Latest / King Dems Podcast | Growth Mindset, Leadership, AI and Business Insights / Will AI Replace Jobs and Leaders? | Steve Endacott
Transcript
- 0:00But do you think AI can make better decisions than humans
- 0:04when it comes to leadership role?
- 0:05Fundamentally, no. That is exactly the wrong use of
- 0:09AI. AI is there to be your copilot
- 0:11is a leader. I'll give you examples.
- 0:13Neural River have a product called Mayi and Mayi is about
- 0:17creating a business brain and we upload all the documents, you
- 0:20know, your accounts, your sales packs, your customer services,
- 0:23your FAQs, we scrape your website and it creates a
- 0:26knowledge of your business. We then we called every single
- 0:30Zoom teams meeting and other meeting you have and phone call
- 0:33you have. So everything is captured,
- 0:35analysed and can be fed up to the leader to say this is what's
- 0:39actually going in your business. But it's the leader's job to
- 0:42make the decisions. It's a leader's job to show
- 0:45leadership to it's human team. Yeah, the leader can you an AI
- 0:49to communicate. For example, we've created a
- 0:51town hall function and we've cloned that leader's voice so we
- 0:54can just, you know, write what he wants to say, or the AI can
- 0:57write what he says. He's the edge of it, and it goes
- 0:59out to all his staff members that are fully aware what's
- 1:01going on. But leadership and human
- 1:03leadership is the ultimate power.
- 1:06AI is just an enabler. Hi there, are you a professional
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- 1:52Live ladies and gentlemen, once again welcome to the King James
- 1:56podcast and Diary of the CFO. And today I've got with me a
- 1:59very important guest are fighting out of the United
- 2:03Kingdom. Make welcome Steve the AI man.
- 2:07And the cart. How are you Steve?
- 2:10I'm. Good, thanks.
- 2:11Ready to rock'n'roll? Wow.
- 2:15See what you've got to say? OK, OK, man, just before we hit
- 2:20the record button, we're saying we don't know the Steve you're
- 2:23getting today, either the real Steve or the AI Steve.
- 2:26What is Steve are we getting today?
- 2:30You're getting the real one that answers questions quickly
- 2:32without me having to write a script for it.
- 2:35OK, amazing. And the Steve without the prompt
- 2:37engineering. So sit back why we'll read to
- 2:41you your flowers. So today's episode is.
- 2:44One of those rare conversations that sits at the intersection of
- 2:49business, technology and legacy. Our.
- 2:52Guest is a serial. Entrepreneur, investor and
- 2:55Chairman who has built, skilled and exited multiple ventures
- 2:59across travel, fintech and now artificial Intelligence.
- 3:04From helping shape the modern travel industry to building AI
- 3:07driven ventures like Neuro Voice and Co Founding Life's Echo, he
- 3:12is now tackling one of the most profound questions of our time.
- 3:16What does it mean to live on beyond your lifetime?
- 3:20He is also the mind behind AI, Steve and AI powered political
- 3:26candidates designed to rethink how democracy could work in the
- 3:30digital age. This is a conversation about
- 3:33innovation, risk, legacy and the future of humanity in an AI
- 3:38driven world. Steve, welcome once again to The
- 3:41Kingdom's podcast. Thanks for having me.
- 3:45You're welcome, Sir. So let's go to the origin story.
- 3:49You know the origin behind the authority.
- 3:52So you've had an incredible journey from traditional
- 3:56industries into AI. What were the key Inflexion
- 4:00points that shaped your thinking as an entrepreneur?
- 4:04I think the first thing that happened was my business went
- 4:06bust. I was working with International
- 4:08Leisure Group in 1990. I took a year out to travel
- 4:12around the world. I came back on the 1st of March
- 4:15and then the business went bust on the 8th of March.
- 4:18So my job, my career went down the toilet overnight and we had
- 4:22to start a new business. And we created a new business
- 4:24called Sunworld. We made-up the name on a Sunday
- 4:26afternoon, News of the World and the Sun.
- 4:29We went and rented some offices and we pinched the computers
- 4:32from the old company because we couldn't afford them and then
- 4:35paid for them later. And it taught me how to be an
- 4:37entrepreneur in a corporate world.
- 4:39So it's a seismic shock to me, but it was one that taught me
- 4:43that you can survive disaster, move forward and actually make
- 4:46good profit from it. It's amazing, you know, that's
- 4:49the spirit of resilience, you know, coming back from disaster,
- 4:53but you know, you are a man of multiple feathers, right?
- 4:59So from travel to AI, you you've got your hands in different pies
- 5:04and of course, you've built an exceeded successful businesses,
- 5:08you know, in travel industry before moving into the AI
- 5:12industry. So what did travel industry
- 5:14teach you about skill, about margins, and about timing?
- 5:18I. Think it's probably not so much
- 5:21travel but having a corporate career first.
- 5:24Is unusual for an entrepreneur. So I was not a born
- 5:28entrepreneur. I did not just risk everything.
- 5:31I had a corporate career. I cheated my way through the
- 5:33ranks because I knew how to. Fiddle the accounts.
- 5:35Because I was an accountant, I understood the margins, I
- 5:38understood where to go, where to make money, and I got to the top
- 5:43of a largest tour operator in the world at the time I travel
- 5:47and I was chief operating officer in the UK and I hated
- 5:50the job and I hated the job because I didn't actually do a
- 5:54job anymore. I just sat behind the desk and
- 5:57had multiple meetings all week. And I did that top role, which
- 6:00was my dream role for a year, and I went to.
- 6:02Hell with this, it's ruining my marriage, it's ruining my life.
- 6:06I don't like the job I'm leaving.
- 6:08And then you have to work out that actually you can't just
- 6:10leave. You need to get them to sack you
- 6:13and give you a year's pay off so you can start your new business.
- 6:16So that's exactly what I did. I became very.
- 6:18Awkward in corporate life. Managed to persuade them to pay
- 6:21me off and then I started my entrepreneurial life again and
- 6:24launched a new business. So, yeah, interesting.
- 6:28You know so many founders tend to chase trends, but you seem to
- 6:32anticipate them. How do you spot where the world
- 6:35is going before others? Do that.
- 6:40I think you sit back. I tend to sit in the hot tub in
- 6:43the morning and think about my sector, my industry, what's
- 6:47going on. So for example, when I was
- 6:49running my travel, we used to run what we call a vertically
- 6:53integrated model where we had an airline, a torporator and a
- 6:55retail shop network. And I could see these big rocks
- 7:00coming. And we were a big juggernaut of
- 7:02an oil tanker heading towards those rocks.
- 7:04And the rocks were the Internet, because the Internet was going
- 7:07to mean that people wouldn't book their holidays via travel
- 7:09agent solely, and it would mean we'd lose control of our
- 7:12distribution. And that would open the door for
- 7:15new companies to come in. And at the same time, low cost
- 7:18carriers were taking off. So for example, if you want to
- 7:20get to Majorca in the old days, you used to own the aircraft, or
- 7:24you had to charter a aircraft, or you had to take an allocation
- 7:27of 20 seats. Yeah.
- 7:29And then low cost carriers came along and as a tour operator, I
- 7:33invented a product called Dynamic Packaging where it says,
- 7:36well, hang on a minute, we don't have to commit to anything.
- 7:39We will just scan all the low cost airlines flights, create a
- 7:42database of flights. We'll then negotiate lots of
- 7:45hotel contracts with thousands of hotels.
- 7:48And every night we'll just manufacture 150 million holiday
- 7:52options like baking holidays, but every day we'd sell about
- 7:56100 of them. And then we'd shut the ones we
- 7:58hadn't used away and bake again. And only at the moment did the
- 8:02customer say, yeah, I want that holiday.
- 8:04Did we actually use the technologies behind the scenes
- 8:07to click and buy the airline seat, buy the bed, buy the
- 8:10transfer and put it all together for them.
- 8:12So it's just in time tour rating which was diametrically opposed
- 8:17to how the big tour raters work, which is all pre made, all fixed
- 8:20risk and had to be sold at the last minute at huge losses.
- 8:24So it was sitting back looking at the weaknesses of our market,
- 8:27look at the opportunities coming along, which is low cost
- 8:29carriers and the Internet and saying how can I do what I've
- 8:34done for the last 20 years in a more flexible different way.
- 8:38And that's the strategic thinking that's sitting back
- 8:41understanding your market and understanding technology.
- 8:44And that same opportunity is coming again.
- 8:47And I love disruption and I love destroying other people's
- 8:51businesses, and I think we can do that with AI.
- 8:54So. You're actually to describe
- 8:56yourself as a commercially driven, you know, leader with a
- 9:00strong financial mindset. So how has finance shaped your
- 9:05decision making as a founder and as an investor?
- 9:10OK, I'll give you a couple of tips.
- 9:11I became an accountant when I came out in university.
- 9:14Never wanted to be an accountant, just wanted to get
- 9:17into management. And it was the easiest route at
- 9:18the time to get into management. But it taught me a lot of
- 9:21things. It taught me how to read a
- 9:23balance sheet. It taught me the power of cash.
- 9:25So when you're starting a business up, you've got to
- 9:29really understand that cash is more important than profit.
- 9:33Scalability is more important than profit because you need to
- 9:38raise money from investors who need to buy into that business
- 9:42and you have to understand the tax benefits for those
- 9:44investors. For example, SEIS in EIS
- 9:47schemes, very simply our lovely government allow you to raise
- 9:51£250,000 from Angel investors and if you invest £50,000, you
- 9:57get half of that back of your next tax bill using SEIS.
- 10:02Yep. So 50,000 LB becomes £25,000 and
- 10:05if the business fails, you can claim enough 40% back.
- 10:09So you need to go to investors and explain, give me £50,000 and
- 10:13you're only risking 12 1/2. And that's why I'm, I've got
- 10:16this nice juicy £2,000,000 valuation because you're, it's
- 10:19punt money, you're taking a punt on my success.
- 10:23And therefore you're basing that punt on have I got a management
- 10:26team, am IA credible leader? Do I have an idea?
- 10:30Can it scale? And the scale is the most
- 10:33important thing because if they don't get 10 times their money,
- 10:36they're not interested. So they're not interested in
- 10:39real world businesses like building houses.
- 10:42They're interested in things that can go from zero to hero
- 10:45and a very quick time and become a Unicorn.
- 10:47So, and you know, Speaking of compounding, what is one
- 10:51decision you made early in your career that compounded into
- 10:55massive long term value? For me, it was very simple.
- 10:59It was walking away from a corporate job to do my own
- 11:03thing. And that's a tough decision to
- 11:05make. And actually, I'd advise most
- 11:07people not to do it, yeah, because the risks are so great.
- 11:11But I was in a lucky position that I've made enough money from
- 11:14corporate life. I've just been paid off by my
- 11:16travel. For a year, yeah.
- 11:18And I went, you know what, I'm not going back to corporate
- 11:20life. I'm going to build my own
- 11:21businesses. And the first decision there is
- 11:24I didn't want to build 1 business and put all my efforts
- 11:26and time into one business. So I built a call centre
- 11:30business, I built a insurance business.
- 11:34One of my mates came to me with an idea of a transfer business,
- 11:37so I backed that and I built a technology hub to build all
- 11:41those products. And of those three businesses,
- 11:44one went bust, one was sold for 60.5 million and one was sold
- 11:47for 22.5 million. But it took me 19 years to build
- 11:53them and create them and sell them.
- 11:55So it's not an overnight wow. Let's just walk out your
- 11:58corporate life and success. This comes easily.
- 12:01And that failure was incredibly painful because the most painful
- 12:05thing of any entrepreneur is having to tell people that
- 12:08you've brought into a business and have trusted you, that that
- 12:11business has failed because you have let them down.
- 12:14Personally, that's the biggest pain I've ever had in my career,
- 12:17standing for front of 45 people and telling the business have
- 12:21failed. Never want to go through it
- 12:22again. So.
- 12:25Let's talk about. The businesses you've built in,
- 12:28especially in the AI sector, you've got neural voice.
- 12:33So let's talk about our newer voice.
- 12:35What problem are you solving? Why is voice such a powerful
- 12:39interface in the AI era? OK, let's step back and start
- 12:43with Newell River, which is the incubator.
- 12:47So I've got three sons of my first marriage, the oldest and
- 12:51the youngest, very sporty, come on holiday with dads, love
- 12:54sunshine, love golf, love skiing.
- 12:56And the middle one hated that and didn't particularly like his
- 12:59brothers. And he was a geek who got the
- 13:02first class degree in computer science.
- 13:04And four years ago, I went down to see him in Horsham and he
- 13:08blew my brains away by what he was doing.
- 13:11What? What now is called AI.
- 13:12It wasn't even called AI then. And I went, wow, yeah, what
- 13:16could we do with this? But Chris, my son, is a typical
- 13:19geek. He can't run a business, but
- 13:21he'd make a great CTO or he'd make a great advisor to the CTO.
- 13:25So we created Newell River to match grey haired people.
- 13:30Been it's been there, seen it, done it, knew how to run
- 13:32businesses, could help these young start-ups create a
- 13:36business. And the pitch is don't work for
- 13:38the man, work for yourself. So you come and work for us, we
- 13:41pay you 30,000 LB one day a week, work on your own idea.
- 13:45After six months that have to be half your time and after a year
- 13:48was expected to spin you out as a separate business.
- 13:51So the first three guys, it turned up, Jeremy Smith, Harry
- 13:54and Jake looked at the Internet and they said these large
- 13:58language models are conversational.
- 14:00They remember what you said, what you've written last.
- 14:03Yeah. And they build upon it.
- 14:05So why don't we just talk to them?
- 14:07And I went, OK, I like that idea.
- 14:10And basically they built an interface which is you talk in
- 14:13English, it records it, transcribes it, injects it into
- 14:17a large language model, gets an answer, returns it, converts it
- 14:20back into English, all in .42 seconds, So faster than me.
- 14:25And you can talk and respond. And it also supports 42
- 14:30different languages. So now I can talk with the power
- 14:34of the Internet in 42 different languages.
- 14:36Just think about how that drops the barriers of trade in Europe.
- 14:41It's a fascinating technology. You just got to think ahead of
- 14:45where it's going. So we looked at AI and said this
- 14:48is the future, but we think it's going to be voice.
- 14:52I'll give you another example in travel specifically.
- 14:55Yeah. Large language models, A big
- 14:57black holes. Losing the fortune at the
- 14:59moment. Yeah.
- 15:00So they've created this concept called MCPUCP, which is
- 15:04basically little bricks that convert APIs into bricks that
- 15:09the large language models can Hoover up and build buildings
- 15:12with, shops with. So what that means is the
- 15:15decision point from making your holiday is going to go from the
- 15:19form filling on the travel site. And by the way, that's very
- 15:21crap. They don't even ask what age you
- 15:24are, who you are, what money you've got.
- 15:25They just say where you want to go and give you thousands of
- 15:28options you have to choose from. All of that is going out the
- 15:31window because the decision point will be in within the
- 15:34large language model and you won't type because typing.
- 15:38I want to go on holiday to Majorca 7 nights from Manchester
- 15:41on the 14th of July with my two adults and my two kids aged XX
- 15:46takes too long, you'll just say it.
- 15:49So therefore voice will be the future of travel because travel
- 15:52will be booked within large language models and it will be
- 15:55done in a spoken format, outputting all your offers and
- 15:58recommendations to you. A prediction.
- 16:00Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share
- 16:04something important. This episode includes a paid
- 16:07partnership with Better Help, a platform designed to make
- 16:11starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a
- 16:15leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel
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- 17:53first step. If you've been thinking about
- 17:56it, sometimes the best investment you can make these in
- 18:00yourself. So you've got this AI incubator,
- 18:06and of course it's focused on creating new ventures.
- 18:09But what would you say makes a winning AI startup into these
- 18:14worlds? OK, let's look at the
- 18:16difficulties of AI. Anything you create with AI can
- 18:20be copied within minutes, if not hours.
- 18:23So therefore you have to have speed to market.
- 18:27So you have to have an idea that's going to take off on AB
- 18:30to C virally, probably involved in social media or other
- 18:33elements like that. So you can get to market fast
- 18:36and expand. Or actually, a sensible AI
- 18:39product is AB to B to C product, where we create the technology
- 18:43and you go to businesses. We've already got the customers
- 18:46because that will connect you and create the marketplace and
- 18:48get to the customers fast. Because the only thing that
- 18:51protects your idea is you've got more scale and more customers
- 18:55before the next person behind you copying the same idea.
- 18:58That's the rules when I'm looking for investment.
- 19:00Is it a smart management team? Is it scalable?
- 19:04Ideally it would be B to C rather than pure B to C where
- 19:07you have to establish a brand and get your product to market.
- 19:11Interesting, So you've actually said that AI can significantly
- 19:16reshape employment. What does the future
- 19:18realistically look like for business leaders?
- 19:22Well, I'm glad I'm old because this is going to be a tough ten
- 19:26years for a lot of people. It's a turn on its head, the
- 19:31world order. In the old days we used to look
- 19:34down on plumbers and builders and people use their hands that
- 19:38a lot harder to replace. If you're an accountant, you're
- 19:40buggered. If you're a lawyer, change your
- 19:43job now. Yeah.
- 19:44If you're an admin person, no future.
- 19:47If you work in a call centre, get a new job.
- 19:50That's the impact AI is going to have across multiple sectors
- 19:54within the next five years. And this isn't 10 years off.
- 19:58This is coming fast, fast, fast. And what will the first wave
- 20:02will be will be Co pilots. So AI will work with humans to
- 20:06make them more efficient. But instead of having a hundred
- 20:09staff, you only need 50 staff. But after a period of time that
- 20:13will go down. And the biggest fear I have
- 20:16about AI is the rich will get richer and the poor will get
- 20:19poorer, and it will happen so fast that our government will be
- 20:22asleep while it happens to their society.
- 20:25This is a doomsday prediction for AI, but you know, let's talk
- 20:31about a live echo. And the ethics?
- 20:33Now let's come back about that comment.
- 20:35Now I'm going to come back on that comment.
- 20:37It's not doomsday. It can go different ways.
- 20:42For example, if I got into politics and I was in
- 20:44government, over the next two to three years I would enforce a
- 20:48four day week across every single business.
- 20:51You still have to pay everybody the same salary, but they only
- 20:54work for four days. And then five years later,
- 20:57they'd probably go down to three days because we have to share
- 21:00the work around. Yeah.
- 21:02And we have to have a fair democracy where everybody's got
- 21:04enough money to live. I don't want to work live in a
- 21:07world where I walk down the street and I'm.
- 21:09I'm afraid somebody's going to stab me because they're poor.
- 21:11Yet we have a Great Society in the UK.
- 21:13We have a great balance of wealth.
- 21:15We need to maintain that. But the government needs to wake
- 21:19up, start regulating AI, start understanding what's going to
- 21:23happen and start coming up some policies that actually mean it
- 21:26does good. For example, if you work less,
- 21:29you can do more sport. If you work less, you can drink
- 21:31more coffee. If you work less, you can go on
- 21:33more holidays. So there'll still be jobs.
- 21:36But we have to reinvent those jobs.
- 21:38It's like the industrial revolution.
- 21:40Yep, When you take the plough away from somebody and the
- 21:43machine starts ploughing the land, they need a new job.
- 21:46When the looms go because the machine can go it, they need a
- 21:49new job. Those jobs came and they will
- 21:52come again. The problem this time it's the
- 21:54speed of the change is probably going to overwhelm most
- 21:57governments if they don't think it through and react.
- 22:00Sorry, pessimistic, but also vaguely optimistic about the
- 22:04future. We could have a lovely life
- 22:06where most of the work's done by AI and we just had more leisure
- 22:08time. Could happen.
- 22:10So how do you get to regulate what you don't understand?
- 22:13I think the problem is most governments right now do not
- 22:17have the level of understanding of AI as the private sector.
- 22:21So how can the public sector regulate something that they do
- 22:25not have enough understanding of?
- 22:28So first of all, it's more people like me have to get
- 22:32involved and say what are we going to do about this?
- 22:34Because otherwise there's a doomsday coming.
- 22:37So I'm standing for election In the next set of elections, I
- 22:40hope to get inside the tent and start changing from the top.
- 22:44So we need our own dodge. We need to modernise the whole
- 22:47of the civil service. We need to get loads of experts
- 22:50on AI in the tent thinking about it and how can shape government
- 22:54policy. So it really is an exercise of
- 22:57being in government and commerciality together.
- 23:01A lot of people say to me, Oh well, you'll have a bias.
- 23:03You only do it because you want to make money from it and
- 23:05benefit your businesses. Absolute rubbish.
- 23:07I've got enough money but yes I need to take my business skills
- 23:11into government. Yes I may have to bring some of
- 23:15the people I've worked before with to work there and yes they
- 23:17may have to be paid. But long as you're benefiting Mr
- 23:21Voter, think about what you want.
- 23:23A load of plunk of politicians that have never had proper jobs
- 23:26in their lives and only went to Oxford and Cambridge and did
- 23:28politics or some proper business people helping shaping the world
- 23:33and the government. And no, I'm not Donald Trump.
- 23:35I'm a loudmouth idiot, but I'm not that bad.
- 23:38Wow. So coming, coming back to.
- 23:41Business, right? Life's echo, right?
- 23:44With life's echo, you're viewed in digital versions of people
- 23:49that can out lead them. And what actually inspired this
- 23:52idea? You've gone to the most scary
- 23:55version, Digital Ghost. That's not where we came from.
- 23:59So where this came from is. And again, we were down the pub
- 24:02and we'd done a hackathon with the Newell River guys and I
- 24:05said, I love all this voice technology.
- 24:09As a politician, the biggest problem is I'm disconnected from
- 24:12my voters because I can't talk to them all the time.
- 24:14And they went, well, why don't we just create an AI avatar of
- 24:17you? Let's create AI Steve.
- 24:19And AI Steve was born that night and they literally made me talk
- 24:23through all my policies. Write them all up, upload them
- 24:26into a small language model, which is, you know, a database
- 24:29only this AI can access it then can talk to the voters, answer
- 24:35any of their questions, tell them about my policies.
- 24:38And also it captures anything they're asking about.
- 24:40I don't have a policy for prompts it to me.
- 24:43And I had a panel of five other people we'd sit around the room
- 24:46every night and we'd come up new policies based on what voters
- 24:49are asking for. But before we launch those
- 24:51policies, we also emailed them to 1000 commuters going from
- 24:55Brighton to London to say, right, just do a quick vote on
- 24:58this will you? Which one's sensible?
- 25:00Which one's absolute rubbish? Yeah.
- 25:02So that we had the common man and the common lady's view of
- 25:05policies, not just some left wing or white wing idiot that
- 25:09wanted to come up with a policy, not just our ideas.
- 25:12So policies for the people, by the people.
- 25:15And I also pledged that unlike most politicians who get elected
- 25:19and disappear to parliament, you'd never seen them for four
- 25:21years, that I'd always be contactable.
- 25:23And every major vote I would go out to my voters in my local
- 25:28area, Brighton, and I'd ask them which way they want me to vote.
- 25:30And if I didn't agree with that, I could try to persuade them.
- 25:33But if they said no, that's how we want you to vote.
- 25:36I have to vote that way or I have to resign.
- 25:38That are my options. That are the rules of my party.
- 25:41So it's a radical retake on politics, trying to connect to
- 25:46the people using AI, but not AI to write the policies.
- 25:50Just AI is a communication tool, and that's a good use of AI, I
- 25:54think. Anyway, I didn't ask you the
- 25:56question. That was AI.
- 25:57Steve. How did that lead you to Lysa?
- 26:01Well, actually, again, it sounds like a lot of stories start in
- 26:04restaurants in the pub. So my wife was telling somebody
- 26:08about AI Steve and saying what an egotistical idiot I was.
- 26:11And the next thing I'd do is download myself entirely.
- 26:14And I went, oh, that's not a bad idea.
- 26:17And you can't download yourself entirely.
- 26:19And that's why it's called Life's Echo.
- 26:21So what happens is you're interviewed over 545 minute
- 26:24segments about different parts of your life, early life,
- 26:27education, your family, your jobs, Yeah, your political
- 26:30views. And you literally chat to the AI
- 26:33and it's interactive. It's got 1000 questions behind
- 26:36it, but it builds on what you say.
- 26:39And only when you stop talking does it move on to the next
- 26:41question. Or you give a short answer, it
- 26:42moves on to the next question. So it's a very easy way of
- 26:45creating a database about your life, your views, what's
- 26:48happened. And then we use AI to write a
- 26:51full autobiography with you. For you, it's 100 pages long, 50
- 26:55pages of Word, 50 pages of your photos.
- 26:58It can be printed out, and that becomes a book of your life.
- 27:02But here's the interesting bit. We all can also clone your
- 27:06voice, which we do. It only takes a couple of
- 27:08minutes. Yeah.
- 27:09And you can talk to future generations.
- 27:12They don't want to read your boring book.
- 27:14Yeah. They can just come online and
- 27:16chat to you and say, Steve, why did you stand to be the first
- 27:19AIMP? Are you mad?
- 27:21Yeah. Or.
- 27:22Hey. Yeah.
- 27:23Granddad, where did my money come from for my school fees?
- 27:26Oh, that's how it got there. Because the problem is at the
- 27:30moment is you live and you die. I'm not religious.
- 27:34You live and you die and you know something about your dad
- 27:37and your mum, you'll know something about your
- 27:40grandparents. You may know the name of your
- 27:43great grandparents, but most people don't know anything about
- 27:45our lives or even what they did. So we've been 3 generations.
- 27:48We're right from the face of the earth.
- 27:51That ain't happening for me, so I'm leaving a legacy.
- 27:54I'm happy enough that people leave a legacy.
- 27:56It's £199, it's very low cost. You get an autobiography and you
- 28:01get a talking legacy that lasts for 100 years and could talk to
- 28:04future generations about your life.
- 28:06I think that's a positive thing. It is a positive thing, but then
- 28:10it does raise deep ethical questions and concern.
- 28:15So where do you you personally draw the line between innovation
- 28:20and responsibility? OK, this is So what I did
- 28:25because this also worried me that we could do a lot of harm
- 28:29here. How do we make sure we don't
- 28:31damage the grieving process? So we created an Ethics
- 28:34Committee. I recruited a well known top
- 28:37author in the dying and grieving process, Janet.
- 28:41I recruited Sarah, who's a palliative care specialist
- 28:45doctor. I recruited a Funeral Home
- 28:48owner. I recruited the old people's
- 28:50home owner. And we sat around the table for
- 28:52literally hours and hours coming up with Oranga.
- 28:56What? How do we stop harm here?
- 28:58So, for example, you can only listen one hour at a time before
- 29:01it makes you take a break. We've generated a whole lot of
- 29:05words, keywords to listen for that flag up anybody who may be
- 29:10in distress. And then we send them advice of
- 29:12where to go and talk to people because we can't physically talk
- 29:15to them all, but we send them advice of where they can get
- 29:17help if they're in distress. Yeah, we've came up with dying,
- 29:23a death policy, for example. This has to outlast you by 100
- 29:27years. So who controls it when you've
- 29:28gone? Yeah.
- 29:30So we've got an executive and a deputy executive you appoint
- 29:32during your life and when you die, they control access because
- 29:36most of these are very private. Only I've made my public.
- 29:39Most will only be available to the family.
- 29:41So you've got to think through all these rules.
- 29:43We've created a trust fund, so we've got enough money to power
- 29:46the technology for 100 years. So this is sort of things that
- 29:49you have to have an Ethics Committee for that go when is
- 29:53just because you can doesn't mean you should.
- 29:57So for example, we've kept a wave in creating virtual
- 29:59holograms because I just think it's too dangerous.
- 30:03I think it's too addictive. I think it's too Jesus, this is
- 30:07too real. It's a lice echo.
- 30:10It's not trying to download you. It's trying to leave a legacy
- 30:14for future generations about your life, not a complete
- 30:17digital clone of you because that would be too scary in my
- 30:20opinion. Interesting.
- 30:22So Speaking of AI adoption, so if every business leader listing
- 30:28today had to integrate AI in the next 12 months, where should
- 30:33they start from? I love the way you think.
- 30:35It's a it's an option if they had to.
- 30:39It's not an option. If you don't adopt AI, you're
- 30:42going to be less efficient, your competitor, you will go out of
- 30:45business. So therefore, there's so much AI
- 30:48coming at you that you probably need to sit down, get in some
- 30:52consultants, For example, Neuwa River AM Patterson offers his
- 30:57service. So Ian is.
- 30:58Yeah. Google.
- 31:00He spent 28 years at IBM, headed blockchain, moved to Google,
- 31:04headed AI and sustainability. This guy is a brain box.
- 31:08Yeah. And you sit down with him.
- 31:10You sit down with somebody in your sector understands AI.
- 31:15Yeah. And then you bring your team in.
- 31:17Now, you don't just bring it in the old guys, you put it in.
- 31:20Half of them have to be young. Yeah.
- 31:23Because they just, the old guys won't get it.
- 31:25Yeah. And the old guys have you do
- 31:27bring have to be flexible and willing to look at how they
- 31:30change their practises because you've got to develop a road
- 31:33map, you've got to stand the art as possible.
- 31:35And then you've got to create a list of bite sized chunks that
- 31:39you can do one at a time, otherwise you'll never start.
- 31:42It's such a massive elephant that most people just look at it
- 31:45and run away scared. So you've got to chop it up into
- 31:48bits, and you've got to use your own internal results, but you
- 31:51probably need some external experts to come and help guide
- 31:54you through the process. So what is it that founders are
- 31:58still getting wrong right now when it comes to AI adoption?
- 32:03What I found is getting wrong. I got something wrong with
- 32:06Newell Voice. We were at least 18 months too
- 32:10early because, you know, we created something that everybody
- 32:15went, oh, that's quite clever, but couldn't actually see how it
- 32:18fitted into their busy structures.
- 32:21And then the obvious user case for voice within travel is
- 32:25customer services. Yeah, because you can scale
- 32:28agents from nought to 10,000 in a second.
- 32:31So no call ever goes unanswered and 60% of the enquiries we
- 32:36believe could be handled by the AI because it's repetitive
- 32:39questions, etcetera. And even the other 40% are
- 32:43passed to human beings to deal with, but they already know what
- 32:45the customer wants. To me that was an absolute no
- 32:48brainer. But then all the businesses
- 32:50introduced me to the head of customer services and it's like
- 32:54Turkey's voting for Christmas. It's like I'm not doing that,
- 32:57that's my job and I'm going to have to get rid of loads of
- 33:00people. So the first resistance to AI is
- 33:04if you present it as a cost saving, replacing people, people
- 33:08really don't like it and they really don't go for it.
- 33:11So we had to work around and say, OK, let's use it where they
- 33:15haven't got. So for example, most OTAs and
- 33:19most travel agents don't have reps in result anymore.
- 33:22So we created an AI Rep that could guide their customers and
- 33:25look after the customers in result.
- 33:26Big tick like that. Not replacing anybody helping me
- 33:29get more information about my customers.
- 33:31We created reviews so you could just do voice reviews with
- 33:34customers about the holidays. Big tit like that not replacing
- 33:37anybody. Yeah, we created the ability to
- 33:40send out outbound emails to ask customers when they want to go
- 33:43next year. So instead of they send them
- 33:44those boring emails, that one to many hope they stimulate some
- 33:48return to the website. We went out and asked them where
- 33:51do they want to go and put that into their database.
- 33:53So they're marketing improved. So using AI to surround an
- 33:57existing business rather than tacking the heart of it and
- 34:00using it for cost saving is where AI is currently being
- 34:03adopted. That will change, but that's
- 34:05where it's currently being used. And I didn't know that 18 months
- 34:09ago and it took us about a year to get traction because I didn't
- 34:12realise that people didn't want to save money with AI.
- 34:15They just want to extend the functionalities.
- 34:18Interesting. So let's talk about your big
- 34:21ideas. You are a man of big ideas,
- 34:23legacy and society, right? And of course you are one of
- 34:27those. Would I say that the pathfinders
- 34:30when it comes to AI in politics, AI in democracy?
- 34:35And of course you created AI Steve to explore AI in politics,
- 34:40right? So what problem would you say
- 34:44you are trying to solve and what problem would you say you have
- 34:48been able to solve so far using AI Steve?
- 34:51OK, I'll tell you what problems I would like to solve.
- 34:55The biggest problem facing us is how we generate electricity.
- 34:59At the moment, 45% is gas. And as we can see from the
- 35:03Middle East action, not very smart.
- 35:06Yeah, so we do have clean energy, wind, solar, but the
- 35:10biggest clean energy is actually nuclear.
- 35:13And I would build another 10 nuclear power stations over the
- 35:18next 10 years and massively invest that.
- 35:21Amelia wanted to host a webinar, but the tool couldn't deliver
- 35:24zooming. She turned to Webinar Key, an
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- 35:33Webinar Key host webinars like a boss.
- 35:37If you don't have electricity, you can't have the power to
- 35:42power AI, you can't have the data centres.
- 35:45So if you want to be an AI force and the big opportunity is AI
- 35:50will be a global tool, you can create global businesses with AI
- 35:54that may be based in the UK but sell their their wares all
- 35:58across the world. But you can't do that if you
- 36:00haven't got an adequate power platform.
- 36:03So more nuclear immediately to power AI.
- 36:06Also I own a business called Electric Car Organisation
- 36:10because I want to clean up the planet. 40% of your emissions
- 36:14are the gas and the heating in your house.
- 36:16That's hard to replace because gas is 4 times cheaper than
- 36:19electricity for heating. Your house was probably 3 Times
- 36:22Now. Yeah, but 28% of your emissions
- 36:25are your car. Get off your ass.
- 36:28Unplug that petrol pump, put in a home charger. 58% of us can
- 36:34charge that car overnight, so it doesn't affect the grid.
- 36:38Yeah. And we've just cleaned up the
- 36:40air in our local environments. We've cleaned up the air in the
- 36:43world. And it's another use of
- 36:45electricity. But you've got to start the
- 36:47foundations. More nuclear power, more data
- 36:50centres, more electric cars. Yeah.
- 36:52More ambition for the UK to be a global power of AI.
- 36:56Exported our wares because we've got the brain powers to create
- 36:59this stuff. So big enough.
- 37:02Ambition, You know, let's talk about decision making when it
- 37:07comes to leadership roles, a lot of people are now.
- 37:12Would I say replacing humans when it comes to that driver's
- 37:17seat of making decisions? But do you think AI can make
- 37:23better decisions than humans when it comes to leadership
- 37:25roles? Fundamentally, no, that is
- 37:28exactly the wrong use of AIAI. Is there to be your Co pilot is
- 37:34a leader. I'll give you an example.
- 37:36So Newell River have a product called Mayai and Mayai is about
- 37:41creating a business brain and we upload all the documents.
- 37:44You know your accounts, your sales packs, your customer
- 37:47services, your FAQs, you scrape your website and it creates a
- 37:51knowledge of your business. We then recalled every single
- 37:55Zoom Teams meeting and other meeting you have and phone call
- 37:58you have. So everything is captured,
- 38:01analysed, and can be fed up to the leader to say this is what's
- 38:04actually going in your business. But it's the leader's job to
- 38:08make the decisions. It's the leader's job to show
- 38:11leadership to its human team. Yep, the leader can use AI to
- 38:15communicate. For example, we've created a
- 38:17town hall function and we've cloned that leader's voice so we
- 38:20can just, you know, write what he wants to say or the AI can
- 38:23write what it says. He edges it, and it goes out to
- 38:26all his staff members that are fully aware what's going on.
- 38:28But leadership and human leadership is the ultimate
- 38:32power. AI is just an enabler.
- 38:35Yeah, it can't. If you want to sell to a human,
- 38:39I'll never use AI. I'll use a fellow human.
- 38:41If you want to do customer services where the human's
- 38:44trying to find information perfectly valuable to use AI.
- 38:48So you've just got to understand that humans want to work with
- 38:50humans, and AI is enabler, not a replacer.
- 38:54And the day it starts making decisions about things, we're in
- 38:57deep shit. Oh yeah, deep shit.
- 39:00I need some deep sick. So Speaking of legacy, Speaking
- 39:05of legacy, you've actually said it.
- 39:07Here that most people are forgotten within just three
- 39:10generations. Why does that really matter?
- 39:14Because we have egos. Yeah.
- 39:16So yeah, I live my life. I want to leave.
- 39:19The legs and alter egos it's. My ego.
- 39:23That's too fair. We've done a lot of research on
- 39:26LYS echo and the UK is a test bed, but it's got 10 times
- 39:31better reaction in the US because they have bigger egos.
- 39:35We all think, oh, we haven't done enough to record an
- 39:37autopilot feed, we don't know enough.
- 39:39So other generations that care about this bullshit, Yeah,
- 39:43listen to the Americans. They love the concept and also
- 39:46go to some other cultures like Arabic cultures where
- 39:50storytelling and the heritage is a big part of their culture.
- 39:53So again, they love the product. It's only us odd little humans
- 39:57in the UK that don't have the egos to say actually I should
- 40:00leave a legacy. So how should founders, how
- 40:04should entrepreneurs think differently about wealth versus
- 40:08impact anybody? Wants wealth.
- 40:09First make your money be rich, then worry about impact.
- 40:13The only thing that matters is money, because that's how you
- 40:16measure success in our society. Yeah, once you have enough
- 40:19money, then you can have a social conscience.
- 40:22And that's typical of me. Yeah, I've got money, so I can
- 40:25afford to worry about the planet.
- 40:26I can afford to have a loss making business, electric car
- 40:30organisation, not-for-profit. I can afford to stand for
- 40:33politics. I can afford to actually do what
- 40:36I think is right with humanity because I've got my life
- 40:40covered. My base wealth is there.
- 40:43Yeah, that's a really arrogant thing to say, but it's the
- 40:45truth. Yeah, You shouldn't trust a
- 40:48politician that doesn't have enough money to be a politician
- 40:51because they're going to take the back and and screw you over.
- 40:54That is very true. So if AI allows people to leave
- 40:59on, how does that change how we think?
- 41:01About time, purpose and meaning. AI doesn't allow the people live
- 41:07on. You live, you die, you're dead.
- 41:10It's an echo. Yeah.
- 41:12And I think we're a long way off from being able to digitally
- 41:15clone ourselves. And I'm don't sure many people,
- 41:17I'm not sure many people want to be digitally cloned so they live
- 41:20forever. It's not something I want.
- 41:22I want to enjoy my life while I'm here.
- 41:24I want to leave a legacy. And once I'm dead, I'm dead.
- 41:27See you later. It's over to the kids, and
- 41:29that's my legacy. My family are my legacy.
- 41:32They are my future and their kids are their future.
- 41:35You have your time. You bug them off and you die.
- 41:38Interesting. So Speaking of AI powered
- 41:42businesses, so we keep hearing about AI native businesses, AI
- 41:46powered businesses. What does a truly AI powered
- 41:50business look like looking into the future?
- 41:53Say OK the next 5 to 10 years. Right.
- 41:56It's not 5 to 10 years off. This already exists.
- 42:00There's big businesses in America run by one person using
- 42:03AI resource all over the business.
- 42:05Only him. Yeah, it's called Everett.
- 42:08Have a look at it again. Newell River are building tools
- 42:11and saying right here's a sales function, here's an accounting
- 42:14function using AI, here's a reporting function, here's a
- 42:18customer services function. Now what business do you want to
- 42:21run? Business leader, because here's
- 42:23all your tools to go and play with and if you can go into 42
- 42:26different languages and the Europe suddenly becomes a very
- 42:30local, very attractive, very large market.
- 42:35Yet that's never existed before because the language barrier
- 42:37stopped you going to Estonia or to Russia or to the Ukraine or
- 42:42to wherever. That is all disappearing.
- 42:45And that technology is available today, young man.
- 42:49So think about what business you want to do, think about how
- 42:51you're going to promote it with social media, think about how
- 42:53you can promote it on podcasts, and then go and build it.
- 42:58Interesting. So Speaking of a business from
- 43:02ACF OS lens, right, So we would be considering the financial
- 43:06risks in AI. So from ACF OS lens, what are
- 43:10the biggest financial risks that leaders should be thinking about
- 43:14when investing in AI? The problem investing AI at the
- 43:18moment is there's so many ideas and it's developing so fast and
- 43:21it's so easy to copy. It's really hard to spot the
- 43:24winners and only back winners. So I have a policy in Newell
- 43:29River that will launch 10 businesses and I hope 2 are
- 43:32superstars, I hope 2 survive and I probably expect 6 to fail.
- 43:37So, and you have to fail fast. So recognise something's failing
- 43:42and stop the funding before you burn too much money and make
- 43:45sure you plough the money into the ones that are working.
- 43:48So you cannot predict success at the outcome.
- 43:51You have to monitor, set KPIs, understand where to pull the
- 43:55plug, understand when to switch the money you're investing into
- 43:58the more successful project because everything has to be a
- 44:01gambling in AI. It's too early, it's too fast.
- 44:04Yeah, it's impossible to predict, so you have to go with
- 44:07it. Go with gut judgement and be
- 44:09flexible. And of course, you know,
- 44:12Speaking of being flexible, you talk about monitoring important
- 44:15KPIs metrics. So.
- 44:17So what metrics actually matter when building AI driven
- 44:20businesses? Custom acquisition, custom
- 44:22acquisition, custom acquisition and custom acquisition all.
- 44:26That. Are you scaling faster than
- 44:30anybody else? Because once you've got the
- 44:32customers, as I said before, anybody can copy your idea.
- 44:35They can't nick your customers Once the customers are signed up
- 44:37for your product. And most customers, once they
- 44:40got used to something, don't move the user of the ChatGPT are
- 44:44not using Gemini, using the Gemini are not using ChatGPT
- 44:48using the perplexity are not using the other two.
- 44:52Once you've got a customer, you tend to keep them because
- 44:54dislike your iPhone. I never have an Android phone
- 44:57because I've been using an iPhone too long.
- 45:00So customers, customers and customers, the faster you scale,
- 45:03the more customers you have, the more chance you've got success.
- 45:06But don't blow loads of money getting those customers.
- 45:10So the more you've got a social media play rather than Google
- 45:13advertising, the more attractive you are.
- 45:16The more you're using podcasts, PR and advertising in a social
- 45:20channels rather than additional printed advertiser or newspapers
- 45:24or TV adverts, the more attractive you are.
- 45:27So it's all about getting those customers, understanding modern
- 45:31channels to market and it's not TV.
- 45:34People don't watch TV like they used to.
- 45:37It's now cash up TV where I cut all the adverts out.
- 45:40So you've got to think about how you scale your business and it's
- 45:44all about using social media channels, using influencers and
- 45:48understanding the power of influencers.
- 45:50So that's why I'm piling into the influencer market because I
- 45:53think the next big travel company will be influences
- 45:56becoming travel agents themselves or pushing their
- 45:59recommendations, generating that dream into a price compulsive
- 46:02site we've built. And that price compulsive site
- 46:04creates a funnel of demand from dream, which influences a great
- 46:08at stimulating actually into booking.
- 46:10Because at the moment none of those videos create bookings.
- 46:14They only create awareness and the desire to go on holiday.
- 46:17That needs to change. And again, I've got a business
- 46:19looking at how to change that because for me it's obvious.
- 46:23Nothing be subject to holiday. Nothing great.
- 46:29Big best things going, viable projector on social media.
- 46:33You're right there. Well, you know, Speaking of
- 46:37innovation versus profitability, so.
- 46:40How should founders balance innovation, you know spend with
- 46:45profitability in on certain markets?
- 46:49You also remember where I started from, Cash is king.
- 46:53You don't go bust because you're not making a profit, you go bust
- 46:57because you're spending your cash too fast.
- 47:00So founders need to raise enough money every stage to make sure
- 47:04they've always got a 12 month runway to pay their staff.
- 47:08Because if you get down to six months, you get down to three
- 47:10months. Any investors can look at that
- 47:13and go ha, ha, ha, ha, I can have your trousers down on your
- 47:16valuation. So you have to manage your cash.
- 47:20I also do a lot of work in early stages with businesses where I
- 47:23say, right, you're working for sort of equity, not paying your
- 47:26cash until this business has got off the ground.
- 47:28So I work out a day rate for you.
- 47:31I'll allocate your number of shares, our value of the
- 47:33business, say 500,000 LB. Your, your work is at 500 LB.
- 47:38Yep. So if you do 5 grammes worth of
- 47:40work, you get 1%. And how many days you've got to
- 47:43do for five grammes worth of work.
- 47:45Yeah. So you get people to work for
- 47:47nothing for shares because they also believe in the idea.
- 47:50And that also shows they've got commitment before they just jump
- 47:54in and take a salary from the business.
- 47:56And quite often I leave people in their existing jobs taking
- 48:00salaries for the first six months to a year, working as a
- 48:02side hustle because I don't want their overhead.
- 48:06But when they do come, I know the business is big enough to
- 48:09take their salary and everybody's happy.
- 48:11So there's lots of tricks of the trade.
- 48:12But the key thing is cash is king.
- 48:14Don't allow too much cash, don't spend it too fast.
- 48:17Make sure you've got a runway. Make sure people committed by
- 48:20doing sweat equity as well as cash work.
- 48:23Any investor that comes along and just gives you cash is
- 48:25probably a waste of time. They also need to give you their
- 48:28black book of contacts. So look at who you're taking
- 48:31money from and saying I don't just want their money, I want
- 48:34their assistance. Once they've given you their
- 48:36money, they tend to help you, funny enough.
- 48:41Yeah, that's you. But of course, you know, I'll
- 48:43give you this. Revenues, vanity, profit,
- 48:46insanity, and cash is king. Cash, if you wish, is reality.
- 48:51So I love that. I love that.
- 48:53So Speaking of wealth creation, where do you see the biggest
- 48:57wealth creation opportunities over the next decade?
- 49:01Sadly, the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer.
- 49:05So look at the superpowers that you've got in AI already.
- 49:08So five companies in the US make up 50% of the value of the US
- 49:14stock market. They're all AI based businesses.
- 49:18Yeah, open AI, et cetera. the US is 50% of the world's stock
- 49:23market. So 25% of the world's wealth is
- 49:29invested into five AI businesses.
- 49:32Now they're just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
- 49:35But here's the opportunity. So an AI engine is like an
- 49:40engine of the car. It doesn't do anything unless
- 49:42you've got a car built around it.
- 49:44So who's going to build the cars?
- 49:47What's the colour of the car? What's the shape of the car?
- 49:49How many doors has it got? What's the SAT NAV?
- 49:51That is the business application of AI.
- 49:55So all the products we build have interchangeable engines.
- 49:59We can change from Gemini to GDP to, you know, perplexity,
- 50:03whatever, but the skill is understanding how to embed that
- 50:07product into a business, into a business user case, how you
- 50:11design that car. And those cars will be designed
- 50:14by smaller businesses that are more flexible, understand the
- 50:18business market they're trying to work with because of the
- 50:20massive companies will never get to that.
- 50:23So you're either going to be really, really big or you're
- 50:26going to be small and flexible, understand your local market and
- 50:29build AI into that local market and productize it and sell it to
- 50:32multiple countries is my prediction.
- 50:36Amazing. So let's speak your brain right
- 50:39now. You know, let's get some juice
- 50:42from your human personal edge. So, Speaking of your world, to
- 50:46you behind all of the innovation, what personal
- 50:50experiences have shaped your own personal worldview?
- 50:55The first one was taking a year out at the age of 25, so I was
- 51:01getting engaged. I was saving up to buy a house
- 51:04and I was offered my first director role at Intersun to be
- 51:07finance director. And I had a meltdown.
- 51:10I went whoa, whoa, whoa. I said I was going to travel the
- 51:13world and go around the world. So I went in the next day to a
- 51:16guy called Peter Long, resigned the day after he made me a
- 51:19director. And he said you'll never get a
- 51:21job again. You're ruining your career.
- 51:23And I went off around the world and it taught me independence.
- 51:26It taught me the ability to take risks.
- 51:29And I came back a year later and he gave me more money in the
- 51:32same job, but as I said, it only lasted 5 days before the company
- 51:35went bust. So that was a wake up call.
- 51:38But having the balls to do what I wanted to do and take that
- 51:43year out set my attitude for the rest of my life.
- 51:47I will work, I will work hard, but there's more to work.
- 51:51And if I'm not enjoying my life and I'm not enjoying what I'm
- 51:54doing, I'm out of it. Interesting.
- 51:57Now up next, there's mental resilience.
- 52:00So building at this level comes with a lot of pressure.
- 52:04How do you stay mentally resilient?
- 52:07I think experience, to be honest, we all get, I still get
- 52:09stressed, I still worry about things.
- 52:11I still wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things.
- 52:15But as you get a little bit old, I hate saying older.
- 52:18I used to hate people saying this.
- 52:20Oh, when you get older, you'll understand a bit more.
- 52:22Well, sometimes they're right. And as you get older, you do get
- 52:27more because you've been through the knocks.
- 52:31I've had business failures. I've had businesses collapse
- 52:33during the Gulf War on me. And that teaches the resilience.
- 52:38It teaches that there is a job the next day to do.
- 52:41There is money that you can bring back in to support your
- 52:44household. But you know, being young is
- 52:47tough, having a mortgage is tough, having kids that drain
- 52:50your cash is tough. And risking that and doing
- 52:53entrepreneurial stuff when you've got a family, you've got
- 52:56a mortgage, is tough. And generally, I'd say don't do
- 52:59it. Yeah, do a side hustle with your
- 53:02current job, get it to a scale where it's got enough money to
- 53:05pay you, and then take the jump. And then take the risk because
- 53:11entrepreneurial life can be extremely lonely.
- 53:14Who do you talk to at the top? There's nobody above you.
- 53:17You're the only one making the decisions.
- 53:19Yeah, that is a tough place to be.
- 53:21It has massive rewards, but it can also damage your wealth,
- 53:25damage your health and damage your social life.
- 53:28Yeah, I'm on a second marriage and that's my biggest regret is
- 53:32I messed up my first marriage because of my work.
- 53:36And I'll never allow that happen again.
- 53:39And I'm lucky to have a great second wife.
- 53:40Most people don't get that lucky.
- 53:42So yeah, be be aware of what you wish for.
- 53:47Be careful what you reach. For so So what?
- 53:51Would you say is 1 belief that you once held strongly but with
- 53:57the passage of time you have? Changed your mind about it now.
- 54:01I'm not sure it's a belief. It's an approach to building the
- 54:04team. So when I was young I thought I
- 54:07was brilliant and I thought all people like me would be
- 54:09brilliant and I'll put them into my team.
- 54:11Absolute disaster. Do not do that.
- 54:14As you get older you realise that you have to.
- 54:16If you're the leader, you have to counterbalance yourself.
- 54:19So I'm Mr Fool, I'm Mr Charge Ahead, I'm Mr Let's do it
- 54:23yesterday and I need cautious people around me.
- 54:27So in a holiday group I had a guy called Bill Adams, Mr Half
- 54:29full question everything. I've always had Miserables,
- 54:32bugger finance directors that question everything.
- 54:36I always have a management team that question everything.
- 54:39The worst thing you can ever be is a strong personality leading
- 54:42the business with no controls around you.
- 54:44You've got to put people around you that balance you control
- 54:48you, and then you have a team. And when you have a team, you've
- 54:52got a chance of winning. Doesn't mean you're going to
- 54:54win, but you've got a good and better chance of winning because
- 54:58you counterbalance to the leader with other people and put the
- 55:01right structures in place. And I guess that comes from
- 55:03corporate life and what I've got taught there.
- 55:06But I'd advise all entrepreneurs that you need it more than most.
- 55:10Look at Donald Trump for example.
- 55:12Who is not controlling Donald Trump in the White House?
- 55:16Who is allowing that idiot to put pictures up of him as Jesus
- 55:20Christ queuing people? What Muppets are in charge at
- 55:23the White House? What's going on?
- 55:25Surely I understand he's a big bad naughty, but needs some
- 55:29people around in to control him. So come on guys, where's the US
- 55:33team? There I tell Americans I love
- 55:38America, but I love to watch America from outside of America
- 55:43you know it's lovely watching America outside of America
- 55:46Let's. Look at contrast to America
- 55:49though. Yeah, let's pick up on that
- 55:50point. America is a dollar ocracy where
- 55:54the last 8 presidents have all been millionaires before they
- 55:57got elected. So you can't be in politics in
- 56:00America unless you got money. Yeah, but at least some of them
- 56:03are business people. In the UK the last nine prime
- 56:07ministers all went to Oxford and Cambridge and have a school tie
- 56:10and quite often went to Eton and have never done a job in their
- 56:13life yet. And in politics to be
- 56:16politicians. I think I choose America.
- 56:18Thanks. And look at the consequences of
- 56:20our government because we don't have proper people in our
- 56:23business and don't have. I will take Elon Musk to sort
- 56:27out the civil service in a harp link.
- 56:30Yeah, I wouldn't take Donald Trump immediately.
- 56:31He's a plaited idiot. We always need a violence, we
- 56:35always need a violence and of course, interesting thing before
- 56:38we get into the quick fire round, we have a culture here.
- 56:42You need to select somebody you would love to see on the
- 56:46forecast. So who would you like to see on
- 56:49the forecast? e-mail Name you'd love to see on
- 56:51the forecast. So one name for you to invite,
- 56:54one name for me to invite. So who are the names you'd?
- 56:58Like David Speakman. David Speakman, founder of
- 57:02Travel Counsellors. Opinionated, outright funny.
- 57:07Yeah. Wise.
- 57:08And he's created a huge business from nothing.
- 57:11I think you should talk to him. OK, OK.
- 57:14So is is that the mind you are going to invite yourself?
- 57:18Yes, I will invite you and connect you up.
- 57:21OK, interesting. So who should I put a word out
- 57:23to? Myself.
- 57:25Who should you approach that? I don't know.
- 57:27OK, get one of the UK politicians in the cabinet and
- 57:32ask them to explain what the hell is going on in the world.
- 57:35OK, I hear you. I hear you.
- 57:37I hear you. Let's go for the quick fire
- 57:40round. Are you ready to rumble?
- 57:42Are you ready? OK, so I've.
- 57:46Got my I'm ready. I have 5 questions, 5 questions
- 57:50and of course quick answers. So our number one question is on
- 57:56jobs. So AI will create more jobs or
- 57:59destroy more jobs. What's your answer?
- 58:02Destruction, destruction, destruction.
- 58:04Big problem. Government's got to sort it out.
- 58:06Less jobs got to be spread around, more people who work
- 58:09less. OK, interesting.
- 58:11So #2 what is 1 business trend everyone is overhyping right
- 58:16now? AI.
- 58:19Everybody's talking about AI without understanding what it
- 58:21is, without implementing it, and the UK is falling behind the US
- 58:26in terms of busy structure and implementation of AI, and we've
- 58:29got to sort it out quick. OK interesting.
- 58:32So what is 1 skill every young person must learn today?
- 58:37Ambition. If you don't back yourself,
- 58:39nobody else will Be ambitious. Work hard and other people will
- 58:43back you well. I love that.
- 58:46OK. So #4 question is, if you could
- 58:49invest $1 million today, where would it go to?
- 58:55Nuclear power, data centres and the infrastructure required to
- 58:59run AI. If you own petrol, you own the
- 59:01fuel, you own the future. Interesting.
- 59:05And of course, the very last question for you is legacy or
- 59:10wealth, Which matters more? You can't have legacy without
- 59:14wealth. So have enough wealth to enjoy
- 59:15your life and then have a legacy.
- 59:19Okay, interested, interested stuff.
- 59:21So, Steve. For founders, leaders and
- 59:24entrepreneurs listening to us today, what is the one action
- 59:28they should take this week to feature prove themselves in an
- 59:32AI driven word? Going to ChatGPT or Gemini?
- 59:37Create a newsletter that collects all the information
- 59:41about activities in your sector related to AI.
- 59:44So you increase your understanding, read it,
- 59:46understand it and try to implement it.
- 59:50Amazing, amazing advice. So thank you very much for me to
- 59:54you. It's, you know, love and of
- 59:55course respect across. You are a man.
- 59:59You know, a lot of would I say. A lot of knowledge and of course
- 1:00:03they say knowledge is power, right?
- 1:00:06And of course they say health is wealth.
- 1:00:08So to the leasters right now guys, you've heard it all today.
- 1:00:15Like you know what to do, keep supporting the show, like,
- 1:00:19comment, subscribe and of course share with your network.
- 1:00:22And of course, always go for something in your lives.
- 1:00:26Conceive, believe, strike to thrive and achieve.
- 1:00:29And of course, so I come your way again.
- 1:00:31It's goodbye for me. And of course from Steve
- 1:00:34Endercurt, it is also goodbye guys.
- 1:00:37And of course, take care.