What I got wrong at niiio.

Two mistakes cost me years. At their core, they were the same one.

In 2006, at our first company, I gave too many voting shares to investors.

I was young. The investors wanted a say, and that seemed fair to me. They put in money, they have a voice.

What I had not understood: they did not use their voice to move the company forward. They used it to protect their distributions.

Every decision that cost money in the short term and created value in the long term became a negotiation. Some never happened.

Capital and control are two different things. Whoever gives them away together sells more than he meant to sell.

That is why I advised Ina to use profit participation rights at Voyager. Investors share fully in the results. Not in the decisions. She is experienced enough to decide on her own.

The second mistake came fifteen years later.

The more companies I bought, the more I involved the acquired managing directors in decisions.

It sounded like integration. It was dilution.

Every time one person decided in the end, it worked. Every time I looked for consensus, it became slow and expensive.

• Asking for opinions is right. Creating the impression that there will be a vote is not.
• Leaving decision rights open after an acquisition extends the integration by quarters.
• Consensus is not a leadership style. It is the absence of a decision.

Next time I will do it the other way round.