We started our day at Velea, a law firm! We did this by taking a tram to the middle of town and then walking through Nordstan, the largest mall in Sweden. This was definitely my favorite commute. There was almost a hidden path to a group of buildings, and that’s where the office was. The office was very clean, quiet and spacious, and there were two levels.
We met with the CEO of the company. His name is Christian and he’s from England. He was really outgoing and enthusiastic about his job! He talked about the structure of the business and how everyone is on the same level. They outsource for things like their accounting, so it eliminates the stress and work of that position. More specifically, they work strictly with patents. We had a long presentation about what a patent is, what trademarks and copyrights are, and looked at famous patented products over time. The key to patents is: a patent prevents others from stealing your idea. My favorite advice he gave us was this: Have fun. Work somewhere where you look forward to Mondays and are bummed out for Fridays.
Later in the day, we went to Xylem, which is the world leading brand for water pumps. Their slogan is “Let’s solve water” and broken down, “let’s” means a collaborative effort and “solve water” is their mission and promise. We watched a video full of water-related statistics and how by 2050, the demand for water will increase by 5x. It included facts like: it takes 5 liters of water to make a hamburger. This is due to animal agriculture. That’s part of the reason I’m vegan– because animal agriculture is extremely water intensive and unsustainable. Xylem’s annual revenues are about $48 billion and they have around 16,000 employees world-wide. 97% of their products are exported. Advice that our presenter gave us in regard to water preservation is to not buy bottled water and to use the multiple functions of toilet flushing if we have that available to us.
For dinner, I went out alone. I had so much fun. I went to a restaurant called Blackbird and it was about a fifteen minute walk from the hostel. I’ve said it once, but I get so much enjoyment from having to navigate alone. It’s strategic and intellectually stimulating. I get so much fulfillment from it. Since I went alone, I ate at the bar and talked a lot with the bartender. He was very nice and I told him I want to move to Gothenburg. He told me one of the bad things about the city is the politics in this city are very corrupt, and it’s not like that throughout Sweden. He said politicians here get paid too well to be taking bribes from people. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I did find it interesting.
Take aways:
- Find a job where you can have genuine fun.
- You can’t “patent” a name.
- Cabbage rolls are amazing.
till sverige 