Our savings and pensions are meant to secure a good life in old age. But much of that money still flows into industries that wear down the systems we all depend on. Seven of nine planetary boundaries have been breached, AI and geopolitics are adding instability, and most of the financial system still treats these risks as somebody else's problem.

In this episode we sit down with Andreas Treichl at the office of ERSTE Foundation & Zweite Sparkasse in Vienna. Over 22 years as CEO, he turned Erste Group from a local Austrian savings bank into a leading financial services provider in Central and Eastern Europe. Since July 2026, he has led ERSTE Foundation, one of Europe's largest non-profit foundations and the core shareholder of Erste Group. Charly first met him in 2007, when ERSTE Foundation backed the global Impact Hub. Andreas's first impression of him was "Who is that crazy guy?" - they've been comparing notes ever since.

We ask:
Which systemic risks are banks still not taking into account?
What can banks actually do, and where do they hit their limits?
Why do capital markets need to be democratized before they can finance the transformation?
How do we finance a regenerative region when no single instrument really fits?
What would it take for pension funds to secure our prosperity, not undermine it?

Along the way, Andreas pushes back on how much commercial lending can change. He also makes the case for blended and outcome-based finance, and he explains why regulation isn't built for them yet.

"Who owns you?" is the provocative question Amit Pradhan likes to ask audiences. The answer, he says, is about seven companies. And the current acceleration of AI isn't changing that, it's deepening it: training relative cognitive representations of who we are into systems we as users cannot control.

Tech wasn't always built this way. When Charly moved to the Silicon Valley in the 80s, the engineers were chasing a challenge, not control. They were after building cool products no one else could. And wealth was a side effect, not the point. Somewhere between then and now, something shifted. Amit gives us a glimpse into what moves builders today - the metrics that dominate the room: how much you've raised, how fast you can cut your unit costs, how high your valuation climbs. Questions about who it actually serves, or what it costs humanity to get there, rarely make the agenda.

So is a shift towards responsible AI even possible inside the current system? Or does answering that question require rebuilding the system underneath it - who owns the data, who profits from it and who gets a say?

Amit Pradhan has spent the past several years trying to build that alternative with Rainfall, a self-sovereign AI platform built on the idea that your data - and the AI trained on it - should stay under your control. Amit is an entrepreneur and investor who's been part of the Valley for over two decades, co-founded the Silicon Valley Blockchain Society and has been an early mover in decentralized technology. He has served on multiple Boards, including the Norwegian Refugee Council (nrc.no), on the BMW Mobility Council and acts as a mentor to startup founders around the world.

Resources mentioned:

• Burnout From Humans: A little book about AI that is not really about AI
• Rainfall: https://rainfall.one/

Episode Credits:

• Hosts: Charly Kleissner, Andrea Wyss
• Producer: Felix Zeltner
• Editing: Rabea Debus
• Photo: Monika Grassl

Matthias Strolz, ehemaliger Spitzenpolitiker, heute Impact-Unternehmer und Bestsellerautor, ist mit seinem neuen Buch “Homo Universus” zu Gast im Podcast.

Charlys und Matthias Lebenswege haben sich immer wieder gekreuzt, nun treffen sie sich erstmals für ein tiefergehendes Gespräch. Es geht um den Neuanfang am Zenit der Karriere - und warum gerade in Politik und Wirtschaft so viele Männer den Absprung nicht schaffen – um Veränderung von innen - auch durch spirituelle Erfahrungen, die Zukunft der Alpen und vieles mehr, was in der aktuellen Poly-Krise wichtiger ist denn je.

Matthias’ “Angle”: Braucht es eine „zweite Aufklärung“, ein neues Verständnis davon, was es heißt, Mensch zu sein? Welche Fähigkeiten brauchen (junge) Menschen in dieser komplexen Welt? Und warum müssen wir nach innen wachsen, um nach außen wirksam zu werden?

Matthias’ neues Buch “Homo Universus. Unser Menschsein neu entdecken” ist ab dem 17. August 2026 im Buchhandel erhältlich, ab dem 8. Dezember auch auf Englisch (“Homo Universus. Unfolding into Our Next Stage of Evolution.”). Mehr unter https://homouniversus.org/.

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