The Art of Creation with The Edge

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1:12How you doing there? It is now time for the podcast. And I think I have a very, very special podcast coming up. It's so special, we're going to actually do it over two parts. And I'll tell you a story. About eight or nine years ago, at the Dawkey Book Festival, one of the events was a particularly interesting, eclectic, and possibly out of the left field events, if you don't know the individuals involved. And the topic was, the musician who wanted to be a scientist meets the scientist who wanted to be a musician. The scientist was Brian Cox, who everybody will know as the BBC's favourite scientist, physicist, brilliant communicator, of all things scientific, who was in a band, those of you with a mid to late 90s ravers memory will remember a band called D-Ream, which Brian was in.

2:12But the musician who wanted to become a scientist was none other than Edge of U2. Because he's sitting beside me, we're going to be talking about science, technology, business, entrepreneurship, the future of industry in Ireland, the creative process, why bands and startups are of a similar mindset, and how important it is for a country like Ireland to develop its own talent in the business area, the entrepreneurial area, because we simply cannot indefinitely depend on multinationals. We need to create our own startup culture, but not only that, we need to create our own energy that can create other businesses around.

3:00We're going to talk to Edge initially about his fantastic work with Endeavor. But I want to hear all about Endeavor. But Edge, I've known you for many years. It's great to see you in the HQ. Welcome to Ground Zero. It's great to be here. Thank you, David. So tell me, Edge, tell me, first of all, we want to go wide, then we're going to go narrow, then we're going to go broad again but right explain to me you are the chair of Endeavor right explain to me what Endeavor is what it does how you got involved in it well the good news is they haven't figured out what a chancer I am yet so I got away with it so far so yeah Endeavor is a global non-profit organization So it's funded by board members.

3:48Each office is funded by the local board. And it's in 45 different countries at this point. Started in 97 by some young, I guess they were in the business world in South America. Linda Rottenberg is now the CEO of the global organization. So she was one of the founders. And they noticed something that they couldn't quite fathom, which was there was all this incredible talent, local talent, in entrepreneurship and business in Argentina and Chile and Brazil. But all of these young graduates from business school, whatever, were like working in bars, driving taxis. And they all had kind of, you know, great ideas for business, but none of them were getting anywhere.

4:35And what Linda and her co-founder realized is that what was missing was a network of support, mentorship that existed in spades in Palo Alto and Seattle and New York and LA, but was so missing in these parts of the world that this great talent was basically not going anywhere. These businesses weren't happening. So they started in South America, I think in Argentina, and very quickly they started having big successes where these young, talented business people were getting places and their businesses were growing. So it's become this global network of support and mentorship, particularly for businesses that have already got some traction but are scaling up.

5:29They need to make some big decisions, get some big finance in and take the plunge and really go for it. And that's what we do in Ireland now. We're here six years and we've a very small cohort, 12 companies, 17 entrepreneurs. And we really hothouse these guys. We really try and get to know them very personally and offer them lots of support through the team. There's six permanent staff members in the office in Dublin. But it's really about the global network. It's about you're an entrepreneur, you've got a problem, you need to hire somebody. Who's going to give you the advice on the best people to hire?

6:18Who's going to tell you what to do if you have a big problem with an investor or something's going wrong? through Endeavour you can get in touch with people who are going through exactly the same thing or went through it 10 years ago anywhere in the world and they're there for you and they'll support you and they'll tell you what to do so the network is really what Endeavour is all about it's very powerful and you talk to the entrepreneurs in Ireland that have benefited it's it's really a huge resource for them so it's almost a resource about kind of not making as well obvious mistakes because there are things that people do that say, listen, don't do that.

6:56I did that. We lost a fortune, et cetera. Don't do this. So if you're in the Endeavor Network, because I want to ask you how we get into it, but then I also want to ask you about the band. I want to ask you about the idea of the creative process in itself because at the end of the day, I always say that commercial innovation and artistic innovation come from the same place. They come from somewhere deep inside the human mind, which is this urge to do something different, to create something new that wasn't there yesterday and to tell the world about it, to influence the world, to express yourself.

7:32And it comes from an inner desire for self-expression. But before we get there, let's talk about the Endeavour Network. If I'm listening to the Dave McWilliams podcast and I'm 20 years old, I have an idea, What's the process whereby I can get involved here? Well, it's quite a high bar to become an Endeavor entrepreneur because we want to basically support those businesses that have the potential to scale up, that have the potential to go global and really kind of are, you know, these entrepreneurs are swinging for the stands. You know, they really want to get somewhere. How do you judge that? Well, I suppose since 1997, the Endeavor global team have developed very specific ways to locate and assess these different entrepreneurs.

8:28So we have selection panels where basically entrepreneurs who've already become very successful will interview the entrepreneurs, will look at their business models, will look at their history and their projections, and will basically vote, you know, if they have the right stuff. And that's done at local level, first of all. So you have a local selection panel. and then assuming that they get through that, then they go before the international selection panel and that's even a higher bar. And if they get through that, then they're accepted as Endeavor entrepreneurs. So it's not easy. It's quite a difficult thing to do.

9:08And I think that's right because once you're in, it's like you get all this free advice, free mentorship and it's a big deal. So you want people who - So you want the best to be getting access. Which is why there's only 12 companies so far after six years. You know, it seems with Enterprise Ireland, they've got like 2 ,000 companies that are trying to help. But it's the very selective nature of it that makes it so powerful. Because if you have been accepted, everybody knows you're a serious person. Yeah, and it's a serious product. It's a serious thing. And it's not sector specific. You're any sector at all.

9:44Absolutely any sector, yeah. I mean, it's obviously the potential to scale up quickly over the last decade or more. It's leaning towards technology because that's obviously the sector that's seen the most fast growth. But we have all different kind of sectors from food. We have Sam Dennigan from Strong Roots, which is a healthy frozen food company that he recently sold and did very well. To tech companies, to the aesthetics business. We have Therapy, who are rolling out clinics around the UK and going into the American market. Cubic Telcom, which is this great company Barry Napier started, and he also just sold recently.

10:30And they're the internet of things, the connectivity between cars and the internet, whereby if you're in now an Audi or a VW, you'll see cubic telecom software in that car connecting you to the internet for whatever, GPS or finding the local gas station or whatever else. So, you know, huge range. But it's all, the commonality is the entrepreneur. It's not the business. It's do we think this entrepreneur is serious? Do we think that they can go all the way? do they have that determination spirit and wherewithal to go all the way? That's interesting to say go all the way. This is where, you know, people will look at Edge, they look at you too, they'll think, okay, you guys started, we know the origin story, but it's worth reconsidering.

11:25In an Irish band, in a country that didn't create post-punk bands as a rule, and it certainly didn't create bands that ended up taking on and dominating the world, becoming the biggest rock band in the world. When you're looking at entrepreneurs, you're looking at startups, do you see yourselves in it? Do you see similarities? Absolutely. I mean, I think of rock and roll bands as startups. You know, they really, they are. It's the same mentality. It needs the same level of dedication. and you kind of have to deal with similar problems. Like the key hires, you know, like we were lucky enough to get the advice from a friend who was a journalist, Bill Graham, when we were 17.

12:15And we said, Bill, we're looking for a manager. And he tips. And Bill was really bright guy. He said, well, there's only one manager I've ever met in this country that I think I could recommend. his name is Paul McGuinness so we sought out Paul McGuinness, we sort of went head hunting for Paul McGuinness age of 17 and we're like Paul we think you should manage us and he's like really? okay who are you? so we brought him to a gig in the Project Arts Centre and we say these days that Paul McGuinness' very first responsibility as manager of U2 was to get the four members of U2 a pint of Guinness at age 17.

13:04She managed to do get us a drink. He's probably our man. But that, you know, that mentality of, okay, how do you get the best people to work for you and with you? And it's all about decision making and protecting your vision. And that's what a band has to do. That's what an entrepreneur has to do. But let's talk about more because, again, I think, you know, for lots of people, they're listening to you, Edge, talking about this probably for the first time. Like, you and I have known each other for a long time. And we've, you know, again, we've sat in bars and, you know, we're chatting away. And straight away, the conversation goes to economics.

13:42Straight away, the conversation goes to tech. Straight away, the conversation goes, have you seen this? What's going on? It's something that's intrigued me about our relationship over the years that you are far, far more interested in economics in a way. You can't talk about music because, as John knows, I know very little about it. But that idea, again, let's say you're a young person, young woman, young man listening to this. Do you too desire, urge to go big quickly? Because, again, that's what we're talking about. but as the Americans say, you know, go big or go home, where did that come from?

14:20And what can we infer to other young entrepreneurs who are listening to this? Creatives in any area. I think travel gave us an insight into a lot. You know, growing up in Ireland, particularly in the 70s, 80s, less so today, I think, but back in those days, you were very isolated here. You really didn't have a clue what was going on around the world. and you know our portal to the music industry was top of the pops or the old whistle test two shows that are no longer on the air but they were in their day that was the village pump in terms of what was happening in the world of music so we you know we wanted to be a band and we started out doing it as amateurs and kind of slowly we started to write songs and suddenly we were like wow we could we could do this and i remember early on we were like our ambition level was well if we pull together and get a our own van and our own pa you know we could be doing you know the ballrooms on the weekends you know that we could really get a great little business going here but of course as soon as you go abroad to london your eyes are open to suddenly see a whole different perspective.

15:37And, you know, that was a huge eye opener for us. And we suddenly thought, wow, there's a movement in music. Dublin and our friends and our colleagues, we are as good as any of the people we're coming across in London. We're as smart, as talented. We can do this. But it was that different perspective that was crucial. And I suppose the secret to U2's success really is curiosity and being willing to take advice, but being very selective about who you took advice from. So we're not sort of stubborn. We're very open-minded, eager to learn always. Somebody out there knows something we don't. We need to find that person to get to know these crucial things that we need to understand to get ahead.

16:36So when we went to America, that was the next step along that path. And that was such an eye-opening experience. Yeah, to go to New York and to see what was going on there. And when we got our record deal, we just infiltrated the record label. We didn't treat them as the kind of evil corporate thing. Yeah, we were like, we need to infiltrate. We need to talk to them. We need to get to know every person in this organization and pick their brains, find out how this all works. That was a really conscious kind of strategy, was it? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I suppose we learned early on, you know, anyone who's working in a radio station, anyone who's a DJ, anyone who's a record label publishing they all started out basically loving music which is yeah clearly what we have in common and they just went that way yeah so we just got to know them and we that really helped us to understand the opportunities that were there and the problems we had to solve and rather than sitting back and assuming that it was all going to be handed to us on a plate we made it our business to become students of the industry and paul mcginnis likewise i mean so who you talk to is so important the advice you decide to take is so important and we just made sure we were talking to the smartest people the most experts every step of the way and keep an open mind.

18:14That's where we went wrong, Mac. You probably don't know this, Edge, but me and Mac had a band at one stage. Do you remember that? The set. Do you remember that? Yes, yes. I found the bass guitar so perplexing, such a challenge. Yeah, the strings are too thick. I expected the bass guitar to sound like Edge. I sounded like Jimmy Page. And when I didn't sound like Jimmy Page, I was like, I'm going to go and play three and in football. That was the end of our band. Yes, that was. We had the artwork done, though. We had the artwork, that's true. That's great.

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20:24When I'm listening to you talk about that, I'm also thinking I'm in the position of a young startup entrepreneur that has a product. And everything you say there, taking the right advice, seeking out the right people, understanding bits of the business that you don't think are essential but are actually crucial. Yeah. You know, it's not just about writing songs. It's not just about playing music. You know, is having seen all this as a young man, is this what you bring as chairman? Is this the urge you had to get involved in Endeavor to sort of mentally say, I've seen how you can go from, for example, Artane to Madison Square Garden.

21:11I've seen that journey and it's not that different. Yes, there's a lot of parallels. And we talk about entrepreneurs being coachable and that's crucial because, you know, inevitably there's a lot they don't know and there's a lot that they might have to change about their approach. So the mentorship program in Endeavor is very powerful. And if an entrepreneur is willing to take on board criticism and make these changes, I mean, it can be revolutionary for them. And what we noticed traveling around as we do and meeting all these people in the tech industry, particularly around Palo Alto and Seattle, was that there was an ecosystem there of support so that these young entrepreneurs were rubbing shoulders with people who were five years down the road, had made it already, were in huge businesses that had gone through all the steps they were about to go through and were willing to share their advice and insight.

22:17And so what's great about Endeavor is a sort of pay-it-forward culture where all of the board members are willing to sit down with an entrepreneur and pass on advice. But what we're excited about is we've now got two young entrepreneurs, Sam Dennegan and Barry Napier, who just kind of had their first big successes, sold their business. Sam's a kind of serial entrepreneur and Barry probably will be as well. They've now joined the board. So when young entrepreneurs arrive. I've just done this. I just, yeah, I was just there. I know how to do this. So that's really powerful. and what Ireland has lacked a little bit over the years is that kind of homegrown network and system of mentorship.

23:07So, you know, you've got Intercom, brilliant company. They went to Palo Alto. They went to San Francisco to set that up. That was their headquarters. The Collison brothers did the same. They went to the West Coast. I'd love in the future a situation where globally successful businesses can actually stay in Ireland. They won't feel the need to go to San Francisco or America. Not to say that they shouldn't have offices there, but that they actually have all the support here in Dublin or Cork or Belfast to make a successful business here. So let's explore that a little bit because one of the many clouds on the horizon are the fact that Ireland has had, you know, almost since the day yourselves knocked on the doors in London, late 70s, early 80s, there's been a transition in Ireland and gradually, but very, very then rapidly, we became this multinational tech centre.

24:13And all of Irish economic policy has been prostrate at this stage on the altar of getting in more American capital. Now, the upside, we all know, is loads of tax revenue, lots of jobs, lots of people who would never work in the area, technological transfer, so you're getting the best American practices. So lots of good stuff. But there is a downside. The downside is the elbowing out of Irish talent from creating businesses because lots of young people listening to the podcast have come to say, look, we would love to do something on our own. but we don't understand how we get there. And it's easier for us to go into one of the big tech companies and get a job and get well paid and start there.

24:57And then gradually we just become employees. But we want to be entrepreneurs. So, you know, when you're talking about Endeavor now, it seems to me it's now more crucial than ever because of our dependence on multinationals, which may well, as we were just talking about, may well, it's not going to disappear, but it might gradually recede as a potent force in Ireland. Yeah, I think we have to expect over time that situation will change. We've seen the beginnings of it with the changes in tariffs in America, etc. So the reliance on multinationals, I don't think it would be sensible for us in the long run to rely so heavily on them.

25:40And it's been great. And we shouldn't feel in any way bad about it. We're like a lot of countries in Europe, trying to offer them great incentives to come here. Every European country does so. We have to do it. And we've done it through tax benefits, et cetera. And we've been very successful at it. It's a wonderful success story. But what happens next? What happens when they do start to drift away as inevitably they will? And I think that's why the homegrown support for entrepreneurship is so important. And it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a long time. But once it gets to a certain point, it's then self-sustaining.

26:22The pay it forward mentality and the networking becomes just embedded in the local culture. And this has happened in other parts of the world where Endeavor have been for the longer run. So in South America, you see it with multiple board members now were entrepreneurs early on in the process. have, you know, really kickstarted an incredible mentorship program. And you're seeing it. It's like generational successes. Because I'm fascinated that this started in Latin America. And as you said, people were taxi drivers and barmen and waiting on tables, but they had this dream, but they had no way of getting in.

27:02And this is also the thing that always struck me when I was a kid going to, I remember going to Canada in the 80s and going to the States in the 80s to work. And having this kind of bizarre eureka moment, I remember being on the underground in Canada thinking, okay, we're Irish. We're not that stupid. The Canadians are not that brilliant. I work with them in a bar. They seem very nice. What is going on here that is not going on at home that seems to allow these people, when they come together, to do something positive? And, of course, it was networks. I didn't understand it at the time. It was environment, it was networks, it was mentors.

27:40It's what we call in the old days opportunity. Yeah. And that's what you're trying to recreate here. Right, exactly. I use the analogy of rugby. You think about Ireland in that sport, like we're absolutely top, top in the world in rugby. And how is that possible? You know, our 12-year-olds are not stronger, faster, smarter than the 12-year-olds in Romania or any other part of the world, what is it that makes Ireland a killer international rugby centre? Is it because of the coaches, the high school teams, the club teams, the entire system of support and coaching? And you've also got these sort of iconic players that all the kids look up to and go, I want to be him or her.

28:29And that's what we also need, I think is that pride in our successes. And I think there's a slightly, within Irish culture, there's this strange attitude to success, which I believe is sort of ebbing away. But certainly when we were young, there was always that kind of mistrust of success stories. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, the broderies. The broderies. And it's sort of like, goes way back. You could do an entire series of podcasts. I know, I know. We can start there. I mean, now we've opened it. Now we're into the deep psychoanalysis of the Irish nation. If you're listening to this podcast, you're not Irish, let us share some home truths with you.

29:13We are lovely. We are great fun. But deep down in the depths, there is a begrudging institute, which in all seriousness, we have to get rid of. Yeah, yeah. Because it's incredibly negative and it brings people down. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's this basic sense that, you know, capitalism is negative it's bad it's evil and that you know if you if you are successful you've sort of sold out in some way but um i don't think there's anything to match at a well-paying job you know in terms of being a social program for for the good of the country so that's the thing that we're also proud of is you know these entrepreneurs their businesses are employing a lot of people with good jobs like proper wages exactly and um that's one of the main aims of of endeavor is is to promote the local economy and and create jobs well actually you touched on something there about the sporting heroes and you're absolutely right ireland but it's not just but in the case of our we're very happy to have sporting heroes on telly they're big heroes rock and roll, music, theatre, poetry, literature, all these areas that Ireland is very proud to celebrate.

30:30But this type of creativity, this creative mind. But the creative mind that we're speaking of, which is the creative commercial mind, we haven't yet got to the stage where the Americans are, where they celebrate the creative commercial mind. So for example, if Steve Jobs would have been Irish? Ah, your man. He was only good at computers. Typewriters. He was only good at typewriters. So let's talk about looking at commercial success as heroic for people, that idea, because I think that's part of what you're doing. It is. And we hope that as some of these successes become better known, that they'll be kind of role models and people that people want to emulate and look up to.

31:20And what's great about my role in Endeavor is I get to meet a lot of really determined young entrepreneurs. And it's very inspiring. To me, I recognize the same spirit. You know, what they're doing is imagining something that doesn't exist yet. They're trying to build this and make it in exactly the way a rock and roll band would do that for their overall career. But also as a songwriter, it's the thing you sit down at the piano, you're trying to imagine something that doesn't exist. And it's the same thing that Steve Jobs would have been doing, hatching, you know, in Apple. Like, okay, well, we think people will really enjoy having a smartphone.

32:02What's a smartphone? and you know we we saw all the successes but knowing johnny ive who for years worked um in in the design team there were so many things that never saw the light of day yeah that they they worked on for months and months and just it didn't work for whatever reason you know so apple look to be like this genius company that never get it wrong but that's because they're so hard on themselves so selective that they only ever show you the thing that they are absolutely positive is going to work. But isn't that what, I mean, it's like a lot of bands in the kind of 80s in Dublin and there were bands coming out of every doorway and every corner and only a handful of them actually make it.

32:50Yeah. And it's like, I suppose if you're an inventor and coming up with new products and new ideas, you need to go through that process of kind of failure in order to be successful you know to figure out the stuff that doesn't work yeah it's as important as figuring out the stuff that does work and and also somewhat fearless yeah be be happy in the knowledge that you you're probably going to fail quite a bit but if you just keep going maintain that resilience and and that sense of possibility then you know you really can get there there's there's a great story that uh one of my favorite stories but there's an educator he's no longer with us ken robinson brilliant guy yeah amazing ted talk and he he was all about creativity and education and how the education system doesn't foster creativity it fosters academics which is just following and he cites this example of a little girl who was never really a great student but she was really animated one day when asked to draw a picture.

33:57And so the class were drawing pictures, drawing away. So the teacher's curious to see what this little girl's working on. And she goes over and says, oh, what are you drawing? And the little girl says, I'm drawing God. And the teacher goes, really? Well, you know, no one knows what God looks like. And the little girl goes, they will in a minute.

34:22and his point was have a go yeah have a go have a go don't be don't be timid have a go be prepared to fail get up again go for it again but also be open-minded enough to take advice and don't sort of feel like if you know you have to take advice if you fail that you you're no that's the end of it no it's not that's the beginning of it yeah and i was thinking when you were talking there about songwriting and entrepreneurship and products and the idea like so many products are what you would call adjacent to each other right you know the hammer and the nail sort of idea the hammer without the nail is not really half as an effect of a tool right and the nail or the hammer can't do anything but a hammer and a nail can do extraordinary things together.

35:16So in the same way, you know, I've always thought that coming up innovatively with music must be the same. Like you have one song, you can half done, like, yeah. And then you have another song, it's like, but if we put them together, we can create something of magic. Can you explain that in terms of maybe two or three of, you know, U2's songs, which were basically an amalgam of things? so you have the nail and you have the hammer on each own not particularly great ideas together amazing very true and I think I can go even further and say that it's true of the makeup of a great band you know the because I think our strengths are very important but our weaknesses are also important because when you have a combination of both which we all do that translates into personality and a particular angle that's unique to you.

36:17And luckily enough in U2, each member has got an array of both great strengths and weaknesses. And it's when you combine those four individuals together and we cover each other and we work with each other that's when you get a very particular a unique sound and that influenced our songwriting influenced so much about how the band developed so we learned to kind of understand and and cherish our weaknesses and and not see them as failings see them as a kind of helpful guide you know because it stops you going into certain areas and it means you specialize you go where you know you can deliver you don't try and be something else you just focus on what you know you can deliver so all our albums all our songs were influenced by that combination of strengths and weaknesses so someone brings something something i'm not sure about that or go again or you know because what i want it's almost greater than the parts exactly i want to maybe sort of conclude part one with one thing we just touched on part two i want to talk about the creative mind because again i believe that what we're talking about is some deep urge in everybody to express themselves whether you're running a shop whether you're running a band whether you're a tech entrepreneur whether you're running anything it's the idea that i don't want to do what the rest are doing i'm going to do for myself i want to talk about the urge and where it comes from in the context of endeavor but also against the background of you two and music but you just touched there on something fascinating which is longevity longevity amazes me in business in careers in bands because a flash in the pan although not easy can be done okay and we've We've seen that in music.

38:22We've seen that in art. We've seen it in everything. We've really seen it in business, right? What you two have done is something extraordinary, which is to be around, to adapt. Can we tease that out? Because again, there's a very similar corporate tale to be told for businesses and bands. Because the brands and the corporations that are around for a long time are doing something different. Yeah. I mean, there's so many parallels. I think in our case, it's a kind of irrepressible curiosity and desire to learn and expand into new areas of technology and within the culture of music and to understand what's going on around the world and not necessarily ape it or copy it, but try and absorb the lessons of new movements in music.

39:16So every U2 phase, you could sort of go, well, I know these guys were listening to then. That was inspiring them. That's how that album sort of has its unique flavor. So not allowing yourself to become a kind of creative silo, something that's stagnant. You want to keep it flowing, keep it constantly being rejuvenated. And that's not always easy, but I think if you can do it, it has a combination of I think keeping the music fresh for the listener it's always sort of adapting but also it means that you're constantly having to grow and solve problems of some sort or the other and that keeps you alive creatively I think when we're in our comfort zone writing or performing or recording you're not learning anything When you're out of your comfort zone, you're suddenly giving yourself a big challenge, you know, a new style of music, a new technology to understand a new way of presenting yourself live.

40:29That's where creativity has to kick in. Yeah. Risk taking is crucial. If you stay safe, it's just going to go stale. And it's exactly the same for companies, for small companies, for startups, but established companies. Yeah. The problem is when you get like, and I don't want to pick on any particular company, but a big tech company where their success is so baked in, they just know what they're about. It's very hard for them to take risks because there's so much at stake. If they do the wrong thing, they could upset the entire apple cart and could really spin in a difficult direction. But the smaller companies, they really have the ability and the need to be agile, to be resilient and to kind of duck and dive and find their way through the challenges and adapt.

41:31Particularly when you're scaling up, when you're really trying to go global, that's a moment of great jeopardy. and you've got to be very smart and light on your feet. And that's, I suppose, you know, where Endeavour comes in because the great jeopardy is where being able to call up somebody and say, look, I feel we've got to do this, but I know I'm not certain if we get this wrong, we're blowing a huge part of the balance sheet. Yeah. And if we blow the balance sheet, we're back to square one. And I'm sure, isn't that where Endeavour just helps? Like, okay, we might have somebody in the network.

42:07It's exactly right. So like take Wayflyer, just a fintech company. They're now a unicorn. They're like over a billion dollars in market cap value. So their growth was so fast and they had to be making decisions and really get those decisions right every step of the way. So they availed so much of the network, calling some of our mentors from around the world. And we've got amazing, Exocean is another great company there based on the border of Northern Ireland. They're in exploration vessels, autonomous exploration vessels that go out and they survey the ocean floor. Wow. Mostly for offshore wind farms.

42:53Looking for Russian warships. Snapping our cables under the ground. But, you know, and we've got a new, one of our most recent entries into Endeavour was a company called Raylo from Belfast. One of the things we are adamant about is we want to be all Ireland. We're not, we want to look after entrepreneurs in the north as well as we do in the south. And we've done. So there's a special prominence in this family. Right. We've done a couple of programs up there that have been hugely successful. and what's great is we can connect because we're basically not replacing anything that's happening already.

43:33We're adding on. Our hope is to be a kind of multiplier effect. So we're working with... Grease the wheels a little bit. Yeah. So Dogpatch, we love Dogpatch down in Ormo Baths in Belfast, fantastic hub for startups. And it's been hugely exciting actually to go up to Belfast and see what's going on because they've got such energy, such talent, entrepreneurial talent. They're a little behind Ireland or in the South because of our kind of the boom of the multinationals being present here. So their ecosystem's a few years behind, but they're going to be going gangbusters in a few years. And of course, the objective, we're going to conclude on this podcast, we're coming back to part two in a couple of days' time, But the conclusion is to reimagine Ireland as an epicenter for entrepreneurial activity.

44:29And if you look forward with the world around us, we in this podcast always talk about Shumterian economics. That basically, Joseph Shumperter was this economist who said, look, there's this thing called the constant gales of creative destruction. What he meant by that was that, and it's very much in the music business, is that, you know, one album may be brilliant. The next album just hits the market and it doesn't work. Nobody knows why. It's because constantly there's somebody younger, smarter, better, more aggressive coming behind you in every industry. And that what drives capitalism and what drives innovation and what drives wealth creation is this constant almost evolutionary process whereby companies, individuals, products, bands, people, notions get to the top and then there's somebody always coming behind to change.

45:28And if Ireland can become a node, and I say an accepting mode, that that's the way the world works. So nothing's permanent. If we can become that in Western Europe, my sense is no other country has as much potential to do this as Ireland. And I think that's what you kind of think as well, Edge. Yeah, and not just me, you know, talk to people around the world and in Palo Alto. So there's a huge kind of push to decentralize in some ways because it's so expensive to operate there. And, you know, it's kind of stifling in some ways. So people are looking for other nodes. And Ireland for sure has the potential to become a serious player globally, but in Europe in particular.

46:15So, yeah, I agree. We'll be back with part two of this podcast, which is Endeavour, Edge and the potential for this country, which is enormous if we get the finger out. We'll talk to you on Thursday.

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