Full transcript: Lord Alan Sugar on London Real
2:40 London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Lord Alan Sugar, the British business magnate, former political adviser and host of the hit reality TV show The Apprentice. You founded your company Amstrad at age 21, selling electronic equipment out of the back of a van. You later launched the Amstrad personal computer and by 1986 your company had a net worth of £1.2 billion. You went on to found the very successful property investment group Amsprop and our chairman of the advertising company Amscreen. In 2000 you were knighted for your contributions to business and in 2009 you were inducted into the House of Lord.
3:16 You have twice been appointed as the UK government’s enterprise champion tasked with promoting entrepreneurship and advising young people on business. For the past 15 years you’ve starred in the hit BBC One series The Apprentice and invested nearly £3 million in the winning candidates. You are currently in Sydney filming the Australian version of Celebrity Apprentice. Lord Sugar, welcome to London Real. Hi, yeah, thank you. Yes, you got that right. Everything that you said is correct. Well, it’s great having you with us today.
3:44 So much to talk about. You know, Lord Sugar, when I looked at your entire career and all the different things you’ve done in your life, there seems to be this theme, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that for you what’s most important is to stay positive in the face of adversity. It seems to have been true about when you grew up here not far from us in Hackney, when you were building your company, and even this year when we’ve been hit with this crisis. Tell me about that. Is that a philosophy you’ve always had?
4:12 Did it come from your parents? And am I right in seeing that within you? Well, I’m not sure whether the terminology is to stay positive. I think it’s to, you know, to focus and to be resilient and to push on and to, I mean, how can I put it? Even like you Americans, you have these baseball bats, okay? So if you see a problem in the way, you have got this fictitious baseball bat that you whack them out the way with, and that’s the way I see things. So overcoming problems, you know, and problems come in all different shapes and sizes, difficulties to solve. And fortunately, there was nothing insurmountable, nothing unsolvable that I’ve come across. So everything is solvable. You just got to take a, yeah, you use the word positive view, but I think it’s more of a pragmatic and, you know, a focused view.
5:14 I mean, one of the things that we decided back in March is that we were just going to keep going. So I’ve been in here with my suit on every day broadcasting because the content was really important to keep people apprised with what was going on. And we tried to just have a positive mindset, get dressed, go to work, interact with your colleagues in a safe way and move forward. I’m curious because when you built your business in the eighties, there couldn’t have been anything easy about what you did there. You know, unemployment was high. You’re competing with the Japanese and the Americans. And, you know, when you look back to that time of adversity, did that compare with this time of adversity?
5:50 In circumstances, to be honest with you, I mean, then there was no danger to people personally in those days when I started. It was a depressed market. There was, you know, a complete depression in business and all that stuff. And I started at a real rough time economically. But you see, I started in a very, very small way. When you consider that back in 1967 or 68, when I started, if somebody earned 20 pounds per week, they were deemed to be very, very well off. So imagine when I started my business on my own, that I set my targets to make 60 pounds per week, which was like three times the amount of somebody who considered themselves quite affluent. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but I mean, you’re talking about an era when a packet of cigarettes and I don’t like smoking, but a packet of cigarettes were 12 and a half P. A gallon of gasoline, as you call it, or petrol, was also 12 and a half P compared to, I think, about six pounds a day. So you’ve got to understand that 20 quid in those days or 60 pounds in those days was a bloody fortune, an absolute fortune. And from there, I built it out really. And it was all about being self sufficient, not relying upon anybody else and focusing on what I know best to do. And Lord, sure. How did you find your inspiration?
7:25 Because this is back at a time when there’s no YouTube, there’s no self-help books, there’s no show on TV called The Apprentice. Entrepreneurship wasn’t cool. And yet you’re creating a company from scratch and going into the electronics business, which is a cutthroat business. How did you even know how to do that stuff? Well, you know, where did I find my inspiration was from the predicament I grew up with, with my parents who did their best to support four children. But my father, to put things in perspective, in 1968 was earning about 13 pounds a week, working in a sweatshop as a tailor. And I said, that’s not going to happen to me. Not at all. So it was a desire to be self sufficient, a desire to make money, one way or another, using my entrepreneurial like, if you like, spirit, or my salesmanship, or whatever. So that’s how it all started. I was like electronics as a child, I was making little, what we call in those days, crystal sets and small transistor radios. So electronics always fascinated me. And my first job, proper job was with an electronics company, a tape recorder company, where I became 17 years old, became their top salesman. And then I went on to work for someone else in the wholesale industry, where I became kind of like a chief cook and bottle washer for that company. In other words, I’ve done sell the goods, deliver the goods, collect the money. And the penny dropped with me one day is to say, well, you know, I can do this for
9:16 Myself. So with 100 pounds, and I know this sounds ridiculous in today’s day and age, I took 100 pounds out of my savings account, I spent 50 pounds on a secondhand minivan. I spent eight pounds on something which was called third party fire and theft insurance. And the other 42 pounds, I went off to the electronics area in London and bought some car areas. And that’s where it all started from there. And I kept selling more and more stuff. And that’s how the business built up. Fact, that’s the story. Don’t listen to anybody, any bullshit from anyone else who claimed they started me off and all that crap. It’s not true. If anybody started me off, it was some fellow called Ronnie Marks in Tottenham Court Road, who was the first person that I went to, and I bought 42 pounds worth of car areas off. That’s it.
10:19 You know, we’re at the old street roundabout right here, probably not far from, you know, where that the garment, you know, district was recently, but now this has become the center of tech. Do you ever think it’s kind of ironic that you started off in garment, but then where you live has become tech and you’ve become a tech guy. Yeah, I mean, I hear what you’re saying. It’s a little bit further away from where I used to live, but it’s not that far. Funny enough, the old street roundabout was one of my customers used to be on that roundabout. It’s long gone ages ago. It was a hard nose bloke. He never used to like me very much and only bought stuff off of me begrudgingly, but that’s because he needed it. But yeah, I mean, it is a high tech area. And then of course, you’ve got around the corner in King’s Cross, you’ve got Google taking 800,000 square feet of real estate. And yeah, it’s become very fashionable. I mean, I’m in the real estate business. And of course, in hindsight, if I’d have bought up all those properties in Hackney, I wouldn’t have to make one computer. But who’s to know that a property you could have bought for 800 pounds is now worth something like four or five million. Yeah, who would have known?
11:38 And yeah, they are building over there. It’s massive. Just curious what your lessons are to people in the year 2020, you know, based on what you learned throughout the 80s and the 90s. I mean, a lot of young entrepreneurs have seen this environment and they completely get scared. They go into fear. They don’t know how to innovate in these times. How do you advise the younger generation to continue building businesses in strange times? Different generation in this this era. I say this very respectfully, but they’re very focused on getting themselves comfortable in an easy job, and a lot of leisure time in the evenings and on the weekends.
12:22 That might not be a bad thing, right? It might not be a bad thing. And, you know, that that’s the way it is. But the hunger, I don’t think the hunger is there anymore. I think that life has become too easy. I mentioned Google just now. So if you are a young, bright person that is able to do computer coding, and you can go and get yourself a job in Google.
12:49 And basically, no one’s looking over your shoulder. Whether you turn up or not, whether you lay on a beanbag all night or whatever. I mean, just come and go, come and go. Write a bit of code now and again. And you’ve got a great job because of your education, because of the way that you’ve become a technical expert. Where’s all the industry gone? Where’s the engineering gone?
13:15 Where’s all the salesmanship gone to stand in a shop and try and sell somebody a suit or sell them a shirt? Well, it’s kind of gone now. You’ve got Amazon murdering everybody. No retailer can survive with Amazon now. And so it’s a different era. Now, where would I, my advice to any young person at the moment, the industry, I mean, can they start out making computers in the back of their garage? I doubt it. Things have got that very technical these days.
13:52 If they’re technical and they’re good at software and all that type of stuff, yes, there’s a market somewhere. Online selling is coming up big at the moment, getting up a pecking order on Google, using Facebook, Tinder, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, all that stuff is a way of selling things, but still quite expensive. I still maintain that what you do is you go into business, a business or you start a business on your own. If you have some experience in it, not because you fancy doing it, you have to have built some experience in what you want to do. And what’s the key trait you’re looking for when it’s someone on your show or when you look at someone that might be successful? I mean, is it the hustle? Is it the 24 seven work ethic? Is it the fact that they are a great salesman as well? Because I guess all entrepreneurs need to be salespeople. What is that? What is that thing that you value more than all others when it comes to? Well, I think work ethic is a big, big thing.
14:56 A big thing. And that’s what a lot of the younger generation are lacking at the moment, work ethic. Then basically when I’m on The Apprentice, you get the chance of viewing people and you see if they get it. Do you understand what I mean when I say do they get it? Do they sign on? Do they get it? Do they understand what it’s all about? And you can tell from a person whether they get it or not, or whether they’re still out to lunch thinking about things.
15:26 So that is the qualities of people that I’ve looked for. Someone who’s got a mind that is quick, that gets it. And someone who’s got a really good hard work ethic and someone who’s got real ambition to make a load of money. That’s what we want. Make a load of money.
15:46 Do you think you need to be obsessed to be successful? Only obsessed in focusing on your business. I will tell you, my wife will tell you, that I was a five-day-a-week man. Five days a week, would be up six o’clock in the morning, be home at eight o’clock at night, weekends. No, I wouldn’t work on the weekends unless there was an exhibition or something like that, that I had to travel abroad or whatever, generally weekends. I would switch off and then we could switch back on on Monday morning.
16:27 That was my agenda. Okay. All right, talk to me about the past six months worldwide and maybe in this country. We’ve obviously seen things locked down in Britain a couple days ago. We just went on a brand new lockdown. The reasons are looking very questionable. Everyone I speak to in the street, Lord Sugar, from black cabbies to entrepreneurs are frustrated. They all want to get back to work and yet they’re being told they can’t. What do you think is the next way forward? Do you think people miss being in that physical work environment? Do you think companies can exist? On lockdown one, I was a big advocate as the figures started to improve and look better.
17:10 I was a big advocate for saying, get back to work. It’s all very well sitting at home in the comfy of your home, in front of a laptop and saying you’re working from home. I don’t like it, but I’m old school. I don’t like it. I like you in the office. I like you back in the office.
17:26 I’ll tell you why I like you in the office because what you don’t realize when you’re in the office is the amount of interaction that you have on a day-to-day basis with your colleagues. Where’s the file on Mr Smith? Where’s the invoices for Joe? Where’s this? Where’s that kind of interaction during the day is very, very big plus your head. You want to get out, you want to get out, you want to go to work, you want to go to your office. I would say 90% of the people that work for me think that way. There are of course in other companies, particularly the the civil service, for example, where this was like manna from heaven, you know, please prime minister, keep saying if you can work from home, work from home. So they loved it, they lapped it up. They didn’t want to go to work and all that stuff. What’s caused the second wave?
18:24 What’s caused the second wave is the lack of policing, the lack of, how can I say, making sure that people stuck to the rules of, you know, social distancing and all that stuff. Look where I am now, I’m in Australia. They have done a fantastic job but there’s only one reason that was because of very draconian measures that they took. I mean, even as I sit here talking to you today, Victoria and Queensland is still closed. You can’t go to Queensland and Victoria, even though in Victoria for the last 10 days, there hasn’t been one, not one reported case of COVID.
19:08 So they’ve got rules here where they deployed the police, they deployed the legal authorities. I came into this country in September to do some work here, wasn’t a walk in the park. As we got off the plane, I was chaperoned by a police escort and they sat outside my door for 14 days so that I couldn’t step outside the door. When I came back from France, when I came back from America in June of last year, I filled out a form. On that form, you gave your phone number and your address and this and the other and you sent it off and I was told I had to self-isolate in my house. Now, to be perfectly frank with you, within a day of me coming home, I went out and went to visit a couple of doctors I had to go and see, which might be deemed to be legal, whatever. Funny enough, by the end of that week, when I got back, I had to leave the country anyway to go somewhere else.
20:24 There was no control, none whatsoever. The occasional phone call from some centre saying, hello, I believe you’ve just come back from America and you’ve got to self-isolate. Do you understand what the rules are? Yes, I do. Thank you so much. Bye. Then you go out to do what you want to do. I think the policing of it has been pretty bad, actually.
20:51 Really, that’s it. I mind you, having said that, Australia’s got 23 million people. They’re not that condensed in any one area as we are in London. It would be very hard to deploy services of the police. They’re already thin on the ground, as far as they’re concerned.
21:09 Maybe they should have brought the army in. I don’t know, but certainly there hasn’t been enough policing. Now we’re in this second lockdown 2.0 and it’s the hospitality sector, the catering sector, which I know you have businesses here in London that’s getting hit pretty bad. Even though it’s responsible for only 3.3% of the transmissions, according to Public Health England data, what do you think we should do to the hospitality catering sector in times like this?
21:35 What can we do? We can do it nothing. If they’re brought in a rule and a law, all they can do is to up their takeaway business. Restaurants can just try to up their takeaway business. People like Deliveroo and all that stuff. They must be laughing up their sleeve because that’s what they’re doing all the time. Uber eats and all that type of stuff.
21:58 If you’re a restaurateur, that’s all you can do. You can’t do anything else. Otherwise, you’re breaking the law. It’s as simple as that. It’s a shame for them that they came over the COVID situation. They then reopened. They started their business again. Then bang, they’ve been hit again. They’ve got to close them down. It’s sad. It’s so sad for them.
22:21 Yeah. We’ve seen Whitehall and the civil servants all disappear. Do you think that they need to lead an example of getting people back to work, if they can safely? The same with people in the city? What do you think about that?
22:37 Look, as I just now said, you can’t go back to work now because the amount of infections that are happening daily are horrific. They’re not good. They’ve got to get that under control. The only way you get it under control, it’s been proved in Australia. It’s been proved in China. It’s been proved in South Korea. You just have to isolate people, self-isolate to get that down.
23:02 When they get down to manageable numbers, you’ve got to analyze how do you avoid a spike three again. It’s academic, what we’re talking about now. There’s nothing we can do about it. Action has to be taken in order to try to get a grip of what’s going on at the moment. Unfortunately, a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort, a lot of aggravation, a lot of frustration is going to have to be endured by the public, which has been self-inflicted, by the way.
23:40 Because most of it is self-inflicted because no one took it seriously. They did not take it seriously. We’ve seen pictures of people, particularly the younger generation, completely blatantly ignoring the social distancing rules and all that stuff. They’re the ones that are passing it around. What role has the mainstream media played? How do you think they’ve responded to this whole piece? I know you’ve been critical in the past, of Piers Morgan, as far as creating this fear-mongering culture in the media. What do you make of that?
24:15 I think that the media have taken advantage of trying to make themselves to be holy than thou. They’ve got this blame culture. You’re damned if you’re doing, damned if you don’t. There’s not one positive word that has come out of the media about the government whatsoever. I sympathize a bit with them because how do you deal with this devil that you’ve never seen before? Other than go to the scientists and say, please, get me out of this. How do you deal with it? You don’t know what you’re dealing with. So you’re trying to balance two things. One is to get this under control and two is not to send the country and everybody else bankrupt. It’s difficult and the media are not helpful. Absolutely not helpful whatsoever. All they’re interested in doing, how many people died today? How many people this today? It was trying to speak to the Prime Minister. He didn’t want to talk to us. The Prime Minister hasn’t been to see us for 180 days. Why would I go on Piers Morgan program to be slagged off? Why would I enter into Alliance den when his agenda is to boost himself up and make him a big shot in front of the public by slagging off the Prime Minister? Why would I go there? Of course, I wouldn’t go there. No one in his right mind would go there just to be slagged off. And I would like someone to ask him, turn the tables on him and say, excuse me, instead of slagging everybody off, can you tell me what you would have done, right, rather than pointing a finger at what people
25:53 Should have done? What would you have done? Put the Prime Minister’s hat on and tell me how you would have dealt with it from day one. What would you have done? And he’ll start reading off a list of things because as little crisis, mini crisis exists, we can’t get enough masks.
26:10 We can’t get enough uniforms to put on protective uniforms. Can’t get enough ventilators. So little things that jump on the bandwagon. Always ventilators this way. I’ll be slagging the government off ventilators, ventilators, then it’s masks, slagging them off about masks, masks, masks.
26:28 Then it’s slagging them off about something else. So as they supply the ventilators, as they supply masks, that goes away. Next thing, or care homes. Hold on a minute. A lot of people dying in care homes. So they’re looking for agendas to really, you know, give themselves something to moan about.
26:48 I wish they would be a bit more positive and realize that the government got a very, very tough job like any other government in the world, except of course, your American friends with that ex lunatic Trump, who just couldn’t give a shit, right? Quite frankly, didn’t care less, could not care less. Do you think with the media, that’s, it’s worse in Britain than anywhere else, where the Britain antagonizes the political structure so much that it can be counterproductive to getting things done? I think it can be, but it’s typical journalism, isn’t it? You know, show me a positive piece about a politician.
27:27 Show me a positive piece in the whole history. I’ve been alive. I’ve never heard any positive piece saying, well, I think the prime minister is doing a great job. I think it’s a good blow. Doesn’t sell newspapers, doesn’t sell advertising on television, doesn’t sell. What they want to hear is bang, bang, bang, you know, suppress them and all that stuff. So no, I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, to be honest with you. I’m a viewer of CNN. CNN is very biased as one direction. Fox, as you know, was biased in another direction. It was like watching night and day, you know, complete night and day. It’s as if, you know, when you watch Fox, you would think that Trump was the next Jesus Christ, the Messiah. When you watch CNN, it was like, what is this lunatic doing? I tend to agree with them. What was the lunatic doing? But there you go. How do you think the government’s done here over across the whole pandemic? What do you think? I think there could have been some improvements and things, perhaps. I think that they’re trying to use the scientists to guide them. I think I would have done exactly the same as Boris Johnson after wave one to try to get the country back together again, to try to get restaurants open and pubs open and try to get the economy going again, which he did. The only thing I would criticize is that when you look at some of the gatherings of people where there were thousands of people
29:20 Condensed together, that was bad news. And the police should have gone in and split them up. And I don’t think that they used enough of law and order force to deal with it. Right. Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve watched some of the different cities in Britain, but we’ve seen some of the mayors in the north, like in Liverpool and Manchester, really, it seems fighting for their people, trying to keep certain businesses in play or fighting for furlough programs. It is politics. It’s bullshit politics. But also, strangely enough, in London, I find that our mayor here seems to be almost crusading for a lockdown sometimes. And all he seems to do is he’s been fighting with Boris and then bankrupting the TFL.
30:02 I’m just curious if you have thoughts on leadership in London. Like I said, it’s been frustrating. I’ve got no time. I’ve got no time for these people, my friend. Okay. No time whatsoever. They’re politicians, right? And they blow with the wind, you know, like a weather cock. They’ll do that. They’re just only interested in themselves.
30:19 Do they really have a heart in about the population, about the people they care for? No. They want to get voted in again. That’s it. Bottom line.
30:28 Okay. And that’s it. That’s the agenda, just to be voted in. Yeah. In my opinion. In my opinion.
30:34 Okay. And I mean, we’re expecting the next mayor election in about six months. Do you expect CityCon to be reelected? Do you think the Labour Party will still be there? I don’t know. And you know what? I don’t care. Because I’ve never understood what a London mayor does, actually, to be honest with you. It seems that we’ve created a position. Tony Blair created a position. And I don’t even know what the point of it was, quite honestly. I think that things like the police and transport should be under one umbrella, governed by the government, end of story. And do you think Labour Party is making some changes lately with Keir Starmer there? And they seem to be cleaning house a little bit.
31:15 Any thoughts on that? He seems to be a far more stable individual. And of course, if he’s ever wants an opportunity, Boris was elected a year ago or something like that. So Boris has got four more years. I would say that the pandemic goes away in the next 18 months to two years. It’d be something in the past.
31:39 And people got a short memory. So I would suggest that I don’t know whether the Labour Party is going to rise to power again, ever again. At the moment, if you had a snapshot election now, everybody hates the government for obvious reasons. But I say in 18 months time to two years time, who knows what it’s going to be? People have got a very, very short memory. Yeah. I know we saw the Labour Party put out that review about the anti-Semitism. Do you think they’ve put that in the past now and they’ll move forward? Or is it not that simple necessarily? Or is Keir a guy that maybe will move them forward? Yeah, I think it’s knocked on the head now. I think it’s well-established that anti-Semitism existed in the Labour Party. And Corbyn resisted admitting it all the time.
32:36 And he would kind of occasionally throw a kind of like a throwaway line. I’m going to deal with it. I won’t tolerate it and all that stuff. But basically, I think it’s been knocked on the head now. It’s been thrashed to death. We know there was anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
32:54 I believe that the new leadership is not going to tolerate it anymore. From my understanding, correct me if I’m wrong, I actually think his wife is Jewish, isn’t she? Oh, I don’t know that. Off to check. Off to check.
33:08 I don’t know. Someone told me that. I might be completely, completely wrong. Okay. He definitely seems to be putting a new face on it. And Sadiq Khan was kind of part of that old school as well. Do you think the party will move on without him?
33:22 Old school in what respect, sorry. Or just part of the old part of the party or, you know, whether that was in the old days or, you know, they’ve knocked the anti-Semitism on the head. And do you think they’ll move forward? I think Sadiq Khan was mixed up in any anti-Semitism whatsoever. I think one of the prior mayors, Livingstone, was an absolute anti-Semite. No question of it.
33:46 Whatever his name was, something Livingstone. We had Boris after Livingstone. And then you had, I think, Sadiq Khan came in. I don’t think Sadiq Khan can be accused of anti-Semitism whatsoever. But I don’t know what he’s done and what he does, to be honest with you.
34:05 It seems a nice enough chat, but I don’t know what he’s done and what he does. We’ve seen knife crime become something pretty serious in the city. It’s probably something that you saw, Ned didn’t see as a child, I’m guessing, in London. But then it got bigger. What are your thoughts on knife crime? Do you think we can make it better or is it getting better or how we can solve it? I think it’s associated with drugs, drug dealers, gangs, pockets of gangs that are fighting with each other over money that is owed or whatever.
34:41 I think that’s really it. To carry a knife might be a status symbol for some people. Whereas a fight in the past would be, you know, a few punches thrown and a brawl on the floor. Nowadays, it’s a knife comes out and someone stabs somebody, which is quite incredible, really, when you think about actually stabbing another person in their anatomy is amazing. But I think it’s a lot to do with drugs and it’s as simple as that. And the police, I sympathise with them.
35:16 There’s not enough police on the road. When I look at the other place that I live in for about six months of the year in Florida, the place is infested with forms of police. You’ve got the marshal, you’ve got the sheriff, you’ve got the local Boca Raton police, you’ve got the Delray Beach police, you’ve got the Deerfield Beach police. All you ever see is thousands of police cars around. Within seconds, if something happens, they’re there like a shop. I have to take my hat off to them that the police are there in force. We in England, they’re not there in force because there’s not enough of them. It’s as simple as that. And then, of course, you’ve got the other thing.
35:59 The other thing is that you can’t speak to anybody anymore. You can’t say, well, what are you doing? Because that now is a breach of their human rights. You can’t say something unless they come in at you with a six foot long knife or a gun. You can’t take evasive action against people. It’s as simple as that. Because otherwise, you, the policeman, will end up in court. It’s as simple as that. And, you know, the world has gone a bit mad as far as that’s concerned. But I do believe that we need reform on the police. We need a lot more police on the road. We really, really do. And I would deploy it. I don’t know why we spend so much money on the military and all that stuff. I would take half the soldiers, right, and say to them, you’re fired. But good news is I’m going to train you to become policemen, right? So you’re not fired. You’re actually being reapplied. Because I don’t know what we need the army for, anyway. We’re not going to go to war with anybody. And war is different this day and age, really.
37:00 So take all the army, take all them soldiers, cut them in half, and send them over to be trained as police operatives and redeploy them as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, those are interesting ideas. I mean, I lived in New York City for a long time. And there’s police on every corner. And it makes you feel safe. So having a police presence makes a big difference, for sure. Tell me, Lord Sugar, you’re in the property business. What is the future of property in a city like London and in other places? Are people going to come back, do you think? Will there be an office environment for companies going forward? What are your thoughts on the whole sector? Interesting question. People like Goldman Sachs and some others, Google, whoever they are, they’ve told all their employees, don’t come back to April. Now, what do they mean by that? Do they mean they don’t actually need 100,000 square feet? Do they mean they don’t actually need 800,000 square feet of offices? Because if don’t come back to April means you’re quite happy. We can run our business. You sit at home on your armchairs with your Apple Mac or Apple PC, and you do your communication and all that stuff.
38:10 If that’s the case, what you got? Why have you got 200,000 square feet of offices, slap bang in the middle of the city, right? Paying 90 pound, 100 pound a square foot. So is it going to come back? I don’t know. I don’t know, because I think there’s a lot of people who’ve got to become complacent. Imagine all those Goldman Sachs and other bankers that have got very used to this life that they’re living at the moment, sitting at home in their pajama trousers, in front of their PC, logging in. Hi, yeah, hello, how are you? I’m fine.
38:44 I’m just getting across on from Starbucks for only a minute. Yeah, right. I’m doing my work. I’m getting on with it and all that stuff. Yeah. But actually, they’re out walking the dog.
39:00 So will the city ever come back? Don’t know. I don’t know. Is it fashionable? Then you’ve got Brexit, which we’ve all forgotten about, where effectively there was a migration of bankers that left the city and went to places like Paris and Frankfurt, because England was considered to be the central hub of commerce, of banking. So we’ve all forgotten about Brexit, quite understandably, because it’s second on the agenda at the moment, as far as Covid is concerned.
39:38 I don’t know. I really don’t know. We see our tenants in London not wanting to pay their rent, not wanting to renew their leases and all that stuff. So now small, I say small, we’re still quite a large business. But but effectively, they’ve got leases and legally, they are bound to pay their rent. Otherwise, go bust. And we haven’t had that many go bust on us, quite frankly. Yeah, it’s I think it’s only a matter of time before these big corporations realize working from home, it does not work. You get maybe 30 percent of the ideas. I don’t think Amstrad could have been created with people working at home. My business couldn’t have been.
40:24 I mean, the reason innovation happens, well, tell me if you agree, Lord Sugar, is when people are in the same room, you know, and they bounce off ideas with each other and they come up with these great new business ideas. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But there’s a complacency, as I said to you much earlier on in this interview, you’re a young executive now that is not an Alan Sugar’s, not focused on building an empire personally for themselves, happy with their salary they’re being paid and focused very much on their leisure life and all that stuff. You know, so I’m sitting at home at the moment with my laptop and well, you know, why should I go back to work? Unless my boss says to me, get your ass back here now, now or you’re fired. As simple as that. No excuses. But when you got the prime minister occasionally saying, if you can work from home, try to do it, you know, try to do it and all that stuff. Not helpful. What you should say is get off your bloody ass and get back. Can’t say it now. Can’t say it now because we’re in the second wave. I completely agree with you. Get back to work. I want to hear about The Apprentice, but before we do that, Amscreen, you’re having some really fascinating successes with Amscreen with these big screens in China, this free Wi-Fi to really bring a city together. I love this idea of digitizing a city and bringing free Wi-Fi to build commerce. Tell me about your vision
41:45 On that and how you’ve been so successful. Well, I mean, it’s a rapidly moving market, digital screens. Mainly, we started with putting screens in bus shelters and things like that where advertisers are paying lots of money to be there. We’re moving on now to these giant big screens and then of course, some of these screens have got, you know, you’ve got a city center kind of phone box, if you like. It’s not really a phone box anymore. I mean, who uses the bloody phone anymore? But they are, you know, there’s certain councils and certain governments and insists that there should be a certain amount of phone boxes, but the phone itself is basically irrelevant now. What’s relevant is the advertising on the back. What’s relevant is the fact that you can get Wi-Fi there, free Wi-Fi. What’s relevant is that you can get data and information there. So this is all a very fast moving market, very, very fast moving market.
42:51 And we now got screens all over the world. We’ve got them in England, I don’t know, 3,000 screens out in England. We’ve got them in France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Norway, yeah, Spain and all those places. Yeah, it’s a fascinating business. All right, tell me about The Apprentice, Lord Sugar, because you seem to really love watching these young entrepreneurs build. And, you know, it seems you seem fascinated to watch some of them do it right, some of them do it wrong. But why are you so passionate about other people making money?
43:27 Well, that’s my hobby. You know, it’s how I started. I just told you about an hour ago, about £100 and all that stuff. And, you know, a lot of the young executives think that they can go to a venture capitalist and try and raise £5 million, £10 million to throw into some brainstorm idea. I don’t go along with that. I remember the era around about 2000, where if you had a nice posh blazer and an open collared shirt and a pair of jeans, and you walked into somewhere with a bottle of Evion and told somebody that you’ve got some dot com idea, right, you could walk out with a cheque for £50,000 or £500,000 or £5 million. I mean, I think, you know, a lot of people try to emulate the successes of the websites that we’ve seen in America.
44:30 I am old school, £250,000. That’s it. That’s all you get in. Start your business, whether it’s a bakery, whether it’s manufacturing face care stuff for ladies cosmetics, whether you want to be an employment agency or whether you’re a cosmetic surgeon. I don’t care because I’m not the expert.
44:55 I’m just the business boss that’s going to guide you. And, you know, what proof is in the pudding, we say in England, the proof in the pudding, because out of all of the, you know, like, since I changed the format to become a partner, they’re making loads of money and making me loads of money also change the life of these young people. They bought houses, they’ve had children, they got married, they had some of them in, but one of them employs over 350 people.
45:24 It’s quite amazing. Absolutely amazing. So it’s a buzz really to start from scratch again, and it can be done. And I’ve proved it with the £250,000 investment with the right person, with the right idea. And, you know, I know you’re saying the person has to want it. They got to have the hustle, the work ethic, the business. Does it need high margins? Does it meet anything that meet your criteria? Well, I mean, it is. I mean, yeah, of course. I mean, you’ve got £250,000.
45:53 If you want to set up your business, you want a few employees, you’ve got costs and all that stuff. You’ve got to start looking for how you’re going to pay for all this, because what I make very, very clear to all these people is that you run out of money. That’s it. Tough luck. I’m out. End of story. You’re on your own. I’ve made it very, very clear. Don’t come to me asking for any more money because you’re not getting it. And fortunately, no one has had to do that. Now, look, there’s been a couple of failures, I would say, that it’s not too bad.
46:29 I’d say two out of ten is not bad. But that’s how it is. That’s how it goes. You win some, you lose some. Right. You have to be strict about that because the entrepreneur has to know that they have to make it on their own, right? They can’t keep coming back. Yeah. And of course, I’ve got a backup team of people. They help them. They’re not literally on their own.
46:47 I take away all of the boring stuff, all of the reporting of VAT or account reporting, annual reports recording, the invoicing, the billing, the collecting of money from their class. Imagine having that all taken away from you and you’re just allowed to get on with doing what you’re best at doing. Yeah. And that’s what we do. Sounds amazing. And your company, Doe here, is also supporting Marcus Rashford and the school meals.
47:17 Is that right? Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe you’re more up to date than me.
47:22 I’ve been away for a while. Yeah. And what’s it like dealing with celebrities on celebrity apprentice? Do they come with extra hand holding? They’re okay. Yeah. They just got to understand that I’m in charge and they’re not.
47:35 And what makes good television, Lord Sugar? Because that’s what you’re doing. It is entertainment. What makes good television is that we have good tasks so that the viewers can enjoy the task and understand it. The jeopardy in the task of who’s going to win, who’s going to lose. The ballroom scene is a very, very, very, very good part of the program where people are not sure who’s winning and people like to see me interrogate the candidates, be they celebrities or be them ordinary civilians.
48:11 You know, this program goes out to people all over the world. And some of them, they might actually have been in the situation you were in. Because when you were a young boy, I mean, you didn’t have much capital. I know, you know, you had a tough time at school and you were bullied. And what do you say to kids out there who, you know, maybe get bullied and don’t know the West way to go forward?
48:30 Let’s clarify that. Yeah, I’m bullied. Okay, gotcha. Was it hard in school? Yeah, of course it was hard in school. I mean, you know, it was in a tough area.
48:43 And, you know, you have to stand up for yourself. It wasn’t that hard. But it was, I went, I had a good schooling. And I can’t complain about the schooling. The school I went to, you could learn how to build a brick wall, or you could learn Shakespeare. I mean, that’s how diverse it was. And I think it was excellent. So I was very happy in my school.
49:04 And what lessons did you learn from your parents and your grandparents? What were they? Well, parents, grandparents, I didn’t know at all, really. I was the youngest of a family of four. My nearest siblings were 12 years older than me. And I was born in 1947. I think as may be a result of perhaps a celebration of post-war inebriation, let’s put it that way.
49:33 And I was told my mum, I think I was a mistake. She had never admitted it, but it was one of the best mistakes she’s obviously made in her life. But so, yeah.
49:49 Sorry, the question again was? It was more, what did you learn from your parents as far as your dad and your mom? Oh, well, my dad, well, they had no money, as simple as that. So they had to provide for the four children and they had to be very careful in what they spent. Very, very, very careful. And that’s what kind of motivated me to say, I’m not going to live like this. I am not going to live like this. And as soon as I can afford it, my dad came to work for me. And I remember saying to him, right, you’re going to leave your job working in that sweatshop in the garment industry, and you’re coming to work for me. And even then he was very nervous. He said, well, hold on.
50:30 Who’s going to pay me on Fridays? I am. He said, well, what do you mean you are? I said, well, I am. I’m running a business. So I’m going to pay you on Friday. End of story. Don’t worry about it. And that’s how nervous he was, really. And that’s really what he said to me when I started my business. When I was a young boy, 17 years old, who’s going to pay on Friday?
50:53 So I’m going to pay myself. You don’t get it, do you? And it’s a different mentality. But look, they did their best. They did the very, very best in a very poor family. They did their very best.
51:06 And then fortunately, I was able to show them a much better life later on in life. Were they proud of you? Oh, for sure. One hundred percent, as are my brothers and sisters. Yeah.
51:19 And what is next for you, Lord Sugar? What’s the next five years entail? Is it more apprentice, more businesses? What’s on your? Yeah, I’m very business orientated. Of course, I’m going to continue to do the apprentice as long as the BBC want me to do it. Unfortunately, at the moment, due to Covid, we’re struggling to find a way of doing it. And I’m enjoying doing the Australian one. It’s very, very refreshing to get the different culture of people. I think they’re enjoying me also. Yeah. So I’ll carry on doing that. And we’ll also carry on investing in real estate and we’ll carry on investing in electronics. And some of my look, one of my companies is a cosmetic company. It’s going to have a hundred million pound turnover this year.
52:14 Right. And making a bomb, an absolute bomb with my partner there, Susan Marle, who started with nothing. She started her mum’s kitchen and I spotted her and I said to her, right, I’m going to invest money with you, love. And that was seven years ago. 100 million pound turnover and making an absolute fortune with 350 employees. Wow. That’s what you call a success story. Yeah, that’s incredible. I did that with her. Yeah, that must feel great. A few last questions about yourself. If I were to ask five of your best friends, Lord Sugar, what is your superpower? How are you able to do everything that you do? What do you think they would tell me?
52:58 I think that what they would say is that I assess the situation very quickly and come to a conclusion very quickly. So if there’s a problem or something like it exists or a situation exists, I’ve got a very fast brain. Thankfully, I hope I managed to keep that. I mean, I’m 73 years old at the moment, and I think my brain’s quite fast. But one of the things that I get there quicker than most people, I know I’m not being disrespectful, but I get it. I get straight, I extrapolate right down to the worst case scenario or the best case scenario if you understand what I mean. Yeah, no, very much implications of something. Yeah. When you look back on your business life or just your life, what do you remember as the best day and what do you remember as the worst day? I think let’s deal with the worst day. First of all, I think I built an empire making computers, and due to technical issues, the whole empire collapsed, you know, really collapsed because of a technical issue, because of, you know, I guess our lack of investment in technicians. And that’s the worst time. The best time is, I guess, you know, when you make your first million pounds, when you, you know, I still look back to my first days when I was 17 years old and I got in my minivan and I went out there and I sold goods on my behalf for my little company. That was a memorable occasion. It was a milestone.
54:38 I’m not working for someone else now. I sold you some goods for my company. And then, of course, there’s being knighted by Her Majesty the Queen and being a member of the House of Lord, great memorable things. And I’ve been fortunate enough to be married to my wife now for 52 years. Wonderful person who understands me, has never interfered in my business, but has basically kept me under control. And she does keep me under control. She’s the boss, as far as that’s concerned. Great children, great achievement with my children, very nice people. They were the children of a wealthy man, a millionaire, a billionaire. How many times have we seen this kind of Ferrari driving coke snorting community, the siblings of a wealthy person? Now, thanks to my wife and myself, we kept them on the rails. And I’m pleased to report that they themselves now are very down to earth people who keep their own children on the rails. So that is a marvelous, marvelous achievement. Very much so. How did you do that? Because that’s how we are. That’s how we are. You know, I mean, you know, listen, one of my sons may be in his in his youth, recognizing his father had lots of money, decided to go and order himself a Porsche somewhere. I just went to the garage and canceled it and said, no, you’re not going to Porsche. In fact, you’re going to get an old Vauxhall Viva. And that’s it. Take it or leave it. You’re not having anything else.
56:14 Go out and if you want a Porsche, go and earn some money and make it yourself. But yeah, I’m not getting you one. As simple as that. So he quickly learned and all the other kids learned the same. I mean, the wife was the same. We don’t sling our weight around. We like good things. I’ve got a boat. I’ve got my own planes and all that stuff. And I love all those things. I don’t feel guilty having them. I haven’t never robbed a bank. I haven’t sat in in front of a computer in the city buying and selling shares at the expense of companies, you know, and all that stuff. I’m a dealer. I buy stuff. I sell stuff. I make money.
56:56 That’s what I do. Very, very fair. Simple as that. I don’t do anything else which I don’t feel guilty about. Yeah, that makes a big difference. Lord Sugar, what scares you?
57:08 COVID is scary. Most of my children, for my grandchildren, they’re very, very scary. And it’s only been the last year that you start to realize how serious this bloody thing is. Good news, I guess, has come out this week about we can see some light at the end of the tunnel allegedly with some vaccines coming, but I just really hope this thing goes away. I really do. I hope it goes away. Yeah. What would we be surprised to learn about Lord Sugar? I know you fly a lot on your own planes. What are some other things we might not know about you or tell us more about that? Not a lot, really. Nothing special. I’m a big watch collector. I love watches. I can’t get Rolex to give me any watches quicker than anybody else can get them.
57:55 I know a lot of people think that they see me wearing all these watches, and they must think, ah, he gets them free. I don’t get them free. I wouldn’t take them free, to be honest with you. I like to collect watches. What else? Now I play tennis. I cycle a lot. I’m a big cyclist.
58:15 And yeah, cycling is very good. It keeps me fit. I like to keep fit. And then I have to go on these mad diets every so often because it’s indulged a little bit too much occasionally, and I like to keep the weight down. Okay. And what keeps you awake at night?
58:34 Nothing, really. Not now. No. Nothing keeps me awake at night. No.
58:39 Okay. All right. I always finish with a few questions I’ll ask you now, Lord Sugar, if you could pick up a phone and call up the 20-year-old Alan Sugar and give that young man some advice. I guess you’re still in the early days with the van. Based on everything you know now, what would you tell that young man? The following success secrets are only available inside the London Real Tribe, where you get exclusive access and insights from our high performance guests on wealth creation, productivity, leadership, morning routines, health, and well-being. To join our tribe community, go to londonreal.tv forward slash tribe.
59:16 Now, let’s continue with the show. Okay. Fantastic. All right. Thank you so much for the time. Wishing you all the best with Celebrity Apprentice down there. And thank you very much, Lord Sugar.
59:28 Appreciate you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Take care. All right. Thank you all very much.
59:33 We appreciate it. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Bye-bye.
