Not 'the sky' but
'the space' is the limit

What drives successful people? How do they know how to distinguish themselves? What enables them to excel and make a difference? In search of answers to these questions, Erik van Gend talks to people who bring out the full potential of themselves. A unique and fascinating series of interviews in which Erik addresses a different topic or theme each time.

I meet with Michiel Mol at his office, a renovated farmhouse in the heart of Blaricum. Upon entering, the displayed spacesuits and scale model space shuttles immediately catch my eye. As I wait a moment for Michiel, sipping a cup of coffee, I realize how great the contrast is. Perhaps an apt reflection of Michiel Mol, a multi-faceted man. Often portrayed as a flamboyant bon vivant, but once you know him better a passionate entrepreneur, successful investor and visionary. A worldly adventurer you meet on Fridays at the local regular pub. A dream hunter with boyish charm, but also a committed friend and father. In the morning he takes his children to school and then pursues his boyhood dream of shooting rockets into the sky.

Did you have the fascination with technology and space travel from a young age?

I was quite late in talking and very early in programming. I think I was no older than about eight years old when I took a Teleac course to learn programming. I was lucky that we had one of the first microcomputers in the Netherlands at home. I got up at 5:30 on Saturdays and crawled behind the computer to make games. I thought that was the best thing there was. And that hasn’t really changed. What fascinated me enormously, even then, was that human-computer interaction. Mimicking the brain on the computer to make computers learning. That was all still very new and exciting.

Did you know at a young age that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Yes, that entrepreneurship is in there. That’s partly maybe due to genes, partly due to conversations at the table earlier. During my studies I did an internship for two years and then you work for a boss. I actually enjoyed that too, but I missed the speed, the approach, setting the bar high and going all out.

“Somehow, I’m still that nerd who prefers to dive behind his computer.”

At Lost Boys, I learned that I am not a real manager. I love managing a small group of 5, 10 or even 20 driven, motivated and smart people to build something great together. In the phase after that, you have to manage the company. I’m not secure enough for that and it just doesn’t interest me enough.

In addition, I am an investor, but that is a very different role. My work life is arranged so that I can be fully engaged with 2 or 3 companies in which I am not only a shareholder, but also actively involved. That’s usually in a creative marketing and advisory role. I do this at a few companies, first at Lost Boys, Guerilla Games, Media Republic and now at Force Field VR (virtual reality) and XCOR Aerospace.

Who are your great examples?

Surely the ultimate example is my dad. He has taught me everything and done business a hundred times better than I could do. I talk to him often. Beyond that, there are all kinds of examples with two contradictory sides. Steve Jobs, of course, was a fantastic entrepreneur on one side, but turned out to be a terrible guy. With Elon Musk, it’s exactly the same story. Business-wise, he does a great job, but not in the way I would do it. Richard Branson is the best marketer, but substantively he knows little about it. They all have aspects I admire, but I wouldn’t want to be them or have their role.

The companies you are involved with are all high-end, state of the art. The bar can hardly be set high enough it seems?

That is perhaps what is in the nature of the beast. I always get tired of people with the greatest ambitions but who limit themselves to the Netherlands. Why? There are no borders, are there? We live with the Internet now, it’s one world. I understand that’s scary. You used to work as a baker here in the village and your competition was a village away. It’s not like that anymore. It’s very difficult on one hand to excel, but on the other hand you have the opportunity to be the best of all. And that gives me a huge thrill.

Are you also fighting prejudice from your background?

The prejudices are there, but I have learned to deal with them well. The maximum you can do is just show that you finish things. If you do grammar school in 6 years and finish a computer science degree in 3.5 years, of course that has nothing to do with the fact that your parents have so much money. Not in the Netherlands, anyway. And then starting a business, that’s always simple. But selling successfully, that’s not so simple. That’s maybe the good thing that came out of that, that I show that I don’t just start things but also finish things successfully. When you finish something, it shows that you persevere.

Have you brought the full potential out of yourself so far?

I know very well what I am good at and what I am not good at. With the qualities I have, I try to get the best out of myself. But I don’t think I have reached my full potential right now. It comes with development and experience. Otherwise that would mean never making mistakes and being 100% efficient, but I don’t think a person can do that.

What does an average workday look like? Is it a struggle between work and home?

At a quarter to seven the alarm clock rings, especially if the kids are there. I’m at my strongest in the morning, so I don’t mind getting up early. Finding the balance, yes it is a bit cliché, but that is a thing. After the divorce the kids were there one week, one week not. I find the balance difficult in the week I have the kids; breakfast, taking them to school, helping with homework. My son gets out of school at 3 and then I go home with him. But I just continue my emails and conference calls at home. Sometimes kids need immediate attention, someone falls down the stairs while you’re approving grades. That can be difficult.

I try to cram the get-togethers, dinners and late afternoon meetings all into the week the kids aren’t here, which is completely packed, and not do that the other week. Of course, that’s the tricky thing when you’re involved with multiple businesses. Sometimes it’s too much and then you have to make choices. Then I always have to disappoint someone. But everyone will suffer from that from time to time.

The frequent travel is easy to plan. I can’t decide when a Formula One race is, but if I have a board meeting in Los Angeles at XCOR or have to be in San Francisco or New York for Force Field VR, I can schedule the appointments myself. That way I’m a good family man one week and gone the next.

How did you end up in Het Gooi? Listening to you like this, perhaps you would thrive better in, say, the San Francisco area.

Yes, but I travel so much. I sometimes feel like I earn more miles than a pilot at KLM. I see the whole world. With Formula 1, I get to the most beautiful places and meet exciting people. For Force Field VR I’m often in Silicon Valley, but also in LA Hollywood and in New York. I’m there so much that I love having a resting place in Het Gooi. Just home for a while. I love that balance.

Virtual reality and commercial space travel; the future seems to be the biggest common denominator of your work. Do you think people can keep up with the rapid technological development?

Technological development is so rapid that I don’t know if humans can adapt fast enough. I am already used to it, but still I deal with it differently from my children. They think it is the most normal thing in the world, they have no problem with it. The fact that in such a short time people have come to consider it normal to post on Twitter when they go to the bathroom is something I had not seen coming at all. It does indicate that acceptance is accelerating. With the landline telephone, it took 50 years before 80% had one. With the computer it took 25 years, with the cell phone it took 10 years. And Facebook had it within a few years.

“I love change. Most people hate that. I love that. I do prefer to change things myself. When others change things, I’m not always happy about it.”

You get more and more robotization. More and more complex tasks are being taken over. That is not to say that there is no more work, but the type of work is going to change. I don’t think people will earn less as a result, just get more free time for less work. There will be a whole shift. Maybe in 40 years the average work week will only be 20 hours. Maybe weekends will be 4 days in 50 years.

What do you expect the future to look like?

There will come a day when one is not allowed on the highway with a car that does not drive itself. Then everything will drive everywhere without traffic jams. Predicting things like that is not so difficult. It is hard to predict when it will happen. But much more exciting are the things that we are not sure are going to happen and cannot predict right now.

“It’s a shame that only history is taught in school and not ‘future’. That seems like a much more fun subject.”

Every time another invention comes along that no one had ever thought of before. If you had told people 50 years ago about the Internet… yes those are things no one had thought about. 10 years ago there was no social media. Now it’s unthinkable. That’s going to happen every 10 years. In 10 years there will be something again that we don’t know about now. I find that such a weird and at the same time fantastic idea.

The enthusiasm with which Michiel talks about his work and vision for the future is contagious. Perhaps that is the clue to successful entrepreneurship, to keep dreaming without limits. Not “the sky,” but “space” is the limit.

Bio Michiel Mol

Born: Aug. 4, 1969
Lives: In Het Gooi
Father of: Paulus, Myrthe, Pieter, Maaike
Work: Successful entrepreneur and investor. Lost Boys, Media Republic, Guerilla Games, Force Field VR, Formula 1, XCOR Aerospace.

Courtesy of Nicole des Bouvrie, Gooisch Blad.