2010. PEAKS AND VALLEYS.

After the crash came the question: how do we start climbing again?

2009 had been dominated by the financial and economic crisis. A year later, signs of recovery were emerging. But the uncertainty was far from over.

So the title of our Unternehmertag on 15 and 16 April 2010 was:
“Peaks and Valleys”.

‍Looking back today, it may have been one of our most fitting titles.

Entrepreneurship is often portrayed as a steady journey upwards: you have an idea, start a company, grow, attract investors and eventually reach the summit.

Anyone who has actually built a company knows that the graph looks rather different.

There are highs and lows. Successes and setbacks. Decisions that turn out to be right, and others that make you wonder later: what on earth was I thinking?

The important thing is not to avoid every valley. It is to find your way out of it.‍

And in 2010, the world around us was experiencing its own peaks and valleys.

When we met at Lake Tegernsee, the first iPad had been on the market for just twelve days. Instagram did not yet exist. At the same time, the Greek debt crisis was escalating dramatically. Just one week after Unternehmertag, Greece requested international financial assistance.

China was on its way to overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. And later that year, Stuxnet made headlines: highly sophisticated malware designed to sabotage Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities. Suddenly, it became clear that a cyberattack could do more than steal data or disable computers. It could damage machinery and critical infrastructure in the physical world.

‍Many of the developments that define our everyday lives today, or even pose serious threats to us, were only just beginning to emerge back then.

Our speakers looked at the world from very different perspectives. Jovan Hsu, founder of the Chinese Founders Fund, brought a perspective on China and its growing economic importance. TV Journalist Antonia Rados knew crises and wars first-hand. Mel Young, founder of the Homeless World Cup, showed what entrepreneurial thinking could achieve in society too.

And then there was Rüdiger Nehberg, adventurer, survival expert and human-rights activist. His life, too, consisted largely of ‘peaks and valleys’.

What do I take away from 2010?
Peaks don’t last forever. Neither do valleys. You just have to keep moving.‍

Next stop: 2011.