#212 — Podjetništvo, ambicije in delo z ljudmi (Marjan Batagelj)

Welcome to episode 212 of A Podcast; I’m Klemen, and today I’m joined by entrepreneur Marjan Batagelj to talk ego, listening, leading people and culture, pricing and regulation, Slovenia’s view of success and profit, Europe’s drift, school, talent, ambition, inflation, Christmas bonuses, and the state’s role.

You spent years under a media spotlight; how did that pressure shape your view on having opinions about everything?

Public life pushed me to speak on every topic, but the world is too complex for instant takes; when you go deeper, you realize how little you know and how strong herd thinking can be.

We’re wired for confirmation, and platforms feed it; are we drifting into echo chambers, even with AI?

Ego loves validation, and AI can be trained to flatter, which is dangerous; data is like crude oil, and the more refined the system, the more persuasive it becomes.

Let’s bring it to leadership; how do you build a culture where people can disagree with the boss without fear?

After decades with teams, I lead by context and trust, not by decree; we aligned on a simple north star at Postojna Cave—choose what benefits the cave and the visitor—and I backed it by learning the work on the ground.

How does that principle guide pricing and visitor flow when capacity is limited?

Price is a steering wheel, not a blunt instrument; we cap daily entries, keep global mid‑range prices, and protect sustainability, and we upgraded the whole park so the experience matches the value.

People say Slovenia is pricey and just a corridor to Croatia; how did you respond?

We kept services broadly accessible while improving quality, and spend per guest rose approximately eight percent; we reinvested for years, then paid dividends after major upgrades, which some misread as greed despite local ownership benefiting.

There’s tension between private ownership and natural heritage; how do you square that?

I grew up in another system and respect solidarity, but progress needs responsibility, ambition, and competence; Europe is aging, overregulated, and comfy, and without a defense mindset you get decline.

We keep looking outside for fixes and lose our inner steering; crisis used to force that inner focus.

Strong societies often breed weak leaders, and weak times call for strong ones; I urge younger people to take clear positions, act locally, protect our language and culture, and stop exporting our best minds for free.

Do you believe everyone carries that inner fire, or is that rare?

Everyone has something worth cultivating, and a leader’s job is to spot it and place people well; once we hired a marketer who turned out to be a gifted designer, and she flourished when matched to the right craft.

School channels kids into averages and misses talent; one‑to‑one mentorship seems best, yet we rarely resource it.

Like in sport, we celebrate teams but rise on standout individuals; we trim excellence, pressure teachers, and then wonder why we lack outliers.

Listeners ask about money and success; how do you answer those who feel locked out?

Wealth is not an elevator; it’s stairs, and joy comes at each step you earn, not from chasing someone else’s yacht; permissive comfort kills grit, while in our firms we tie a solid wage and a thirteenth salary to performance and keep aspirations honest.

Inflation is a hidden tax on the weakest, and the Christmas bonus mandate felt like vote buying; what’s your take?

It’s bread and circuses—once a gift becomes an entitlement, it grows and is funded by debt and inflation; worst of all, the state rewrote private agreements retroactively, and many firms even borrowed to comply.

That retroactive move cut across the employer‑employee pact; set new rules prospectively if you must, but don’t change the deal after the work is done.

Let’s ground this in reality: average gross pay keeps getting treated as a fixed ladder tied to inflation, but it moves, and in places like Italy it’s actually fallen; forcing wage hikes without real dialogue hits micro businesses hardest and skips the Economic and Social Council where employers, unions, and the government should hammer this out.

If you ask people, “Do you want more?” they’ll always vote yes, which is why we protect property rights and guard against the tyranny of the majority; the wealth tax trend in places like California or France sounds fair, but seizing what’s legally yours is still wrong.

A wealth levy here is risky because Slovenia barely has large fortunes, and pushing harder on the few we do have only scares capital and ambition away in a country that already struggles to scale companies.

Even our inequality data suggests we’re compressing outcomes to the point we dull edge and drive.

Punish top performance long enough and you suffocate talent, so to younger listeners I’d say: be patient, start smaller with housing, focus on work, and choose leaders who promise freedom and growth over easy handouts.

Think long term and have kids; resilience comes from responsibility, not coddling, and stories like Ferragamo’s show how scarcity and big families can forge grit.

The best fix is to live your values out loud; be a steady example and people will copy what works.

I’m glad for dissent too, because a society needs conflicting poles to stay balanced, even when it feels like some folks wish voices like ours didn’t exist.

Friction and limits spark creativity, not comfort, which is why we need that other side to sharpen ideas.

Constraints have pushed our own team to invent better products from packaging to design, because when materials or rules box you in, you rethink from first principles.

In long conversations you can wander, so I try to follow my own reasoning and keep it constructive instead of playing to the crowd.

I treat this like a one‑to‑one conversation and the published episode is just a side effect; the exchange itself is the reward.

Thanks for the invite and the thoughtful back‑and‑forth.

Thanks for listening and for your attention; if you want to support the project, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and subscribe to the IDEA newsletter in the show notes, a short Friday email with five curated links and how long each takes to read—see you next time.