ROCKET INTERNET CEO

Oliver Samwer - "This burn-out thing is not for me"

On the start-up conference in Berlin Noah IT entrepreneur Oliver Samwer praised the founder-potential of the city. A great future he predicted the portal Westwing.

By Jan Hollitzer

● Westwing can be as large as Ikea

● commitment to Berlin: Berlin is such a great founders University

● "I'm actually baker"

After Oliver Samwer was rarely seen lately in the public, the Berlin IT-entrepreneurs has been interviewed for the third time at the Noah-Conference in a row. He pointed to the panel discussion in the Kreuzberg Tempodrom with organizer Marco Rodzynek as team. This has brought for the first time from London to Berlin to Noah.

However rodzynek assured that his guest the questions did not know before. And in fact, showed Samwer Although surprised, but mostly very good mood, as it even went to this direct question: "Did you have a burnout, or have you ever thought about working but no one as much as you?" asked Rodnyzek. Inspired was the question of Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of the online newspaper The Huffington Post. She had spoken the night before the dinner Speaker on the subject. Here Samwer him had come spontaneously to mind. However, this cool answered: "This burn-out thing is not for me and I do not know much about it.."

Rather, he stressed, the recipe for successful entrepreneurs: ". You have to be the first in the business and establish a critical distance from the number two then it comes to the details and the focus," Samwer said, adding in the guided interview in English. "It is all about hardwork, thinking a little bit smarter, run faster and so on."

When asked about the business with the greatest potential for the future of the Star of the start-up scene lifted the shopping portal Westwing for home accessories and furniture out: "Westwing can be as large as Ikea are" believes Samwer and teased by a lot of laughter to the Swedish furniture store: "You drive for kilometers , eating Swedish meatballs, come home and are flat. That was your Saturday after a hard week. As you would rather go back to work ", he sketched a typical day at Ikea. In his view, one could have the comfortable yet. However, he conceded a wink: "But I must soon go back and play with the children there."

A few sentences got the entrepreneur via the "Rocket Tower", the former GSW high-rise at the Rudi Dutschke Strasse in Kreuzberg, is drawn into the Rocket Internet. "The fact that we have set up headquarters here, a clear commitment to Berlin and the industry is here. (...) We can not have a campus, but we have a skyscraper-campus with great companies," says the 41-year-old to new Location. Half of the house use Rocket and the other half will be rented.

For Samwer Berlin is now a University of founders, on which one could be proud of. The city has become a digital center, which he would not refer to it as the epicenter of Europe. "This city had no real industry before we came. Now startups are the largest employer next to the government," Samwer said.

When asked if he was Entrepreneur or investors, he said: "I am a baker and I bake my cake with three ingredients:.. Idea, people, capital Therefore my life revolves I am not an investor, I'm actually a Baker.. -Entrepreneur. "

Samwer, who had recently withdrawn more from the public, presented itself at the Noah focused, secure and above all in Plauderlaune.

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