30 Years of InterFace AG (Jubilee Speech)

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27. June 2014

Here is my welcome speech for the guests of the 30-Years-of-InterFace celebration. A report with pictures and more will follow later.

Hi. Today we are around 350 people who want to celebrate a great party. Thank you for being here with us!

We celebrate more than thirty years that went by between the founding of InterFace Connection in 1984 and now. Those were good years – just like most of the years in my life!

To start with, I will tell you about the founding – a process that took a little more than one year (1983/1984).

In those days, the sky was the limit, especially for computer scientists.
There seemed to be no limits.
The foundation process was tough and long.
After all, we wanted to write a particularly thorough business plan.
When we were fed up with “founding”, we just started.
And that was a good idea!

Wolf and I also had some shared theses.

We are not like other firms – agile, lean, open – regardless of the fact that, in those days, the meaning of the words was not even known.
Human beings are not resources.
All we will do is: invent new technology – things like mainframes and Cobol were nothing we even imagined.
Unix is the future – that is still true today.
Quality is everything.
The easiest way to make money is producing.
Promotion is something we do not need (because we are so good).
Be careful when it comes to growth, because you have to cope with it.

Here is what I am particularly happy about in my life.

The time at Siemens (where I learned a lot of technology).
The time at Softlab (where I started learning something beyond technology).
The start at InterFace, again, directed my life towards a new dimension.
We only ever had one crisis – and we overcame it.
That there were so many friends and comrades-in-arms (many of which have come here today).
That Wolf and I are still the best of friends.

Here is what I personally am grateful for: