Did you see Elon Musk RIDICULOUS texts to billionaire?

0:00Hi everyone and welcome back to Secret Leaders. Time is quite literally flying by. Welcome back Dan. Thank you mate. How are you? Feeling pretty good today, thank you. What's new with you at the moment? Let's see, what is new? I've already announced that I'm having my second daughter I think, so that's just ticking on and getting closer. I think the big news in my world is I'm taking my daughter, who's three, skiing for the first time. Wow. And so it's just three and a half and apparently that is the absolutely earliest that you can expect to get some cute photos where they're just you know having a tantrum and having an awful time but apparently it's still a thing to do so i'm going to our first as prep first ever guest on secret leaders was nick jenkins from moon pig and he was the first ever first ever guest um many years ago in 2017 i know big time um and i'm going to his house this weekend to take margo because he has opened up sort of like a ski school thing in wiltshire in the countryside yeah which is basically sort of like a escalator conveyor belt thing where kids can go and learn to ski so we're going to have a practice run this weekend at casa jenkins that's actually moon pig manor is what it's called so we should all be tech entrepreneurs we can all build our own ski resorts yeah exactly so i'm going i'm going skiing yeah practice skiing yeah what's new with you well what's new with me i mean five minutes ago we had a bit of a breakthrough i've been really can't get my book title out.

1:32I know what the book is about. And five minutes ago, I think you said the title. And so I'm feeling really happy that I now feel like I have a title for the book, which just happened minutes ago. So I'm pretty hyped about it. Everyone looking forward to vaccines by Chris Donnelly. Yeah. So yeah, very, very pleased about that. Otherwise, you know, much as normal. Anyway, I hope that everyone caught our most recent episode with Emily Austin, where we talked about PR, PR tactics, the most successful PR campaigns ever. I thought the episode was actually incredible. I felt like a real masterclass in understanding that so many things that you see are orchestrated.

2:16Yeah, so many things are moved around in the background. So what was your best takeaway from that episode? Just some of the ideas and the ways that she talks about the ideas, even the ones that didn't get executed. so a little tidbit is the suggestion that she had for Grind Coffee when they were opening their store and because they're kind of taking on the Nespresso with their pods and so her suggestion was to get like a George Clooney lookalike competition and get them all queuing up around the corner or like imagine that hundreds of George Clooney lookalikes, it's so funny I actually still think that if at all the Grinds they had a really good George Clooney lookalike it would be one hell of a story and it'd get so much PR as well so much PR yeah so anyway she's got great ideas they didn't all come to uh into fruition but if you're looking for exceptional ideas and a way to stand out in a busy industry that episode is for you yeah and I think I think as well you learn a little bit more about when big companies launch big things there is a whole plan underneath that you can't see and so we discussed for example like the launch of barbie and how like things like the barbie and oppenheimer thing was very intentional you know because girls would want to see the barbie film boys would want to see oppenheimer and they'd end up seeing both together yeah i remember sitting there through that being like that stuff's so obvious retrospectively but i thought it was really really smart she knows she knows what's going on yeah yeah anything that we think you know we're just going through life observing these like incredible trends that just seem to happen and take off globally and think oh How funny that that caught on.

3:49And she's very much like, no, no, there's a lot of planning that went into that catching on. We made that catch on. Yeah. So what have you got to discuss today, Chris? I've got some insider comms between Elon Musk and Larry Ellison talking about raising money for Twitter. And what's funny about this is you've obviously raised a lot of money in your time for your business. and you will know that so much of it happens over like whatsapp and email in the most casual manner yeah i mean when you get to it it gets more detailed but the initial commitment and so also the richer someone is the easier this is just like are you and you're not exactly the less money you're going for the more questions they have yeah yeah yeah it's so true biggest investors angel investors happen over whatsapp yeah yeah crazy not too dissimilar to this but i i think a lot of people who would see this would be like you have a really negative view on it but it's not too dissimilar to how i think things happen elon musk goes any interest in participating in the twitter deal larry ellison yes dot dot of course thumbs up elon musk cool uh roughly what dollar size not holding you to anything but the deal is oversubscribed so i have to reduce or kick out other participants larry ellison a billion or whatever you recommend elon goes whatever works for you i'd recommend maybe two billion or more this has very high potential and i'd rather have you than anyone else larry ellison i agree that it has huge potential and it would be lots of fun and that's how larry ellison the founder of um oracle right yeah founder of oracle became is oracle for the answer to that please watch our what the fuck is oracle question right here right here this episode um but yeah the that's how larry has become an investor in twitter amazing and it all fits in one screenshot as well that's that's our entire dd process right i've got another one here from reed hastings who's the founder of netflix and the email is to peter teal peter i appreciate that we disagree and can be direct with each other I have our board gaudy feedback session tomorrow afternoon.

6:03I see our board being about great judgment particularly in unlikely disaster where we have to pick new leaders. I'm so mystified by your endorsement of Trump for our president that for me it moves from different judgment to bad judgment. Some diversity in views is healthy but catastrophically bad judgment in my view is not what anyone wants in a fellow board member. I continue to experience you as very honest, well-intentioned and certainly very independent no response necessary i just didn't want to say this stuff behind your back it's interesting that isn't it when was that uh 2016 wow and i guess yeah history would prove that peter seal was on the right bus i suppose what context is is teal on the board of netflix no it must be this one called gaudy right our board gaudy feedback i know what that is unless that's a typo as well i mean it's a very typo rich message yeah it is yeah reed wasn't spending much time on this was he yeah not right it's not it's not yeah it's not it's not too late that he was just having a drink or anything so i mean it's interesting like he's literally didn't get my joke never mind i did all right here's another one must have written that quite hastingly right all right see you later even jay didn't like that um but i mean it's interesting because he's effectively just saying i just want you to know i disagree with you and i think the decision is really bad i care so much about it i'm emailing you personally and i don't need to reply yeah it's quite strong yeah it's very strong it's also it's so interesting isn't it you wouldn't get that in the uk you're like oh i don't like who you support the president you wouldn't get that kind of thing.

7:44That would be like none of your fucking business. Me messaging you off the cuff on an email and being like, hey, Dan, always respected your opinion, but your love of Keir Starmer is just too much for me. Yeah. Good work. So if you're running a company with a board, do you think that there is a personal view that they could hold? You'd be like, I don't want that person on my board anymore. I feel like if they were like really racist or like, you know, literally like unapologetically so, or something like that i'd be like that's just what is going on there no way i really practice not much interest in politics these days yeah but obviously if they had like abhorrent views then yeah it would be a problem but then i mean if they're a big big board member with lots of equity it'd be very difficult to dislodge do yeah so true and so yeah i mean obviously like you know if they're racist sexist or they're just an arsehole about stuff then of course well arsehole about stuff could quite likely be the case right oh i've had arse on this as well yeah before I suppose this is about like a fundamental world view yeah I mean I can see it but I feel like who you're voting for I would try and push them off if they were abhorrent but again like I say I mean in an ideal world you can get rid of your board members but I mean more often than not they get rid of you yeah exactly that's true I've got one final one from Rupert Murdoch the founder of the news news international yeah news everywhere yeah um to elizabeth holmes who for those that don't know was the founder of theranos which is a uh i think like the fastest growing company like ever in health tech and it was blood testing one prick blood testing and it could you know test like a million different variables and turned out that actually the whole thing was a scam and the whole thing was a lie but anyway this must have been before that so rupert murdoch goes thanks elizabeth enjoyed every minute of it any blood results see you soon rupert sent from my ipad i love that that's great which means that he must have been potentially being courted as an investor yeah well i think it's more maybe he was an investor and um and did a blood test and then was sort of like i thought this shit was meant to be fast it's been weeks what's going on anyone gonna respond to me hello yeah yeah guys it's rupert where my blood's at you know that's what he's saying pretty much yeah he's got his crips he wants to know where his blood's at um christ sorry i'm sorry all right so we're going to move on to the state of linkedin found a couple of posts this week that i kind of want the mayor of linkedin chris uh to judge from me the janitor with linkedin so 1 000 in 24 hours don't stress if you can't hit your KPIs and targets.

10:34Bonnie Blue managed to hit all her yearly KPIs in 24 hours. Pass. Pass? Don't even talk about that. She'd make a great cold caller. Yeah, I mean, it's just a pass. I feel like using Bonnie Blue for your LinkedIn content is so out there. All right, is it zero? Not even reading it. Fair enough. Next. All right. Glenn Moore at the News at Glenn said, the News at Glenn is quite funny. The News at Glenn is funny. All I'm saying is if I were a billionaire, I tell all my aspiring rivals that the secret to success was getting up at 4am.

11:09That was actually fantastic. Yeah, that's really great. There's so much depth to it and it's so short. That would be so good though. If really successful people were actually just lying in. It's just a global conspiracy. They were just super chill. They'd nailed it and they were like, yeah, you've got to get up fucking early. that is really good isn't it yeah i mean once you've seen it you can't unsee it you're like i will say what i've said for years and years and years and years and years on this topic which is out of all of the founders i know who are really successful i know very few who have like very elongated morning routines get up super early i don't either the ones that do get up super early it's normally because they have kids and they get up early so they have some time pre the kids correct but like i said i meet a lot of like authors and a lot of like speakers who do the whole crazy morning routine thing but actual founders i don't know many that's so funny isn't it like actual builders very few and like if you you ask me about my normal versus people who just like think about the topic and then realize that that they've read that tweet yeah they haven't they've been living that they've been living that they haven't read that tweet they haven't had the realization they're spreading that tweet yeah it's so true i don't know any entrepreneurs or founders like really they're disciplined they work a lot and they work hard they tend to work late rather than early yeah they tend to work late rather than early but like i just don't i couldn't name you one out of like my founder community where i'd say like they're up at five ice bathing journaling meditate all that nonsense they're more likely waking up at seven and just starting work immediately yeah totally yeah so i saw a report this week that blew my mind AI is consuming energy at an insane rate which you probably do know so some estimate that AI could use as much electricity as entire countries in the next few years oh that's terrifying though as mental so where did you see that um on the internet which was a consuming energy so I felt really guilty about the AI tell you that yeah the AI told me what to say and then actually help craft my script too so I've actually wasted a lot of energy I'm telling you this according to the international energy agency data centers driven largely by ai could consume 620 terawatt hours in 2026 which is i mean ridiculously the same amount as canada i mean that is fucking huge that is ridiculous what are they saying there they're saying that according data centers could consume as much energy as canada i mean that's such a scary statistic about like obviously there's a massive ai race at the moment all companies are investing in ai meaning the data centers are getting bigger yeah and more spread is the race at the moment technologically about using less energy isn't it well part of it right because that was the thing that was the china thing yeah deep seek yeah that was a bit of a misnomer though because that was a well presented story but they still used in video chips so you know they're still a hedge fund that are using the core technology um there are a couple of alternatives so they're taking on for example chat gpt and chat gpt actually yesterday sam altman tweeted about um chat gpt 4.5 is here and so he was saying like this is actually the most exciting one for me yet it doesn't have better reasoning than some other models but it's actually like talking to a proper human it's nuanced like you won't be able to tell the difference at all at all and he said but the problem is it's our most energy intensive one yet so we're gonna have to really think about how to roll this out we don't currently have compute to serve all of our customers with this model and that's 4.5 so you know that gives you a really good idea about how limiting actually some of the scaling is and similarly grok 3 so elon musk's twitter x ai um that model which is one i've been using most over the last week that model has now surpassed all the other models so it surpassed gpt and claude and deep seek for both reasoning and deep research um the reason is and i think this is super interesting um kind of like what's your superpower right so with with elon he's obviously the co-founder of open ai he lost that battle pretty much sam altman has it all and so he's not on equity no no no he's out of it um but they were all in a non-profit as well so there isn't really like meaningful equity that can do anything there's a whole other yeah but he's taking it out of the on well no he's so that that's a whole separate thing but the question of like does elon have that because he's still an open no he's technically his co that's still the co-founder yeah so what is that guy not done it's insane so with x ai he was like right i've got to catch up um how do i catch up there's there's only one way really because there's like all these deep learning reasoning models etc his is going to be speed and execution like no one else can do it so he basically this is last year bought like a massive super cluster of gpus from nvidia and jensen huang was like you won't be able to do this a hundred thousand supercomputers basically a hundred thousand gpus to make a supercomputer cluster and i was reading the story about it he they found the only place in america that was like suitable to move in as quickly as possible and it happened to be memphis so he drove up to memphis with the team found this warehouse got like all the shipment of 100 ,000 supercomputers and as a result of being able to connect them all up and speak to each other they've been able to do all the training and move through all the models at a faster speed than all the other models who have like a five six seven year advantage on them and has now overtaken grok 3 through that supercomputer cluster has overtaken every single model out there so far and he's currently offering it for free so there's no payment fee or anything just on x so you use the x app and you can use grok 3 directly in it and it's currently the best ai in the world and he's done that in a year catching up that's how ridiculous that's his side project how insane is that many side projects one of many side projects he's just overtaken everyone else in the ai race as well one of these side projects isn't it wild yeah but when you say that's my fun facts about ai this week when you say it's better um what do you so what do you did you use deep seek yet no so one of the cool things about deep seek is uh you get to see the reasoning in quite a lot of detail like how it's thinking through your problem and what your challenge is yeah um so on the side that you and i are not going to use there's like phd level mathematics science physics research etc it's it's model for that it's currently the benchmark to be it's over and above everyone else's this is not stuff you and i use this is stuff that physics professors use and shit like that right um but on the other side is reasoning and so reasoning and um and And being able to do like deep reporting and understanding the nuance of a question, you can give it quite a simple prompt.

17:52I actually shared it with a couple of team members this week, like a good example of like some prompts. And you can see it reason through and research the internet on how it's working out your problem and then how it relates it back to you. Wow. And just the depth of nuance and quality that comes back from it. Same prompt in ChatGBT and same prompt in Grok3 at the moment get completely different results. On X. Yeah. i can now just go on oh there's grok yeah uh ask a question and now what now i'm just in the model yeah can i build projects and so forth like custom gbts and so forth uh no you can't do that stuff yet okay interesting that i'm aware of anyway and i've only used it because you've got an iphone right but the app is only there's a separate app so that's only available through twitter yeah or you can download the app on iphone but i haven't done that because you can just use it on twitter it's crazy right that is interesting yeah jesus but it's so interesting that these different people have different ways of approaching that problem and his is just like i'll just fucking make a supercomputer then yeah i mean he has unlimited resources right and we've got unlimited money you can just do that yeah pretty cool and who's laughing throughout all of this nvidia because at the end of the day they all need the gpus they're just supplying everyone yeah so i think that's that's actually the other side of it right which is that there's so much uh so much energy requirement that's obviously a threat to society to you know global success anyway yeah but how to solve the problem well just ask rock three yeah but i think yeah i mean it will hopefully a bit like tests that did with batteries you'd hope that ai pushes energy storage energy creation energy capacity efficiency by its innovation there's so much money to be made here that companies are going to spend endless money on on this problem and when there's a will there's a way yeah and so you'd really really hope that the benefit of this is creating energy faster storing it better well when one company zigs another zags so you may have seen obviously grok 3 best new ai model energy storage etc but uh microsoft are just killing it constantly at the moment and so they very much said hold my beer and created a new state of matter what is that right i i will know so little about have you seen this though i don't know if i've looked at the news for a few weeks okay fine so this is the marjoram one chip and it leverages something yeah marjoram yes this is the cannabis one chip uh and it leverages something called topo conductors which microsoft compares to inventing the semiconductor all over again so this would be a good one to get hermann hauser back on to talk about all right so what does it mean for founders imagine solving supply chain issues that currently take weeks but this would be in milliseconds or modeling climate change scenarios on your phone here's the kicker because these topological qubits are one one hundredth of a millimeter meaning the startup in your garage could eventually harness more computing power than all of aws for for the audience sake and my own could you explain that a little bit more yeah i think basically my understanding of this stuff is that to date for you to solve truly unsolvable complicated problems for example the energy one we were just talking about um you need what's called a lot of compute and qubits are basically this like enormous amount of of like computing power as in that's the unit of computing power um in order for you to solve these things you need these supercomputers so i don't know if you've seen like you know uh going to see ibm supercomputer or microsoft supercomputer you know they're in museums and shit they look stunning but they are humongous and the point is they're humongous because i mean they cost millions of pounds to make there's there's millions and millions of chips involved in the storage of these things and they're solving mathematical problems um at the rate that they can, right?

21:52In the same way as like at one point, the most technologically advanced thing someone could do was a math calculation on a calculator. And now on a phone, you can do that with a WhatsApp and Instagram, all the shit, right? So that is just the difference in technology chips and how fast you can solve a problem in a small amount of space. This stuff is trying to solve kind of quantum mechanics and quantum physics questions. Things that are literally currently unsolvable by modeling ideas and pathways. So let's say an example would be like a cancer discovery drug. Like, how do I solve this cancer problem?

22:25They would want to use computer models to figure out, like, you know, the 10 million different ways that I want to try this thing. Let me model it out in some kind of environment and see which one comes back. But that could take years and an absolute fortune and a gargantuan amount of space of which there's only really two or three companies that have that kind of compute to even do those things, right? so this type of matter the whole point of it is someone like chris could have something like this just in his office so you're saying effectively for the audience and myself that big computers will no longer be needed you would only need little yeah or maybe even more to the point imagine if that's if that's the size you need for that level then what does a big computer version of those little chips look like right you know that god's just like increasing the power yeah Yeah, the power and the amount of complicated mathematical decisions you're able to run through.

23:20Okay, so some of the things that quantum computers could do is solve, like I said, incredibly complex problems that take our best computers years to solve. Like thousands of years at current rate, by the way. Create new medicines faster by predicting and simulating how molecules are going to interact with them. That's incredible. And diseases, yeah. This is one of the main applications for it is in the healthcare space. find the best solutions to complicated problems like routing thousands of delivery trucks and predicting weather patterns and stuff so find the best route depending on the myriad of things that could go wrong in your journey so far good things i feel like a bad one's coming this one's really interesting which is like and this is probably the big fear is breaking the security codes that protect online banking and private information why this one is also really huh and weapons and weapons and why this even also interesting is really what is the power of bitcoin in a world where you can break it when you can break it if you can actually work out like all these codes bitcoin would actually become worthless so that's a really interesting all that that store of value brought up before you'd be able to break an encrypted key easily in seconds would that eventually be like two supercomputers continuously trying to outsmart each other maybe maybe the thing is like that's kind of you know you raise a good point which is that it's getting so hard to understand what the implications of such things are do you know what i mean it's so beyond because here's a good framing for this stuff and there's a good framing for ai a technical moron like an actual defined idiot someone who's like basically incapable of of existing in like society in a normal way is 70.

24:56average iq is about 100 einstein's about 160 and the smartest person that's ever lived was about 230 what are you uh 230 i just told you um so the difference yeah between einstein who most people consider to be the smartest person ever and the smartest person ever was a technical difference of a moron a moron's worth of intelligence that shows you like the the teeny bit of marginal gain gap between these kinds of definitions similarly the difference between your average person and einstein is is a moron's worth of intelligence so teeny weeny weeny gains a basic level ai is about 10 times as smart as a human right a supercomputer level of that is like a thousand times smarter like we're our brains are not capable of even actually accurately understanding what 10 times intelligence would look like like because because you've already lost me well because because you revere someone like einstein like two times yeah einstein can do maths that we'll never understand right we'd not look at his workings out and actually understand what the hell he's talking about.

25:59Certainly wouldn't try. Exactly. So imagine 10 times that. It's impossible to understand. So all of these changes, you know, with AI and quantum computing, they become completely pointless for us to even try and compute in our heads. Do you know what I mean? Like, what does it mean for society? Like, virtually, you just kind of lose the plot of even trying to make sense of this stuff. Make me think a little bit as an entrepreneur. I'm just speaking so candidly here. If I look back in 10 years time, i might say what why the fuck aren't you going all in on that space just to be in and around that space like uh in the next 10 years are we going to witness like are we going to witness you know a hundred new age companies become billions and trillions and we're just sitting here and it's passing us by effectively yeah but having said that a lot of the stuff is like you is about life choice um you know for that space you absolutely have to be all in all in all in and then some i actually also think that the problem that people probably aren't clocking is that you can build layers on top of this stuff but i think the massive value will sit in the in the models and the chips and the tech yeah i think maybe what we're learning which is interesting it's certainly in the chips certainly in the tech but the deep seek thing was interesting about how much value is in the models um because like their whole approach was just to be like hey we thought about building a model in a different way and did it a lot cheaper than everyone else so then suddenly you're like oh yeah i guess oh yeah i mean that's yeah i was more thinking like i've seen so and you must have seen it as well like i've seen so many entrepreneurs like spin up a model of you know like a career advisor you know these things and they stake the whole businesses on it and i sit there and think i just think that will be gone in a year it's true yeah actually to to that point the real winner is in who can figure out how to power all of this right all of it's going to need energy so if you can figure out the endless energy supply i mean the thing is unbelievably if i had to bet on one person he's gonna do it isn't he he's gonna to do it he's got the apparatus for it yeah it's been his business for such a long time completely so as is clear from that segment i have very little to offer in the way of deep ai or quantum computers uh we have we we do however have a variety of uh you know garden variety business questions which i might ask you a few of garden variety sounds so so wholesome after a quantum computing thing isn't that it's tough work i mean you know i mean it was that was fascinating for me because you know i'm so off the news and and just reading at the moment that that was actually really interesting and i'm sure i will think about that for days to come now anyway garden variety stuff yeah get the rake out let's have a look what have we got in the garden um so dan yeah i've got some amazing traction but terrible unit economics at what point sounds familiar i'm laughing because that's like my last business it's been my life but yeah said every entrepreneur ever yes true um i've got amazing traction but terrible unit economics at one point should i stop acquiring customers that aren't profitable yet i think my honest answer to this is is really it look uh rule number one margin and get good unit economics otherwise the business will fail it does also depend how early the startup is though because when you're in the real early start uh in the early stage is valuable to get customers because you get data and if they're not profitable to you it doesn't massively matter you just have to make sure that what you're learning from them is valuable and so obviously not knowing whether this is b2b or b2c or whatever um the correct the answer to the question depends on your runway and if you've got more than 12 months of runway then carry on as you are and keep learning and give do this up until like you've got six to nine at most but yeah if you've only got six months of runway you're gonna have to start switching very quickly to uh you know better unit economics for sure yeah and i would say while i thought i'd had that problem a lot in previous businesses i actually haven't i think that's quite an interesting problem i've i've had the problem of my unit economics were good but the head the sort of overall cost of the business was a lot and so because if you're drinking possibly um but because of everything else that we were doing and And so therefore you sit there going, okay, if we scale the activity with these unit economics, we could get to good profitability.

30:32Whereas this is slightly different. So I would question that if you're struggling with your actual unit economics, what is it you're selling? Should it be priced higher? Next one. How much of your own money should you put into your startup? I'm currently considering remortgaging my house and my partner thinks I'm insane. At Christmas time, I was with a founder who has had an incredible success. I actually met him through you. And he was talking about putting all of his life savings into his business. And I literally took him by the scruff of the neck and I had a few drinks. So I took him by the scruff of the neck and I was like, don't fucking do it.

31:07No fucking way are you doing that? Because a lot of the time people put in money to chase success they haven't seen yet on the thing. And actually truth be told, i feel like you should operate at a very low level cost wise and risk wise right risk wise until you find the unit economics or until you find the model that works then you scale whereas i just think you know founder and business society got so wrapped up in like vc money that people were scaling pre the economics working um so i personally am not at all in favor of things like remortgaging the house and all that sort of stuff i just don't think you need to because if you can't raise the money through investors then you aren't good enough at selling your product so you don't need to remortgage your house and as an investor and a future business it would scare me a little bit that the person is so all in do you know what i mean like i don't i don't think that allows you to think big i think that allows that makes you think quite small yeah that's actually really interesting positioning i would say um a little bit like definitely put some of your money into your startup like also when you're trying to get investment if you have some money it's a fact some investors like to see that you've also put some of your money on the line as well and that that's perfectly reasonable expectation if you can do it i also don't agree remortgaging your house is the right thing to do um and i actually think you've just raised a really good point which is so often like all things, it's about packaging.

32:39And are you packaging your business in a clear way that investors can understand? Are you packaging it in a way that customers can understand? These are more important things to work out than whether you should remortgage your house and put more money in. It's exactly to your point. Like, you know, you need to work on the most important things and they're not always, you know, putting tons of pressure on yourself and making yourself ill. Dan, at what point do you hire a professional CEO starting to think I'm better at building products than running a company? I actually think that hiring a CEO is one of those things that's looked quite down on, even though it's a really, I think it's a strong signal.

33:14Yeah, I think it's a great signal. I think it takes decent humility and self-awareness to realize that. Two really obvious examples. Three, actually. Grace Beverly and Tala. Ben Francis and Jim Shark. Julian Hearn and Huell. All of them hired CEOs. All of them much better CEOs than the founders are. um all of them have done so much better and so i think that they are uh unconventional ways to understand that someone else is better at that job so i'm actually in favor of that i think it's a really good idea and if you think that you might not be the right person i think someone else might be it you know it's probably a self-fulfilling prophecy it's probably true yeah i actually in my new business have hired which I started in July have hired a GM which is effectively someone who will go on to be the CEO of my business and I've hired them February so seven months later and it's because I realized very quickly like I'm a builder I definitely am like a founder I'm obsessed with the product and the customer but everything else that happens in the business I find actually really frustrating and annoying and administrative and operational and And so I brought on someone who has the counter skillset to me completely.

34:31And we're a month in and I've never in my whole business career experienced a feeling like it where I do what I'm really great at. And he knows it's his job to allow me to do what I'm really great at. And the synergy there, even for a tiny company, we're moving very fast and it feels very good. But he calls a lot of the operational shots now. So it's been a nice shift. yeah and so that's kind of your framing of a ceo right where you're basically on products and you're getting out the way yeah that's really interesting okay last one how do you maintain confidence when pitching to vcs who've just passed on 10 companies in your space starting to feel like the 11th rejection um i mean i've been through the vc ringer myself and uh i think that the reality is there is a thing about pitching because vcs are looking for the opportunity for a total breakout if you think about what vc's looking for they aren't looking for a marginal return they aren't looking for a company to double or triple they're looking for a company to go on and be worth billions and billions so i can return the whole fund so in many ways you've got to act so big so i'm going to change the world type thinking i'm going to revolutionize this space type thinking i'm going to rewrite how this space is done that's the energy you have to have going in and so i remember when we were building lotty at the very beginning we had that energy about us no denying it we were like we're completely changing the sector and one of the investors turned around and goes i am obsessed with this space because there's such a huge problem in social care and there's such a lot of money in this space but i've never found ambitious enough entrepreneurs and she was like that's why we bet on you and i think it's interesting is that you have to have that slight swagger about speed and size and so forth to pull it off so that's my only real advice no i agree i i had that i had that at grab all my last company hence we did raise the money and we're going to change the game and all of this stuff and i didn't have it and didn't want it at heights and so we didn't and so i think yeah it's all such bollocks you've got to play the game it's true isn't it it's also you just you just go in with this absolutely bollocks lie that you really are like going to change the whole entire world and you know sort of like henry ford you think you can or you think you can't and you're right so if you really think you can and then you can convince them that you can you will be right one in 11 times i think if you're i think if you're smart with a vc game you can be very very smart like if you're good enough at shaping a narrative and raising from vcs and they're not spending to their tune yeah if you can manage that yeah so you hold the leverage yeah totally and we my brother and i were always very very smart with like that you know we raised a lot of money but we didn't spend the vcs cadence we were very very tight on the unit economics and therefore that business has been a phenomenal business with serious cash reserves from the beginning and you just take a little bit of a beating in boardrooms for not spending enough yeah that's it ridiculous what a ridiculous world spend more no oh that is a wrap guys so uh next week we have sean dixon who is the founder of uh richard james suits which is savile row savile row taylor it's actually fascinating episode we talk about like all the crazy people that he's had into the shop so we had everything from oasis noel and liam gallagher coming in elton john tom cruise tom cruise madonna yeah it was wild like he literally clothed everyone out there um so incredible uh episode and a great business that didn't have to scale so far which i thought was quite cool as well yeah i think that's a lovely lesson in that one which is like what's the right amount to scale growth is important but not too much growth so that episode will come out on tuesday so make sure to check that out and as always please like subscribe you know subscribe to the audio subscribe to the youtube do all the things that you need to do we appreciate it from us thank you very much thank you