Hello and welcome to the In Between Tech and Trust podcast.
My name is Eva Lihotzky and in today's episode I talked to
Magnus Stauber. He is Co founder of the startup
Nexus Politics and together with his team, Magnus is on the
mission to bring trust to the democratic process.
We dive into his approach, his limitations, and also the
challenges that he has encountered so far.
Welcome, Magnus to the In Between Tech and Trust podcast.
Thank you. It's a.
Pleasure to be here. You've just founded a company or
a startup in the intersection of democracy and also society.
And when you now think about tech and trust, what's the first
thing that comes to your mind? Simply said, it can be improved
to be honest. That's that's what.
We're trying to achieve with Nexus politics.
I think there's room to go. There's so much that that can be
done these days that couldn't be done like in a.
Like a couple of years back. Especially when I think of AI,
the advancements there, what's what's possible now with like
aggregating individual opinions, like analysing it and also
deriving like policy insights, policy.
Recommendations out of it? So I guess there's.
There's so much that can be done and should be improved, and
that's what we are trying to achieve with Nexus Politics.
And so your company sits at the intersection of like technology
and also the society or voters, so to say.
And if we zoom out, politics is one of the domains of where
trust is perceived as quite fragile and also challenged by
now. In your founding history, what
was the moment when you realize that technology can play a
different role? Yeah, that's a good question.
I think there was no specific moment.
Where I realized. Like now, that's the point of
time where I think we should get it started it.
Was more like a greater process. Like from both sides.
I mean 111 side is like the technical.
Aspects of it. The enabler technologies.
Which are out there these days. But on the other side, it's the
demand side. So the.
Side, I guess where we have. Seen this constant?
Deterioration and trust. In politics and also a.
Lack of? Yeah, like.
Like people just being dissatisfied with how democracy
functions, which is like. The core.
Problem that we are. Trying to address.
And I guess the combination out of the two made me think and
also my my Co founders. It's not just my idea, it's.
Also my my Co founders Christopher Buffalo's idea.
On Yeah building Nexus. Politics as a device, as a.
Platform in order to bring. Trust back into politics.
Can you trade a bit on how you do it?
Because I mean, the ambition is quite important, but also quite
challenging to translate it into tech and to navigate that space
of the personal perception of the voters and like democracy as
an institution. And particularly, in which
environment are you stepping into?
Yeah. So product itself I typically
call. It like a digital democracy
platform also. Operating system for digital.
Democracy. So what?
We're trying to achieve is like we're.
Addressing the problem of dissatisfaction with how
democracy functions. So this is where important.
We're not dressing. Like the issue?
Of unsatisfied or dissatisfaction with democracy
itself, but rather. Like how it works so the.
Process is behind and what we're.
Trying to achieve. Is more participation as the
first element. The second element is
transparency and the third one is accountability and what we
are doing in particular in order to.
Address these topics as. First and foremost, we want to
give people a voice and opinion like that they can easily.
Share or voice their. Opinions by coming on our
website having like a chat interface.
There where? The chat interface gives them
the opportunity to voice their opinions, ask questions sticks.
Deeper just to get like a. Broader sense of.
The problem or the issue the person has?
And then we analyse it with artificial intelligence.
In order to route it directly. To the responsible politicians
or political actors. And then we give.
Those politicians like the whole tool kit or.
Set of governance tools in order to stay accountable to the to
their constituents and give updates on what they're doing.
So basically what we. Want to do?
There's like. Opening up the black.
Box of politics so Well, it's actually.
To be fair, it's not a black. Box.
It's rather like. The information is.
Out there, but it's it's very. Fragmented.
It's it's not very interconnected.
It's hard to get all this data. What what we are trying to
achieve with Nexus politics and that's also where our name comes
from, is to to bring all these components together like think
them on porn website. That's what Nexus stands for and
and they're giving a single entry point into politics.
Where it's where it's easy to see what's.
Going on, so you voice your opinion on Nexus politics?
And we we provide you with. All the information that are
relevant to. Your particular case so.
That could be like petitions that are going on that.
Could be like protests. That you could join, that could
be civic engagement movements that are trying to target your
particular issue and then also like giving you all the insights
and what Parliament have been discussing about your topic and
and so on. So that's it in a nutshell.
And how do you navigate the neutrality that you need to keep
in order to reflect upon the fragmented landscape and also
the opinionated positions of the different kind of the political
parties? That's a very good question.
So I I guess. 22 answers to that.
So first one, staying politically neutral as an
institution that are like like Nexus politics as an institution
by being first and foremost for. Profit rather than.
Not-for-profit. Because if it.
Would be not-for-profit, then I guess we would be highly
dependent on donations and we cannot credibly claim we are
politically independent and then being funded by organizations
that are typically leaning. Towards political goals and.
Political agendas in one way or the other.
And the other second pillar that we are relying on is
transparency from our side. So by either opening like
sharing our code or being transparent.
About our internal processes etcetera.
So these are the 2 two approaches.
We're we're using there. To credibly showcase our
political neutrality. And we talk a lot about tech in
this podcast, and you just share that you open source or share
like how your platform is being built and how do you do that?
So how would people be able to interact with what you're
building? And how do you also scale up
that particular platform in a way that it stays robust and is
able to follow through on the ambition that you've voiced?
We're. Building open source so everyone
can can see what we're doing, inviting people to to link to
our platform so we don't want to.
Build the whole. Ecosystem by ourselves.
So this is also very important, like whenever there's an A
platform out there. Like a tool.
In the political sphere like civic engagement or government
covenants, tool, that is. Willing to collaborate, We are
more than. Welcome.
Or they are more than welcome to do it.
With us and so. We want to share.
Our data as well. Also we're.
Sharing our data with academia, of course, on an anonymous level
just to make sure that we're not revealing any personal, personal
information. So it's that's important to to
mention here and yeah. We we are just.
Open minded, so everyone who wants to work.
With us is more than. Welcome to work on this topic.
Because we are rather. Impact driven, so everyone.
Who helps us? Achieving our mission.
Is is welcome to to. Join our journey and you now
build up the system of like partners or those partners that
join your journey. And you carry a particular
responsibility because you also build up the system as a
platform. But you would at the same time
ensure that political positions, promises and decisions aren't
just like articulated, but they should stay accountable over
time. So that means that you also
navigate shifting opinions. How do you do that?
So the accountability part is ensured by first and foremost,
we're mapping public opinions. So we all living in.
Representative democracies, right?
So one of the first key components that you have to have
in a representative democracy is that you know what population
thinks what what. Actually.
Like what? What opinion people are holding,
and this is what we're doing with Nexus politics.
So we are mapping public opinion in real time, meaning we
showcase. It it's it's.
Transparent for everyone to see what Germany, what Bavaria of
what Munich is thinking about. A particular topic.
And then we can. Basically build this delta of
this gap. In between what what people
think on a representative level and also what politicians then
do about it. Yeah, this is.
I guess first and foremost by like showing.
The discrepancies in. Between the two and then and
then secondly. Of course we incorporate.
Other features similar to to platforms like UP, Got that
Watch etcetera they can. Hold your politicians.
Accountable in in that. Regard and so this is also
incorporated. In our platform and politicians
can transparently. Report about the.
Progress by themselves. But what we also.
Building into the platform is we are linking all the parliaments
with all the. Transcripts.
Of of the parliamentary sessions.
So we are also they are increasing transparency in the.
Processes and showcasing what? Has been done or what not has
hasn't been done in order. To address the.
Problems that people wise. To hold politicians accountable.
There and I do want to get to your founding story because it's
also quite interesting time for you to a founder startup and B
founded in a political context because we like realized that
the political landscape is also somewhat under pressure.
And what made you confident that this is the exact moment that
you want to found Nexus politics, but also that you
wanna get into politics itself to change something?
Good? Good question.
So I'm not sure. If it's the perfect.
Moment, but it's. It's a quite.
Good moment I guess. First of all, because I guess.
Political dissatisfaction is rising not just in Germany but
basically in all Western democracies, and this has been.
A process that. Did not just.
Start like yesterday it. Has been going on for like
10/10/15 years already, it's only it's only getting worse.
So trust is eroding. So something has to be done
about it. And yeah, what?
Why now? I guess there's also personal
aspects. Playing a role here.
So yeah, I met my. Co founder Christophe like 2
years ago. And then we started thinking
about. What are the biggest?
Pressing issues of our time and where do we contribute, Want to
contribute? And again and again, we came
back. To this topic of.
Dissatisfaction with how democracy works and.
I guess it's also. Like not just looking back in
terms of. Like it it has gotten worse but
also like the the prospects I guess.
We are facing so many important challenges going forward, also
in terms of. Like technological progress?
And what that means for our societies and our labour markets
and etcetera. And I think we have to have
these super important discussions now in terms of how
we want to deal with that and we want Nexus politics.
To be be. Like one part of the solution, I
like offering the platform to hold this super important
conversations about how we want to.
Structure our society. Going forward and how we.
Want to address these big big topics?
And most founders set themselves moon shot goals or like targets
that are hard to achieve. So can you share?
Do you want to share whether or not you have one?
But what would be the ideal impact, let's say 5 to 10 years
going forward that you have had looking back on your journey of
founding Nexus politics? Sure, I guess.
One of our role models is Audrey.
Chang, she was the digital minister in Taiwan and
implemented like a similar solution there, so.
They have. They have had.
Similar issues with like political dissatisfaction and.
Distrust into politics? And then what?
What she did is she heavily relied.
Or build, build a platform for like political participation and
like, really? Press the topic.
And I guess satisfaction. With democracy rose.
Significantly under her term and I think that.
Showcases that political tech tools like ours.
Can make an impact. Of course, it's always hard to
differentiate. Of course.
What's the? Particular impact of that
particular tool. Or was it rather?
Like just a general effect over time.
So to to disentangle all these effects.
That are going on at the same time, but I guess fast looking
ahead 10 years I guess. It would be a huge success.
If we don't have these debates anymore about societies falling
apart. Mistrusting each other, distrust
in politics, all these topics. That you can reach constantly
and then use. If those vanish or at least
become less frequently talked about, then that would be
already quite a significant contribution and on a on a more
specific level on Nexus. Politics, I guess.
What we would. Like to achieve is.
That when people think about tech and politics in the future,
but the first thing that comes to the mind is like Nexus
politics. So.
Think of LinkedIn for work. When you think of tech for work
then everyone thinks of LinkedIn and same pattern hopefully
builds in the future for for Nexus.
Politics. So that would be our goal.
Now this year, you've launched the platform and you've built it
and are evolving it iteratively. But up until now, what were the
hardest design decisions when you built your platform,
especially when it comes to the trust that you want to build
with, like the users on it and in connecting them to the
political environment? I guess the hardest part is
always reality. So reality in a sense that you
have this ideal path of how you. Would build your company.
So first you do this and then you do this and so on.
But of course. Founder.
Founder Journeys. Are very seldomly like this, so
typically you're dealing. With 1,000,000 things at the
same time, and this is also what?
What makes it hard? Because you cannot just.
Like build. Slowly and do.
It step by step, but of. Course you have to fundraise at
the same time you have to. You have to reach out already to
particular stakeholders. Do networking.
Etcetera, whilst you're still building the product and ideally
I guess you would first. Get a feedback, then build it,
then get feedback again on and that product and so on.
But yeah, it's it's not. Such a structured process.
To be honest, so it's not, it's not unfortunately.
Well, we're. We're trying our best I guess,
and. So far it's it's going rather
well, I would say. But yeah.
I mean, sometimes you you figure like something that you might
have built in in the past is actually not what do you think
politicians want to? Have that desperately or or
like. That citizens need that.
Desperate. Desperately so.
I mean, I guess it's an. Iterative learning.
Process from both sides. And yeah, we we are.
Way into it now and it's. Rather going well.
I like the rather again, that drives me exactly to the next
question. Where was the biggest surprise
for you in the iterative build up of the platform or maybe also
in, you know, realizing that you thought you want to have feature
and then it turned out that this was like the least preferred one
or you received feedback why and you desperately needed to pivot
or go in another direction. Did you have any of those
moments already? The the biggest surprise, I
guess was so far the very positive feedback that we got.
Generally, like, there's hardly, I mean.
That's that's also pro. Yeah, that's probably also
because what we are. Building we.
We we branded as a digital. Democracy platform and of.
Course, if your customers. Are politicians.
There's no politician who will tell you he does not like.
A digital democracy platform, but at.
The end of the day. You you only see.
Like when when they use the platform in the future or not.
Whether you really succeeded? In building something meaningful
for them, so and this has. Still to be decided.
Listening to you, it also could be that you're quite self
critical, because isn't that also a quite nice thing to have
to receive like positive feedback?
But of course, I also understand it's hard to estimate whether or
not you like are on the right track or not, particularly in
that environment. You just said that politicians
might not like they're, you wouldn't expect like a negative
feedback from them. Do you think that they are
equipped to enter the space of transparent communication in
that sense and to use like platforms and technology to
their respective positioning and to also voice their political
agenda? Yes, definitely, I guess.
We we see the. Adoption of of tools and the
political spaces very much increasing in in recent years.
So you can see it on on in all different regards.
Like be it like political tech conferences which grow.
Grow bigger and bigger each year.
You can see it in the start-ups popping up.
All over the place. Working on such solutions, you
can also see it on on government agencies so.
Sprint has been recently. Launched for golf.
Tech as well, like. Yeah, where you can just.
See, there's more public. Funding going into that sphere
and. Yeah, so that there's a.
Lot being done being worked on right now.
So I guess it's a, It's a. Good time to to work on, on that
particular topic and, and do you believe on solution, Do you
believe that tech can help rebuild democratic trust?
I guess so, Otherwise we. Wouldn't be doing it.
Simple answer now of. Course, I mean it's it's as
always in life, there's not just.
One side. Of it, there's always two sides,
so for tech it's the same. Like tech can be a solution, but
can also be a problem at the same time.
So two sides of the metal and. So far we are we have mostly
heard. About the negative.
Aspects of tech especially. In Germany.
That we that we are rather critical of like.
Social platforms like social media, how it divides our
democracies and stuff like that. But I guess it's also the.
End of the day, the solution because imagine a world without.
All of that stuff. I mean.
Would we really be? More united?
Or would it all be better? I don't know.
Because it's an. Also an enabler.
Technology and so many. Things have been created.
Out of these connections that were made on social media or so
many initiatives. Were started just recently.
When we went to Copenhagen for the for the rebuild conference,
I guess I don't know if something like that.
Would have worked without. Social media, bringing all these
people together, making people aware of these initiatives going
on and. So therefore, yeah, it's it's a
2 sided sword. We try to Polish the the other
side. A little more now with tech as a
solution to the to the whole thing rather than being a
problem. How do you navigate the risks,
but also the opportunities to it.
So you've just highlighted in tech being A2 sided sword, but I
mean the IT flips right? Depending on the use case and
the interaction that you have with the the the platform, it
becomes difficult to estimate or maybe we also to navigate how do
you approach that as a company? It's a good question.
I guess by by. Testing you, you would.
See. Like how?
People interact with your. Product How?
People use it and what kind of outcomes it creates and.
Of course we have our KPIs that we're we're.
Trying to measure and this gives you insights into what kind of
outcome you're you're achieving with what you intended at the
beginning. And of course there can be
discrepancies in between what you think might be the outcome
come and also in terms of what actually is the outcomes.
My background is in behavioural economics and I guess there.
Are 1,000,000. Interesting examples of good
intentions and bad outcomes. So one has to be.
Very careful about what what you build.
There and. How it will be used because?
Everything can be misused. As well so.
Even if you have the best. Product it also.
At the end of the day, also depends.
On how the people. Use it and.
This can be taken into account when you design it, but only to
such an extent and. For the rest, you have to be
able to reiterate. Work on it constantly improve it
and see what. What the use cases are?
Absolutely want to go into the user aspects of it and talk a
bit about the ways that user interact with like politics on a
like macro level and then translated into what you provide
in terms of platform. What is the biggest challenge
for you in user behaviour currently or maybe also voter
behaviour? Basically to have them trust you
in using your platform for them to form an opinion about the
political. Yeah, good question.
So I guess. We are having the same problems.
As every other startup, at the beginnings you're just first of.
All one player out there and why should.
Citizens, people trust you rather.
Than anyone else. So I guess.
It's very important. To showcase how you deal with
like the data. So for us.
It's like for instance, we. Are we are fully.
Compliant with GDPR. The AI Directive.
And and so on. So this.
Is not just because we have to, because.
It's it's one of our core promises.
I guess to our users that we, yeah.
For instance, like in Germany, it's a, it's a.
Big topic that your data is hosted.
In Germany, or at least the European Union.
So we are fully. Compliant with that and and and.
Other aspects of it. This is 1 aspect, so the legal
and compliance. Part of it.
Then it's. Also like how you approach the
whole. Situation in terms of who you
partner with, like the institutions you're supported by
etcetera that can be trust building for our.
Case it's we are. Both alumni of the Technical
University of Manic. So we're strongly embedded in
the local ecosystem here. We're part of the term
incubator. We're supported by the.
Professorship of. Policy analysis at the Technical
University, but then again, we also part of different other
initiatives, for instance, the Munich Impact Incubator.
So we are one of the one of five impact start-ups in the city of
Munich and also Social Impact Republic, for instance, who help
us refine our impact model and yeah, make.
Sure that we achieve. Our very ambitious impact.
Goals. And when you have institutions
like these supporting you? I guess this is.
Trust building and and helps others.
Yeah, to to. Overcome this initial scepticism
that I fully understand when you are navigating the, the online
sphere that you just don't share your, your data with any
platform out there. And yeah, then I'll, as
mentioned earlier, general approach about transparency.
Interestingly, you just named some of the like prominent
voices in the ecosystem for startups here in Munich.
So we both are based out of Munich and are quite familiar
with the context here. And when we met last time, I
remember a sentence that you said and you said if we fail,
then it's definitely up to us because the ecosystem is so
strong that that it can't be due to, you know, the lack of
support, for example. And I needed to smile.
And at the same time, I do want to ask you what the support
means to you and what makes Munich as a founding city or
founder city so special, if it's the ecosystem, the support or
maybe something else that you helps you enter, like the
journey that you're on. Yeah, I think I.
I still. Still think that the statement
that I made. Back then is right, so we have
a. Super amazing ecosystem here in
Munich that supports us or The thing is that there are million.
Ways to fail. But typically just one or two.
Hard to be right so that that makes it of course tricky at the
end of the day. To church like.
Where we where it all went wrong?
It's definitely real. That's just pressure is awesome.
Just hatching myself here. No, just kidding, just kidding.
But I guess overall. What?
What does the support mean to? Us first of first and foremost,
of course. It's like the financial support.
That that we get so we are exist.
Funded so that's. Quite a big privilege.
Of having the opportunity to dedicate.
Like a whole year to your project.
Work on, work on it. See what opportunities are
there. So not everyone has that.
Then secondly, we we got financial support by the city of
Munich. So that's very good to have.
But then it's also like the opportunities, like so many.
People who deeply care about our project, Who?
Reach out to me whenever they see something so we I feel like
I have a million eyes. Keeping eye on every
opportunity. Out there which I.
Myself would not be. Able to to do so.
This is like super helpful. And then like the amazing amount
of talent that you have in Munich with all these super good
universities around. So that helps.
Quite a lot. All these events that are taking
place where you can showcase your solutions, get get
feedback. Etcetera.
So this is also super. Valuable, yeah.
So kudos. Well done the.
Munich ecosystem is really good. Especially also in comparison to
two other. Cities.
So I guess there are only a. Few that might be.
Better, but yeah, fast. It's the perfect.
Place to build and yeah, we're. Quite happy to be.
Based in Munich and well, we're not just based based in Unix.
So now we have a team for all over Germany basically, but the
core team is here and that's where we take part in the
ecosystem. Is there any point of view that
you have on the discussion that is currently going on in terms
of financial funding based out of Europe versus the US and what
the particular differences are, especially when it comes to
scaling startup? I mean, you're quite early on
your journey, but probably you have either put a thought into
it or at least like you have an opinion about how whole
discussion is being formed. Yeah, good question, I think.
It's right what most people say, that it's the the.
Probably bigger funding opportunities in the US than in
Europe, but it's not just funding, it's also like.
The. The level of integration.
That that's a hindrance. Here in Europe, so we're talking
now about EU Inc, which should be implemented pretty soon.
I guess that would be a big improvement, but.
Yeah, I, I. Think at the end of the day,
you're building for local, local markets and we see our core
market here here in Europe at the beginning, at least at the
end of the. Day our products our.
Platform scales to all representative democracy, so we
can also. See ourselves going to the US,
Australia or other. Countries where?
Where we have similar problems but.
Funding wise, yeah. I guess it's true like the the
early. The early funding is quite
sufficient. But then there's the so-called
Valley of. Death, you're in between the
like your MVP and and scaling your product and.
This is I guess that the biggest problem.
We're having in Germany right now.
Maybe also in Europe. That that many promising ideas.
Start-ups. Fail in this period and because
we have brilliant people here in Germany, brilliant people in
Europe who who can build and can change the world for their.
Products, but it's. It's on us to support them on
this. Critical step from.
Like being like a a small solution or having an MVP up to
making it big and and the. US has.
Way more experience, I guess in, in terms of doing that, but
we're catching up. Quickly.
I guess so. You can see all these
initiatives in Europe forming also like rebuilding in
Copenhagen that I mentioned already.
Yeah, I'm, I'm very optimistic. That this get might.
Also, at least become smaller smaller in the future and
become. Less, less, less of a hindrance
to. To built in Europe.
What a great outlook. I I'm curious to follow that
along with what particularly that means to you.
And since we're now coming to the end of our conversation and
the podcast episode, I want to take some in between moments
with you, which are intuitive reflections and that you would
answer with like a one word or a very short sentence.
And the first moment that I want to put out there is what trust
in politics feels like to you. It should be improved.
So that's my answer. And what should technology never
do? Divide people.
And what needs democracy more of Nexus politics?
And when does civic participation break?
When there's no trust anymore. And is there a word that you as
a person, founder, dad are currently in between?
That's the trickiest question. I guess we're.
We're we're in between like having our product now and and
scaling it and they are, yeah. This is where we are right now.
So it's it's, it's our current situation that.
Would be my answer. Amazing.
Thank you for the conversation and for taking us along on your
founders and politician or politics journey at the
intersection of tech, tech, trust and democracy.
And I'm curious follow along. Was a pleasure thanks Ava for.
Having me on the. Podcast yeah would be very
excited if all of. Your listeners.
Could visit our website and yeah, please give it a try.
Yeah, looking forward to. What's ahead of us?
Thank you everyone. Amazing.
I'll also link it in the show notes.
Bye.