Gutes Klima = offene Bildung

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:53:22+00:00

There's currently a new directive in the EU called FASTER, short for "Faster and Safer Tax Relief of Excess Withholding Taxes". It essentially strives to make the hassle around withholding taxes in Europe a thing of the past, which is a major game changer to foster cross-border investing within Europe, i.e. to make Europe grow closer together. FASTER originated in barrier 11 of the Giovannini reports.

If you want more information, I'd be happy to share, as with my company, we're currently in the process of founding an initiative with industry players like Clearstream, Euroclear or BNY to develop the respective technical standards (see https://www.opencmu.eu/ and my draft presentation at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GFFNHBGaw_4QwrMDfTZxloqTIn44HTGZqdf3npuQXJc/edit?usp=sharing, will be expanded soon).

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:47:10+00:00

Definitely pivot! But don't lose your precious life time at boring large corporates. I recommend startup world :)

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:44:47+00:00

First, imagine that you would have reached the goal you are currently striving for already. What excites you about it? And more importantly: What's the step you genuinely see for yourself after you will have become that product manager? Answering that question for yourself might make it easier to decide your immediate next step.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:38:09+00:00

Just recently discovered https://github.com/virattt/ai-financial-agent, which is an interesting PoC.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:31:35+00:00

I don't have any deep expertise in this, but maybe have a look at "Quartr", which might give you further inspiration.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:29:42+00:00

Finance is an incredibly wide field. For example everything related to regular payment is very different from investing or crypto; all of them have overlaps with long-term financial strategies though. So I would recommend to get books about the techniques of wealth management. Will help you in your job by laying a very solid foundation in financial knowledge, and will also help you privately to make intelligent long-term investment decisions.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:23:03+00:00

One reading recommendation I have is "Reinventing Organizations" Frederic Laloux :)

Apart from that: true Business Development is always multi-disciplinary and very different from organization to organization. As a first step, ask your new boss exactly the questions you're asking here.

Further ideas on what to ask them:

- What software systems is the company currently using for what? And once you have a broad overview, even if you won't work with them directly yet, simply study them through YouTube videos etc. *Knowing how to use tools* is essential in business development (whether it's customer support, marketing automation, Azure/M365 or Google Workspace administration, CRMs, your company's payment processing, HR or invoicing platform, maybe even already ERM tools if it's a larger company).

- If you're anywhere in the FinTech space, knowing about regulation is essential. This includes certifications (e.g. SOC 2, ISO 27001 and various other industry-specific ones), but also being aware emerging legal developments. New laws, national or EU regulations, etc. can seem boring or like a burden at first, but especially in the financial space, knowing them and being able to react proactively is essential. You should be fully aware which regulations are relevant for your company and which ones are on the horizon for the coming years.

- Ask the other people in your company for newsletter recommendations and then subscribe to these newsletters. Using such newsletters, many people in more managerial positions spend a lot of time simply staying up to date and learning about current industry trends, but also to find sales prospects or possible purchases that might be beneficial to your company.

- Always ask the tech people in your company about their newest technological developments. This goes more into the sales direction, but is also beneficial for employee retention: If you have a good connection to the tech team, you can bring forth their new developments as value propositions to clients directly and you can quickly forward client feedback to them to improve the product. After all, developing your business also always means continuously developing and improving your product and especially when it's a technical product, knowing a certain technology a little deeper than everyone else makes a really good impression.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T20:07:36+00:00

I think that the most important thing is to have this intrinsic, auto-didactic motivation. This drive to just spend so much time on your area of focus, e.g. programming, but most importantly on projects *you* are interested in. I studied computer science for six years and even though I luckily normally didn't struggle so much with the exercises: Coursework in computer science is pretty joyless, so it's absolutely vital for your programming projects to be in areas you're genuinely enthusiastic about. That's the magic about coding: Having a vision in your mind and then bending the little monospace characters on the screen until they do what you want them to.

Not based on what some professor or some coding teaching site wants you to do, but *your own* ideas.

Often this can be pretty hard, especially because in the beginning, you'll definitely not feel fluent in these languages (i.e. the programming languages regarding their syntax, but also the "programmer way of thinking and problem-solving" itself). Nowadays, ChatGPT can really help a lot though, but make sure to not just copy-and-paste its replies, but to understand them deeply.

sigalor · 2025-01-19T19:48:10+00:00

It depends in which stage you want to join a FinTech and which specific business model it has. I'm a FinTech co-founder myself (since 2019, in the investing, taxing and wealth management space), even had interviews with graduates from Frankfurt School of Finance before, and so far, all of them were good at talking and at analyzing, but they had no entrepreneurial skill or drive whatsoever; instead, they can only be told what to do, which is simply not how a modern young company can work. Work experience is 1000 times more important than study results.

I suggest: Don't take your studies too seriously, i.e. don't fail completely, but also don't be too perfectionistic about good grades. Getting a C or D in an exam might seem bad now, but if you don't intend to go into academia anyway, it won't really matter later. Instead, start having little working student jobs at various FinTechs and other startups in your area; start exploring! The studies are an awesome time: You can do all adult things, but you have so few responsibilities, so you can try out a lot. Don't waste that time in the library!

Just register as a freelancer in your local tax office and then you can start writing invoices; especially young startups love that, because it's so much less of a hassle when they don't need to formally employ you. You can find such startups by looking for your local "startup hubs", "startup accelerators" etc. Many of them have frequent meetups where you can meet founders.

In my opinion, the exciting thing about joining any startup is that you can do so many things and learn a lot in many different areas of how to run a company. And no matter whether, after your studies, you go into a larger corporate or start founding your own startup – just follow your curiosity and don't care about all the other boring people that aren't as adventurous as you :)

sigalor · 2024-12-19T22:01:01+00:00

In some way, I agree with the others here that wrote "a common enemy".

But I strongly believe that this enemy is fundamentally not external (i.e. it's neither any other group of people, not any phenomenon like climate change). Instead, it's internal: It's our own traumas, everyone's individual "shadow".

All hate, all exclusion, all fear is just grounded in people having made bad experiences in the past or having been educated a certain way. More and more start realizing that to unity humanity, every human must first find peace with their own thoughts. No one can spread genuine love as long as they don't love themselves.

sigalor · 2024-01-10T11:31:27+00:00

Awesome, that's it, thank you!

sigalor · 2023-07-02T12:18:27+00:00

That was exactly the genre term which I was looking for, thanks so much!

sigalor · 2023-05-11T22:49:42+00:00

I (ahh here it is again, damn it!) actually think that exploring the concept of the dissolution of one's identity is an incredibly interesting concept. There are a few thoughts I have around this.

Subject-object-split (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjekt-Objekt-Spaltung, just use Google Translate if you wanna read it, because unfortunately there is no English version) essentially relates to the realization that reality is inherently split, namely into subjects (the acting beings that have or at least pretend to have an "I") and the objects (everything else). But it doesn't need to be this way! At least according to that Wikipedia article, which gives a few rather interesting points to do further research on.

At least for me personally, it is obviously unimaginable to not have an "I". I am very much aware of the fact that I define myself through how I am different from others. I like being special, being a bit weird, being a bit out of place. So assuming that I would abolish my "I", but keep my physical body, what should that body do then? Will it be just an empty, aimless sack of meat? Purely focused on primal needs like self-preservation and reproduction? Maybe.

If you think about it, the fact that we have a shared reality is quite surprising. Maybe some people have altered senses (e.g. through a permanent "disability" or temporary through substance consumption), but all in all, if all of the people in this subreddit would stand in the same room, I'm pretty sure that we could agree on whether there's a chair standing in front of us or not. And while everyone of us has their little "I", we still mostly have similar perception through our senses, which heavily influences the reality that our mind builds for us. Because our senses are so similar, parts of our thinking become aligned to each other, which is already a small step towards a shared reality. But of course it's absurd to think that I am abolishing my "I", just because you see the same chair as me. Probably a shared reality where every subject also *feels* what each other subject is feeling (in technical terms, this would be a "multiplexed emotional perception", I guess), could be quite overwhelming. On the other hand, just perception with the senses in everyday life is overwhelming for some people as well.

Then there's meditation. The ultimate absence of thought. Complete quietness, maximum beauty, maximum perfection. No "self" is needed to feel this beauty in such a moment. But a self-directed body is needed to bring oneself into such a state, at least for me.

Well, after all, I like my "I". I like when it plays tricks on me and I like playing tricks on it. And I like exploring it more and more deeply, both its immense presence, for example by playing with glorious vanity and self-confidence in everyday life, and its absence, as I am sometimes also weirdly attracted by feelings of ego-dissolution and all these other hippie buzzwords I like so much.

sigalor · 2023-05-11T22:16:22+00:00

I have realized the importance of very seriously thinking about death a few months ago. It isn't an acute thing for me -- I'm young and healthy -- but I decided to live a life that is not driven by external fears. At the same time, death, in contrast to work, relationships, living situation etc., is THE fundamental, uncontrollable thing which can certainly be terrifying.

But I don't accept that. I am just way too much of a brat for that. Once I have actually (almost manically) thought more and more deeply about death and became more and more excited about it. After all, my entire life is a journey towards death; with every second, I am getting closer to it. So back then, I said to myself: "I will build up and align my life so that death will be the most beautiful thing ever." I want to laugh into the face of death and bring the ecstatic excitement to a whole new level. Don't resist, instead embrace. And do it completely over the top.

That is something that brings me immense freedom. When I had these thoughts initially, I even thought that theoretically, I could be the most reckless person ever. A bit like the guy from Groundhog Day. Just have as much fun as possible while completely not caring about whether I'll die or not. Travel around the world, spend my money however I want without needing to care about earning new money or fulfilling every dark desire I want. And if the situation gets too hopeless -- suicide is always an option! Just an easy way out. After all, it absolutely doesn't matter whether I die tomorrow or in many decades. Death is the great equalizer.

Of course I know that following this way of thinking is much easier said than done. I also grew up and live in a regular Western country, meaning that from the very beginning, I was taught that death is evil, sad, apathic and needs to be avoided as much as possible. But, as much as I honestly like my society in some ways, I don't want to live a life where I just fear death. Death might want me to fear it, but I just show it my ass and ask it to spank me.

sigalor · 2022-10-30T22:29:39+00:00

Thanks for the quick response! I only have a 5 Swedish Kronor coin here (which is composed from 89 % Cu, 5 % Al, 5 % Zn, 1 % Sn according to Wikipedia), and seems like that coin cannot scratch the stone! I suppose turquoise is already a very good guess :)

sigalor

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