who among you can say that they’ve
earned the right through the
contributions they have made to be born
a German British American or any other
citizen hands up if you feel that way
not a single hand thank you and who
amongst you would say that it was his or
her achievement to be born into a family
that could provide decent housing nice
food a good car probably and a very good
education who of you would say it’s his
achievement to have been born into such
a family hands up
again not a single hand I’m glad we can
all agree this early on into my talk you
can probably already tell where I’m
going with this most of us are aware
that we are very very lucky to be here
today at this wonderful conference it’s
pure luck a bit like a lottery if you
like we have not done a thing to earn
our passport not really we were just
given it after birth we didn’t even
realize at that age what it meant if the
dice had fallen differently we could all
well be floating around in a rubber boat
somewhere in the Mediterranean on the
run hoping for some kind of home whilst
we’ve all agreed but we haven’t done
anything for a prestigious position in
the global hierarchy we still put up
fences at our borders and have
helicopters patrolling them in order to
keep away all the others who have not
been as lucky as us so we’re trying
we all know that our governments even
had people drown today there’s a lot of
people in the Mediterranean having a big
big problem our governments don’t do
anything about it there are other people
on the run elsewhere we don’t do
anything even though we all know we
haven’t done anything for this lucky
position so I believe most of you would
agree that we are the winners of this
Russian Roulette of life we’ve been
really lucky it was a very lucky shot we
were dealt a good hand of course we have
trouble and work with family friends so
life isn’t always easy don’t get me
wrong I also have my issues but on the
whole relative to the position other
people are in we all have quite an easy
life well that’s not to say it’s your
fault
I’m not blaming anybody how could I I
mean you didn’t do anything for it so I
don’t want you to feel guilty feel bad
about it
not at all you didn’t do anything for
your privileged position and you
certainly didn’t force anybody else into
his troubled position so no feelings of
guilt necessary whatsoever but I think
it is important to remind ourselves more
often than we actually do of how lucky
we really are with what we’ve got the
problem with this is that we hardly ever
have time to do it we are so busy
driving in the car to work we hit the
horn when the person in front of us
doesn’t carry on quick enough when the
lights turn green we have trouble at
work there are other people who are
annoying so we have our little difficult
world and keep forgetting how really
really lucky we are after all and we
don’t think about this fundamental fact
very much I grew up in Hamburg my mother
was the headmaster of
local school and sankt pauli sampaoli at
the time it’s a part of Hamburg was a
very rough area that was 30 years ago
I’m getting old there were drugs there
was violence 98% of her children were
immigrants most of them didn’t speak any
German so she sent me to a different
school I went to push her area
hardly any immigrants you can see on the
pictures so I had a much easier start
but an important lesson came out from
all this because my mother decided to
take me on all her class trips so as a
very young child I was exposed to all
these refugee kids who weren’t as lucky
as I am and I saw that there was no just
reason for these kids not to have as
many opportunities as I do and have it
much much harder to somehow make it in
life the result was this I turned into
long had some Pauli fan who listen to
Rachel enstein at the time I stopped and
it was basically against most things and
rebelled a lot I didn’t understand why I
should just carry on the straight and
narrow go to school to university go to
work then build a house get married have
a nice career brush up my CV and then
die I mean don’t get me wrong I finished
my high school I went to university I’m
engaged to get married and I have a kid
on the way so I’m taking most of the
boxes myself so I’m not blaming anyone
who does all this but and I think this
is the major point just taking care of
my luxury world my good position would
make all these achievements feel very
empty if I don’t share anything with
anybody what do I really have if I
isolate
myself a lot it doesn’t feel right
at least it didn’t feel right to me when
I was younger I asked a lot of questions
about life I wanted to know where was I
before I was born what’s going to happen
to my grandfather after he dies all I
got was silence and I started getting a
reputation of being a little weird so it
seems we’ve really created a society in
which most people are so busy brushing
up their CVS in order to be competitive
on the market to sell themselves and
forget the most basic questions while
it’s doing this the most fundamental
answers are not there while people think
about they’ve what they’ve got to do
next year in order to be more popular on
the free market as a result of all this
I had to leave Europe that was when I
was 16 I asked my parents can I leave
Europe they were quite happy to let me
go daily they probably laughed when they
dropped me off at the airport the high
their venue they would have a break from
the Roscoe for a while and they did I
ended up staying and I finished my
school in Colombo in 1998 and I was
amazed by Sri Lanka it’s such an amazing
place
people are so happy they have so many
answers to so many different interesting
questions it really really changed a lot
while it was so amazing and while I I
saw that people really think about other
questions
I also saw major structural and economic
deficits people go needlessly blind
whilst they just need a 20-minute
operation on their eye they die of heart
diseases because they’re too low down on
the list they’re not enough doctors so
by the time you get your operation
you’re very likely to already be dead so
I wanted to know why are there these
vast differences in society in the
global economy where people like the Sri
Lankans are not stupid and I went on to
study I went to university and thought I
might find the answer in economics
psychology and religious studies I went
to the UK studied for a couple of years
I went to Germany and then I ended up at
the Sorbonne University in Paris where I
finished my studies in 2006 I had a
hunch that economics might be the answer
when I finished studies I was sure of
one thing
I didn’t want to be a businessman I
didn’t want to work at the Stock
Exchange
because I saw that the people working in
this field weren’t really solving the
issues I had seen they were contributing
to them and building them up big time so
why I wanna why would I want to be an
entrepreneur myself when I see that
businesspeople and economics are ruining
a lot of things on this planet it was
all about shareholder value maximization
it was all about profits that wasn’t for
me as a result I decided to not go for
economics and I chose to join an
international aid organization I started
working for the German government in
2006 right after studies guess where I
ended up Sri Lanka the tsunami was still
having the aftermath and I was trying to
somehow contribute with my privileged
position to help the people in the
country where I grew up at least for a
couple of years but after a very very
short time I realized that most of it I
would
be sitting at the Hilton Hotel working
for the German government for GI zet I
probably had more cake in the first
couple of weeks than I ever had in my
life before I had vast desert I was
sitting by the swimming pool and this
was meant to be the development aid job
so I realized very quickly that there’s
a problem here and the problem in my
mind was that they didn’t earn the money
themselves they had no real relation to
that what they were spending also there
was no general public there was no
competition there was nobody really
checking on the spendings so they
started wasting a lot of money it was
very efficient at all and then I was
back at square one three months into my
job I quit so I wasn’t there very long
at all and I had to reconsider what I
could do with all the privileges I’ve
got and I decided to found a company the
seemingly most absurd choice I could
have made but I realized that the
company is not the problem
it’s what you use it for it’s a bit like
a kitchen knife you can stab somebody
with it if you like but you could also
make dinner for friends so it’s what you
do it’s not what the system is the
system is actually quite useful it’s
very efficient it controls you through
competition and this is when I decided
to found a company lemonade and charity
what we do is we produce soft drinks
iced teas and lemonade’s and teabags and
with each product sold we support people
in the growing regions so you buy a
charity red you support somebody in
South Africa where the product comes
from you buy charity green you support
somebody in Sri Lanka and so on and so
forth same counts for lemonade earning
the money myself I was sure I would be
wasting a lot less nobody would be
flying around business class because
just seemed very wrong going around
telling people hey you buy this product
and you support somebody and at the same
time flying around in ice Jets and
having dinner at the Hilton that was not
going to happen in our case so after a
long search I found a way through
setting up this company of using my
privileged position to somehow
contribute to others to somehow help
others in their less lucky position I’m
not advising you to start a company not
at all that’s not the point of my talk
I’m just showing you that I’ve realized
that I was so lucky and in such a
privileged position from the very start
that has somehow wanted to do something
with this privilege we agreed in the
very beginning but we haven’t done
anything for our very start we haven’t
done anything for our passport we
haven’t done anything for the parents
while we have all agreed on this it
still remains an open question as to why
we should support others and here are
the last few questions I have when you
are through the city
you see somebody smile and laugh do you
prefer that or do you prefer when you
I would think the answer is obvious you
prefer seeing somebody laugh and smile
even when it’s not your next-door
neighbor you don’t want to see somebody
run over by a bus even when it’s
somebody who’s not your family not your
friend so we all agree that we are
somehow connected you feel sad when you
see somebody cry you feel sad when you
see somebody run over by a bus so what
could we do that with this insight what
could we do with the fact that we’ve
just answered that we were just lucky
from the very start and we have realized
and all agreed that we like people being
more happy and my point is that if we
put the two together and say hey let’s
remember this for a minute a day we
would already make a very very big
change to our behavior you spend so much
time on social media we waste so much
time with nonsense we all know this if
we are being honest and if you remember
a single minute hey I’m such a lucky guy
or such a lucky lady and it’s so nice to
be nice then I think a lot of the
problems would already be solved
automatically we would see things
differently we would welcome people who
are refugees because we know they didn’t
do anything wrong
they just happened to have the wrong
Passport thank you
[Applause] [Music]
earned the right through the
contributions they have made to be born
a German British American or any other
citizen hands up if you feel that way
not a single hand thank you and who
amongst you would say that it was his or
her achievement to be born into a family
that could provide decent housing nice
food a good car probably and a very good
education who of you would say it’s his
achievement to have been born into such
a family hands up
again not a single hand I’m glad we can
all agree this early on into my talk you
can probably already tell where I’m
going with this most of us are aware
that we are very very lucky to be here
today at this wonderful conference it’s
pure luck a bit like a lottery if you
like we have not done a thing to earn
our passport not really we were just
given it after birth we didn’t even
realize at that age what it meant if the
dice had fallen differently we could all
well be floating around in a rubber boat
somewhere in the Mediterranean on the
run hoping for some kind of home whilst
we’ve all agreed but we haven’t done
anything for a prestigious position in
the global hierarchy we still put up
fences at our borders and have
helicopters patrolling them in order to
keep away all the others who have not
been as lucky as us so we’re trying
we all know that our governments even
had people drown today there’s a lot of
people in the Mediterranean having a big
big problem our governments don’t do
anything about it there are other people
on the run elsewhere we don’t do
anything even though we all know we
haven’t done anything for this lucky
position so I believe most of you would
agree that we are the winners of this
Russian Roulette of life we’ve been
really lucky it was a very lucky shot we
were dealt a good hand of course we have
trouble and work with family friends so
life isn’t always easy don’t get me
wrong I also have my issues but on the
whole relative to the position other
people are in we all have quite an easy
life well that’s not to say it’s your
fault
I’m not blaming anybody how could I I
mean you didn’t do anything for it so I
don’t want you to feel guilty feel bad
about it
not at all you didn’t do anything for
your privileged position and you
certainly didn’t force anybody else into
his troubled position so no feelings of
guilt necessary whatsoever but I think
it is important to remind ourselves more
often than we actually do of how lucky
we really are with what we’ve got the
problem with this is that we hardly ever
have time to do it we are so busy
driving in the car to work we hit the
horn when the person in front of us
doesn’t carry on quick enough when the
lights turn green we have trouble at
work there are other people who are
annoying so we have our little difficult
world and keep forgetting how really
really lucky we are after all and we
don’t think about this fundamental fact
very much I grew up in Hamburg my mother
was the headmaster of
local school and sankt pauli sampaoli at
the time it’s a part of Hamburg was a
very rough area that was 30 years ago
I’m getting old there were drugs there
was violence 98% of her children were
immigrants most of them didn’t speak any
German so she sent me to a different
school I went to push her area
hardly any immigrants you can see on the
pictures so I had a much easier start
but an important lesson came out from
all this because my mother decided to
take me on all her class trips so as a
very young child I was exposed to all
these refugee kids who weren’t as lucky
as I am and I saw that there was no just
reason for these kids not to have as
many opportunities as I do and have it
much much harder to somehow make it in
life the result was this I turned into
long had some Pauli fan who listen to
Rachel enstein at the time I stopped and
it was basically against most things and
rebelled a lot I didn’t understand why I
should just carry on the straight and
narrow go to school to university go to
work then build a house get married have
a nice career brush up my CV and then
die I mean don’t get me wrong I finished
my high school I went to university I’m
engaged to get married and I have a kid
on the way so I’m taking most of the
boxes myself so I’m not blaming anyone
who does all this but and I think this
is the major point just taking care of
my luxury world my good position would
make all these achievements feel very
empty if I don’t share anything with
anybody what do I really have if I
isolate
myself a lot it doesn’t feel right
at least it didn’t feel right to me when
I was younger I asked a lot of questions
about life I wanted to know where was I
before I was born what’s going to happen
to my grandfather after he dies all I
got was silence and I started getting a
reputation of being a little weird so it
seems we’ve really created a society in
which most people are so busy brushing
up their CVS in order to be competitive
on the market to sell themselves and
forget the most basic questions while
it’s doing this the most fundamental
answers are not there while people think
about they’ve what they’ve got to do
next year in order to be more popular on
the free market as a result of all this
I had to leave Europe that was when I
was 16 I asked my parents can I leave
Europe they were quite happy to let me
go daily they probably laughed when they
dropped me off at the airport the high
their venue they would have a break from
the Roscoe for a while and they did I
ended up staying and I finished my
school in Colombo in 1998 and I was
amazed by Sri Lanka it’s such an amazing
place
people are so happy they have so many
answers to so many different interesting
questions it really really changed a lot
while it was so amazing and while I I
saw that people really think about other
questions
I also saw major structural and economic
deficits people go needlessly blind
whilst they just need a 20-minute
operation on their eye they die of heart
diseases because they’re too low down on
the list they’re not enough doctors so
by the time you get your operation
you’re very likely to already be dead so
I wanted to know why are there these
vast differences in society in the
global economy where people like the Sri
Lankans are not stupid and I went on to
study I went to university and thought I
might find the answer in economics
psychology and religious studies I went
to the UK studied for a couple of years
I went to Germany and then I ended up at
the Sorbonne University in Paris where I
finished my studies in 2006 I had a
hunch that economics might be the answer
when I finished studies I was sure of
one thing
I didn’t want to be a businessman I
didn’t want to work at the Stock
Exchange
because I saw that the people working in
this field weren’t really solving the
issues I had seen they were contributing
to them and building them up big time so
why I wanna why would I want to be an
entrepreneur myself when I see that
businesspeople and economics are ruining
a lot of things on this planet it was
all about shareholder value maximization
it was all about profits that wasn’t for
me as a result I decided to not go for
economics and I chose to join an
international aid organization I started
working for the German government in
2006 right after studies guess where I
ended up Sri Lanka the tsunami was still
having the aftermath and I was trying to
somehow contribute with my privileged
position to help the people in the
country where I grew up at least for a
couple of years but after a very very
short time I realized that most of it I
would
be sitting at the Hilton Hotel working
for the German government for GI zet I
probably had more cake in the first
couple of weeks than I ever had in my
life before I had vast desert I was
sitting by the swimming pool and this
was meant to be the development aid job
so I realized very quickly that there’s
a problem here and the problem in my
mind was that they didn’t earn the money
themselves they had no real relation to
that what they were spending also there
was no general public there was no
competition there was nobody really
checking on the spendings so they
started wasting a lot of money it was
very efficient at all and then I was
back at square one three months into my
job I quit so I wasn’t there very long
at all and I had to reconsider what I
could do with all the privileges I’ve
got and I decided to found a company the
seemingly most absurd choice I could
have made but I realized that the
company is not the problem
it’s what you use it for it’s a bit like
a kitchen knife you can stab somebody
with it if you like but you could also
make dinner for friends so it’s what you
do it’s not what the system is the
system is actually quite useful it’s
very efficient it controls you through
competition and this is when I decided
to found a company lemonade and charity
what we do is we produce soft drinks
iced teas and lemonade’s and teabags and
with each product sold we support people
in the growing regions so you buy a
charity red you support somebody in
South Africa where the product comes
from you buy charity green you support
somebody in Sri Lanka and so on and so
forth same counts for lemonade earning
the money myself I was sure I would be
wasting a lot less nobody would be
flying around business class because
just seemed very wrong going around
telling people hey you buy this product
and you support somebody and at the same
time flying around in ice Jets and
having dinner at the Hilton that was not
going to happen in our case so after a
long search I found a way through
setting up this company of using my
privileged position to somehow
contribute to others to somehow help
others in their less lucky position I’m
not advising you to start a company not
at all that’s not the point of my talk
I’m just showing you that I’ve realized
that I was so lucky and in such a
privileged position from the very start
that has somehow wanted to do something
with this privilege we agreed in the
very beginning but we haven’t done
anything for our very start we haven’t
done anything for our passport we
haven’t done anything for the parents
while we have all agreed on this it
still remains an open question as to why
we should support others and here are
the last few questions I have when you
are through the city
you see somebody smile and laugh do you
prefer that or do you prefer when you
I would think the answer is obvious you
prefer seeing somebody laugh and smile
even when it’s not your next-door
neighbor you don’t want to see somebody
run over by a bus even when it’s
somebody who’s not your family not your
friend so we all agree that we are
somehow connected you feel sad when you
see somebody cry you feel sad when you
see somebody run over by a bus so what
could we do that with this insight what
could we do with the fact that we’ve
just answered that we were just lucky
from the very start and we have realized
and all agreed that we like people being
more happy and my point is that if we
put the two together and say hey let’s
remember this for a minute a day we
would already make a very very big
change to our behavior you spend so much
time on social media we waste so much
time with nonsense we all know this if
we are being honest and if you remember
a single minute hey I’m such a lucky guy
or such a lucky lady and it’s so nice to
be nice then I think a lot of the
problems would already be solved
automatically we would see things
differently we would welcome people who
are refugees because we know they didn’t
do anything wrong
they just happened to have the wrong
Passport thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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