. A few years later, KoneSig is able to convince a group of about twenty investors These venture capitalists, they invest another two million dollars into his company. He would also finance it by giving shares of the company to some suppliers instead of cash. Now much later on when they start making more money, was interesting because you can probably tell this guy's obsessed with control.

28:01 He actually buys back shares from his investors. Using the cash flow of the company. And this is what he said, the ethos of the company. has always been all the money we make, we throw it back into the cars. Because that is our best investment.

28:15 Now in the early days of the company, the headquarters is this renovated farm building that had a thatched roof. The entire building is going to go up in flames. This happens on a Saturday, but everybody's still working, so they were actually Able to get most of their prototypes and their tooling out.

28:32 Before everything burned. This wind up being a blessing in disguise because the Swedish government then offers Them space at a recently decommissioned airbase. He just had to move. the company to this area,'cause I guess the area around the airbase

28:46 had really low employments. And so the Swedish government was trying to entice companies to move there to hopefully hire the people living around that area. And so you think about and you think about his idea of the show must go on, you know. You're

29:00 Her headquarters burns down in a fire. probably the worst thing that happened to your company up until that point and yet it winds up becoming a blessing in disguise. So he says our factory is a former fighter jet squadron hanger. Wheat and this is the the benefit. We can it's it looks really cool. So we can test twenty four seven whenever we want.

29:15 With very little planning. They're using the former fighter jet runways to test their cars. As soon as we come up with an idea for an engine tweak, a gearbox Break pads, aerodynamics, whatever. We can just go out and test. Again, this is James Dyson, Jeremy Fry.

29:29 That is quite unusual even for a large car manufacturer to have that opportunity. This is really shaped. What we are doing. It is one of the reasons our cars can be so extreme as they are. Anytime we can anytime we want, we can test. Then he talks about the advantages. Remember everything's like you're going up against all these incumbents.

29:45 They have heritage, they have money. And he he thinks actually being a smaller founder led companies a huge advantage. If we come up with an idea, there is no one stopping us. We have the freedom of trying things that would be difficult in a bigger organization. And so he's giving the tour.

29:59 Where all the people work and this is what I mentioned earlier, how everything's organized. He's listing out all of these different departments making different things that are right next to each other. So mechanical engineering, transmission. Engines.

30:12 Body work, chassis, carbon fiber, simulation, electronic software, they all sit in the same place. This sounds exactly like Elon. We want our engineers to be close to the parts they develop. Everything is tied together. And so when you watch these videos, All the people making it They can actually see where the cars are assembled. Their offices are right above where the cars are being assembled. You can see it with your own eyes.

30:34 Then he goes back to Demanding difference. This is a genius of marketing, and I think it also is tied to the fact that, you know, if you love what you do, you don't want to just make me two products. The cars need to stand out. They need to have unique features and functions. To be lighter, stronger, and more exciting. The only way to achieve that is going into the depths and extremes.

30:53 In as many areas of the product as possible. That is his quote, and the way he does this, the way he transfers that belief into the company, you see it. He walks around, he's looking at everything. He's talking to everybody. He's saying this is not good enough. Why do we do this?

31:07 Why do we do that? Let's redo that. Let's aim for higher. There's a bunch of other hypercar manufacturers and founders in these documentaries. One of them is Pagani. And he hits on the importance of differentiation. He's describing Konaseg. He's like, This is this is a guy with huge passion.

31:22 And one of the things that you see is because all these brands are Most of them are founder led, even if the founders are are getting older now. But he says all these brands of hypercars have their own purpose. He's speaking to the differentiation of not only what he's making at Pagani, but what Koniseg is making at KoneSec. He says they put their names on the cars for a reason. It is personal to them. Christian von Konisek is personally involved in every step of the process.

31:46 And you go back to him describing in all these interviews, you'll hear him talk about every little detail of the car. In one case, the interviewer says, I'm getting goosebumps from your passion. And your unbelievable talent for details. Passion is infectious. It doesn't even matter I'm not a car guy. I frankly don't even give a shit. But now I want a cone sec just because I know what goes into it.

32:06 And by telling people how your product is made, what goes into it, it makes them it may it increases the value in the buyer's eyes. And so he he does this over and over again. He says the entire car is made out of carbon fiber. We have the most carbon fiber intense road car on the planet. That makes it lighter, stronger, stiffer than any other car. We use the most

32:24 We only use the most extreme type of carbon fiber material available. Which is called prepeg. It is the same that is used in Formula One. Fighter jets and spaceships. We wouldn't be here if we were aiming for second.

32:38 Position. So then KoneSeg describes the type of people that he hires. super dedicated people that bring all their energy and love into getting this done. This is now one of the people he hired describing him. He's the guy that thinks nothing is impossible.

32:52 That's how he works. Working for him is not for everyone. He puts a lot of pressure on you. He has high expectations. The product needs to meet a very high standard. Another employee hits on what I just referenced. You buy a story.

33:07 You buy a dream that we try to create. And how effective is this? When he the now this happens all the time, but even in the first few years. They're not doing huge runs. Some models I think they only make like twenty, maybe like sixty. But because the storytelling is so good. Because the communication is so good.

33:24 Kona Seg's entire run. Of some models. Would sell out. Sight unseen. One of the things that his employees talk about that is so attractive is that you're working for someone who deeply cares.

33:37 This is Kone Seg, this is Christian from Koniseg Describing His feelings when he sees a car is done. It's so emotional. I just want to get in and drive it. That's all I can say. It gives us fantastic feedback. I know what has gone into it.

33:51 I know this is so for real. Another person describing him. Christian has more driven than his cars. Challenge. is his constant companion. He is a man with many rivals.

34:01 But only one enemy. Compromise. He is One of the things I think was so attractive And so interesting and kind of filled me with energy and inspiration this week.

34:11 Is I love people that are unapologetically In pursuit. Christian von Konuseg is unapologetically in pursuit of greatness. He has a straight line, perfection. is a moving

34:22 Target. We put so much passion and energy and time into every little molecule of our cars. I believe That is what gives us the right to exist. In this very tough market.

34:33 We try to leave nothing to chance. We put our best effort into every aspect. That that that line. I believe that's what gives us the right to exist in this very tough market is excellent. it's worth taking a few moments to think about what is giving you the right to ex to exist in the market that you're competing in. And what you could be doing better.

34:52 To answer that question. That is a very powerful idea to me. At this price level. I've heard all kinds of rumors. Yeah, yeah. Some of these things change hands on the private markets, so it's the there there's it's just rumor. But anywhere from like two

35:05 Million to like seventeen million. I think people paid for one of his cars. And so he talks about this at the at this price level. Everything has to be beautiful and at the same time cannot sacrifice performance. At this competition level, there are no excuses. It has to be perfect.

35:20 So we are trying as hard as we can. We set the bar super high. Otherwise there's no reason to do it. Keep in mind what I am reading to you. These this comes from

35:32 A dozen different sources. Spread across. A decade and a half at least. This is what I mentioned having drinks with the the the very uh well known and successful investor. And what he said about the best founder I ever worked with. He just executed on the same thing from day one.

35:46 Day after day, month after month, decade after decade. I see the same thing in Christian von Konac. He goes back to this. Comfort makes you dumb. Why are we doing this? It is so hard. Why are we doing it? We're doing it so you have something to tell your grandchildren about. That is literally

36:02 Bezos says this exact same thing. We did this in a small town in Sweden in basically a potato field. We put a stake down in the ground. And said this is what we are going to do. And we did it.

36:15 And in one of these interviews, he's asked this question, would you ascribe your work ethic to your passion for building cars? Or was discipline ingrained in you from your parents? He says a little bit of both, but perhaps more from the first. Already in the early stages of building Kone Seg, I understood the value and importance of perseverance. This is one of my favorite things he ever said.

36:33 No matter what it takes. And regardless if there's any light at the end of the tunnel. You need to keep on walking where other people might have stopped. That is what will make the difference. I'm gonna repeat that no matter what it takes, and regardless if there's any light at the end of the tunnel, you need to keep on walking where other people might have stopped. That is what makes all the difference. I am not your typical disciplined guy.

36:53 I'm more of a creative persona. That can focus on many different things. At the same time. But I do possess a certain level of perseverance. Now this is very fascinating. He's asked a follow up. What makes a great leader in your opinion? I guess there are many different types of leaders. As for myself, I don't know if I would call myself a great leader necessarily.

37:10 I am probably more of an inspiring persona. Who runs fast in the direction I want to go. and pave the way and help out. More than being a strategic leader in the conventional Sense.

37:22 one thing that happened that that greatly benefited him. is the fact that he says, I've remember he's thirty over thirty years into building this company. I have never lost the passion over the years. I think I had no choice but But to build a car.

37:36 KoneSeg has no conventional sense of where the boundaries are. Or what should and shouldn't be done when designing an ultra high performance car. This is what he says, I always ask the question why? And when I get an answer I ask, so why is that? So

37:51 you if you've listened to this for a long time, you understand that James Dyson is the number one person I wanted to meet. He's um undoubtedly my hero. I've read his first autobiography five out five times, I've read a second one Two or three times. He wrote a frickin encyclopedia about the history of great inventions. I've read that and marked it up just like any other book. And I just spent several hours with him.

38:09 It could not have gone better. We recorded this incredible conversation which should be out soon. It's not gonna be on this this podcast feed, so make sure you're following the the just search of David Centerer. In whatever listening to this on you can follow. It'll be out this in in one week. But this One of the most interesting things I don't even think I understood by re re you know, I've spent

38:27 What? Two hundred hours in the mind of James Dyson, something like that, it's a c crazy amount of time. When when Konaseg says I just always ask the question why? And then when I get the answer I ask, so why is that? What what James said on the the podcast and we got to talk uh after too. It's just like his entire driving principle is very simple. He just looks at a product and like

38:45 Why can't this be better? And then he makes it better. And then he looked at it again and goes. Why can't this be better? And then he makes it better.

38:52 And he just does it over and over again. He never interrupted the compounding for forty five years. I see the the same thing in Conaseg I saw in Dyson. And what ties them together is this like This demanding difference. He goes into this.

39:06 That he doesn't see a reason to always do things differently, but if if there's a chance at taking a challenge in a different way, a better way, then he strives to achieve it. I could have made my life easier. If I don't need half the strangest. But innovation. Along with performance and function is what drives me.

39:23 And he's willing to change. So Uh in in in twenty years, the first twenty years, they built like two hundred and fifty cars. And these cars are constantly, you know, taking all the speed records and all just the the when all these Guinness uh Guinness Book of World Records records But what's interesting is right now the company's actually gear up in the last few years. They're gonna build uh one point five times as many cars in the next three years. as it has in the past twenty.

39:48 Very similar to Todd Graves and Raising Keynes. He's been running his business for almost thirty years. He's opening more stores in year thirty. than he ever he's going faster in your thirty than he ever has. To the degree that I have any influence over anybody doing anything in the world. It's this.

40:02 Find what you love to do, find what you're compelled to do and Don't stop. There's so much interesting value that occurs twenty, thirty, forty years into the future. James Dyson is seventy eight and he's still at it every day. He's still as passionate and fired up. At seventy eight, as he was at forty five.

40:19 At thirty two. How many people get there? So many people stop. Let's go back. I wasn't even thinking about taking uh tying these two things together. Think about what Kone Sek said earlier. No matter what it takes, and regardless of there's any light at the end of your tunnel, you need to keep on walking where other people might have stopped.

40:35 That is what will make all the difference. How many freaking people are gonna stop before you're thirty? Almost everybody. Almost everybody. I love these stories. I just love these stories. And so then the last thing Is this interview.

40:46 And it's it's really interesting, you know,'cause you you you look at these people and I've been fortunate enough to talk to a bunch of them and you think, Oh, like They're wealthy beyond all, you know, their dreams, their their company's wildly successful, like they must be happy and content. She's like, man, no, we're humans. We all have these same emotions. You're gonna have the same motions you have now forever. You can also get better at managing them and t and you know, the what he was saying earlier, flipping A problem r rename a problem into a challenge and

41:11 And actually seeking discomfort because I think that's like what we're doing. Like why would we be doing any of this stuff? So there's this interview he does where he sets uh this this land record. I think the car went like I don't know, like two hundred and eighty seven miles an hour or something like that. It's just crazy. And so they they talk about the future of his company, right? Now we're much we're twenty five, maybe twenty eight years into the history of the company. and how nervous he was leading up to the speed record. But there's just a couple of things from these interviews that I interview that I thought was interesting.

41:36 And it the way it started was fascinating'cause no one was prepared for the disruption Kone Seg would have a on the supercar segment when the company first emerged From Sweden's dark and mysterious forest in nineteen ninety four. Neither was the world prepared for the sheer intellect and force of will.

41:51 of Kona sick's founder. We sat down with Christian two weeks after one of his creations and a Garrett R S broke five world records. including becoming the fastest production vehicle on the planet. I love how Kone Sick started this, he says we've been chasing the demons of speed. I've always wanted to build my own sports car since I was a young boy.

42:07 But when I started, no one was asking for a Swedish supercar. I had to solve the problem of how can I make people interested. What came across as the correct strategy, but may not have been the easiest road to travel, was to outdo everyone else in what a sports car can do. The person interviewing says, We remember the first time we saw one of your cars and said, Whoa, what is that? Christian replies. That's exactly the reaction we were going for. Again, I'm sorry to bring up Dyson so many times. The parallels are so obvious. It's like jumping off the page and hitting me right in the freaking face.

42:36 We are now this is very fascinating. We are living during the times where there's the most opportunity for technology to be integrated into cars in more interesting ways than ever before. I just love it. This era is the perfect storm to create extreme interesting and unusual things if you go back to The episode you said for episode four or five.

42:55 uh how Rockefeller worked. One of the things that R had in common with Christian von Conneg with most of the great founders is When they're starting their business, they find ways. Rockefeller would leverage technology to build a business that was not possible before the invention of that technology. Christian saying the same exact thing here. He's asked another question.

43:12 Has anyone ever tried to stop you in the company's history and say, Christian, this is way too crazy. We can't do that. Christian says, Yeah, I've heard that a couple of times. But I know why we are here. I know why we are where we are, and it's because we did these kind of over the top things. We did them well.

43:27 And that's who we are. We can't change. From one day to the other. We are here to push boundaries. And that's what I like in the end.

43:37 Sometimes it's frustrating. And painful. But that's who we are. One thing if you listen to the conversation I had with Dyson and he said he said right to my face, which was very fascinating. And I've been thinking a lot about the last couple of days.

43:48 He says risk has become a thing I have to live with. I need to live on the knife's edge all the time. It doesn't make me unhappy, don't get me wrong. But I like living for the moment. In danger.

44:01 Christian Von Konex says, I'm here to push boundaries. That's what I like. Sometimes it's frustrating. Sometimes it's painful. Бучура Лайв. And if you that's who you are, you have to be who you are.

44:13 And the final question he's asked is Where do you see the company ten years from now? And he says that's a tough one. I never say that we will have this amount of turnover. meaning revenue, or this amount of cars sold. But I expect us to have moved forward technically and continue to make inspiring and exciting products. Most likely sports cars are perhaps a spin off of what we do now.

44:30 I also hope That we will have grown a little bit. Because there are only two natural states for a company. And that is either growing or shrinking. And I'd rather grow

44:40 Then shrink. Everyone thinks That I'm living my dream. And I agree. And that is where I'll leave it. If you wanna see all the sources, I'll list them below. You can watch all these videos, you can watch the documentaries.

44:52 I already mentioned a few times. I would really appreciate if you get any value out of my work. If you would please follow The new podcast I made. Nothing's changing the founders. I'm gonna do founders till I die. I'm gonna be reading these books. But I I love this. I'm obsessed with this. You just heard me talk about over and over again this episode. But I'm also Completely addicted.

45:08 and inspired and thrilled to sit down with some of the top entrepreneurs in the world and have these intense Multi hour conversations. Those conversations moving forward will only be available on the other feed. So whatever you're listening to this on. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever.

45:22 Just search David Sunra. You will find my big giant head. And you could follow that podcast feed. I've had some incredible conversations. I've loved them all. I would listen to every single one. I promise you, I think it's a good use of your time.

45:34 And please do not miss. The James Dyson one. That is coming out soon. Search and follow David Center wherever you're listening to this. I really appreciate your time and I really appreciate

45:43 Your support.

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