The Wolfcast: Recent Episodes
Michael Waitze Media
The Wolfcast spent some high-quality talking with Nikolaus Sühr, the CEO & Co-Founder at KASKO. KASKO offers an API-powered agile insurance product and distribution platform that operates between digital customer touchpoints and legacy IT systems.
Some of the topics Nikolaus discussed:
- Remote working and distributed teams
- Enabling different channels of communication depending on the urgency
- The focus on providing growth to one's stakeholders
- The beauty of insurance and how it does not necessarily need to be disrupted
- The difference between input and output-oriented
- The three mental notes hidden in the word Enkelfähig
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- I’m Trying but I’m Also Preaching Water and Drinking Wine
- If You Don’t Use It, You Lose It
- A Gate to Move Things Along
- Enabling More People to Be More Efficient
- Value Creation and Long-Term Thinking
This podcast is supported by Riskwolf.
The Wolfcast learned a lot from its discussion with Dan Draper, the Founder and CEO of CipherStash. CipherStash uses a searchable encryption scheme that enables data to be searchable even while it remains encrypted. This gives data high-level protection without compromising usability.
Some of the topics that Dan covered:
- What he learned while working for the Australian government
- Learning how to code on a BBC Micro
- Working for a startup in New York
- The increased scope of security attacks
- The necessity to improve cybersecurity awareness
- IBM’s report on The Cost of a Data Breach
- An analogy to F1 racing
- Separating access to the infrastructure from access to the data
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Good Guys Are Doing That to Simulate What the Bad Guys are Doing
- Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting
- If Only It Was That Simple
- Now Our Interests Are Actually Aligned
- The Most Vulnerable Part of the System Is the Human
Some other interesting links:
- The Effect of Google Search on Software Security
- The Impact of Information Sources on Code Security
This podcast is supported by Riskwolf.
The Wolfcast was interested to speak with Özgür Arslan-Ayaydin, Clinical Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Some of the topics that Özgür covered:
- Growing up in Turkey and studying Economics and Finance
- Relating economic theories to real life and looking for non-obvious contradictions
- Islamic Finance and how Islamic banks make money
- Risk sharing and trying to eliminate moral hazards
- The passion for teaching undergraduate students Finance
- The importance and difficulty of curating the overwhelming amount of information we receive
- Gold, cryptocurrency, and regulations
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Teaching Finance Is Very Rewarding, It’s So Dynamic and Applicable
- If I Get a Gain, I Should Provide a Gain as Well
- This Generation Is So Open to Alternatives
- Their Lives Are Changing in a Very Fast Pace
- Two Sides Have to Be Fair
Another episode, another panda...The Wolfcast was joined by Struan Todd, a co-Founder of Pandamatics. Pandamatics is Asia's first and only pure cyber insurance coverholder.
Some of the topics that Struan discussed:
- Getting into the risk insurance market and learning from Lloyds in London
- Exploring the world and getting a wider world-view because of his career in insurance
- Becoming an accidental entrepreneur
- How hybrid working improves the working environment
- The challenges of building algorithmic risk assessment
- The extent to which COVID raised the demand and awareness for cybersecurity and its insurance
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Attacking From Completely Covert Situations
- Driving the Overall Standard
- The Cyber Risk Is There
- Why Not Take the Risk?
- Expecting Someone to Come and Pick Up the Bill
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Wolfcast was joined by Frederic Stallaert, a co-Founder of Paperbox.ai. Paperbox employs artificial intelligence to automate the processing of emails and documents from physical and digital mailboxes.
Some of the topics that Frederic covered:
- His passion for AI
- Writing a Master’s thesis on Machine Learning
- Risk taking in general
- Building Paperbox.ai
- The importance of partnerships
- Making technology accessible and affordable to create more impact
- Branding and marketing saliency
- Paperbox’s vision for the future
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Unicorn Capital of Belgium
- How Software Does Cognitive Learning
- If That Is What Working Looks Like, That Is What I Want to Do
- Values and Passion
- We Are Technologists by Nature
- Accessibility Leads to Impact
The Wolfcast was joined by Chris Kaye, a co-Founder and the CEO of Sherpa Insurance. Sherpa Insurance closes the advice gap in insurance by putting a full coverage, digital adviser, in the palm of your customers’ hands.
Some of the topics that Chris covered:
- The factors that encouraged him to found Sherpa in 2016
- How moving around affected him as a person
- Social importance and responsibility in insurance
- Creating customer engagement
- The Sherpa Score
- Sherpa 1.0 was selling insurance, Sherpa 2.0 selling technology to insurance companies
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Ended Up Not Being a Choice
- It’s Almost Like We Designed It to Be Opaque
- It Doesn’t Feel Like a Human-Centric Transaction Anymore
- Insurance Is for the Things You Can't Afford
- Insurance Allows You to Live Life
The Wolfcast was honored to talk to Marc Hauser, the Head of F10 Europe. F10 is a global innovation ecosystem that believes the fastest route to innovation lies in early collaboration between startups, incumbents and investors. Each stakeholder benefits from shared skills, experience and insight.
Some of the topics that Marc discussed:
- The early days of working with startups in Switzerland
- Starting out in consulting
- Founding his first startup in 2011 and why he did it
- Returning to the corporate world
- How the startup scene has changed and why startups are important
- How moving between startups and corporates help him understand what makes a startup successful
- Getting companies to move faster
- Risk assessment and risk management
- Helping people understand exponential growth
- How corporates work with startups
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Didn't Scare Me Enough at That Point in Time
- I Just Loved the Energy Surrounding Startups
- I Will Regret It If I Don't Try It
- You Know From the Get Go That the Odds Are Against You
- We Help the Elephants Dance With the Mouse
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Wolfcast enjoyed our conversation with Gene Yu, the Founder and CEO of BlackPanda. BlackPanda's origin story alone is inspiring and the rest of our conversation with Gene was amazing as well.
Some of the topics we covered included:
- Getting into the United States Military Academy at West Point and studying Computer Science
- Going to war in the Army Special Forces for almost a decade after graduation
- His career prior to starting BlackPanda
- Being Asia's first cybersecurity InsurTech underwriter
- Cybersecurity risk and disintermediation scale well as there are no proximity limitations
- Gaming and crypto being one of the highest risk sectors
- The importance of data and data analysis
- Pricing cyber risk and calculating payouts
- Measuring data in real-time
- Infinite possibilities lead to infinite risks
- Insurance in the metaverse and the future of cybersecurity
Some other titles we considered:
- We're Basically Cyber-Firefighting
- I See Security Differently
- Cybersecurity is NOT an IT Problem, It Is a Security Problem
- Security Advice Is Very Subjective
- It's a Different Terrain, but the Same Bad Guy
- Everybody Is at Risk
The audio on this episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Wolfcast had an awesome face-to-face conversation with Rie Aleksandra Walle, Founder at No Ties Consulting, about GDPR, (e)Privacy and Data Protection. Suffice it to say, we were fascinated and learned a lot in the process.
Some of the topics we covered:
- Living and working in the Middle East
- Risk aversion and starting one's own company
- Truly excited about privacy and data protection
- Helping business owners with the structure, systems, and automation to run more profitable businesses
- Being compliant where it really matters
- Data inventory is key to data security
- Setting up procedures so that security remains after consultation ends
- Building a global clientele
- The importance of involving all stakeholders
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Just Got So Exciting
- Every Risk You Take Makes It Easier
- Consulting Without a Tie
- Finding Easter Eggs Through Data Protection
- Don't Tell People to Chase Their Passions
The audio on this episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
The Wolfcast was joined by Manoj Gopalkrishnan, a self-declared molecule whisperer and the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Algorithmic Biologics. Algorithmic Biologics is increasing efficiencies in reading molecular information using its patented software, Tapestry.
Some of the topics Manoj discussed included:
- The difference between living and non-living systems
- DNA and the instructions it contains for cell behavior
- Three particularly noteworthy dates in the development of biotechnology
- The coming together of mechanical engineering and chemistry
- James Clerk Maxwell's Demon - You won't click the link, but you really should
- In the long-term, we should be trying to build systems as sophisticated as cells
- Building a universal molecule assembler
- Laying his bets on a bottom-up approach
- Some Algorithmic Biologics products that are already in the market
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- A Cell Is a Bag of Molecules
- We Draw This Line Between Living and non-Living Systems
- How Does a Seed Grow Into a Tree?
- We Are Asking Questions of Soup
- I Believe It Will Be a Long Journey
- Whenever Computer Science Gets Involved, You Start to See Exponentials
- I Take Inspiration from Biology
- It’s Way Beyond What Birds Can Do
The Wolfcast quite enjoyed having Emine Gökce Phillips, Ph.D. on the show. Gökce is the CEO and co-Founder of CryptoIndexSeries, which provides data, analytics, and trading tools for the global crypto and digital asset markets.
Some of the topics Gökce covered:
- Having many places to call home
- Moving from a typical corporate job into crypto
- One of her relatives selling his apartment and investing in crypto
- The significance of PayPal facilitating payments via crypto in October 2020
- Institutional requirements to invest in crypto and building a suite of tools to enable that
- How decentralization creates accessibility
- The creation of new economic models like GameFi in the metaverse
- Institutional asset managers expect to increase crypto allocations
- Will existing payment gateways be useful or even necessary?
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- When We Became Parents We Became Entrepreneurs
- Anyone Can Retrieve Data from a Crypto Exchange
- What Happened In October 2020?
The Wolfcast was fascinated talking to Ines Cheaib, the COO at Gaia. Gaia is a new way to pay for IVF..."Monthly if you have a baby. A fraction of the cost if you don't." We initially heard about Gaia from Dr. Hayley Maynard and George Beattie, the co-Chairs of Llyod's Product Launchpad. We only heard a little at first, but we knew we wanted to learn more...
Some of the things Ines covered:
- Born and raised in France
- Studying engineering at school while developing a good idea about tech
- Delving into e-commerce and venture capital before moving into more operational roles
- Feeling at home as a business operator, but comfortable switching disciplines
- The challenges of building a company from scratch
- The Gaia origin story and Nader AlSalim's personal experience
- Using data to minimize risk in the fertility space
- Being a wild-card in the Lloyd's Product Launchpad
- The complexities around building an insurance product
- Considering the members' physical, financial, and emotional needs
- Normalizing the conversation around infertility and conception
- How most people only look for a way to conceive when they actually decide to have a baby
- The expected joy of the first few pregnancies of Gaia's members
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Everybody Wants a Family
- Preventing the Car Crash Before It Happens
- Bringing Complex Statistics to the Layman
- Facing the Uncertainty of Conception
- Solving a Bigger Problem
The audio on this episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.
We were very excited to be joined by Adi Kaimowitz, the Group CEO of Virtual Actuary, a firm of highly experienced actuaries ready to work alongside your existing team. Virtual Actuaries combine statistical, mathematical, and financial techniques within a business framework, utilising technology platforms and advanced analytics to deliver the most pre-emptive, precise, and practical solutions.
Some of the topics Adi and I covered:
- Being born and raised in South Africa and not seeing much more of the continent
- How he spent his 20s trying to prove himself
- Hustling has become part of his DNA
- How he built a recruiting business for actuaries
- Starting and building Virtual Actuary
- Finding out what startup incubators were all about
- Why 'connected consortiums' are the future of most industries (Are these DAOs?)
- How the disruption is in the business model itself
- How Virtual Actuary plugged into the global village
- The most important thing is to just "Do"
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Wasn't Born With a Trust Fund
- Now I Own the Building
- If You Are Going to Give Us Money, What Would You Want Us to Do?
- Where's Your Exponential Technology?
- It Was Always Part of the Plan
- We’re Talking about a More Immersive Experience
- You Can Be Connected from Anywhere
- Now Anybody Can Participate Digitally In Any Business
- The Mega-Gig Economy
- If You’re Not Doing, You’re Doing Too Much Thinking
I knew when we were preparing that this episode was going to be great...and the recording did not let us down. When one is lucky enough to have Dr. Hayley Maynard, Strategy at Chaucer Syndicates, and George Beattie, the Head of Incubation Underwriting at Beazley & Co. together on a show, the only result could be magic...even if they are decidedly not wizards.
There was so much ground to cover, that we went as far back as The Code of Hammurabi.
Some of the other topics we covered:
- The foundation and the Legend of Lloyd's
- Insurance subscription
- The caliber of the underwriters in the Lloyd's Market
- The rollout of Lloyd's Product Launchpad
- Conference-level chat that never really changes
- Risk transfer versus risk management
- Gaia - a new way to pay for IVF
- Spending time solving problems that don't really matter
- Building products with your customers
- The buyer urgency created by specific problems
- Innovation and controlled experiments
- Connecting the Launchpad to the Lab
- A shout-out to Tom Hoad - OIF
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- It Started Out as a Coffee Shop
- Coming Up With Solutions for Complex Risk
- It’s a Very Positive but Properly Cynical Environment
- We Triage Quickly
- George Brings the Brains, I Bring the Jokes
- This Is a Voluntary Democracy
- Innovation Isn’t Just About Products
The Wolfcast had the pleasure of talking to Peter Clarke, the Founder and Managing Director of InsurerCore. InsurerCore helps insurance professionals identify new contacts, find current connections in the market, and stay up-to-date with industry information.
Some of the topics that Peter covered included:
- Coming from a traditional insurance family
- Working at his father's MGA during the summers as the Chief Scanning Officer
- Early examples of digital implementations in the insurance space
- How MGAs are different
- Implementing technology is good, getting people to use it is better
- The significance of the 'London Market'
- Noticing inefficiencies and his journey into entrepreneurship
- Democratizing access to the 'London Market'
- Dave, Dan and, Don
- Minecraft and collaborating online
- Building partnerships and getting the first groups onto InsurerCore
- The Bible of Insurance
- Building APIs to connect to pricing platforms
- The impact of COVID on InsurerCore's growth
The Wolfcast really enjoyed the company of Dr. Renu Ann Joseph, the Founder, and CEO at Luminant Analytics and the Head of Virtido Center for Data Science & AI. Luminant was founded to challenge the way insurance pricing is done and enable insurers to adopt a new approach to that pricing. Virtido makes Data Science accessible and actionable for industries not traditionally driven by data.
Some of the topics that Renu and I discussed:
- At 12 years old thought she wanted to be an archaeologist but figured there was not much money in it
- Determined at 14 years old that she wanted to be an economist
- followed the dream to become an economist and focused her Master's Degree studies on Developmental Economics
- Studied for her Ph.D. under Dr. Frank J. Chaloupka
- Did her post-doctoral studies with The Gates Foundation in Toronto
- Switching gears and working for Moody's in West Chester, PA
- Moving to Zurich, Switzerland, and taking a cool job at a re-insurer
- The launching of Luminant Analytics
- The siloing of data in insurance companies
- The significance of step changes for startups
- Starting her second venture - Virtido Center for Data Science & AI
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Use of Tobacco In Poorer Countries Is Nuanced
- The Academics Are Very Grumpy :-)
- I Always Need To Know a Little Bit More
- Data In Insurers are Siloed to Heaven and Back
- That Process Is Very Painful
- Making Someone Pay for What You Produce Is Hard
- Analytics Is Real Behavioral Change Within an Organization
The Wolfcast had the pleasure of speaking with Rahul Makhija, a co-Founder (with his brother!) and the CTO of Esto Internet, one of the premier ISPs in India.
Some of the topics Rahul and I discussed:
- Did 2020 really happen?
- His family was from Panipat
- The challenges of operating and growing an ISP during COVID
- The increase in internet usage due to the pandemic
- Got his first job because he wanted a smartphone
- How he was one of those kids that took apart all of the electronics in his house
- Self-taught web application and network engineer
- The non-triviality of networking computers
- Learning and implementing that learning
- Starting Esto with fixed wireless internet and the progression of machinery
- Licensing and regulations surrounding ISPs in India
- Service outages and how they get handled
- BBNL and wiring the villages
Some of the other titles we considered for this episode:
- You Can Buy It When You Start Earning for Yourself
- I Am Going to Work Today
- If You Are Not Doing, You Are Dying
Esben Nielsen, a co-Founder, and the CPO, and Simon Bentholm, A Digital Strategy Executive at Penni.io were pretty awesome guests of The Wolfcast. Penni.io's vision is to fundamentally change the way people engage with insurance.
Some of the topics that we covered included:
- Employing technology to solve business problems in complex environments
- Applying behavioral science to the insurance industry
- The brain has the tendency to translate an easy decision as a good decision
- Gift cards as decision tools
- The importance of 'relevance'
- Understanding risk perception is important for contextualization
- Three ways of doing embedded insurance
- Embedded insurance is the hottest topic ever
- Quoting questions and binding questions
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Had Loads of Hypotheses Going In
- The Red Cross in the Corner of the Browser Was the Biggest Competitor
- Nobody Wakes up in the Morning Thinking About Insurance
- The Numbers Don't Lie
- I Am Going to Do the Other Thing
- The Best Decision Is the Easiest Decision
Rene Papesch and I got back together to discuss some recent news in the connectivity and technology resilience space.
We discussed:
- Google's Cloud Outage (https://bit.ly/3xhw1ZJ)
- Tesla's Owners Can Not Open Their Car Doors (https://bit.ly/3DNduH0)
- A Mouse Crated an Internet Outage (https://bit.ly/3nHrahh)
- Sharks (https://bit.ly/3p0dxt8)
It is not often one gets to record with the Head of Lloyd's Lab and a premier blockchain startup that is going through the Lab's program, but that is exactly what we did on this episode of The Wolfcast. We were graced with the presence of Natalie Hall, the Director of Marketing, EMEA, and APAC at Merkle Science and Ed Gaze, the Head of Lloyd's Lab. Suffice it to say that the discussion was active and fascinating.
Some of the topics we covered included:
- Ed's original visit to the Lloyd's Building
- What Lloyd's Lab is and what it strives to accomplish
- L Marks' collaboration with Lloyd's Lab
- The impetus for introducing blockchain companies into Lloyd's Lab now
- The use of smart contracts to facilitate syndication
- How productive it has been for Merkle Science to be in the program
- The anatomy of crypto risk
- KYBB - Know Your Blockchain Business
- Some innovative ways to incorporate Merkle's blockchain expertise into the insurance value chain
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- Ultimately, This Comes Down to Building Relationships
- Insurance Just Covers So Many Things
- Driven By What the Market Wants
- More Accessible, More Transparent and Fair Financial System
- Getting that Supercharged Insight Has Been So Helpful
- It Should Come With a Cape
- What Does 'Good' look Like?
Why does there seem to be so much news about internet outages, connectivity issues, and online services being unavailable? Rene Papesch and Michael Waitze had a quick chat about three of those recent events.
We discussed:
- KT Group's Decision to Pay 40BN Won as Compensation for Outage
- Another Facebook Messenger Outage
- Roblox Goes Down for Three Days
For more news and stories like this, check out The Wolfcast here.
Oliver Lane, the Head of Deal Flow at InsurTech Gateway, and I had such a great conversation. InsurTech Gateway is the only investor with its own FCA-authorised Incubator + Venture Capital Fund. The fastest place to build and launch an InsurTech idea.
Some of the topics that Oliver and I discussed:
- The beginning of his career in investment banking
- The sheer volume and diverse InsurTech companies
- InsurTech's need for capacity and underwriting risk partners
- InsurTech Gateway's backing by global reinsurers
- How InsurTech Gateway's relationships with carriers help startups grow
- Gateway's FCA approval and its umbrella structure that allows InsurTech's to launch in two weeks
- The difference between the InsurTech markets in the United States and Europe
- Parametric insurance
- The components of a great founder
- The opportunity of blockchain solutions for insurance
- CoinCover
- AspenCoin
Some other titles we considered:
- The Fastest Place to Launch an InsurTech Idea
- We Act Almost As a Sandbox
- People Have Started to Take Note
- Trying to Push Forward One of the World’s Largest Financial Ecosystems
- We See Dots Not Lines
The Wolfcast had an informative and insightful conversation with Erika Kirzsan, the Managing Director at the Insurance Factory Innovation Store and the Chief Inspiration Officer for MOI's Insurance Innovation Day. As you listen to this episode, you can not help noticing that Erika is one of the most passionate people in the insurance industry!
Some of the topics that were covered:
- Decided at 14 years old that she wanted to be an insurance executive
- As a young adult, Erika loved mathematics and economics
- Notes that risk mitigation and hence insurance exists in every part of our lives
- After many years of corporate life, leaving to start the Insurance Factory
- Current trends in Insurance and InsurTech
- Erika's ongoing interest in Insurance Innovation
- Business model changes and mindset changes
- The importance of Data Privacy and the different treatments in the US, Europe, and Asia
- Erika's model for cooperation between incumbent insurers and InsurTechs
- The integration of HealthCare, HealthTech, and Health Insurance
For the first 20 people interested in attending the Magic of Innovation's Insurance Innovation Day on October 20th and 21st, you can get a free ticket here by using the promo code WOLFCAST.
It is always enjoyed catching up with Dipu KV, one of the most thoughtful and forward-thinking insurance executives in Asia. Dipu is the President and Head of Operations, Communities, and Customer Service at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance in India.
Some of the topics that Dipu discussed:
- Emerging digital risks
- The digital way of working AND living
- Digital traffic is mirroring physical traffic and internet outages are becoming more common and critical
- Data management and cybersecurity risks
- How can physical and mental health be covered in a new way?
- A shifting focus from illness to wellness
- A move from conglomerates to ecosystems
- Touchless customer service
- Platformification is here to stay
Some other titles we considered for this episode:
- The Office as a New Offsite
- Imagine a Swan
- You Can Not Pivot to Digital at Scale Overnight
- What Is Good for the Customer Is Good for the Organization
- It’s About Scenario Building
- Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast
RenePapesch, CTO at Riskwolf popped back on the pod to address another unanticipated event that rocked the entire internet. Somebody accidentally (?) messed up Facebook's Border Gateway Protocol settings and all of the company's properties vanished from the internet.
Nobody is better than Rene at explaining these scenarios. He discussed:
- BGP is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems
- Because of the BGP config error, even internal tools could not work…so someone likely had to physically go to the data center(s) and remedy this
- Due to this network problem, some employees could not even enter the FB offices
- The implication of Facebook's ads not running and the resulting loss in sales as well as reputational risk
- What is the recourse for those impacted?
- The second and third-order effects may have seemed like DDOS attacks on the rest of the internet
- ISPs, Telcos and other services were overloaded and overwhelmed leading to widespread system time outs
- Reach out to Riskwolf if you are interested in parametric insurance for internet outages
Ugo Weyl joined The Wolfcast to share the story of his unique entrepreneurial journey and the founding, building, and funding of Koala Insurance. I really enjoyed talking with Ugo. He was very transparent, straightforward, and generous.
Some of the topics that Ugo discussed included:
- His first business (Oui Reward) was to resolve flight delays and/or cancellations based on a European regulation that required airlines to pay cash compensation
- He went through the entire claims process because his girlfriend at the time (see the title of this episode) had her flight delayed by a day and was owed compensation
- He and one of his university friends decided they could build tech to solve this problem
- Oui Reward shut down 1 year after being founded to start his current company, Koala
- Koala only builds products that can be fully automated
- Koala's first underwriting partners were Wakam and Seyna
- Was sure Koala's first product could be built in two weeks, but it took 6 months
- This product for flight cancellation protection was meant to be launched just as COVID was hitting...decided not to launch
- Started fund-raising in the midst of the pandemic
- The impact of participating in TechStars Paris at the end of 2019
- The great team and support from InsurTech Gateway
Other titles we considered for this episode:
- I Just Knew I Did Not Want to Do That
- It Is 100% Parametric
- Why Are You Calling Me To Pitch Travel Insurance?
The Wolfcast welcomed Jordi Montserrat, a co-Founder and Managing Partner at VentureLab. Founded in 2004, VentureLab designs and operates flagship startup programs in Switzerland such as Venture Kick, Venture Leaders, TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award, and Innosuisse Start-up Training to support the best entrepreneurial talents.
Some of the topics that Jordi discussed:
- In comparison to when VentureLab was founded, almost all developed countries are committed to investing in innovation and startups
- VentureLab is not a hub of crypto per se but is definitely investing in this sector in places where it can add value
- Innovation in eCommerce will continue in payments, security, and supply chain integration
- B2B startups in Switzerland are extremely strong
- ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) and its importance both personally and professionally
- The platform economy in Europe and regional differences
- Data regulations across borders and how it impacts platform economies
- Emerging digital risks and leaving your proverbial front door open
- Security, blockchain, and cryptocurrency
- Diginex Solutions and Merkle Science
The Wolfcast was joined by Timothy Chan, Insurance and Insurtech Lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright in Sydney, Australia. Tim is also the Founder of The InsurTech Lawyer blog on which he shares news (and sometimes thoughts) on the emerging area of InsurTech Law.
Some of the topics that Tim and I covered:
- InsurTechs aim to make things simpler for consumers
- Where there is risk, there is an opportunity to insure that risk
- Recent internet outages including Microsoft Exchange, Akamai, and Fastly
- Emerging digital economy risks
- Aggregation and concentration risks
- Pricing internet outage risk
- Parametric insurance and third party validation
- Parametric products and some legal insights
- Regulatory requirements and product uniformity
- Data and the impact of Open Banking on Insurance
The Wolfcast was joined by Urs Gubser, an entrepreneur, technology enthusiast, and futurist based in Zurich, Switzerland. Urs is a self-described 'classic nerd' who started programming when he was 12 years old. He and I had crossed paths for almost 20 years before finally meeting each other through our work in the startup world.
Some of the topics that Urs and I discussed included:
- His work at UBS on the Next Step platform and meeting Steve Jobs
- The consumerization of technology and the resulting Digital Divide
- The accelerating complexity of technology and software and its implications
- The benefits and drawbacks of automation
- Internet outages and system dependencies
- Our shared experiences of working at global investment banks
This is a Bernoulli Box.
Rene Papaesch, CTO at Riskwolf, jumped onto the pod to have a quick discussion about Akamai's DNS outage and its technical and financial implications.
Some of the things we discussed:
- What is a Domain Name Server (DNS) and what happens when it breaks?
- What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and why are they significant?
- The concentration in the services that drive the internet
- What actually happened to Akamai
- How internet outages and downtimes can create reputational and financial risks
- A parametric insurance solution can mitigate some of the financial risks
The Wolfcast really enjoyed talking to Florian Graillot and Jan Kastory the co-founders of astoryaVC. astorya invests in tech startups that are building the next insurance generation. If venture capitalists believe that the most important aspect of any startup is the team, then we have to believe the same thing about the VCs themselves. Florian and Jan have assembled an incredible team that has a lot of unfair advantages when it comes to investing in InsurTech in Europe.
Some of the topics we discussed:
- It is hard to invest in Europe if you are in London
- astorya is the most geographically diverse VC in the InsurTech space
- The challenges of being a multi-local player
- The benefits of being an InsurTech focused fund and how founders love working with astoryaVC
- Riskwolf and what the team is building
- A data-driven approach to investing and why some startups thrive while others die
- The third wave of InsurTechs is unbundling the whole value chain
- Automated startup scouting technology
The Wolfcast spoke to Dr. Eric Forgy, the Founder of CavalRe, a B2B cloud-native reinsurance technology and capital management solution provider offering insurance balance sheet intelligence.
Some of the topics that Eric and I discussed:
- Is parametric the future of insurance
- Anything that is catastrophic can be securitized
- Is there a difference between digital risks and traditional, physical risks?
- Is connectivity becoming more unstable and what role does parametric insurance play?
- Is there a role for securitization to play in the risk mitigation of the insurance market in the same way it has been doing in the mortgage market for decades?
The Wolfcast had a fascinating conversation with Mark Duff, a Director of Aberthau Consulting and a man whose perspective on the 'London Market' is unparalleled.
Some of the topics that Mark and I covered:
- The history and development of the London Market and its unique place in the global insurance landscape
- The introduction of technology into the insurance market and its growth since the 1980's
- The London Market refresh in the early 2000's and the issues it highlighted
- Parametric insurance and the necessity for reliable data
- Is capacity rotating from indemnity to parametric or is new capacity being sourced?
Wolfcast had a blast talking to Suvendu Pradhan, the Director of Insurance Products at Koala Insurance. Koala simplifies flight insurance and delivers the best experience in case of flight disruptions.
Some of the topics Suvendu and I covered:
- Insurance - The one topic that connects through all of the topics
- Building simple things as opposed to simplifying existing things
- Will parametric insurance replace indemnity insurance
- What is para-indemnity?
- The role of data in the insurance value chain
- The beauty of working at Swiss Re and how much Suvendu learned there
- Emerging digital risks and why connectivity is crucial
- Tangible versus intangible assets
- Simplicity, Transparency, Pricing, and Customization
The Wolfcast was honored to be joined by Thomas Krapf a co-founder and the CEO of Riskwolf. Riskwolf deems that the future of insurance is parametric and real-time, data-driven. With the ongoing digital transformation in the global economy, the importance of having uninterrupted connectivity is becoming more critical. Riskwolf enables insurers to create simple, reliable products quickly to close the protection gap for the digital economy.
Some of the topics that Thomas and I discussed:
- The continuing growth of the platform economy and its emerging digital risks
- The state of the insurance industry today and its preparedness for insuring the digital economy
- What are the necessary tools to close this digital economy protection gap?
- Who will insure these risks and from where will the capacity come?
- How will existing, traditional lines of insurance change as parametric policies become more prevalent?
- What risks emerge as more and more devices (IoT) become connected to each other and the internet?
- How does parametric insurance make the entire experience more simple, reliable, and fast?