E409 | This Week in European Tech with Dan Bowyer, Ferdinand Reynolds, and Lomax Ward

0:00Welcome to Upside. I'm Dan Bowyer. I'm at Superseed where we back early stage technical founders who are transforming how the world works. Today, I'm also joined by Ferdi from SuperSeed, as well as Lomax from Outsized. And today, we're going to talk about all things European startup, investing, VC, all of that cool stuff. Focusing on Europe, although looking at the docket, a lot of it is very American focused. No great, you know, surprise there with the Trump inauguration and everything that's going on over there, which will affect us in Europe.

0:47This show is not investment advice and the hosts of this episode may be invested in the funds and companies featured. What are we going to talk about today? Let me just scooch through the docket, gents. We're going to talk about OpenAI. We're going to talk about Operator at OpenAI. We're going to talk about some job cuts at Meta and what that really means behind the scenes. We've got a bit of moves at the CMA, which is the competition regulator in the UK. And what that also means, airport expansion. There looks like there's going to be some growth and obviously some more GDP per cap coming through from that.

1:15If it all comes off, the government can get it through. Is M &A in Europe back? The Trump piece, I think, can meander around in that. I think there's a lot of topics in that. I know, Blom, actually wanted to go into that. And also Doge and then the Stargate AI project, if I can get my words out. So that's what's on the docket. Now, starting at the very, very, very top, it looks like we've got our first, if you like, true AI agent, which is a toolkit called Operator from ChatGPT, from OpenAI, which is only in their premium package. And it's effectively a browser within a browser that will allow you to take full control and properly act like an agent.

1:59now we can't get access in europe but i did get access via a vpn and i think this is going to be the kickoff as well as to where agents are going to going to head this year now lomax have you played with it have you played with any other agents in their truest form haven't haven't played with it um been reading some initial reviews um some disappointment you know the full range of of um you know people fully excited for people already disappointed i mean how was your experience i only went through the demo so i did just to be completely we were playing it we're in a truck we're in we're heading to ukraine dropping off trucks so tell us where you are guys come on we will so ferdy and i are driving trucks to drop off some some cars trucks and bits and pieces for all the all the fighters on the front line in ukraine to support the cause Now, we were running the dock here and I was playing with operator and doing all the stuff for the pod this afternoon, doing a solid 65 miles per hour somewhere through Poland.

3:08So if I don't make much sense, that's pretty why I've been driving for 14 hours. And Ferdy's looking at the quizzically. No, I just think it's important to clarify. It's important to clarify that you weren't driving at 65 miles an hour while preparing the content for today. Most of it, that was my job. Thank you. Good call. Oh, good call. I wasn't driving. Ferdie was driving wonderfully, and I was busy in the docket and playing with toolkits, like notebook LLM, and obviously operator. So no, I haven't really fully played with it in anger because we're only on 5G, but it looks like this is the bit that excites me because this is the bit that I think is going to make the real difference as to how we live, work, and play.

3:50So a browser within a browser, which can take full function of the browser so you can say find me you know a holiday book the hotel book the flight and the llm will naturally work through the entire workflow and i think this is where this is where pure agents are going to go for you play with any agents i have i have played with some agents and of course we have a very a very valuable and very useful point specific solution uh which i guess is an ai ai agent in our portfolio in the guise of pub um and they're obviously incredibly effective and, you know, I think this is always... They do, just give a little background.

4:28Yeah, sorry, for people's context, for anybody who doesn't know, POP is a sort of end-to-end recruitment, automated recruitment platform that handles, you know, candidate evaluation all the way through candidate conversation and screening and eventually presents a shortlist, a very well-qualified shortlist of, you know, would-be candidates for a role, but well-screened candidates for a role to hiring managers. So rather than screening 1 ,000, and you're screening three and they're all very high quality. So that's a really simple example of an AI agent working well. I think I remember about a year and a half ago, two years ago, when there was a sort of massive explosion of these sort of, I think then they were referred to as agentic workflows, but certainly agents became pretty buzzy as a term.

5:09And our contention always was that, you know, they always seemed a little bit sort of trivial, right? A little bit sort of meaningless. And their output was really what mattered and nobody had really managed to deliver something either specific and valuable enough as a point solution or holistic enough that it could sort of run its own stuff. But it feels like this is the first major step in the direction of having fully autonomous AI-driven agents kind of installed in our day-to-day life in a way that we have never really had before. So it's very exciting. I think you're right. I think this is the first full autonomous agent, which will obviously have massive implications in business as well as for our personal lives.

5:55And as I've mentioned before in previous pods, I think this is where Apple is going to come into its own because they own the entire ecosystem and all the app connectivity. I think this is where, if they get it right. You're so big on that, Dan. You're so big on that. I know I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but there's something about the fact they own that closed ecosystem and having their integration with OpenAI. If Tim Cook, I mean, never even accounting to do a creative job, and obviously everything else is tanking, but if they can pull this off, this is going to be massive in the consumer space.

6:31They also have a pretty amazing track record of introducing disruptive technologies in a way that make people clamor for them rather than feel uncomfortable about them. And, you know, they have exactly as you said, they have this ecosystem of tied up, bought in consumers, as you are, you know, living evidence of. And call them a Maffle fanboy. You are a Maffle fanboy. You're an example of how captive their market is. And that's exactly why they're in such a dominant position to introduce something like this and let it take off. I'm really excited for it, too, by the way, because I do so many menial things on a day to day basis that I'd like not to do.

7:03No, I think it's great. Great. I know this is only supposed to be a quickie, but anything else from you on agents or proteins specifically? No, other than I think we should go and do a lot of homework on this over the next week and report back, you know, next Friday. No, let's go play. Let's go play. Staying with AI, and the reason I say that I'm staying with AI, I'm talking about meta and job cuts, because the backstory here is the meta quite famously have just cut 5 % of the workforce like they did last year. There's another 3 ,600 jobs being taken out. And the explicit message from Zappi, we're going to get the cream of the crop and we're going to let go of the dead work and we're going to keep this premium workforce at 72 ,000, I think, meta in total, doing amazing things.

7:52But my sense is that this is an AI push and actually this is one of the first and most famous examples of AI now starting to take people's jobs, which I know is on all of our minds, a lot of the time and how that's going to roll out through different industries and how organizations of any size are going to start handling what a i can and can't do and what a i will and won't do and what it will replace but my my sense is this is just a an a i efficiency push where more of the stack is being built automatically and they need fewer people i mean you could argue there's some DEI after Trump's, you know, let's not do anything nice for anybody.

8:33And DEI is to be killed and culled. This could be the DEI and sustainability and all the other crews in Meta also going. But my take for the floor is that this is the beginning of a path we're going to see for many other organizations of many other sizes. Lymax, what do you reckon? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I still think we're kind of, I think a lot of those big tech companies are still like at the back end of cleaning out the bloat that um arose you know in those companies in the kind in the in the teens right 2017 18 19 right where they were famously um hiring and hiring and hiring i know they had big cuts since then announced you know yes probably two years ago now i still think we're still at the back end of that um i mean clearly the fact checkers are all gone all going in the u.s right but i guess that's sort of separate to this and i think but i think you're totally right i think this is like this is an example where the this the workforce can be rendered more efficient through through ai tools and and that will mean that um engineering teams ironically you know with more and more of dev work being automated will will feel will feel the punch a bit i mean look you know klarna which is a fact you know klarna went through this six months ago right and didn't that 15 was it 15 of the workforce i think it was 15 yeah but he explicitly said we are not going to rehire whereas zucker said we are going to backfill whereas the kwanis here i can't remember his name actually said we're not but this is an ai push i think he was quite candid about it if memory serves all right yeah and well also i mean you know benioff came out said he's making no more no more dev hires this year right so hiring freeze effectively right which i guess you know with with natural attrition will mean a reduced head count so i think you know big tech is is is um experimenting here i think it makes sense it's probably the tip of the iceberg could well be could just be could just be at the beginning i think it's super interesting for us in our position i mean as all of us i'm sure experience quite regularly there is a contentious uh you know flip side to the coin of of the of the sort of AI productivity boost, which is that the only real saving comes from FTE shaving, right?

10:51It's like reducing number of headcount is the only really meaningful way that you generate the uplift that AI promises. And it's always been a little bit of a, you know, contentious topic. And actually, you know, the other side of this is that usually, historically, when companies have announced large numbers of job cuts, it's typically been a bit of a death knell or a warning signal or some signifier of underperformance or certainly deviation from expected performance. I wonder whether this is actually going to be, you know, this is going to sort of introduce a new paradigm where reduction of jobs actually shows disproportionate talent in your engineering performance because you're, you know, you're able to reduce headcount effectively while also, you know, obtaining impressive metrics.

11:32I think it is going to be a very interesting period for these big companies as they start to streamline. It's an interesting kind of counter, counter circular position where everything is going to be back into growth with from sugar high i imagine for the for the at least h1 and markets i think the s &p has had its best best opening january since reagan so it feels like obviously zuck snuck this news in with all of the other big news that was going on so i also know that this will be tomorrow's chip paper if it isn't already but it's it feels quite you know letting people go as the market is looking to boom however let's go back to the uk so the cma chair so the cma is the the competition regulator in the uk so the cma chair marcus bockerink is out and they've replaced him albeit temporarily but this might be a permanent fixture with doug gurn now he's ex amazon so Marcus was very consultancy backgroundy and Doug is a commercial guy so it feels like and there's a bit of unrest at the mill but it feels like this is government saying we need to get more commercial people and less red tape and more activity so that's what I'm reading between the lines Lomax you got any thoughts on this no I think that's right I think we're saying that in the us now we talked about this one or two pods ago you know i think um the the ftc will have its wings clicked massively and will be you know disencouraged from the i would say you know well what trump would call kind of regulatory overreach that they've that they've gone through in the last few years so i think this is actually an example i mean we talked at the beginning of the pod where you said we've got a lot of us stuff but you know what happens in the us is relevant for us often right and this is an example of us kind of um following suit as it were you know if you want to if you want to encourage growth moving red tape moving barriers to mna um etc etc is is incredibly important and you know i think rachel reeves has not been doing a great job i mean still early days but you know this is just one of the kind of early early moves that she can structurally at the establishment level start to make changes that will percolate through the economy in the next three five years yeah i think i think that's right furs you got any thoughts on this no only really that it feels like a sort of slightly pale imitation of what's happening in the states right with this sort of across many across many vectors it sounds like it feels like every time i see an american headline like this like something going on at the epa or at the fed or an institution x and say it feels like there's a there's an equivalent european story maybe maybe maybe that's not a bad thing there's an equivalent european story but as ferdy says it's a little bit more watered down and a little bit more lackluster and a little bit less i mean i don't think i don't think that's always the way isn't it i don't think this would make the front page in the states somehow right this isn't this isn't quite as um illustrious the story is as as doge right and by that i don't mean the coin i mean i mean the committee but yeah and always i mean again this This would also come into play with Stargate, which we're going to talk about later, which is we have the UK equivalent of what they want to do with the AI infrastructure and get Matt Clifford's project off the ramp.

15:09And again, to your point, Lomax, you know, that pales into massive insignificance when you've got a 500 billion dollar private public contribution going on from NASA into the US into AI infrastructure. We'll come on to that later. Staying with the UK. So, listen, airports, expansions, the whole topic of getting Gatwick, I think it was Gatwick, Luton and Heathrow to expand their capacity. And this one is all about Heathrow. So just some context. Research suggests that between$47 billion to$143 billion could be added to the UK economy by 2060, adding 27 ,000 jobs. Now, this is obviously mainly a southern thing.

15:55Obviously, Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton are all in the south of the UK, which is slightly problematic, but that's where the main hubs are. so ministers are set to to push for a third runway at heathrow shortly and it feels like this is another one of those kind of government pushes get more activity go for growth so again i think this is going to be a short conversation but does anybody know max you know any more on this well no i mean other than having an opinion which is i think you know the expansion of gatwick and lutein is is probably a bit of a no-brainer it's easier to do it's probably a little it's more incremental in terms of in terms of like overall numbers but it's just easier and quicker to get done you know from the few people i've spoken to i don't even know if he throw want to invest this much actually do it i don't even think i'm not even sure the market is there at the moment to be honest it's my it's my only thing you know it's all very well at the government level saying this would be wonderful and talking about 2060 i mean who knows we'll be in charge then and you talk about adding a hundred another hundred and you know 120 billion to the economy okay that increases the tax revenue a lot and a lot more jobs but i mean that is just so oblique and so far off i mean it feels very governmenty this and not doesn't necessarily reflect what's going on on the ground to be honest no and it feels quite noisy it feels like this is another one of those headline topics and i'm not sure how that would distill down into and obviously i want to see more gdp per cap in in the uk but i'm not sure how that would distill down or i mean i'm sure the environmentalists are going absolutely crazy i'm sure our commitment to uh climate and sustainability are those things are going to be slightly side swiped and ferds you live in the west of london do you want more do you want more planes overhead certainly not but i don't think i'm hugely at risk from gatwick or luson so i'm you know i'm i'm all on good nimby you're a good nimby yeah okay um so we talked a little bit earlier about m &a it is back looking through the figures so h1 2024 aggregate m &a deal values total 490 439 billion euros across europe so that's a 31 uplift compared to the year prior.

18:14But the quantum was a bit like VC. The value was up, but the number of deals was slightly down. So that was down by about 10%. So Q4 saw a massive uplift. It saw 450, 550, I can't get my words out tonight. 537 M &A deals involving VC-backed startups, which is a 46 % increase from the same period last year. So this is good news. So M &A, IPOs, secondaries, lots of liquidity events, lots of stuff going on. I'm always intrigued as to how if IPOs are coming up and M &A is coming up, where the balancing act is going to be and how startups are going to decide whether they go the distance or whether they sell it along the way.

18:57And it also feels like with potentially more regulatory hurdles being removed, this would be a good thing. So M &A 2025 should be looking good for, mainly for LPs, mainly our investors to get their money back so that they can keep recycling. But this all feels like good news. Any other thoughts from you, Lomax? Well, I mean, what I'm seeing on the ground is there is a lot of consolidation within venture, within venture-backed companies. But a lot of that is share for share deals, right? A lot of that is not involving actually a lot of cash components. I mean, I'm seeing that time and time again.

19:35And I mean, there's one venture-backed company in one of our portfolios, which is now in a kind of Russian doll type maneuver, has had its like third share-for-share merger in four years. And has effectively now been consolidated into the kind of winner-takes-all in its market. um and so there's a lot of that going on in venture land so yeah there's a lot of it on a vc by buying other vc product that's for sure yeah so i don't i don't think that is great for lps to be honest like there's probably in the wider economy it sounds like you know the m &a is up i mean is that because organic growth is you know people are struggling with organic growth and they need to they need to buy you know buy growth inorganically you know that that may be that's a hypothesis there but but look i mean ultimately we're struggling for growth you know organic growth in europe at the moment so that's what it's all about that's what the governments need to be trying to foster and engender and i i feel like i'm not seeing a lot of taking it to the venture level and rlps and us as gps etc i'm like i don't know i mean i'm not seeing a lot of like venture-backed cash cash exits at the moment like i mean is that just inertia it also feels like a lot of the rearview mirror stuff i think is right it's it's it's paper for paper it's not actually um super liquidity for rlps but it also feels like we're slightly baked in a little bit of inertia and with trump's sugar high with europe being effectively having sand kicked in its face to kind of get up to speed.

21:19And obviously everyone is feeling this nationalism and protectionism push, which I think is going to be a big outcome of Trump's rhetoric. It does feel like that's only ever going to be a good thing for real activity, for real M &A, for real liquidity events for LPs, and obviously much more activity for us. I think my sense is that we've got that kind of sticky inertia bit where everyone's going, bloody hell, what is that bully going to say next? And what's that going to mean for tariffs? and what's that going to mean for our ecosystem and what's that going to mean for our regulation. So assuming things will start moving, it feels like that's just an inertia period.

21:54Yeah, it's probably not the only source of inertia, right? I think, yes, companies are struggling for growth and so they're trying to grow in organically through this sort of acquisition strategy and there's a lot of movement, as we know, the consolidation with PE to VC, VC to PE, VC to VC. I think there is a bigger problem, which I'm willing to address even if it doesn't reflect particularly well on Europe, which is that our growth investment landscape and retail market for IPOs is just really, really flat. And very, very difficult for companies to reach the very high bar that exists for those events, for those liquidity events to be possible.

22:32And, you know, strategic acquisitions and IPOs are just a very different beast here to the States. And I think with that bar so high, you have this situation where funds are actually kind of struggling to allocate. And Dan, you and I were listening to research today about the sort of promulgation of zombie funds, right? It's just funds that are sort of biding their time, sitting, waiting for viable avenues to deploy their capital down because there's just nothing for them to do. So there's quite a lot of that consolidation going, yes, to drive in organic growth for those companies that might be on the IPO or strategic acquisition trajectory.

23:09But there's also quite a lot of funds just sitting on capital because they think things are going to get better. Yeah, I know I've said this a million times on this pod, but there's a lot of cash has been raised into UK VC in 24. It was the most ever on record. It was just over$12 billion. So it's got to go somewhere at some point. I personally believe it's inertia, but Lomax, you feel differently? I don't think it's necessarily inertia. I mean, I do think, like, you're raising these kind of billion, billion euro venture funds. I sort of struggle to be like, yeah, I mean, maybe that is the point.

23:42It's like, how the hell are you going to allocate this sensibly? I mean, what's your target when you raise a billion dollar, I mean, a billion euro fund? I mean, you should really still be trying to get a 3x net fund. We do the soft bank, right? We do a deal every hour. don't check any sorry throw the money out whatever terms you can get yeah i think it's i mean yeah so there is i mean there are these like that you know you know capital has coalesced around the what we now call the household names within european venture right there's like four or five but then we talked about them on this podcast before yeah it's like part of doesn't it yeah it's part of the flight to safety fight to quality i mean you know i guess we'll see in the returns but that we've seen in the market and yeah maybe they are struggling to deploy although actually we'll talk about it later there have been some pretty big rounds actually already this year in europe so you know yes long way that continue yeah no it has been been quite a fruity year but again a bit like we were talking about earlier it's been fewer deals higher quantum so much more cash into fewer so my sense is that there will be a relative reset to that thinking i hope where we'll start getting out of that safety net and being a bit more taking a few more risks slightly lower down the tree is my take but let's see what 25 i think it's also maybe there's a little bit of fear that might counter that but let's see what happens and no max you want to talk about trump i i don't see how even though we're kind of european focused that we can't but where did you want to start on on trump's first few days i think it's hard not to talk about the integration even though we are you know focused on this part about on europe and i think of the couple of things that like struck with me one is like when i compare the mindset of what you know what i'm seeing in europe versus the us i mean two absolute extremes i think in europe and um it's relatively morose it's people are you know definitely glass um glass half empty and actually there's a crisis of confidence as well it's not just people feeling depressed i think people have lacked a lacking confidence whereas in the u.s it's it's the other extreme but i would say it's it's it's it's like as you say you know sugar high it's it's on steroids you know and as a couple of examples like struck me right in the trump inauguration right so firstly i think having larry ellison on stage talking about i mean and by the way obviously amazing entrepreneur like fantastic um you know one of the best of best generation but standing up and this was like almost like drunk on euphoria talking about sequencing cancers and creating a personalized cancer vaccine within 48 hours robotically i'm like you know i spent a bit of time in this space right and i'm like there's already been these are not you know we talk about non-trivial problems these are way more than non-trivial problems right and i we will get to that point i'm sure at some point but this is not this the sort of trivialization of it and a lot of that is that how you read it i saw the sales pitch i mean he's he's in his late 70s maybe even 80s I just saw it as a bit like, I just, I just, I just, it's more than a sales pitch.

27:02It's more than a sales pitch. I just, I thought it was like drunk on euphoria, basically just talking about something that is so complicated and trivializing it to the point where actually it, um, it, it makes the whole thing just seem like a parody, quite frankly. Yes. Yes. So that was one thing that struck me. and i mean the star stargate is is interesting i mean because especially in i know you guys talked about it last week this this ai initiative um in in in the uk i mean i wasn't with you last week but i would say that you know i'm quite i'm quite skeptical of like government i think we're all skeptical of like government-led programs right you know so in a way like at least from the u.s's point of view this got the stargate project is effectively you know it's a you know in a way it's like it's a private white house adjacent project you know i mean they announced it in the white house and it's great pr you know it was funny to see elon musk kind of pouring cold water on it very quickly afterwards which i think you know lee tells you a couple of things is like a i think he's right like a i think this 500 billion top fit had a little bit of the whole you know larry emerson cancer vaccine thing like there's a lot of they don't have the cash i mean It is public knowledge.

28:14They don't have the cash. It is, I mean, less probably relevant for Europe, but the kind of, I mean, must to pour cold water on something that Trump had endorsed so wholeheartedly, like literally 10 minutes later, for me, it's like, there's going to be like a big falling out there. But Trump, I thought, handled it really well. I mean, Trump came on and said, look, you know, Elon's got a personal challenge with someone. He kind of brushed it off, but I thought, do you know what? At least he fronted it. He didn't, which he's good at. I don't like the man at all, but at least he's good at going, look, here's what I think, and I'm a bully, and I'm going to go and crush it, and we're going to win.

28:51So at least you know what you're getting. He did front it straight up. That is very true. But then you look at the Doge, the Doge executive order, it's very watered down. Vivek Ramaswamy is out of it now. I think if you read the actual terms of the executive order, it talks about improving the use of software and technology in government services or something. It's nothing like the kind of two trillion of cuts that everyone was kind of envisaging. So that's been massively watered down, I feel. But it is like a lot of stuff like it is bipartisan. There's something I didn't realize. Senator Warren has sent some recommendations.

29:27So basically, Democrats feels like they've got on board to a small degree. Look, you're in. It is what it is. Let's get some real stuff done. And they've suggested that, you know, there's a way to get two trillion over a decade in cuts. I mean, to put that in context, the entire American total deficit, I think, is at 32 trillion or something crazy nuts like that. So this is not much over a long period of time, but it is obviously at the point where something has to be done. And who doesn't want a more efficient government in either side of the Atlantic? Well, I mean, we're not political podcasts, but I would say just like the Democrats do not know where.

30:08Well, we are. And also, and I think by the way, I think like, you know, stepping back by geopolitics, you know, the macro is so important for us at our level. You can never forget that. Right. Is the Democrats don't know where to go with Trump. They're almost like sitting on the hands at the moment. They've got a crisis of confidence that, you know, they're a bit European at the moment. They don't know what to do. So actually, yeah. And it's hard for them to criticize, like cutting, you know, making the government more efficient. So in a way, I can see why they're sort of maybe towing the line on that one.

30:37but just stepping it back and tying it back to europe i think that was my biggest takeaway is like you know huge hugely buoyant a huge amount of confidence a lot of it is hot air but that's fine confidence is great for business you know trump's got the political capital now so he can make all these big pronouncements good that he gets on with it um i mean let's see how things go let's see how the first earning cycle goes you know um for the public companies in april and i think you know then we'll start to see what really happens i think some of the heat we talked about on this pod before with mads is the heat's going to come out of that market right and then that will be a bit of a challenge for trump so yeah i think i think we've got a little way to go we were looking at um ferdinand talking earlier about the the value of the mag 7 so the the the seven biggest tech stocks in the us have the equivalent market cap of of the stock 600 which is the index of Europe's largest 600 organizations in entirety.

31:37So there's such a disparity between what they're doing over there and what we're doing here. It's a little bit nuts. But first, we were talking about this in the truck. Any thoughts from you before we move on? No, I don't think so. I mean, really just echoing Lomax's thoughts, right? There's been plenty of examples of people being a little bit drunk on euphoria, ranging from the inane to the completely ludicrous in Musk's case. And I think, you know, there is a sense of excitement. Everybody's keen to see, you know, exactly how much of this energy will translate into positive forward motion. But I am legitimately worried for that excitement to dissipate and for reality to kick back in, which I suspect will be will pose a bit of an existential threat for Trump's administration.

32:24situation but it's obviously going to be quite quite a volatile ride i think we i think we're going to see some some real my gut my gut feeling is h1 is going to be bumper and h2 is going to be really volatile if i was going to put money on the table that that would be my bet um but i wanted to very quickly round off on doge any anything more low max that you wanted to say on doge i mean they the one thing i didn't realize which i read today was they're looking to make all of these cuts are putting everything into play by july 26 so this is a this is an 18 month plan which makes sense because obviously the midterms will probably probably crush some of this yeah their ability to take action so this is two trillion over 10 years with all actions put into play by july 26th but anything else that you wanted to round out on with doge specifically no just two things to end on on doges one is i think the takeaway for me was it's been watered down already like you know so i i think and and like a lot of these things i think they will probably under deliver and um so that will it will slightly end up in the long grass secondly is like well actually though um notwithstanding that what does that mean for the uk what does that mean for europe does you know we're talking about the europe europe kind of mirroring or following on from the us's lead what does that mean for us here you know i mean we've had a lot of people talk about that i mean clearly labor are you know known for growing the public service sector and not not cutting it so that's you know maybe you know in a kind of center-left government that's not not really going to happen clearly if you know maybe it's something that you know farage and co campaign on you know in the next council you know any by elections any you know obviously the next election etc etc but i'm sure government productivity and you layer on what we just talked about with AI is not going to go away as a talking point in the years to come right yeah because people will ask more and more why can't we be using more and more AI deficits are becoming more and more of a problem as we've all borrowed so much through COVID etc etc um so I think this is not going to be a topic that goes away no I and also people I don't think fully appreciate I mean the British business bank in the UK gets a lot of stick for investing public money into effectively into private markets but much of that 32 trillion has gone to that as in the the total deficit in the us a lot of that in recent years has gone to inflation reduction act chips act and effectively propping up private markets in the states a lot of their growth has come from socialism as elon hates and is very comfy taking the checks so They have borrowed massively to create the wealth and the productivity gains that they have and the market that they have.

35:15So we have to keep that in context. I don't think people fully appreciate across Europe how much that debt has created. And there's obviously good and bad debt. So I think we need to be a little bit more bullish, personally. Fer, anything from you before we move on from Doge? Or your Trump or wherever you want to go with that. No, no, I'm aching to move on from both. in the most positive way. We haven't talked about Trump, you know, Trump coin. Isn't that just a grift? I mean, massive, disgusting. I don't know how anyone is embarrassed. Is it not just the apotheosis of all cryptocurrency? Is this not just it entering its sort of boss final stage?

35:52If you needed an example of how ludicrous, inane, pathetic, conceptually absurd a cryptocurrency is, there you go. Done. It's just completely bonkers. Yeah, I think I'm on exactly the same page. Are you a crypto kid, Lomax? Do you invest in crypto? Should have asked first. I do not invest in crypto. No, I do not. That's actually not right. I'm an LP, small LP, should I say, in a couple of Web3 and crypto funds. I'll leave it to the experts. Web3 blockchain, I'm with you. We've got a couple of blockchain companies in the portco. One big one is the core of their offering. but i just think i think the whole crypto coins thing let's not go there because i'll get all emotional and then people will shout at me i think the sad thing is actually for all the good work that the people who are actually um making good progress in this field and um you know all a lot of that is being undermined by this like this grift basically from donald trump so i feel that you know the people who've given 10 years five or 10 maybe 10 five years of their life to this I mean, it's okay.

37:05It's a storm in a teacup. It will be all right in the long term. And you say that, but you say that. One thing that I do fear is the political risk of a country, Russia, North Korea, a and other state using the Trump coin as a way of tilting the balance in world order. because if Russia said, I'm going to buy so many Trump or Melania coins, it just feels like that tokenization, it's an invisible ability to tilt markets and create, I know that Trump is extremely transactional and this is a massive grift, but it feels like with him in power, with so much power in government, let's say Putin wants to do a deal over Ukraine, he just goes and buys 10 10 million dollars of trump coin that's why it's not just a start that's why it's scary to me it's yeah it is it's horrible it lays him open to huge conflicts of interest yeah but i mean look this is a guy that's just pardoned you know people who are gouging police officers eyes out right like i mean i'm sorry like it's just not normal is it although i was i was really interestingly reading recently about andrew jackson and the parallels between, I think it was the seventh president, and how populism isn't a new thing.

38:32So this is 200 years ago. All the stories were running in parallels. And then reading about how Biden removed Andrew Jackson's portrait from the Oval Office, and Trump has put it back in because he obviously sees him as a hero. And it was really interesting hearing through history the parallels about this kind of populist uprising. And he thought that the election was stolen from him. Was it the Whigs? I forget the exact story. But if you're interested, look up Andrew Jackson and look at the parallels between Trump, the 47th, and Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the US. Let's move on. So staying US, and we've talked about it a little bit already, but Stargate, the Stargate AI project is a freaking monster.

39:17It is effectively a massive AI infrastructure deal where SoftBank, Microsoft, Oracle, ARM, NVIDIA are all piling in on a$500 billion deal to build data centers, to build compute, to build the connective tissue. to effectively, how I see it, it's almost like, this is almost like, I don't know, the internet or cloud or this kind of, this mega infrastructure play. The only difference this time is that this only serves effectively open AI. This is effectively open AI getting on the tip of building their own infrastructure. So I'm not sure how this is going to play out. And obviously Elon is super upset about all this, but this feels i mean this is half a trillion dollars this is a massive mega thing so no i know you wanted to talk about this where did you want to take it well no i just i just first of all i think actually comparing it to what we talked about last week or what was talked about here in the the uk's ai you think government's ai push you know as i said as i said earlier i'm always a bit skeptical of government programs or government-led innovation you know i think this So what's refreshing to see this is it's a generally a kind of purely private market led initiative, right?

40:38You know, it all comes into the mix of genuflection from these billionaires, these entrepreneurs to Donald Trump and people, you know, Trump wanting PR. So there's a lot of kind of hot air that sits around it. But the substance of it is pretty impressive if it actually happens. You know, I think. Well, it started. They started in Texas. It started. They have kicked off. I think they have the first, you know, 100 billion. You know, it's a good example. If you're being optimistic and generous about it, you say, this is what the U.S. does best. You know, big, marquee, like, well-funded, no, quite frankly, effing about with small amounts of money.

41:20And, you know, you always read about these projects in Europe where the headline number is this, but the actual cash number is this. like this feels like proper like proper stuff um if the money actually comes through i mean you know there's lots of promises here i think i think softbank has what 30 billion on on the balance sheet you know yeah you can't quite you can't quite tell but it looks if you look around the around the houses it looks like 30 billion on the books so i think like no it's it's in a it's in a critical industry it's what the u.s needs it's a lot of money it's a lot of very serious people who've done a lot of very serious stuff.