Full transcript: Benjamin Southworth on London Real
0:00 In London, technology is the silicone roundabout. Introducing a new talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. Silicon Real. Each week, interviewing entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, financial technologies, accelerators and incubators in an exciting three-person format. learn about the people behind the innovation. Locally filmed, locally sourced.
0:34 Silicon Real. It’s about the people. This is Silicon Real, the weekly talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I’m Brian Rose. I also host London Real. It’s a similar show, same setup here. We just recently had astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He was a cool dude. We’ve had Tim Ferriss from the 4-Hour, everything. We just had a rock star that was in here. His name was Rao Reynolds. He sings for a band called Enter Shikari. They’re a real, like, British post-hardcore band, and he was like the nicest dude you ever met in your life, you know? And he’s on stage, like, screaming, and they really got big guys into the zeitgeist movement, real message behind their music, but just the coolest guy you ever meet. So, yeah, check that out at London Real, but today we’re here to talk about tech. My co-host is Colin Pyle. You’re running coffee companies that are selling out. You’ve got Lingo’s language calls. What’s going on with you?
1:28 Yeah, super, super busy. London Coffee Festival last weekend, which was awesome. We had a nice stand. Lost my voice over four days, but it was good fun. Lots of people testing our coffee.
1:38 Sunday Times article just blew up lots of customers, so things are rolling. And then Lingo’s is going great. Last week mentioned Lingo’s right now. We have a special for for Silicon Reel, so 20 pound vouchers to, you know, lingos.co slash Silicon Reel and find a local teacher to teach you a language or at least start, yeah, test it out. Awesome, yeah, so they can get a free language lesson, basically. Yeah, exactly, yeah, so give it a try.
2:02 Excellent, excellent.
2:22 I think the three beers uses them to clean up after their events, and so yeah, everyone’s using them. Lauren Sherman, the head of community, was on here a couple months ago, and she was awesome, really. It’s great, so 25 pounds, get anything done, and 20 pounds, learn a language, get cultured up. Well, get yourself sorted. You say we never give you anything.
2:42 That’s the hell of a deal. Best things of life for free. All right, onto the show, our guest today is Mr. Benjamin Southworth, who was our very first guest on Silicon Reel some 41 weeks ago. Wow.
2:53 That’s quite a moment here. You are the former deputy CEO of Tech City. You were a founder of Three Beards and Tech Bikers, among many other things. You’re the host of Chew the Fat, which is the Three Beards, kind of a regular kind of town hall kind of discussion meeting, right? You kind of interview people in front of the audience.
3:11 Yeah, so it’s the kind of fireside chat sort of thing. interesting people, interesting conversation, and just trying to kind of, what we noticed was we felt there’s like too many panels or then there were kind of keynotes and no one really sort of got into the heart of the matter. Really sort of questioned and sort of tried to unpack some of the ideas. So I spend quite a lot of time, I mean, as you do, you know what it’s like interviewing people. You have to put a lot of research in, a lot of time in.
3:40 If you really want to get something meaningful out, you have to know that person inside out. So tonight, we’re doing a little dinner with Devon Hunt. And then next month, we’ve got Dayan Suchik, who’s director of the Design Museum and has written sort of, God knows, 15 to 20 books on architecture. It’s just a really fascinating man about sort of culture, design, architecture, planning. So, you know, there’s a huge amount of research and read and try and kind of pull out the interesting stories.
4:08 Yeah, I take notes from your interview style. I watched some of your pieces. Colin’s been to a bunch of events. So yeah, I know it’s tricky and you also have to be in the moment and stay in the moment and you have a live audience too so you’ve got to kind of feel them out. So yeah, it’s not easy doing this job.
4:22 Sometimes the microphones don’t work. We have that prize. AV is a problem and we’re not quite as well equipped as this setup here. We have our days, but yeah, so that’s awesome. I’m gonna finish introducing you.
4:32 You also are the founder of the Ada Lovelace Academy which is a free school for 16 to 19 year olds specializing in digital and entrepreneurial skills. First of all, welcome back to Silicone Reel. Cool, thanks. First time we’ve said that. First time ever we’ve had someone like that.
4:46 Wow, so on the first repeat guest. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that’s pretty powerful. You know, I was looking back to an email because I was trying to contact Ben and I looked back to the very first email I got from Ben and I think Bryce had just introduced me to him and said, yeah, that these guys are doing London Real, they’re thinking about doing Silicone Reel. And like the first message I got from Ben was this.
5:03 This is what he said, quote, sounds amazing. I’d love to be involved in any way I can. Smiley face. And I just wanna say that is part of the main reason we’re doing this is because the community is just like such a positive place. Everyone is always on board to support other people in any kind of venture they wanna do.
5:20 And I guess what drew me and you into this whole community and wanting to do this show, because it was like, everyone was just like, yeah, let’s do it, let’s promote each other, let’s help this whole community. So getting a little sentimental there, but I know, I know. I realized I was at the London Coffee Festival dealing with like, you know, guys, old school coffee guys, right? You know, the growers to the roasters, and it’s just like, they’re all got their, you know, their cards close to their chest. And I was just so untek like, and it was it was really, it was really annoying. Like, I was really upset. Like people come up to me and I’d be like, Oh, yeah, sure. You know, I’ll introduce you to the guy that you know, manufacturers are capsules and they’re like, you can’t you can’t just give away that information. I’m like, but if it was a tech business, I would write it’s like, you just help each other out. And You just know that you’ll do what’s best for everyone and not just be only in it for yourself.
6:12 Yeah, and I bumped into you with Steph the Hacker the other day, and he had written an article on his blog about how he doesn’t sign NDAs anymore. He doesn’t think anybody else should because he said, ultimately, the amount you sacrifice we’re trying to keep all that info really closed in. And ultimately, it’s not the execution, it’s the idea, it’s the execution, and just keep it open. And I guess it’s new for me and us in this community, but this is something you’ve seen from the get-go, I guess.
6:34 Yeah, I just think, I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any benefit anymore to hiding away what you’re trying to do, because it’s a little bit like you’re closing down network effect, you’re closing down the opportunity for people to help you and support you. And it’s not, I don’t know, it feels like a very old school way of doing business. I mean, things are competitive, business is competitive, but it doesn’t need to be hyper-aggressively competitive. no one’s really doing anything that interesting. Insurance companies, banking, even tech, the majority of things, unless you’ve got some really, really smart, clever IP that is completely game changing, just tell people what you’re up to because they’ll either help you or they’ll support you or they’ll tell you it’s a bad idea or tell you it’s a good idea or whatever you can’t and actually you need to know this stuff it’s not it’s it’s crucial to get as much information about what’s happening around you and what you’re up to and sense check stuff and you know the internet enables that that’s the whole point of this feedback immediately yeah you know yeah it’s a lot of companies used to have stealth mode I haven’t he used heard that term used in years now no we had a really interesting guy come down to drink about probably nine months ago I got really annoyed with him because he was like I was like so what do you do? And he’s like, I’m in stealth. I’m like, well, you know, of all the people
7:58 Here, like, maybe you should tell me and I’ll tell you who you need to talk to. He’s like, why should I do that? And I’m like, I’ve been running this for a while. I kind of know a bunch of people, like, you tell me what you’re doing and I’ll tell you who you should talk to and make the introductions for you. He’s like, no, you’ll take my idea. I’ve got no interest in taking your idea. All I want to do is help you. And he’s like, I’m impressed with you. You were still talking to him. I got so annoyed because I was like, why Could I communicate to this guy that he doesn’t need to be like this and we never saw him again Whatever it was never seemed to launch And I just think you know how much did he smother that idea by kind of keeping it to himself and then not being able To be connected to investors designers developers and people who could have helped him. Yeah, it’s hard enough It’s hard enough when you have all those connections, right? Yeah Yeah, it’s still very hard You know We caught you right on the back end of your tech city clear and I know you were coming out of at the time You had all these things that you’re working on.
8:52 But I’m wondering, a year later, have you had time to process the time that you had there at Tech City and to know how it kind of changed you and what you kind of saw coming out? Yeah, I mean, it took a while, actually. It took a real long time. It probably wasn’t until November and then really probably January, February that kind of hit home what I’d been up to and what I’d done and what I’d seen and what I’d learned. and was, you know, crazily ambitious about what I was going to get done afterwards.
9:25 You know, I had to almost take most of the ideas out back and shoot them. Luckily, the school idea has remained, which is great. But it’s been interesting to see how it’s developed and changed and moved, and how the organization has restructured itself. You know, I’m not 100% sure whether it’s making the right decisions at the moment. Because Joanna was there, and then Joanna left a little bit early, And now Gerard is running it.
9:51 I mean, has the organization itself changed? Yeah, I mean, I think it’s shifted a lot. I mean, there’s been this recent announcement about LMP doing a lot more. So it feels like the organization has shifted much more to a sort of GLA-focused London sort of piece, rather than the UK-wide sort of number 10 piece that it was before. I mean, I think it still has an opportunity do great, great work and I still think there’s a need for an organisation like that. My concern is it feels like the last 12 months have not been hugely productive. I don’t know if that’s a bias that’s sort of ego based or whether it’s, you know, they’re not making enough noise in the right areas but even as someone who takes a great interest in it, I still struggle to find information about it, still struggle to kind of really understand what it’s doing, what it’s trying to achieve, and I kind of feel that even with all the knowledge I have and access to these people, that’s probably not a great sign.
10:55 So I kind of, I’m urging Gerard, who I speak to fairly regularly, to really connect back with the community and really sort of listen to the needs and desires of the local people because that’s the point of it, you know, it’s, but we will see what happens, I mean, it’s in a difficult transition period and we’ll have to see whether it’s, whether it It kind of regains, I think, some of the success it did manage to achieve. It’s interesting because it’s like this glaring, it’s like this institution in the center of companies that are living and dying by the sword. Do you have something that works?
11:27 Do you have someone that people want to invest real money? If not, then go somewhere else. And then it’s this institution with this kind of nebulous mandate that’s trying to exist in the middle of it. It’s very strange. It is very strange.
11:37 I mean, as I always said, and I’ve always been a strong supporter of government doing what government can do to help, you know, and I think the implementations of policies that Rohan did and many others at number 10 were superb, you know, SEIS, EIS, R&D tax credits. These are great, great policies and really have, you know, we’ve seen the impact of that. We’ve seen that really rapidly increase activity in the area and, you know, shining a light on what’s happening around here, you know, the work that you’re doing, what the three beards are doing, what the people like Up Global are doing and others really celebrating entrepreneurship, not only in the UK, in London, also across Europe.
12:15 These are great things. These are really important. But I just wonder how much the impact of what sort of tech city is trying to do now is really filtering down to people on the ground and whether or not it’s become more of a sort of educational piece for MPs and other people who are not maybe quite as well connected or understanding it. And if that kind of glass ceiling and that sort of that boundary there isn’t permeable, then it will always fall into the same standard criticism that government organizations face, which is government’s useless, it’s slow moving, it doesn’t really do what it needs to do, it doesn’t listen to the will of the people.
12:51 You know, and that’s just gonna be a real shame, I think. It’s funny, it seems like its success has almost been its downfall, right? Because it did a lot, right? It did a lot for texting, a lot of the, you know, stuff when you were around and what it implemented in tax credits. and now it’s becoming a bigger thing within government and so more eyeballs are on it, more people are trying to understand it and that cause is actually making it less agile and can’t move as fast.
13:16 Yeah, there’s a lot more focus on digital entrepreneurship, there’s a lot more focus on coding in schools. Joanna wrote a piece on Friday that I didn’t think was very helpful to the cause, which was drop French lessons and replace it with coding. And these are the sorts of very dangerous statements, because… Why don’t you like that? Because I know you’re a big fan of coding in schools.
13:39 I’m a huge fan of coding. I’m a huge fan of digit education. The question is not, how do we get… There’s kind of two parts to this, right? Yes, coding should be taught in schools, I think, in the same way that every subject should be taught in schools.
13:55 Because the point of school and the point of education is to introduce people to concepts they’re unaware of, not to introduce them to things they already know about. it’s to get children integrated with history, with classics, with English literature, with French, with German, with thinking about things in a completely different way. And the question here, and then I think what I feel Joanna should have really talked about is, what does French look like when you put technology at the heart of education?
14:23 So it is the sort of work that you’re doing, right? Which is, how do you use the internet to reach out to French kids? How do you stop that sort of, you know, quite sort of old school French exchange model that we had at school, you know, all those day trips to France in Calais where everyone speaks English? You know, how do you actually create a really meaningful education system that’s powered by technology? You know, and that will reduce the overhead, that will reduce teacher’s time, that will create a system where you can teach better and you can track better a child’s development.
14:56 And I think when you’re already confronted with people saying coding is unnecessary, we need to improve English skills and math skills, saying that you want to drop a language or drop a lesson and replace it with coding, unfortunately just plays into the hands that people think about tech, which is an echo chamber, it’s the privilege, it’s the elitist, it’s an arrogance, it’s not connected to the real world. And I just think, unfortunately, by making statements like that, it doesn’t help. You know, I work really closely with the Year of Code initiative, and these are the challenges we face.
15:29 You know, we face them with people who are doing the similar initiatives, you know, which is how do you communicate successfully the desire and the need for coding? And the answer is, you know, fundamentally, we’re getting into a very productized sort of system of computers. You know, you can’t take your mobile phone apart anymore. You can’t take your iMac apart. You can’t even replace the battery on your MacBook.
15:52 You can’t really get inside a machine anymore and understand exactly how it works. And it’s all becoming so miniaturized and complicated that even I, as a fairly technical person, don’t really understand what they’re doing these days because it’s got so clever. And I think, you know, how is a child supposed to learn that? And how are we supposed to educate that? And we’re in danger of creating a generation of consumers rather than a generation of makers.
16:15 And the point of teaching code is not that everyone should be a developer or everyone should program, It’s that you understand the basic fundamentals of a very, very important communication method. And I think to deny any form of communication, be it language, be it coding, be it maths, be it English, be it art, be it music, is a failure for the entire human race. And I just was very disappointed that it seemed like a PR stunt and it seemed a deliberately inflammatory remark.
16:45 And I just, it kind of upset me. I just you know, it doesn’t seem to be a very intelligent view right now understood, you know point it on that I’m curious what it was like to come back into this scene after you were it like kind of a year out And to look at like did it look like it used to look or were you like wow? This has changed a lot and and in the last year even we’ve seen you know King calm. We’ve seen just deep We’ve seen you know, some some bigger moves happen in this community Did you come back and you were like wow, this has changed a lot I mean, I know you weren’t really gone from it, but you were out your entrepreneur hat was off for a year, right? Yeah, I Mean a I really tried to make sure I didn’t go away You know my entire job and focus name was was to be accessible and to open that that you open the corridors of power up To those who needed them So I mean luckily I saw the transitions. I mean it’s been tricky putting the entrepreneur hat on And it doesn’t fit as well as it used to why is that?
17:43 Well, my time in government really changed me and it changed me in ways I didn’t expect it to. I came out with a much, much more powerful sort of social mandate and my sort of problem solving hat on, I want to solve bigger problems than just how do I bring money in, how do I create an app that people want, how do I create a business that is revenue positive. I kind of wanted to look at really structural problems. I wanted to look at education, I want to look at society, I want to look at democracy, I want to look at much, much bigger problems.
18:19 And so in some ways, it was fascinating, really fascinating to see the inside of something that not enough people get to see, to see the problems that democracy faces, that the current UK government has, the internal problems that government faces, as well as how that impacts people externally and how you can see that the internal decisions fail to get communicated externally, how the press and government interact. And so I kind of came out with a really sort of strong belief that there are much, much bigger problems to apply myself to, which is kind of what I’ve been spending the last sort of 11 months doing, and it’s certainly not financially rewarding, but it’s certainly morally and ethically and intellectually really satisfying. It’s almost like you kind of went to the mountain and spent some time up there on your own and you came back and you were changed.
19:16 But you were talking about this on the first episode as well. I remember being a bit surprised because you came out with this real kind of social mission, whereas, let’s be honest, most 90% of the people who come on the show are trying to create something that ultimately wants to be worth a bunch of money. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind some money. What do you think of the recent IPO phenomenon And do you think London’s growing up, or how does it feel to you just that the whole scene?
19:44 I think it’s maturing, you know, and it’s kind of beginning, it’s beginning to validate itself, you know. You kind of take the scene as, you know, almost as a startup in and of itself. You know, it’s spent the first sort of four years kind of working out what its minimum viable product is, working out where its revenue streams are, and it’s beginning to kind of sort of coalesce now, And it’s becoming, you know, we’re going to see sort of almost productised versions of things happen.
20:12 So, you know, I think we’ll see after King, you know, a series of IPOs drop, you know, and hopefully, you know, hopefully a couple of quarter. And that should start to really verify that there are big problems, which is, you know, big private equity houses, huge sort of, you know, family funds and global funds are not yet investing into this in the same way they are in America. And so we really need that to change, and the only IPOs are going to change that.
20:43 If we can get the confidence up, we were seeing the housing market go through a huge resurgence slash bubble. And again, as we’ve been saying for years, we need people to be investing into tech and sort of new businesses in the way they invest into property. And when we get that, then we’ll get a much more commensurate model that we have in the States. People are much more… Because there’s a lack of social security, there’s a lack of support in a very socialized sort of way, the Americans tend to be much more speculative, they tend to invest into stocks much more, they tend to have to find ways to keep money coming into the system after they retire.
21:28 Twitter and Facebook and others are good ways to very quickly double, triple your money if you’re smart and you’re savvy. We need the UK to get to that similar point where people like my parents have money. My father invests in classic cars instead of tech. We need that piece to change. My father’s very happy to buy a lovely car at good money and use it and know that he’ll break even when he sells it on and he gets the enjoyment of it.
22:01 We need people like my father to say, well look, actually I can buy King.com, I can hold it for 12 months, it looks like they’re going to do well, I can double my money and I can walk away. Until that’s kind of going on, we’re still going to lag a little bit behind, unfortunately. I think the US, but it’s hard to know whether the US is also going through a hype cycle at the moment. There’s a lot of value companies. I think about a valued far too highly You know core has just been valued at a silly amount of money Cora, what do they do? They’re like a Q and a side Yahoo answers you you are and and they’re getting what billions and billions in valuations, and it just doesn’t feel Right, and I think at some moment. There’s going to be a shift from at the moment I think people are valuing the data the demographics saying, oh, they’ve got X number of users.
22:55 And I think at some point that’s gonna shift from the realization that unless you have the sort of knowledge that Facebook has, you have that true identity, that true demographic knowledge, that true understanding of being able to behaviorally map and predict where people are gonna be spending money, your inherent value is still your IP. Unless your IP is smart, then actually the valuation of your company is probably flawed. You know, we’ve seen Google acquire, You know, people like Nest, you know, they’ve got an absolute steal considering the IP and the intelligence in that team.
23:27 So I think, you know, Apple, Google, Facebook, you know, Facebook acquiring Oculus Rift, you know, an incredible deal, you know, expensive. You know, Facebook can afford it as a percentage of what they have, it’s nothing. But there’s really deep, intelligent tech and the fact that they now own that, you know, that can be the future of retail, that can be the future of online interaction, that can be the future of lots of things. And to get it for the cost they got it right now, absolute bargain.
23:54 But again, that’s a deal that’s taken off the IPO market. That’s a deal that you and I, as potential speculative investors, cannot play in. So I think looking at what Apple and Facebook and Google, super smart people with super intelligent MMA minds and great tracking and great understanding and knowing their product roadmaps, they’re the sort of, for me, the signals. I think what’s kind of happening on the public markets is potentially inflated at the moment.
24:21 Interesting view. And what about something like WhatsApp, where they’re spending $16 billion for a site you could argue they don’t have much information about the people for the user names? It doesn’t make a single sense. OK. And it’s defense.
24:33 It’s interesting to me. It will play out in a way. I mean, I guess the Instagram buy at the time was thought to be a little toppy, but now maybe. YouTube buy and no sex was toppy by Google too, right? But I think you’re right.
24:46 It’s defensive land grabs. I read an article it was a you know Zuckerberg gave up 10% of his company instead of you know the the castle or whatever right so oh you mean for that you mean for that acquisition yeah no it’s an interesting one and and I was listening to the Instagram founder interview like three months before they were bought and it was just interesting like to see but like you said I mean just because it’s just because it’s users you know it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s it’s cash the the virtual reality acquisition is something really out of left field for Facebook but uh it’ll be interesting to see what they do. Are they trying to get into payments now? Yeah, so FT article today or yesterday which is really cool. It seems it seems like they would have done that a long time ago but I guess they had to be careful their business model not to become everything to everyone. It’s for me I think that’s so exciting coming from a background of sort of moving money for for companies and stuff it’s like it’s the the banking system is slowly breaking down you know tab it on TransferWise is doing just amazing stuff and I think Facebook and the money behind Facebook and Google and these guys… And Bitcoin is part of that conversation as well.
25:53 Yeah, Bitcoin. I think it’s just so exciting because guys like Western Union and stuff like that, it’s just so fucking old school. The Western Unities are like, you know, usurious, if that’s the word, and it’s mostly poor people that pay these high rates. And if you’ve ever tried, so just one of our investors in the coffee business is in in Chicago and so he had some UK stocks and he couldn’t sell his UK stocks and just transfer the UK money to our UK account.
26:20 He had to then settle into a UK account. It took him five months, four or five months to open up a UK account and settle his stocks into UK account. It’s just like that’s not, that can’t exist. And whether Bitcoin is the future or not, when you see these like transaction fee lists, changes of moving this money around the world, then that’s a great way to show how banks are really not doing things right now. Colin will tell you, I mean, there’s no cost of them transferring it anyway, right?
26:50 Like, and it’s happening in real time, it’s happening in Pico seconds, you know, they’re just charging the consumer because they can and it’s, you know, this is the, you know, this is I think some of the myth, like as a consumer, we look at things like Bitcoin and we look at all these benefits. We have them, right? We have an electronic banking system, we have a feeler system. It’s just, unfortunately, the gray hairs sitting in their pinstripe soups, they don’t want to lose that margin.
27:19 They don’t want to lose that fee earning piece. It’s only until ideas that we’ve seen in the states play out in a deregulated market like Simple and others appear and challenge that mainstream view of whether you should be paying for banking at all, whether you should be paying for fees, that’s the only time it will shift. And the UK seems to be kind of coming around, you know, the big banks are sniffing around these options, they’re trying to look at what’s possible, but still it’s innovation teams and, you know, digital leadership teams reporting back up to sea levels and the board.
27:55 It’s not quite yet a board level acceptance that actually if you want to survive the the next 100, 200, 300 years like you previously have, you’re gonna have to lose 25% of your business in terms of what you’re making, because that’s how it’s gonna go. Yeah, it’s gonna take them years. I mean, we were both in banking for a long time, and banking just like any entrenched industry, they just, they refuse to acknowledge because their fees are so high. I mean, you know, the transfer fees are probably 100 times the cost of saying the transfer wise are a Bitcoin transfer, so they’ll hold onto that as long as they can, and then they’ll adapt, they’ll probably miss some market share along the way.
28:28 Of course. And it’s so hard to take your money out of a bank, right? Like if you’ve got a mortgage, you’ve got loans, you’ve got an overdraft, right? Boom. You’re locked in.
28:35 You can’t move. And they know that. They’ve survived for 300 years because they’re exceptionally cynical and intelligent at understanding human factors. Yeah. It’s where all the tall buildings are in the city.
28:47 It’s for a reason. That’s why I love the Facebook guy because Facebook’s not going to sell out. Do you know what I mean? That’s what I hate, it stifles innovation a lot of the time when these great companies sell out a little too early to a big bank or something like that and their tech gets swallowed up and it gets pushed to the side. Whereas if Facebook can really make a go at this, then they can really change the playing field.
29:11 Facebook can link, what it seems like, the mission, that mission is a more open connected world. Facebook’s the Trojan horse on that mission. If you’ve got real identity and then real payments, that’s it. You’ve stitched it up and you’ve solved proving who people are because it’s backed by 10 years of Facebook data. And then you’ve got your own credit scoring mechanisms, et cetera, et cetera.
29:38 You can completely invert the pyramid. You can completely rewrite the database on how finance is done. And that’s incredible. Yeah, it gets really exciting there. This is London Real, and so we’re always talking about the city and how it’s emerging and how it’s the greatest place in the world for tech, but I always forget that Europe’s right on our doorstep.
29:56 I know the three beards is all over Europe, including Bulgaria and Amsterdam, and you guys are everywhere. And I was just wondering, how is Europe doing? We know centers like Berlin and a bunch of other places are doing really well. We also hear from guys that have been on the show that they moved to London. Let’s look just deep.
30:13 They were in Denmark, and they came here. And so what do you see as the State of the Union when it comes to that, those kind of dueling prospects of do you move to London or do you stay where you are so I had a really a really interesting trip one of the people I work with fairly reckoning is Wayra yeah and big fans with Simon Devinship yeah what a what a dude yeah he’s cool dude tall too that hair oh so I did a tour of sort of Central Eastern Europe visiting with him with Wayra making a big kind of going around a variety of sort of tech centers and innovation hubs. What kind of like Romania, Pomo and the rooms?
30:54 Where do we do? Let me just remind myself. We did Romania, Slovenia, it was a real back and forth trip. I can’t quite remember. Austria involved, Poland.
31:07 You’re like a tech rock star. You can’t even remember where you’re at. It was one of the, you know when someone books you flights? And you kind of forget because someone else taking care of it. It was just like turn up at so-and-so at this godly hour of the day, get on a plane and then appear somewhere and you do like a day and then you go away again.
31:27 So all you kind of remember is the bar that you ended up in, in some old part of some Eastern Europe town, drinking a beer, having a nice time. You kind of forget where you were. Feels a bit Russian. So what did you find? is a lot of this, you know, a Europe super diverse as in you know France is very strong they’ve got some really they they did a very similar policy to EIS and SEIS they didn’t cap it so you’re 50% tax backs on any investments in the sector and that went through the roof I mean absolutely smashed it out of the park billionaires and multi millionaires are now heavily investing there’s a great space opening called 42 in Paris which is huge sort of big startup school incubator accelerator rule in one incredible Berlin is still crushing it low rents super sexy you know lots of artisanal coffee and you know just really cool space and that’s kind of the start of what I see as there’s a lot of places that are post communist 25 years ago in 1989 the the Berlin wall falls, the curtain comes down.
32:37 And these places have been struggling. And their parents’ generation have been struggling with that transition from communism to capitalism. And that’s a hard struggle. It’s a struggle that, as Americans and Brits, we do not know in any way. And there’s now this emerging breed of entrepreneurs who want to create value and want to create jobs and want to create opportunity.
33:00 But there isn’t the money in the system. There isn’t investment. And it isn’t, you know, there’s community, you know, bits and bobs of it. And the expansion of Silicon Drink about it is designed to help that and champion that. But the money is still very much located in the old hearts of places.
33:19 It is still in Zurich, it’s still in Munich, it is still in Paris, it is still in London. And those financial centers, you know, as much as we talk about disruption, they’re still, that’s where the money is. beget money, you know, and money means that money people can be near. And so it still is, you know, Switzerland and France and Germany, the wealthy countries that have the ability for speculative stuff. And tech is still speculative. It’s not set in stone. It’s not guaranteed.
33:51 So I think Europe is doing a great job at trying. I think it needs to work more closely together, I think we need to celebrate the strengths of each country and really use the fact that we have the right of passage, you know, we have the right of immigration as members of the EU, we can be anywhere, we can do anything, we can set business up, we can transact and trade very easily and I think that’s the great strength and London’s really played to that strength by attracting talent from all over, you know, be it Bulgaria, Poland, you know, be it France, be it Russia, and you know walking around here how diverse it is in terms of that. So I kind of want Europe to really coalesce and challenge America, because beyond Europe is Russia, and beyond there is China, and there’s huge markets waiting to be tapped.
34:44 And the Americans have often failed at internationalization. As soon as it starts to be non-English speaking, it tends to fall over. It doesn’t work in Germany because 140 characters is too short for the for the Germanic language Is it I didn’t know that so it’s never taken off, right? Okay, so they have those really long-ass words, right? They have some crazy. They said they’re beautiful words. I mean like 50 letters long They’re like phrases and they mean the most insane things right? Like they have you far fig nougat I always think my job could never speak German Even if I even if I understood it my job wouldn’t be able to speak it sometimes I was like, how do you say that?
35:24 Hard language, tough on the ears. Swiss German too, and Swiss on the ears. So it’s never just, Twitter hasn’t taken off with that. No, and I think there’s lots of those things. So I think there needs to be some, and the EU’s doing some great work actually in trying to mobilize this and investing money in it.
35:43 Mainly because in lots of places, Romania, Poland, other places, there’s not a lot of promise. Elsewise, it’s very hard to transition the entire workforce from collectivization into individualization. That’s very tough. Yeah, that’s like 100-year transition. Or you could argue even longer.
36:00 Well, it took a long time to get them from individualized to collective. That was challenging. And that came with a very heavy death toll in some places. To try and then tell them everything that you’ve been indoctrinated and believed is now no longer the case. And it’s every man for themselves is a real challenge.
36:22 I mean, that’s, you know, the cognitive difference of that is quite huge, right? Yeah, and it’s weird cause Germany is this really weird exception cause it was basically split down the middle. And when they, when they combined in 89, they, I mean, you know, West puts so much investment into the East and, you know, just funded basically the emergence of that entire country. Just absorbed it, right? Just absorbed it.
36:40 It’s incredible. And so yeah, they’ve come a long way. Still yet to go to Berlin. Oh yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. Oh really?
36:46 Do go. There’s a silicon drink about there now. Yeah. We launched last week. You’re on that same note. Just last week? Just last week. Oh, that’s surprising. I was surprised I would yeah. We really wanted to make sure that one was really perfect and looked after really well. Where’s like the European vacation movie where it’s just drink about to drink about. Just drink about to drink about. Drink about movie.
37:07 What are your thoughts on the States? You said you said evaluations getting a little bit high. What do you see from the States that you like or you think that, you know, we should be taking a lead from them. And what do you see that you don’t like? Oh, God, without a man with an opinion, Ben Southworth.
37:21 I don’t want to be careful about some really strong, good American friends. I was actually just, we were out in Austin for South by Southwest. Oh, yeah, OK. And then did a road trip up to Boulder. Wow.
37:32 So for anyone listening, do not drive through North Texas. It is eight hours of just almost the same landscape, just repeating. Honestly, it was the most tedious. I mean, I got into like a Zen-like state. It was so flat and dull.
37:50 It’s Oklahoma, basically. It’s the dust bowl, right? You know, once we got into New Mexico, it was a slight moment of excitement until we realized it was exactly the same. Except redder and more desert. Yeah.
38:01 We got, I mean, literally, there would be excitement in the car when there was a corner. Like, that was how bad it got. I’ve done that drive. I’ve done the West Texas drive. West Texas can be pretty, Yeah, it’s pretty bland.
38:14 Pretty beautiful. Where do we visit? Visit some beautiful, beautiful areas of Texas. You don’t realize how big North America is, right? Like Canada, the U.S., it’s just until you drive, right?
38:27 Yeah. And then you’re like, hold on a second, I just drove for eight hours and I’m still not even out of a state or a province. We drove for eight hours and didn’t get out of Texas and we hadn’t even started at the edge of Texas. And like eight hours from London, you know. We’d be up in the highlands, right?
38:42 South by Southwest like I know everyone said has changed a lot and it’s turned from like a non Used to be a place to recognize tech companies now. It’s a place where it’s so big. Yeah I mean, I might was it was our first time my first time
38:59 Yeah, disappointing is the answer. I mean we were really lucky we went out with the the Hackney Council crew Hackney house That’s an incredible initiative, right? You a London Borough paying and taking people out to celebrate the local area. I mean it’s just unheard of. I mean it’s just incredible what these guys do. Amazing.
39:19 So that was fantastic to see, you know, you know, the only other people we saw doing that was Berlin, you know, there’s a German house, you know, we had a Hackney house, you know, and we found that really interesting. I was disappointed. We didn’t bother paying for the conference pass, but it is too big I think you know that the how big is it God knows I mean it must like how many people I would have thought it’s got to be I mean it’s his finger in the air stuff I mean it’s gotta be 10,000 twice I’m much more I think it’s cause it’s a music scene is already 50,000 total scene really yeah I would have thought okay I was everybody stay Jesus well I mean this it looked like almost every house was Airbnb and making a killing you know absolute killing you know people paying for their entire vacations of renting their house out for one week.
40:13 Everything is like 800% uplift during South Bay. Right. And it’s in the same spot every year. Yeah. I think it’s just changed a lot of the years.
40:22 It’s grown so big and so it’s probably just so much to get your head around. Plus it’s music and there’s film there and there’s tech and the interactive piece. We enjoyed it. But we did a very sort of British approach to it which is there’s a wonderful street called Rainey Street which was like this depressed street that was derelict and got bought by property developers and they just turned it into bars so they just made this little bar area and each is these kind of really nice old houses with big backyards and they’re all craft beer pubs with live bands and stages and to be honest that’s where you could find of three beards. We found this great pub called Austin Craft Beer House. It had 50 different ales on tap. We just lived out the back of there and just lived on Twitter and just invited clients and our friends. That’s what we did. That was our scene, right?
41:19 Most conferences you’ll find out the deals are being made and all the real things are happening throughout some of the conferences. The dinners and the good conversations. Sounds like a good way to do it. I’m going to put you back on the spot and ask you about American scene and I tried to get away did you see what I did I don’t push that away that’s put 12 months of political learning to the fat guys that smart but I mean I’m American you want to fan me what do you see that you like about what they’re doing and what that you don’t you know I think I think the Brits do a very bad job at hustle that’s self-promotion at kind of trying to aim aim super big and I think there’s a lot to be learnt about the American approach to that you know which is you kind of really plant your flag you really say you’re gonna go for it you make it work you’re unafraid to fail right that pioneer spirit from from the 19th century and you know from the Mayflower and having to do what you guys did I think is really deeply embedded in a way that it isn’t sociologically in the same way in the UK we’re very happy just to kind of accept our lot in life in the UK, and sort of trudge slowly towards the grave, and the Americans seem to have this kind of real fight and desire and passion.
42:31 So I think- It’s just a geographical inevitability, I think. When you know, like you said, you go over on the boat, and then what do you do, and then you go west. If you’re poor, you go west and plant some crops, and if you wanna go further west, until there’s nobody else, and then go further west. So I think it was just like by design, I think that whole mentality progressed. You know, those that survived were genetically strong and predisposed to hardship and predisposed to hustle and making it work.
42:57 And, you know, I mean, there’s something I thought a lot about as I drive across North Texas was like, who picked here? You know, who picked here as where to stop? You know, knowing that there’s, you know, California and Big Sur and beautiful places, you know, like, why stop here? Yeah. And it really fascinating sort of thing to think about, Guess what else was here. Native Americans wanted to kill you. No police force, no army.
43:22 Look at those John Wayne movies, like the searchers. You’re out there alone. Beating sun, tornadoes, no rain, lack of water, indigenous crops are low. God, I mean, you’re really putting it. No wonder Christianity is so strong. You need something to bind people and give them a hope and optimism. So yeah, optimism is a great strength of the Americans as well as their hospitality and their welcome-ness, and I think that plays in business much more open and straightforward about getting stuff done, doing business, trying to make deals, trying to partner with people in the way that, again, we spoke earlier about it, people keeping stuff to their chest in the UK and not really wanting to talk about it, not wanting to share.
44:09 I think we do that really, really well. I think the thing you do unfortunately fail to do is sometimes apply some critical thinking to the own hype. People kind of believe their own hype and end up selling themselves their own dreams and I think that causes a lot of, A, not very good products, B, maybe too many of them, and sometimes I think that can have quite profound effects on people that not everyone’s cut out to throw ideas up and see them die in front of them. And I think there needs to be a sort of a realization and rationalization about that. But I think, you know, it’d be great if you could cut down on sugar and processed fats in your food. That’d be awesome.
44:56 But just for the general well-being of these citizens of America? Yeah. Yeah. I bet you saw some- And the portion size. I mean, what’s that about- Jesus Christ. And you’re in Texas on top of that.
45:04 Thank God. I mean, in Texas, I remember I had a couple guys from Texas in my fraternity at college, And the size of your food is almost like your own reflection of the importance of yourself. It’s like, look how big my food is. And you’re in Texas. They have Texas toast.
45:19 It is hospitality. We were lucky enough to be driving up with Andrew Hyde, who’s a really good friend. It’s really nice to have an American with you, especially an intelligent American, talking about this stuff. A lot of it comes out in the Depression, right? A lot of it comes out of a time where there was nothing.
45:35 And so now, in a time of prosperity, you’re not only showcasing your wealth, you’re showcasing your thankfulness, you’re showcasing your gratitude, you’re showcasing your desire to give, to be generous. And the idea that you should leave the table if you’re not completely stuffed and unable to walk was shown as a sign of sort of weakness or penny pinching within the boom years. And I think that’s really interesting. Is that what it is? You might be right. It’s it is dangerous theory. I mean, these are all theories It’s a big food policy in Canada. Yes. I don’t visit my dad in Palm Springs. It’s just like crazy Yeah, we don’t have an appetizer. That’s the whole another story. Um, Ben before we get going I just want to know if you tell us about about the Ada Lovelace Academy. What’s going on? Are you tweeted out some info about it?
46:24 Recently, yeah Yeah, tell us about it. So it’s There’s a there’s a great initiative called the free school policy It’s a Swedish initiative that’s been applied in the UK. And the aim really is to propose new ways of educational models. So what I’m doing is kind of super niche. It’s a free school for 16 to 19-year-olds, celebrating creative and digital entrepreneurship.
46:55 So that means those of you who want to be web designers, web developers, You want to work in marketing, digital communication, creative arts, you maybe want to be a freelancer, maybe you’re an illustrator. And what we’re going to try and do is take those two years you would be at sixth form doing your A levels and teach you the mechanics of business, of finance, of communicating online, of building websites, of running a blog, of doing things like podcasting. I’m really trying to help people, especially young people, understand that this world that we live in is available to all.
47:36 And actually, if you have access to the internet and you have access to a computer, this is a path you can also take. So currently, we’re gonna apply in September. Just start to assemble the government’s board. We’ve got some really great people on that. Reaching out to people, trying to fundraise to kind of get some money in the system.
47:55 And we’re taking a really unusual approach. We’re taking a lot of pedagogical sort of learnings from very expensive private schools and giving them away to anyone who wishes to come. So it’s a completely free state school, but we’re doing things like the Hartnest method. The Hartnest method is applied in Wellington College, which is a super expensive, fancy UK school, and Exeter College is a super expensive, fancy American school. And it’s conversation led, So you have like one teacher slash facilitator to 10 and you invert the model.
48:31 So homework is done in class, studying about the lesson is done on the young person’s own time. And they come to the lesson with questions. And the aim is to get the young people to teach each other. So the theory is that not everyone will struggle at the same piece, they will struggle at different pieces. And if you can get peers to educate each other, that knowledge will stick far more than if someone who already knows something rushes over it and just explains it and kind of takes that, I can’t believe you don’t understand that approach.
49:08 You’re really trying to sort of let peers teach each other because we know in the world of work that’s actually what happens in great work environments. You’re teaching each other all the time. So we’re taking all of that sort of methodology and really baking it into the system I’m really trying to do a lot which is giving power to the children, giving, you know, so the governance model, you know, what are the rules, what is the disciplinary structure that’s all going to be on the young people to decide and to create.
49:38 We’re working with a series of work partners and interested people, both large tech companies and small marketing agencies, to ensure that the curriculum is exactly what they need. And now we’re just beginning to sort of work out what the finance model is. So looking at not only we get funding from the DFE, the Department for Education, but also we get maybe money from those that we place into work. And also working out if a young person wants to go on to university, how do we match that up?
50:11 So how does the curriculum fit in the pre-existing standards? How did you decide that age range? You said kids were talking 19, 16 to 19. I mean, they are young adults, in all honesty. A, it reduced the amount of limitations that I had to focus on.
50:32 If I did 11 to 14, A, that’s very young, I think. You also have to do a lot more work around special educational needs and focusing on that, which was something I just, as someone who’s got no educational experience, just seemed like a bridge too far. I thought, let’s leave that to other people. I also thought that 16 was the age where I was asked, what did I want to do in my life? And the answer was, I don’t know.
50:57 And that question still comes up, I still don’t know the answer. But I think at that age, I would have wanted a diversity of options. And whilst not knowing the outcome of maybe exactly what I was going to do, being given a suite of skills that enabled me to communicate with the modern age would have been really, really useful. So, that’s kind of why. You also think it’s an exportable model that we can take not only across London, but also across the world. And we’re talking with people like Draper University and Tim Draper of DFJ about connecting up with them, connecting up with people like General Assembly and Hyper Island, which are educational facilities for 18, 19-year-old plus and really trying to kind of connect that piece. So a little bit of laziness, a little bit of lack of experience, but also it felt like the chance where we were a lot freer to teach in a much more grown-up adult way without the sort of quite strict requirements regarding looking after children and things like, you now have to have, there’s a form you have to fill if you deal with children to prove you’re not a pedophile. Criminal check and all that stuff.
52:15 That’s it, CRV. CRV, I’ve filled them out for you. Yeah, so we could avoid that up to the age of 16, which means that, you know, if you guys wanted to come and do a session on how to run a killer podcast, you can come in and do that, do two hours with the kids and you know, that’s, the community has really been banging my door down saying I’d love to come and do something, I’d love to come and do something, I’d love to come. So really try to mobilize that community and really create a really sort of, you know, an open school where, you know, you can email me that week and say like, hey Ben, like, we’ve got a few hours, can we come and do something?
52:45 It’s like, yeah, sure. And really making a very sort of flexible, agile working environment that is really 16 onwards that you’re cognitively able to handle kind of those shifting and flexible sort of scenarios. when you’re 11, I think you need quite a lot of structure still. Yeah, you can kind of take some responsibility when you’re at 16 and be accountable. I think a bit more.
53:08 What do you say to the parent, the cynical parent? Cause I guess at 16, your parents are kind of still making the decision. They have to be fully on board, right? And so do you think, do you think that parents of 16 year olds are at the point where they think that’s, you know, that’s not too big a risk? Like what do you say to them?
53:26 I mean, I think we’re going to face that challenge and it’s something we’re thinking a lot about. What we’re hoping is we will have almost anywhere between a 99% chance of being, if you go to this school, that you will get a job almost guaranteed and good, well-paying, long-term prospects. In lots of ways it will be a risk because it’s a new school, but in education there is always a risk. And in the UK currently, when going to a university could be a 32,000 pound inherited debt risk, we believe that exploring these two years with us is worth that opportunity and worth that time.
54:17 Now, we’re not asking, and we don’t expect it to be for everyone, but we do think we can prove that there is success and there is reward for doing it. And hopefully, you know, knowing that they’ll get this suite of bankable work skills that mean, at least for the next five years, they are highly employable and more employable than graduates coming out. So they have a three-year head start, which enables them to gain a lot more on-site knowledge, if they can get that, then they’re going to be well ahead of their peer group by that time.
54:53 And we think that’s really crucial. How do people find out about this as our website? There is. So adalovelaseacademy.com, it’s still a work in progress. You can see all the thoughts and all the thinkings.
55:06 There’s ways to get in touch with me and tell me your thoughts and feedbacks as a donation system. You can donate money and help us. We’re going to hopefully do an Indiegogo campaign in the next few months. And yeah, so sort of as it happens and develops, more and more information is going to go on that site. It’s going to be a video with me soon saying the same things I’m probably saying now and just sort of talking about it all and I’m really trying to sort of get people excited about this idea.
55:32 It’s a bit of a challenge, you know, it’s different doing a startup, but yeah, lots of similar stuff, but also with big, big problems in it. Yeah, I think it’s incredible. You’re right. Those are big lines you’re trying to move in sort of the fabric of our foundation of society. I think it’s great.
55:51 I think it’s great. Thanks. Thanks. So we’d be definitely down for doing some podcasting instructions. I think everyone should do a podcast personally, so why not, right?
55:59 If people want to get in touch with you, you’re Twitter at in the company of, what’s that about? So there’s a failed startup from when I was 18. I still own the domain. it’s called In the Company of Us. And it was going to be a site where musicians, poets, and artists could basically have a virtual gallery online.
56:26 And we built it, we had the code, and then we just kind of lunched out in the way that you do when you’re sort of 18 and also a musician. So what we realized was, since we couldn’t even be bothered to update our own site, Perhaps no one else was going to be bothered either. It’s a good sign. How many years ago was that? It’s about 15 years ago.
56:47 Yeah, there you go. Well, you can follow… It’s a fish fishing area. Follow you on Twitter at InTheCompanyOf and ChewTheFat. They can catch you at hosting the next Future of the Fats.
56:57 That’s always 3 beers? Yeah, so 3beards.com. Right. And next to you the fat, 6th of May with Dehan from Design Museum. It’s going to be…
57:07 I’m so excited. It’s going to be awesome. I had lunch with him about six months ago and it was the most intelligent and stimulating lunch I’ve ever had in my life. Such a bright man. Wow.
57:18 And Silicon drink abouts, you’re at those and you can still be touring around Europe occasionally for that? Yeah, I’ve got another European tour coming up. How many are there in Europe now? I wouldn’t like to say. I think we’re at about 11 and we’re expanding into Austin, New York, we’re taking over the world.
57:38 That’s really crazy. season too so yeah that’s when I come out of my cave and yeah and now you know the weather the weather’s really kicking off it’s gonna get yeah yeah us Londoners love a little sunshine man it really changes everything it really does right the whole attitude of London just yeah it looks on and can flip off like that culture yeah be ready um Ben thanks so much for coming back you know you really kicked us off on such a good note when you decided to be our guest I remember approaching you at one of the drink abouts saying okay we’re gonna do this we’re gonna do this we’d really like for you to be our guest and you’re like I think I could do that so no thanks so much I hope we’ve we’ve made you proud with our episodes and in the content so it means you know what pride I can take but I just it is so awesome how this scene is you know grown and grown and grown and you know I think you know me Mike and Bryce every now and then just kind of pinch ourselves about you know over the last four years like Like what was tiny and niche to where it’s come now and just, you know, sometimes it does really humble you and you kind of, a little tear appears because it’s, you know, you couldn’t, we couldn’t have dreamed that this would explode like it did.
58:47 And to have been a small part of it, it’s just been a tremendous honor. Yeah. And it’s a strange piece of history and it won’t be repeated again. It’s like, you know, that London tech arc that happened, you know, one of those years. The little dress only happens once.
58:59 Yeah, right. Awesome. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, you can watch us all at the Silicon Reel YouTube channel. Follow us on Twitter, at Silicon Reel, Facebook, send us a message, hello, at siliconreel.com. We’re always looking for guest suggestions.
59:13 If you want to help out, you want to cut some videos for us. You want to introduce us to a guest. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. And if you’re a kid who’s got nothing to do for the summer, we’re always looking for interns, man.
59:25 If you want to get into the tech scene if you’re gonna be in London hit us up with an email I think it’s a great opportunity to help out some some kids that I also need yeah If anyone wants to help me with the free school if you’re a teacher if you’re a student if you’ve got any ideas Please get in touch. I can’t do this on my own. So anything is welcome interns. Also, I’ll take interns Help Bennet first. Yeah in person help these guys out first and then come but I mean if you just want to get to know this community like we working with any one of us would be fantastic and you’ll get really plugged in and get to me all sorts of people just doing the work so probably more so than even a three-month paid job but I won’t get into that there you go it’s silicone reel it’s about the people and thanks for being here and all the best thank you guys all right take care if I had an aspiration for all companies to float here it would be you know you’d make sure that you’ve got a relationship with them early on that they know why and that they feel comfortable.
