@agileacademyinsights: In 2017, Volkswagen's CEO dismissed Tesla on stage. The room laughed. Matthias Müller sat on a panel and dismissed Tesla outright: too few cars sold, too much money lost, barely a real competitor worth naming next to Volkswagen's scale. Fast forward to today. Tesla sits among the most valuable automakers on earth, and the German auto industry is the one scrambling, defending factories, jobs and its place in a market it once dismissed from the stage. The lesson has nothing to do with electric cars. A leader rarely gets blindsided by a threat nobody saw coming. They get blindsided by the one they saw clearly and decided wasn't worth taking seriously, applause included. Was that fair judgment for 2017, or an early warning sign nobody wanted to hear? Source: Matthias Müller, Volkswagen CEO, "Menschen in Europa" forum, Passau, 2017 #Leadership #Hindsight #Complacency

2K :

Nokia was also laughing

Doc :

downfall of Germany was not due to Tesla

Fufighter :

You can understand the guy trying to defend his position at VW — anyone would. The problem is that he did it with that legendary German “we know better than everyone” arrogance, while completely missing the fact that the world had already moved on. And honestly, he was spectacularly bad at his job. While competitors were looking towards AI, software-defined cars and autonomous driving, VW was still proudly selling plastic boxes with outdated hardware and charging extra for basic options. They weren’t building the future. They were putting a premium price tag on the past and convincing themselves it was innovation. 🤦‍♂️

k :

I remember working at tesla 2017 how everybody made fun off us back then and EV. Look at them now.

Hugo Ferreira :

This didn´t age well…

Boop :

Tesla wasn't their competition

hhufgjgeyk :

They are so lost they did not even see it coming a year ago….its sad how Europe is destroying itself

Aeon :

Tesla has still to share dividends…

Mwoonyah :

AND YET since then VWs combined return to shareholders is €110bn and Tesla is €40bn. And in 2025 VW still returned double to shareholders vs Tesla. AND YET last year the earnings per share you own of VW was 13.9% and Tesla was 0.3%.

mazakaza229 :

londonfashiononmarble :

Legacy brands used to be like this. In conferences, it was their traditional things to say these things to Tesla. Now?

Mslak :

You live and learn✌

jackcollins84 :

"big in germany"

user46290726240 :

Oh bless him.

RXLAB :

I don’t think it’s mainly because of Tesla. Look at the Chinese carmakers, they have together taken over the lead of Tesla overall

WoKeInquisitoR :

Roma :

Hochmut vor dem Fall

Aeon :

We will talk about Tesla when they will be able to share dividends to shareholders… in the meantime you can count cars and search for speeches

mk :

Das war wohl nix

Alex :

Thats basically Europe’s problem

kelpie :

yeah, hindsight

user8778787727023 :

Love it! Look at the arrogance! And now amazing China will rule us all❤️❤️Blessings from Denmark

Money motivation :

Amount of ignorance, overall this is the same mentality and old fashioned mindset everywhere, god knows only, Germany has to pay more prices for such ignorance. Sad sad sad

Strunz Hongo 🇩🇪🇪🇺 :

This arrogance brought them down. I’ll Never forgive them this trickery they did with the air pollution values, it dragged the name of german Engineering in mud.