#7 How to be a vulnerable and authentic leader | Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten - a podcast by Agnes Bilik

Boris is a successful serial entrepreneur, who started his first company, V3 Redirect Services, in 1997. Two years later he sold the company to Furtunecity for 21 million gulden (10 million Euro) which he mainly got payed in stock. As a result of the dot-com crash his stock became worthless and he lost all the money. Over the next few years he founded companies like HubHop.com and TwitterCounter.com. In 2006, Boris and his co-founder Patrick de Laive were looking for a tech event to showcase their new start-up. When they couldn’t find one that checked all the boxes they decided to host their own. As they were organizing things, they soon realized they needed somewhere to promote the conference, and that’s how The Next Web was launched. The Next Web (TNW) is with 7,2 million monthly visits one of the world’s largest online publications that delivers an international perspective on the latest news about Internet technology, business and culture. Part of it is an annual series of conferences, focused on new technology and start-up companies in Europe.  

What we talk about 🤔:

[1:38] The role of childhood experience in later behavior

[8:33] The change of schools over time

[12:20] Why being dyslexic is a great skill

[13:24] The start of his first company V3.com redirect services

[18:58] Personal experiences after loosing everything  

[26:26] Why it is important to have young people in your company

[28:40] Obstacles at the start of TNW  

[34:50] Misstep during a high profile trip

[44:59] How to embrace failure

[52:52] Personal experience of the majority stake of the Financial Times in TNW

Contact 📝:  

E-Mail: boris@tnw.co 

Twitter: @boris

Instagram: @boris 

LinkedIn: @borisvvz 

This episode is sponsored by SignRequest – the easy and secure electronic signature solution 

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