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OpenAI has just invested around 6.5 billion dollars. No, not in a new AI model or in code. But in people. In imagination, taste, diversity, originality and human experience. In other words, things that AI cannot achieve despite all the advances.
While many companies are trying to replace people with AI in order to reduce cost and raise predictability in production matters, OpenAI – the industry leader in the AI sector – is doing the opposite.
This shows what really matters: It is not technological strength alone that determines progress, but how we use it together. The challenges of our time – from decarbonization and global crises to the question of how we deal with AI responsibly – are simply far too complex to be tackled individually. We need people from different disciplines to think, design and implement together. After all, our greatest task remains to build a world worth living in. And that can only be done together.
Fine. But where do you start? The best place is where people, ideas and industries come together. Beyond the big tech capitals.
The points where many partnerships between start-ups and Mittelstand regularly fail: speed, expectations, corporate culture. Start-ups want to scale up quickly, try things out and get things done.
Josef Schindler from smart2i Industry Intelligence actually sees the differences primarily in speed: “With start-ups, even failure should be fast. “But I don’t think fail fast and stay stable are contradictory at all.”
Mittelstand likes to be a little more cautious, with a clear proof of concept and longer decision-making processes. Please don’t misunderstand: “more cautious” does not mean “worse”. It’s the mix that counts. The old learn from the young. The young learn from the old. And companies need the next generation. “You have to make sure that you remain attractive and future-oriented as an employer,” says Eva Valentina Kempf, Shareholder & CEO Henkelhausen Holding.
Collaboration works when it is meant seriously. When the “crazy ones” from the start-ups don’t try to do it the American way and just talk unicorn blah blah, says Lena Weirauch from aiomatic. On the contrary: even as the colorful dog in the team, you have to get involved with your partner and adapt a little.
And just like in real life, what is important when start-ups and traditional companies work together? That’s right! Communication. “And at eye level,” says Jasper Roll from Haufe Group Ventures. “Because if expectations are not clarified, failure is inevitable.”
Lena Weirauch, for example, wanted an investor for aiomatic with whom she could actually work together and from whose expertise her startup could benefit.
Thomas Paulus from KSB, her investor and partner: “You really have to talk a lot to bring the different cultures together.”
Jasper Roll from Haufe Group Ventures is of the same opinion: “If the team doesn’t work, everything else won’t work either.”
“Above all, don’t think in silos,” says Veit Brücker, Head of DACH & South Europe Asana.
And last but not least, it’s good old trust that helps collaboration. “This and personal contacts play a role more than ever,” says Alexandra Kohlmann, Managing Director Rowe Group.
Everyone is talking about young and old working together. And at events like Hinterland of Things or re:publica 2025, this diversity is finally being put into practice. At re:publica, Federal Digital Minister Dr. Karsten Wildberger said that we need spaces where people from different generations can come together. Because in times of digital bubbles and growing social division, we need collaboration, not divisive models such as Generation X, Y and Z.
The decisive factor here is that it is not about symbolic cooperation, but about sustainability, efficiency and new business models: all of this will only be possible if experts from different fields, people from different cultures and old and young stubborn minds are willing to learn from each other.
OpenAI has shown it with billions, Bielefeld with attitude: the key to real innovation does not lie in code alone, but in the collaboration of smart, curious, responsible people.
This is exactly what the Hinterland of Things and its organizer, the Founders Foundation, make possible: a network in which ideas are not only thought, but made together. And that is also what the Mittelstand needs now: the courage to connect. Between tech and tradition. Between vision and implementation. Between man and machine.
© 2024 Hinterland of Things
