Jimmy McLoughlin OBE | Jobs of the Future & 200 Episodes - Feat. Dr Eliza Filby

0:00Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. Today's guest is well me. I'm being interviewed by Dr.

0:29Eliza and work for how we've made the transition from podcaster to kind of video platform to well basically all forms of social media as well now and as eliza has done a lot of work in this as well it was a really kind of interesting conversation around how you try and be a thought leader or however you describe my actual job in this podcast so anyway thank you for listening along to it um i think and hope you'll find it interesting always interested in people's feedback comments and so on so please do write them beneath etc on to today's episode so jimmy cheers cheers cheers 200 podcasts 200 podcasts i have some i have some initial questions and then we're going to do a quick fire round so why why did you want to start a podcast now i know there was a podcast moment and a fashion and a wave to ride there but you've rode it for four years now what what was the motivation initially so i think the motivation initially was i really wanted to do something that was like careers education hub thing and it was a pandemic right so background for those that haven't before used to be in downing street left at the end of 2019 partly with the change of prime minister did a few weeks for boris johnson we had our first kit went off at the beginning of January 2020 to go study at Stanford, took the young family out there had a lovely time really sort of opened my eyes up and horizons to lots of different things March 2020, back in the UK pandemic's full swing my wife goes back to work in the NHS I become a stay-at-home dad to a four-month-old, so I've gone from Downing Street to diapers That's going to be the title of his autobiography Exactly, certainly be the title of his Or this chapter Sorry, that's the chapter and I basically started listening to podcasts then and was like oh is there something I can do to help tackle the unemployment crisis coming up but actually the idea that I'd been working on at Stanford was something around how do we increase mentorship for people's careers and actually the mentorship is broken in terms of like you don't really need to be mentored by a 50 year old you need to be kind of mentored by somebody a few years ahead of you and my pitch at Stanford to the to the team and the group of classmates was we need to make an economist for a new generation that was my initial idea was that you and I probably got a lot of our business and finance and careers knowledge from the economist but actually no I never I can't read it sorry it's too dense for me exactly right and so that so the pandemic went on a bit and whatever and so on and I just what I realized was that I then again started with an idea of creating a website with lots of careers advice etc but I just felt that I'm dyslexic so I find writing quite hard I find it uses quite a lot of brain power for me can do it but but actually one of the things that's been amazing about podcasts is it's definitely you know my medium I find it quite I wouldn't say easy but I find it far more relaxed than writing and then and that's a really good point you know that's all about how the transmission of knowledge and access to knowledge has changed in our in our working lifetimes really what what you're quite an optimistic person yeah as we revealed in our discussion a couple of weeks ago what's um do you have you found it quite invigorating i mean how have you speaking to all these entrepreneurs and you really do specialize in entrepreneurs that are breaking the mold right have you found it really positive you know we have so much doom and gloom right now about the economy and about business and about you know growth have you found it a really positive and democratizing I suppose yes I mean I think at the beginning of it when I look back at the ages of the podcast there was definitely this first 50 episodes that were all entrepreneurs of any any particular stripe right and we've expanded on a bit after that and I was just very invigorated by speaking to any entrepreneur doing anything even vaguely entrepreneurial.

4:42I think now as well, I've become more comfortable with calling myself an entrepreneur as well. I wasn't in those early days. I wasn't in those early days. And we can talk about when you - Let's circle back on that. Yeah, yeah. But I, so I do, but now I've also got a real appreciation of just how bloody tough it is. So in a way, I'm almost more invigorated by speaking to entrepreneurs than I was at the beginning because I appreciate now just how - You're in the weeds. Yeah, but I also, it's tough and all the things that are out there. Because we lionise entrepreneurship. I do it. Governments do it, et cetera.

5:15And we're all right to do that, I think. But I am also like, this is not a life for everyone. Like, it really does take a sort of like, you know, it's where I like Simon Squibb and what he does. But I also think not everyone is born to be an entrepreneur. And so much of your brilliance and your niche really has been at the intersection of business and politics. And you have very strong views, I know, about business broadcasting. And so tell me how you position this, the positioning of this podcast. Because I feel like you're really passionate about talking about why business journalism needs to be more, you know, characterful and needs to be more narrative driven and needs to be, you know, more accessible.

6:02Yeah, I mean in some of the shorthand that we talk about the podcast and when I explain it to people and what we're trying to do is I talk a bit about the Athletic Football website. And essentially we're trying to do for business what the Athletic did for football. I'll explain that. So basically the Athletic doesn't write about the results, it doesn't do any of that sort of stuff. It just writes about the stories and the narratives behind it. And that's because results are very easily accessible because it used to be that you got the paper, even back in the start of this century, you got the paper to find out the football results.

6:36I still remember getting a sporting green at 5 o 'clock, which was the Derby Evening Telegraph special print edition that would come out on a Saturday night at 6 o 'clock to get the latest results because that was the best way of doing it. Because if you missed it on the news or the radio or whatever, you wouldn't have it until the next morning. And what we're trying to do sometimes with Jimmy's Jobs and the way I think about it is, okay, well, let's explore the stories behind it. The Times business pages and Financial Times will cover the results and the quarterly earnings, etc. We don't need to do that.

7:08We want to get into the stuff behind it. The personalities, the stories, the motivations. And weirdly, in a world of interest in your thoughts on this, of hyper-personalization of individualism, I actually feel that business is getting a little bit less colorful, partly because they're put under scrutiny a lot, more and so on have you listened to the zuckerberg joe rogan interview well yeah but well yes and maybe we're seeing another backlash against that i think we're gonna see the unfiltered ceo yeah diary of an unfiltered ceo let's not give any smaller podcast promo but that but i mean actually the stephen bartler but also grace beverly you know there has been a real main mainstreaming of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial culture and business speak and yes how is this different so I well I'm not sure it's massively is it's probably somebody doing it slightly older is one aspect of it and I think about like my journey growing up in a political household and whatever I hadn't really encountered an entrepreneur until I was 24 25 now I think I would have you know touched it much kind of earlier but once I sort of saw those people I was like that's kind of what I want to do and my life has been well all being very impressed by those people and thinking yeah we've talked about this in the past but yeah what's the highest calling in life and well but I think it's very interesting children children yes of course starting a family etc but I think professionally wise I personally think those that start a business create jobs etc you know are terrific and we don't applaud them enough and we don't realize how hard it is and so that's partly what the show's about as well and also it came from you know one of my jobs would be to get the phone call at five to eight in the morning that would happen periodically from somebody saying that we are about to make an announcement to the stock market that we're going into administration etc so we're going to make 10 000 redundancies this is this is at downing street right and so then it'd be my job to go into the 8 a.m meeting and tell the PM this wonderful news to kick the day off and she would often say to me but Jimmy the employment stats show me that we're at record high employment all you ever do is tell me about job losses and so that was also part of the instigation from then I was like I used to write her kind of a weekly note of the meetings and businesses that I'd seen etc and I was like right I'm gonna start including new businesses that you might not have heard of almost certainly wouldn't have heard of that have created a few jobs right Right, and you also were head of an entrepreneurial network at the IOD, right?

9:45Yes, yeah, yeah. At the Institute of Directors. Yeah, yeah, the IOD 99. And so that entrepreneurial interest has always been there. But in very old institutions. Somebody said that to me the other day. Ooh, interesting. You're IOD, number 10, Bell Pottinger. You're always the one that goes in and tries to... Look over here, this is happening. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. And I do think there's a question I want to ask you that feels actually quite personal, but I think it's central to the podcast and why you founded it really, is you grew up in a very political household, right?

10:19Your father was an MP. You were on the campaign trail from your early years. You lived and breathed politics. So many people that have had that baptism are attracted and immersed and obsessed with that world, which can be quite intoxicating. Yes. What, what, why do you think entrepreneurship, why were you looking this way at entrepreneurship and business? Because that's very different to the world that you inhabited from a very young age. Yeah, that is a good question. I think we're all a mix of reactions to our parents and also copying them. and I think that I remember Andrew Mitchell once saying to me the Conservative MP for Sutton Coalfield who's known my dad for a long time he said you know your dad would have been an entrepreneur in the modern age yeah for him because prior to being a politician he was a coal miner right so for him being a politician was a was a way out partly as well right so that's where there's some differences with that and you know I I love politics but was very fortunate to operate at the center of it and see it all very up close and I enjoyed that time you know in number 10 between 2016 and 2019 but it it really did overtake your life you know there wasn't space for much else and it you're certainly right it was very intoxicating and I don't you know rule out maybe going back in and whatever but I remember afterwards I was now is the opportunity to go and do something you know different and have a go at something and partly use the you know being a former downing street advisor as a bit of a launch pad to do something different is it also because it feels now particularly when you looked at the inauguration in in in the u.s that you know whereas once politics was where it was at where the influence and the power was at now it's business you know we've got business politicians becoming politicians is that you You know, that's where, you say, the sexiness and the lionisation of individuals.

12:31We don't herald politicians who I think they're up there with state agents as people we respect the least in society. I think, possibly. I don't think it was, I don't think I was calculating as that. I think one of the things I do like about sort of doing my own thing and being an entrepreneur is that you are in control. And you are sort of able to make stuff happen. and I think I'm quite an agitator in that sense of wanting stuff to be done. And I would find a bit of a frustration in politics that, you know, I'd often joke that I knew I was going to win or lose the day by 10.30. So I certainly knew whether I was going to lose the day by 10.30.

13:12And I don't find that with being an entrepreneur, it's that you can send more, you're in control of the inputs, right? So it's like if you want to win new business, new clients, et cetera, it's up to you to send emails and make that happen. You're proactive rather than reactive. Completely, right? I mean, stuff does go wrong, whatever, of course it does. But there's a sense of sort of control. Like I say, it's sort of having autonomy over the inputs. Okay, so you've done 200 episodes. Yeah. What do you think makes a good interview? there's a number of things because a good interview is different to a good guest I think one of the reasons why it's worked with politicians is being able to be on a level with people so I understand you know being able to sit down with kind of Blair and talk to him about that kind of stuff like I've been in that room and around that and I kind of get it so I think having that sort of ability to kind of connect with the individual matters quite a lot I think the individual taking it seriously enough i remember in the early days people would be squeezing it in between other zoom calls and whatever and i was just not really here to do this properly and so on so that sort of matters the experience of it all matters and people that are willing to come on and say things that's one of the reasons why we're doing a lot at the moment former politicians because they're quite reflective and they're a bit more open to it whereas when you're speaking to entrepreneurs that are in the midst of building stuff, it's quite hard, they're coming on here with a single focus and a mission which is totally fair enough but it's not the thought leaders and those that have done some thinking I find really interesting and in terms of I mean I actually think you're a brilliant interviewer by the way and the reason why is because you interviewed me a couple of weeks ago and one of the things that I found, I ended up saying things I regret.

15:17Which I think is a great interviewer. And if I was someone important, that really would have, I'd be in the mud, the quagmire. But the reason I said things I regret is because you start really innocently and you wheel me in and I'm, oh, we're just having a chat. And then I say things that I probably either don't believe or regret saying. But I digress here. What do you think makes a good guest? I think, by the way, on that, trying to put people at ease, I think, is a real skill. It's a real skill. And I think that's one of the things, the transition of being the job that I did. Number 10, business relations.

15:55It would often be me in the 15 minutes beforehand with the business person, trying to put them at ease. So one of the great stories I have of this is with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, who's coming in to see the PM in January 2017. and so Tim Cook was coming in to see the PM in late 2016, early 2017. It was partly all to do with the Battersea reopening of it. So we were coming in to talk about that, wanted some assurance over what was going to happen on in terms of EU and settled status, etc. And I went into the meeting room beforehand to chat with him and just put him at ease and so on. And we got a picture of the Queen on the wall and it was one of the rare pictures of where the Queen was smiling.

16:37and so he was like, I love that picture in his South Alabama drawl that he's got very unusual for a business leader and I was, well he was like, I've been watching The Crown and so on so I was like, okay, well, do you fancy a bit of a tour of the building? So basically in this 15 minutes before we see the PM, whizzing him around all these staterooms and whatever and being like, this is where Thatcher and Gorbachev had Cold War was thawed quite cool Was he slightly history geek in Hamad? with the experience. Yeah, yeah. Like, he really, we ended up being late in Sunday with PM, but it's fine with explaining what I've been around.

17:10You're showing Tim Cook around the, yeah. Around the dingy, basically, let's face it, quarters of a, of Downing Street. Of Downing Street. Yeah. But it was like, you try and put people at ease and so to bring it back to the interviews and I think that picture now hangs in the Batsy HQ of Apple. No. Yeah, yeah. He nicked it. No, I think we got it sent to him. That's so classy. But that is, I mean, that is an element. I think it's a great soft power story of the Queen, Netflix, all these things that end up getting Apple's biggest investment outside the US in the UK, right? It all matters. It all matters.

17:47Yeah, I mean, look, they're a very clinical company. It'll be made on business decisions, but that stuff does help. Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it helps in an interview, is what you're saying. It's not like personalisation. Let me ask you. Put people at ease. Yeah. Ask simple questions and whatever. And I often just think, you know, one of my favourite interviews, quite early on in the process still, was Rishi Sunak. And, you know, asking him the job of Chancellor and the answer that he gave to that, I thought, well, I've been in politics for 15 years and I hadn't heard it broken down that.

18:19And it was quite interesting. And having that elevated conversation, obviously he's used to going into schools and explaining what he does, but that conversation to the ambitious 20 and 30-year-olds that I target a lot of the podcast at, you wouldn't have necessarily heard it broken down that. So that links me on to my next question really. In terms of the conversations you've had, what have you learnt from your guests? Not from the actual process of doing the podcast, we'll get to that. But from your guests, any top tips or what not to do? I think that the world is always changing and you've got to update your talent processes and recruitment for it, right?

18:58That's a lot of what we've got, the show is about. right, is how do you get into these top companies? How do you get these interesting jobs? What are they looking for? Et cetera. That's the root of it, right? When I think about our audience and who we're trying to target this at, the ambitious 25-year-old that is in their first or second job that is thinking, am I in the right sector, right role here? I'm ambitious, I'm driven, but I didn't realise this new world existed. So one of my favourite interviews, for example, that we did, and I know you liked it as well, is with Fraser Nelson when he was editor of The Spectator.

19:33And just how they changed their recruitment process. And you think of The Speccy as the most conservative institution. Oh, yeah, establishment. Establishment, hire, the kids of whatever. And they don't. They strip all of that out of it. And it's why The Spectator has become one of our most successful media companies in the last 15 years, I think, is because of this recruitment process and the way that they do it. The problem now with the show, though, is Fraser was afterwards as if they got so many applications. it does make it more challenging and so on. But he's trying to explore these pockets of cool jobs, cool innovative ways because...

20:09Do you know the one I really liked? Yeah, go on. Was the guy from, I'm afraid I forget his name, from the gaming... Miles Jacobson. Yeah. Full manager, chief executive. That was our hundredth. You see, this is our two hundredth. Yes. I mean, just when he started talking about life in the gaming sector, jobs in the gaming sector, But I was, well, this is blowing my mind because it's not a world I, first of all, I'm not a gamer. I'm not married to a gamer. My son's not a gamer yet. It's not a world I know. And so that was really interesting for me because I was, okay, you're literally lifting the bonnet on something I have no idea about.

20:46So I often think of that one as that's the type of interview that I wish I could have accessed at 16 or 17 because that was something that I was obsessed with. Yeah, right. and would just love to understand all the different jobs because one of the things that was said in there that has stuck with me a lot is, you know, we need lots of programmers and coders, but everyone knows that because we're football manager of the video game. What they don't appreciate is that actually we need English language experts because we need to be able to construct a narrative arc throughout the game to make it engaging.

21:21We always struggle to recruit those people. And it just stuck with me. And that speaks to the point that we've discussed before, privately and publicly, is this idea of the career advice we got. Totally, right? And it was very limited. It was very limited. And I remember going to my careers advisor and them saying, you know, why don't you become a teacher? It was always nothing, no disrespect to teachers. There was a very limited bucket they could put you in. You know, let's put you in the teacher box, the nurse box, the accountant's box or the lawyer's box that's that was basically it yeah and what your the access to information and knowledge and insight and and careers advice that young people have now is extraordinary yeah i'm actually quite envious yes but again i think it's one of those things of where you know information overload potentially somebody had a nice phrase in the office the day which is information inflation which is just so much of it out there and yeah it almost makes It makes it harder to navigate.

22:23And that's what sits at a lot of the core of the podcast. I believe it's never been a better time to be a young person building or switching careers. But actually, the challenge with that is the amount of information, the amount of roles that are out there can make it overwhelming. And it's more difficult, actually. Weirdly, we end up with less social mobility as a result of all of that than more, which I think is a great show. I wrote a book about that. Okay, so quick fire round. Okay, well, let me top you up first. Right, so who was, obvious question, who's been your best guest? Present company accepted, obviously.

22:59Obviously. Best guest has, I mean, there's so many. No, say one. It's almost a desert island dish. If I could take one recording, who would it be? And re-listen to, again and again and again. Who would that be? I have a lot of fond memories of doing Ben Francis and Noel Mack of Gymshark that was a great one I'll tell you a few things about it A, I think it's an amazing company Gymshark based in the West Midlands, 1500 people built off social media initially very innovative West Midlands close to my heart I think Noel also unlocked Ben in lots of ways that Ben hasn't been unlocked before when he was talking about it okay interesting it was also fond memories of yeah i plucked ben slightly to come in and see the pm and so on and also one of the things we went to their we did it at their studio in the west midlands and noel said to me before he was do you want to do you want to record this for youtube and i was like oh no we're audio only and that's the way that it's going to remain no and now i spend an inordinate amount of time on youtube and i'm always why didn't we have that The pivot to video.

24:18The pivot to video. But Noel said, look, I can just literally click this button if you want. And I just, I just, you know, and that's been a whole, I might get onto this a bit, but it's not very quick fire now, but having to get used to video. Yeah, okay, shush, right, quick fire, right. Who was your worst guest? Oh, I'm not going to say who they were, but I'll tell you afterwards. Okay, right, okay. Name me one thing you've learnt and done differently as a result of speaking to a guest. I interviewed the founder of Trent who is a former war reporter called Jeff and he pulled me up in the interview that I asked him two questions in the same question and he said you should never do that and since then I've always tried I still have a bad habit I ended up putting two questions into one you think you're being economic all the time and clever it's not no great answer by the way and tell me an episode that made it i think you may have already answered this question that transformed the business and i feel oh yeah yeah because that felt a transition from you being a podcast to what you are now a production company well yeah you know tell me a bit about you know there's Jimmy's jobs but there's also box light box light yeah so I think the first couple of years of running the podcast sponsorship was quite easy to come by and it was podcast gold rush years not as much competition there's then more competition in the market and people were just a lot more you know why should I pay for you just to have mics and plug into a computer etc as soon as we started bringing video into it people were okay we'd have to pay to get stuff videoed anyway there was there was a bit more but it made it a bit easier on that sense and also the video really helped with the distribution and I resisted TikTok on things for a long time because I was like we're a serious business podcast it's long form content you know and it was crap the whole thing of what I said at the beginning of this was try and make an economist for a new generation and at school you were taught to sum up your arguments in 60 seconds or less at the beginning of stuff so it was just me being a bit precious precious yeah and not wanting to look an idiot doing TikToks and so on and you know the first few of them as you say as well you do look a bit foolish doing them etc but anything that you do at the beginning looks a bit I think the idea of being prepared to be foolish and looking stupid when you're in your 40s I know you're not there yet I am is actually just one of the greatest life lessons you can possibly do what's moving on because I think it's it's worth and by the way go back to Timpson because you haven't really answered the question because I feel like Timpson was the turning point when you started doing proper documentaries.

27:01It wasn't just a podcast. Yeah. Like it was... And now you're doing that for businesses. Yeah, and we've been doing the introduction for a while. And it comes back to the fact that I think business stories are exciting. And the Timpson story over the centuries is amazing and how they've grown and you can bring all these graphics in and it's really exciting. And yeah, it was very cool. So we said to James, because I'd known him from number 10 for a while, this is the other thing that you've got to realise with guests is there's got to be something in it for them, right? you've got to allow them to plug their thing or whatever and that'll make them more engaged in it and whatever and if they know that they can trust that you're going to do that so he got his book The Happy Index out and we've been saying for ages he'll do the pod and whatever but that became the forcing thing and I was like let's do something a bit different and whatever let's do it in store or whatever and so we did the first 15 minutes in store and James is obviously brilliant in store because he's serving customers and just getting completely under the bonnets not standard CEO at all and then we went to his house and did a sit down interview But all of this as well does take more resource as well, obviously.

28:01Cameras, you're hiring more people to do it and so on. So it does become a lot more costly, the economics of podcasting, YouTube. And that brings me to podcasting as a business. Now, I'm about to launch a YouTube series. Not produced by Boxlight, I should say. Not produced by Boxlight, I'm sorry about that. I'll just make it seem like I'm pulling it. Came in over budget. But seriously, how do you see, you know, we've just had the podcast election, arguably. how do you see this business podcasting evolving right we've had mark zuckerberg on joe rogan we've had trump on every podcast literally saying ask me anything yeah how do you see we've we've had diary of a ceo you know become one of the biggest podcasts in the uk how do you see business specifically business podcasting evolving so i think that all my meta theory on this for a rather grand my thesis on it for a rather grand term is that all businesses are going to start building out their own media arms in the same way that they've all built out a bit of social bit of email newsletter etc they're all going to start building tv shows and so i think so not just podcasts because there's there's a lot of corporate podcasts that no one listens to exactly honest i think the audio podcast era is over i'm provocative on that i just think it is all going to be much more videoed partly because the costs are whilst it's still expensive and i feel little bit sad about that as somebody who made their name in the audio podcast era as that but I just think it is all going to be so we need to stop talking about podcasts and start talking about tv shows yes I mean the traitors and Ed Gamble and the companion podcast he was describing it in this series as a visualized podcast I think that might be that's a good sort of new new sexy term okay I'm producing a visualized podcast okay but I do think it's partly because you know it's funny this and jobs i'll tell you one anecdote from when i first because we had the pandemic didn't really see many people on whatever i remember being at a wedding one summer and first time i'd seen a new person have a chat with them and they said what did you do what do you do i was oh well i'm a podcaster and they were that is so cool that is the coolest job that i've ever heard and i was like it is on jobs etc and i came away from it being a bit that's very uh said all that but i went back and saw them later in the evening i was you wouldn't have had the same reaction if i told you that i was a local bbc presenter and our numbers are about the same basically at that point interesting but it's just like that employer brand that that framing and that status of what it's called it's the difference between a webinar and a tv show that a company produces will not necessarily be that different but who wants to sit on a webinar there's two points there that i'm not going to ask in one question but the first is learning from from from your point, is getting back to the idea of business podcasting changing.

30:54So you think it's going to go, obviously, to YouTube, everything's video. What else? I think it will become, I mean, I think they'll do that because of, it'll be sales, it'll be talent retention. I think when you and I originally got jobs, you went off so little when you were thinking about it, whereas now people can research far more about it. And I think that'll be the reason. I don't think it will necessarily be people creating 40 shows a year, particularly it may just be six shows over the course of the year. But I also think from that, what will happen is they will be able to chop that up for socials that can be used throughout the year.

31:32Because if you are a bank, it's quite hard to make engaging social content. But this is my point. So a lot of corporations are becoming, say, they have a media wing or a media department. and it's bolted on their content right and some of them have ambassadors on social media employees that are on law talk or you know yeah kpmg let's not mention a company you know accountancy talk how are i mean that employee generated content i think is going to yes become increasingly important which is you can't get control over it so the you know you can't because you know i'm speaking to companies where they're saying we're having to advise how to be basically social media ambassadors in a way that is not too revealing or too transparent or, you know, contravenes contracts and client data.

32:31I mean, it's a mess. It's a minefield and a mess. So creating media content that feels authentic and that people watch is I feel where you're happy place. what you've created in Boxsite is all about, right? Yeah, definitely. And I think, but I think it is... And why? How? Tell me why and how. Because I think that actually, if you are a partner at an accountancy firm and you are the partner in charge of retail, you have got some really interesting insights about the way that retail is changing and the way that the high street is changing. And that can be used for socials. Fine, it's probably not a 60 second clip.

33:11It may have been two or three minutes. but that is really interesting to a certain audience to the audience that you want to get which are actually it's probably not that big of an audience right i think one of the challenges with social media is that it's warped our minds when it comes to numbers and if stuff isn't getting hundreds of thousands of views and listens it's not quality over quantity yeah and we're working with a few firms at the moment where essentially that we're creating a podcast tv show whatever you want to call it but it's basically a case study of the work that they've done right and it's a case study that they can then send to people and rather than it being in a glossy doc or whatever it's me hosting the conversation asking probing questions because that's what I think is we're in this post-literate society or we're heading towards it where it used to all be about text but now the mediums are changing with it and that's where I think a lot of these companies will start doing these things one of the great one of the areas that we're doing quite a bit of working now is the these economic contribution reports that people made these used to sit on my desk right from all the big firms say how much tax they paid how many jobs they created what was in their supply chain and it was all interesting but never got read whereas actually you can make tv shows so the thing we did with amazon earlier in the year which is where we basically followed what happens when you click buy what are all the jobs that are involved in getting that package your door the next day that's very cool yeah it was inside the factory but for amazon and you know it did cost a lot of money and a lot of time to produce that but as a piece of content i think it was really engaging because yes it's interesting for you know people that involved in that ecosystem but actually people that also just order on amazon yeah i want to know what goes on and happens between the point at which i say click buy yeah and and the doorbell goes yeah so so in terms of again circling back on the the way i mean how did you and i don't know if you did but i certainly did I watched all three and a half hours of Joe Rogan's interview with Mark Zuckerberg.

35:11Yeah. And, you know, it's a really interesting example of a business leader on, you know, riffing, basically. No comms director going, ah, can't say that, you know. I mean, do you think that podcasts offer quite a unique forum for CEOs and business leaders? because they can go in meandering directions, they're long-form conversations, they could be about their life, their habits, their beliefs, their values, their motivations. Is that when a CEO talks, it's so intentional. And quite often someone behind them going, don't say that. No, can't say that. But Zuckerberg riffed. I mean, he was freestyling.

35:56However embarrassing, by the way. And is that the future? do you think of business leaders on podcasts yes but i would draw a very key distinction between the types of businesses that you will see doing that right zuckerberg owns meta and is undoubtedly the captain of that ship yeah yeah yeah yeah sure it's you know in the uk shareholders yeah we would talk about that as a private company but obviously being listed this is where in the uk I think some of the most interesting business leaders, James Dyson, James Timpson, Richard Walker, Ben Francis, they're in charge of their empires, right? And they remain so.

36:36If you're a CEO of a listed company and you're only there for four or five years, it's much more difficult to be - You are a media robot. Yeah. Saying the right things to the market. Yeah, exactly. And you have to deal with market fluctuations with it. And that's why you can see in America, they've got much bigger companies that, you know musk bezell zuckerberg you know we're all much but also isn't there a thing where i mean i say this as i was i was doing a graduate workshop a couple of weeks ago at a bank and one of the gen z is in the room said do you know what i just want the ceo to come out and come out and say something that makes me want to believe in them and i thought wow okay so what you're saying there is I want to work for a company that has a leader that basically you know shoots from the hip doesn't sound a robot full of personality that is someone I can really admire and respect what do you think about that I'm interested to know what that individual would think that how that would make them feel what would could be said that would make them feel that if that makes sense.

37:49What he was basically saying is that I don't really want a load of wellbeing policies. What I want is a leader that I can believe in and that this company is going places because it has a leader I can believe in. I remember somebody cancelling a meeting that I had with them, with a comms person for a company and they said, oh sorry, the Queen's died so I've got to go and draft the company's response. And I was just, A, why is the company responding? And B, does it really need that much work? we're sad and we're sorry so I think there is we're sad and we're sorry we're going to hang the picture of her smiling but I just think there is now a bit of a there is a bit of a pullback of well we need to comment on all these issues etc.

38:34So let me put it this how have the economics of podcasting changed? Obviously it's become more expensive to do, pivot to video but what's your business model how are you, and I say this again Again, someone who is launching a YouTube channel, wanting to want, you know, how are you making money in this environment? How are you cutting through as well? Yeah, so that, you've just done the two question thing. Sorry, oh my gosh. Cut through. You need a way, and I'll steal this from Jack Davenport of Goalhanger Podcasts, right? Which is you need a way to distribute and reach people that can listen to this podcast because on the podcast platforms itself, they don't really generate new podcasters to listen to they do a bit, that's why YouTube is very good but essentially that's a big thing, the economics of podcasting and I'm pretty transparent about this and I love that you are can I just say I think more people need to be transparent about how they make money yes, I think that's true and I think as well lots of kids say that they want to be YouTubers and so on and I actually think there's some I'm not as dismissive as that as a lot of other people are from our circles and so on obviously it's partly my job but i also think people have always wanted to be entertainers to a degree that's always been a high status job right back from the dawning of hollywood so i don't think it's a bad thing that lots of people want to be youtubers i also think that's what most pre-18 year olds see they don't see accountants and so on so you have a natural inclination of i see that so therefore i want to be here right which is part of what we're trying to do by being on youtube and showing people these interesting different other jobs they could do but we essentially you know we have a studio we have lots of expensive camera gear and so on and that means that we have fixed costs of around 100 and 120 000 pounds a year and so just updating and keeping your equipment keeping the equipment i mean the amount of money we spend on hard drives now right because sunny insists on filming everything in 6k or whatever shout out to sunny absolute genius behind the throne insists on all the best kit etc which and you know i'm all for that but is so that's about a fixed cost so we have 40 episodes of jimmy's jobs that we do a year so that works 40 40 and when do you take sorry when do you take a break is it don't really i mean we do over christmas and and in the summer a bit but most of the time we're on recording but also as you see is it's not just you know it's people that i want to meet and have a conversation with as well.

41:06My interests have evolved over the years. We're going to talk about that in a minute, creator burnout. Yeah. But go back to the economics of it. So the economics of it, so it's about 100 to 120 grand that it costs for us to produce the show. So it works out about 3 ,000 pounds an episode. On the revenue side, if an episode does well, on generic sponsorship that you'll hear, we will make 10 to 20 % of that. So that's the audio adverts? audio adverts and those are inserted they're not recorded by you yeah those are the things you see at the beginning of the YouTube things etc largely selling you trading courses from and YouTube insert that or you do YouTube insert that we have some say over how many are inserted etc right but essentially you know unless we were hitting half a million million views we wouldn't be covering our costs for that we might get there one day but this is where you get into a game of where people end up chasing clicks and stuff that gets clicked more and i don't want to do that because there are things and questions that i could ask that would drive more of that right but actually that becomes more clickbaity and so on and i know that i've got to play that game a little bit but there's a healthy tension in the office between you know in the studio between how much of it needs to be you know algorithmically sexy clickbaity and okay so so the economic so if you're We're getting 10 % to 20 % from AdSense, presumably.

42:34And then... Basically. And so then we get direct sponsors for episodes, which makes a big difference. But essentially, we make most of our money from producing for other companies. Other companies, yeah. Commissioned. But it is funny because it's this balance of power thing, which I think will interest you. I'll get some businesses which will happily come on your podcast. I'm like, oh, let's break you. To say that you'll come on the podcast and cost me£3 ,000 and whatever. So there's a challenge with that. Yeah, and that's partly because this industry is in its infancy and they're still working out the logistics.

43:10They would never ask that of, you know, the times. Yes, exactly. Of course, right? But, you know, I can point to our numbers on it as well. Very good relationships with the Times and I right there, etc. We love the Times. But it's like our videos will get more and we'll get higher social reach than a lot of their business. Now, the audience of who's reading the Times business pages, we know is a certain type of quality, etc. So that's one of the real areas that has definitely been the most challenging to explain to people is, okay, well, this is our audience and this is it, which is obviously fair enough.

43:44But a lot of people you see, the more established brands, even Classic FM, right, they know the type of person that listens to Classic FM embodied in our cultural psyche. It's not really who watches Jimmy's Jobs or... So who is your demographic? Who are you hitting? So there's, because it started, obviously, there's three ages to the podcast. I talk about it being the thousands years, the tens of thousands, and now the hundreds of thousands. Yeah, the first couple of years were sub-10 ,000, well sub-10 ,000. That was basically my network from Westminster and previous eras. We then started to video more and we started getting more distribution and went past 10 ,000.