Impact’21 | Jan Geldmacher

Transcript of Alan Olsen interviewing Jan Geldmacher for the American Dreams Show at Impact’21:

Alan Olsen:  I’m here today with Jan Geldmacher. Jan, Welcome.

Jan Geldmacher: Thank you, Alan.

Alan Olsen: So Jan, you’ve had extensive experience primarily in the phone telecommunication industry. And, and so give us an update what you’re working on today. And what brings you to Impact Global?

Jan Geldmacher: Yeah, well, look, I’ve been in the telecommunication industry for probably more than 25 years now. And I’ve learned a lot about telecommunication, but also learn a lot about sales and marketing and product management and all the things that, you know, are important for companies. And I’ve learned after, you know, switching sides, so to say, as an independent board member today, and as a consultant, and an operating partner to some companies, that all I’ve learned in my last 25 years, I can apply with other industries as well. And now I’m kind of, you know, stretching a little bit from IT through robotics, into AI into, you know, hardware, I also consult companies and still in the telecommunication space, but I have diversified a little bit, which is super exciting.

Alan Olsen: You know, the whole transformation of the telecommunication industry has been phenomenal. I go back to the breakup of the Mabell. Yeah. And, and it just kind of set the stage for the internet coming in and taking space. Where do you see the next phase going now?

Jan Geldmacher: Look, you know, especially the wireless world and the mobile world, we have seen a, an enormous development over the last 25 years. So every 10 years round about, we see a new generation of wireless technology coming out. Recently, we have launched 5G, as you know, in the meantime, 97% of the world’s population, think about that 97% have somehow a mobile subscription, that there’s more than 7 billion mobile phones in the world, right? There’s a population of 7.9 billion around the world. So there’s more mobile phones than there are toothbrushes in the world, which is amazing what happened over the last, you know, decades and that sector. Now we are a at a time where 5G comes to the game. And in 5G is a little bit different than the first 4G’s that we have experienced. 5G is more B-B driven, it’s more B-B-C driven, it’s more applications and business models that are evolving. On the back of the features that 5G brings, for example, low latency, it’s not so much about download speed, it’s not so much about upload speed, it’s all the sudden it’s about low latency. It’s about densification of wireless, it’s about creating reliable, and 100% available networks. And with that, we’re seeing, you know, new business models evolve, we’re seeing, you know, that basically everything that can be connected will be connected. And through the combination with computing, and edge computing, we will see, for example, robotics, business models evolve, where robots can work hand in glove with humans, where we see autonomous applications coming up where, you know, for example, autonomous traffic, where, you know, pedestrians, cars, public transportations, communicate with each other, which, you know, easiest way to run autonomous traffic in the future very much. We see predictive maintenance applications, all of that is more, more or less B-B driven and B-B-C driven and that’s, I think the big change we are facing right now.

Alan Olsen: You know this whole industry is just transformative.

Jan Geldmacher: Absolutely. You’re absolutely saying Think about it, when, when you when you think about, you know, what’s, what low latency means. You know, the, the eyesight, the eye is connected to the brain directly, that it’s not going through the spinal cord, and the eyesight connects to the brain in 10 milliseconds round trip. So in order to, to actually apply that kind of latency to, to the industry, it means basically, that you can have robots and humans work in the same kind of reaction time, which is an amazing, you know, progress that we’re seeing 4G could do 50, 60, 70 milliseconds, 5G can do 10 and less in the future.

Alan Olsen: COVID, How is that impacted? The industry?

Jan Geldmacher: Of course, very much. So I mean, we all learned how to how to use the technology even more intensively right. So you know, I personally have hired into jobs without ever having seen the people in person, you know, everything goes over a video conference. And of course, you know, I think we became much more efficient and effective, because we didn’t have to travel anymore, right? So we could, we could do meetings back to back the whole day, on into the night, which, which is, you know, which increased the effectiveness and efficiency. However, it also made us clear that, you know, technology is not everything. We also like to meet in person from time to time and I’m glad We are also back here in a in a face to face environment.

Alan Olsen: Well said well Jan, it’s been a pleasure visiting with you.

Jan Geldmacher: Thank you. Alan Thank you!

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com.  GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.

Alan L. Olsen, CPA, Wikipedia Bio

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