[Extract] "This is a story that no-one knows - I'll tell it to you because you're french" - Andrew Benedek - Anaergia - Z - a podcast by Antoine Walter

🎙️ Andrew Benedek is the Executive Chairman of Anaergia after having founded and led Zenon for 26 years. He's a former member of the IWA board and the inaugural recipient of the Lee Kwan Yew Prize.

There's a fine line between genius and madness. Between visionary and crazy. Between confidence and vanity.

So when we look back at Andrew Benedek's path, I can say he is a genius that was confident enough in his vision to stay true to it for two decades long while everyone told him he was mad. I mean, you can try to ignore the noise and the voices around you. 

But I'm often told on that microphone that the market never lies! And in fact, for 16 years, Zenon had no competition - which by extension, may mean Zenon had no market. 

Now put yourself in the shoes of a younger Andrew, in the late eighties, promoting membranes in wastewater treatment when almost no-one even believed, that this technology could make a dent in drinking water applications. Would you pivot? Would you give up? Or would you double down?

Of course, 40 years later, with MBR now a dominant wastewater treatment technology, it's hard to put the survivor bias aside. And we're probably all thankful to Andrew for not giving up.

But can we rationalize why Zenon succeeded against all the odds? 

If you're familiar with Paul O'Callaghan's concept of Crisis-Driven innovation, things suddenly start to make more sense. Indeed, as Andrew will explain in a jiffy, water scarcity was a crisis in the making, and this already in the 80s. And while only a hand full of visionaries had realized it, and aligned themselves to water reuse becoming mandatory, the setup existed.

Luck is not the decisive factor here. It's a skill, and you'll realize in a minute that this skill has not vanished and still fires up the now 78 Andrew Benedek.

Wanna listen to the full episode? Just type "S5E12 - How to be Alone, Early, Crazy but Actually Right: The History of Zenon"

You can also find here the full episode materials on the history of Zenon           

Further episodes of (don't) Waste Water!

Further podcasts by Antoine Walter

Website of Antoine Walter