Markus Witte is founder and Executive Chairman at Babbel, the world's number one language-learning app. Markus began his career at NYU, and later lectured at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he discovered his passion for teaching. Following his time as an academic, he managed the online and systems teams at music software company Native Instruments. Coming back to learning and teaching, he founded Babbel with three others in 2007 and steered the company as CEO until 2019. Today, Markus heads Babbel as Executive Chairman. He has taken an unusual route from academia to the tech industry and later entrepreneurship. Independent study, however, has been the constant theme uniting these disparate paths. Markus's passion for autonomous learning was sparked by teaching himself programming in 1984 on an Olivetti L1 M44 computer in order to fund the purchase of his first drum kit. Since then, he views continuous learning as an approach to life.