May 13, 2025 at 7:01 PM

Yesterday, as we were enjoying dinner in Paris with Manuel Muñoz Megías and Javier Barrales, our CTO Niels Zeilemaker shared that one of the best compliments he ever received from a customer was brief but pithy: “You know when to take a shortcut”.

That it’s! 7 words that mean the world to us.

Because it’s true, it’s a great compliment.

Knowing when to take a shortcut, means you have experience. You know if you can afford it. If the simplicity of the shortcut is worth more that the full solution.

This is in stark contrast to what happened to my family and me in Croatia two weeks ago.

We had to go from point A to point B.

Sure enough, Apple Maps presented two routes: a long and a short route.

I picked the short one, which I thought was more panoramic as well.

And, as we descended a mountain, we soon got stuck in 6 km of off-road path in which I probably lost a couple of pounds trying to navigate a 9-seaters along the island we were in.

Thank God, we made it to the end alive without damaging the car (I hope!), but I wish I had a Xebian beside me to tell me I should have taken to long road on that day!