20VC: How to Fix the UK Tech Ecosystem | Why We Need to Flood the UK with Venture Capital | What the UK Can Learn From Sequoia, Stripe and Norway | Why Now is the Time to be Bullish on China & Lessons from Jensen Huang with Tom Hulme & Stan Boland

Tom Hulme is a General Partner @ GV and leads GV’s European investing. He has led rounds in Monzo, Nothing, GoCardless, Lemonade, Snyk and is widely considered one of the best investors in Europe. Stan Boland is one of the most successful and respected entrepreneurs in the UK. In 1999, he co-founded Element 14 which was acquired by Broadcom in 2000 for $640 million. Following this, Boland co-founded Icera Inc. in 2002, a fabless semiconductor company which he sold to Nvidia for $367 million. In Today’s Discussion We Cover: 04:26 Is The UK’s Biggest Problem a Talent Problem 09:50 Why We Need to Flood the UK With Venture Capital 10:38 What Europe Can Learn from Stripe and the Collisons 15:21 How the UK Can Use Visas to Retain the Best Talent 16:46 Why the Government Needs to Put 10x More Cash Into Fund of Funds 24:32 Is the London Stock Exchange F****** and Does it Matter? 34:38 What The UK Can Learn From Sequoia and the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund 40:42 What is a “National Goal for Wealth Creation” & How Do We Implement It? 48:10 What are the Most Broken Elements of the UK Tax Regime 52:11 Is It Stupid to Remove the Non-Dom Tax Status 53:15 Why is Now the Time to Be Bullish on China 01:00:19 Biggest Lessons from Working with Jensen Huang 01:08:04 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Predictions

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Twenty trillion dollars of value created in the last 50 years in building Decacorns in the US. The UK has created two, about 170 billion of value in the UK. So the lack of capital crimps the ambition of companies and therefore the best founders go to the States. We need to flood the UK with venture capital, that's what we need. If you graduate in engineering or computer science or something here, you should have stapled to your graduation certificate a Tier Two visa.

• 0:26Harry Stebbings?

  This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today is a special show as we sit down with two incredibly special people. The UK, to put it mildly, it's not in great shape. And so I wanted to do an episode with two phenomenal minds to clearly analyse the problems that we face and then break down very specific and granular solutions. So joining me in the hot seat, we have Tom Hulme, General Partner at GV, where he leads all GV's European investing. Joining Tom is Dan Bolan, one of the most successful and respected entrepreneurs in the UK. He sold his first company for $640 million and his second to Nvidia for $367 million, where he then went on to work with Jensen Huang. But before we dive in today, here are two fun facts about our newest brand sponsor, Kajabi.

• 1:11Harry Stebbings?

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• 1:56Harry Stebbings?

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• 3:24Harry Stebbings?

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• 4:08Harry Stebbings?

  You have now arrived at your destination. Guys, I am so excited to make this happen. Two of the smartest people, I think, in European and UK venture and startups. I want to start with a little bit of context. Stan, if we start with you and then move to Tom, what's the background as to how you got here? And just a quick one that I didn't show on you.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I joined a company called Acorn, which is a computer company based in Cambridge back in nineteen ninety seven. It owned this thing called ARM, forty percent of this company called ARM. So I helped get ARM public and then figured out what to do with Acorn. Set up a chip company outside, out of Acorn, which got venture funded for. Raised thirty million dollars of capital and sold that company to Broadcom for about six hundred and forty million. About a year and a half later, this amazing deal. Did a second deal in the chip space, which I built a company and sold that to Nvidia. And did a third deal, which was in the AI space. So I've serially founded and ran and then sold companies, raised about three hundred and thirty million dollars of venture capital

• 5:10Speaker 00

  and sold them for about one point three billion. So that's kind of what I've been doing over the last like twenty five years is doing that.

• 5:16Harry Stebbings?

  Well, I'm mainly here just to learn from Stan.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  That's the reason I'm here.

• 5:20Harry Stebbings?

  Tom, what about you, dude?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  So I won't give a long bio, just a really quick one. So I helped set up GV in Europe the year you started twenty PC in twenty fourteen. We've now done over fifty companies. We've invested in twelve countries. We just broke through half a billion dollars in the UK alone with our investment in Isomorphic last week. And passionate about making the European ecosystem as vibrant as possible. So keen to discuss that.

• 5:51Harry Stebbings?

  So I want to discuss it in the way that we're going to kind of cite the problems and then cite the solutions. I don't want to be Debbie Downer and just do the problems, but I want to be also pretty granular on the solutions. I think for me, the biggest problem is actually talent supply and not being a magnet for the best developers in the world to have as London or the UK anymore, where I think it maybe once was. Do you agree that we have a fundamental talent problem today in the UK?

• 6:15Speaker 00

  I think we got a bit of a talent problem in the UK. So I don't think we're the magnet that we were or that we could be. I think it's quite interesting, actually, if you look at where talent has been born in like AI across Europe and you look at where it lands in terms of where it stays. Actually, the UK is minting about the same talent it's keeping, but that is a net net, actually. So we're losing talent to the US. And we're actually recovering some of that from other parts of Europe. So net net, we're about the same actually. But we could be 10x better. So I think that's the key point is that, you know, we ought to be making the UK the magnet, the place to set up a company in Europe, actually. And all that talent that is leaving the UK and leaving other parts of Europe to go to the States, we ought to be capturing it and building companies here.

• 6:59Harry Stebbings?

  I think of it in like engineering talent, and then I think of it in founding talent. How do you think that differs? Like, as you said, that net net for like deep AI engineers. I think my worry is actually, do we actually have the founder supply that is exceptional that maybe other countries do? And that's the difference that I think about.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  From my perspective, so I completely agree. I think we're rate limited. I think it's the biggest rate limiter, actually, is supply of founders and supply of operators. The great thing about founders is they'll smash through walls to build stuff. So you have Melanie at Canva built built that business in Perth, Australia. No right to build a $50 billion business in Perth, but it can be done. If you gave me the choice to have more Nicholas Zenstroms or Demis Hassabis or Stans, I would absolutely take that. I think, you know, it could only be a good thing. The biggest challenge is for every one good founder, you need five or 10 world-class operators. And I think that's the biggest gap for us. That's the rate limiter. To Stan's point, if I just look at engineering talent,

• 7:57Speaker 03

  we've got three of the best 10 universities on the planet here. If you look at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, they're only graduating between them about 500 computer scientists or roboticists per year. We should 5x that number. There's a huge demand. I don't see why we aren't increasing it. And then to Stan's point, we can do a better job of actually making it appealing to come into the UK for the most entrepreneurial talent and maybe retain the talent that does study here and becomes expert.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Two big exporters of talent in the world, I think. One is China, one is India. And the majority of the graduates there are deciding to go and work in the States, frankly. Even if they come to university here, they're typically not staying, actually. They're coming here actually with pretty much no intent of staying. And in fact, we're not really welcoming them either, really. So, yeah, so if you. If you graduate in engineering or computer science or something here, you know, you should have stapled to your graduation certificate a tier two visa and rights to stay and a right to bring your family across as well. And just make the UK the place that people want to come, actually, is what we should be doing.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  I love that. Can I build on that? I um, I think you become what you'll measure and the government are measuring a lot of kind of lagging indicators. I was inspired, we invested in Stripe in 2017 and one of the things that struck me is the Collison Brothers were tracking a KPI. They were tracking the number of Series A companies that transact online that they actually, you know, that are using Stripe. And the number was phenomenal. It was like high eighties percent. Taking Stan's idea, our government should be actually looking and seeing at the people that are graduating. What is the percentage that are choosing to stay? That is the leading indicator, like great founders focus on leading indicators, not lagging.

• 9:36Harry Stebbings?

  You mentioned that attaching the tier two visa to the graduation ceremony ticket. Is there anything else that we could do to make sure we have a high talent retention number for great engineering and founding talent?

• 9:49Speaker 00

  I I think the second big factor is money, actually, which I'm sure we're going to go and talk about in a second, actually, but money is.

• 9:56Harry Stebbings?

  There's no structure to this.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think money is the great attractor of talent as well. So yeah, part of the reason that people will come to the UK, come to London or the Golden Triangle, is the fact that they can get funded here. They can not just get funded pre-seed and seed, but Series A, Series B, Series C, growth phase as well. And in fact, keep the company here. The kind of constraints that come from lack of capital, I think is also a factor. So so the model in the UK has really been, let's build early stage companies, let's get them to a certain point and then let's flip them to America. And I think a lot of founders might be thinking, why don't I just skip that first stage? And why don't I just jump on a plane and form the company in the US, actually?

• 10:38Harry Stebbings?

  Why do you think we have a lack of capital in the UK? I disagree with you, so I'm intrigued why you think we have a lack of capital.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Well, I think you just need to look at the numbers. The numbers say that, I think in last year, yeah, because the model, I think, to copy is the US. I mean, yeah, so the USA is just so obviously successful. In technology, twenty trillion dollars of value created in the last fifty years in building Decaquorns in in the US. The UK has created two, about a hundred and seventy billion of value in the UK. So so i- it is like two orders of magnitude off for the US. So the US, I think, is a model to copy. And the, I think if you look at how much venture capital was raised by USVCs last year, it was about seventy six billion raised in the US. Um, pro rata to population, the UK should be fifteen point four billion.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  The UK funds raised three point seven billion last year, so we're short about twelve billion in venture capital.

• 11:31Harry Stebbings?

  I absolutely hear you, but as a day to day venture investor on the ground, trying to find companies and great people to invest in, there is simply not the supply of entrepreneurs if I were to keep my bar as high as it needs to be to build great companies to deploy that money.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  There is a chicken egg situation here. So, you know, traditionally, the way to think about this is that, you know, you create this momentum of building successful companies. The idea is that capital flows to places it gets a return, therefore you create a track record of building companies here and capital will flow to the UK and that's the causality. The causality actually is the other way around. And the causality is that if we put capital in place here, great companies will rise to the occasion and supply of companies will come. And the the reason I say that is that there's a country you can look at where this is true and that country is China. And so twenty years ago, China's got pretty much nothing really in technology.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  And and the Chinese studied the US model, put huge amounts of capital in place. And now China is clear global number two in terms of technology. You look at, you look at the amount that's invested in AI, for instance. I mean, there's only two countries really investing in AI, US and China. And the European investment is a diddly squat. You almost, you almost can't see them, they're that small. And, yeah, net result being we got a very successful Chinese tech sector. So I I I actually think that, you know, by the lack of capital crimps the ambition of companies. And therefore the best founders go to the States and that we we end up underachieving really.

• 13:04Harry Stebbings?

  I think that's fair. I would just maybe make a.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Caveat that I think the goal should be that the best capital gets concentrated in the best companies. Like China's an amazing example. You get concentrations of talent and then concentrations of funding taken to an extreme there. I think one of the data points that makes this so difficult is none of us, I would think, think that all companies should get funding. The real challenge is if you ask any founder and by definition at seed stage, maybe the majority shouldn't get funding. When they don't receive the funding, they think it's a funding gap. So I don't think what we should be doing is necessarily just sort of evenly distributing capital across the whole market. I actually think that's damaging for talent concentration as well. Instead, we should have sophisticated people say, these are the companies that can win.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  These are the companies that can actually absorb more capital because the founders are great. They're not going to be overcapitalized. They'll then bring in the best people and maybe they can just be more ambitious.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've got a good example of this. Actually, there's a company I've invested in called Wordware. So a good name check for them. But there's two guys studied computer science in Cambridge. Could have set up a company here, could have raised probably five million on a twenty pre. Could have built a really, it's basically a set of tools for L L M prompt engineering. But they went to San Francisco instead. They ended up raising thirty on a two hundred and twenty post.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  This is Philip Kozera.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  It's Philip, yeah, yeah. So those investors are expecting them to build a business worth two to three billion. Yeah, so ten X. That stratospheric raising of expectations is part of the US playbook.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  I think those investors are expecting him to build a ten billion business.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Oh, maybe a ten billion business, yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  We own a ten percent ownership, you need a billion dollars.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, yeah, so even even better. But the fact is they've got the capital to do it really as well. So so this cranking up of expectations and the provision of capital behind founders with energy and enthusiasm, I think, does work. I mean, it's part of the US playbook and completely agree, Tom, that it's concentration that really matters, really. And the ability to put a large amount of money at the right point behind founders that have the energy and intellect. And the pivotability and the coachability, I think, is absolutely critical, really. And it's the bit that is sort of missing, I think, in the UK and in Europe as a whole, actually.

• 15:26Harry Stebbings?

  I don't think we need more money. I'm seeing every day the most inflated prices. And it's just because you see this concentration of capital to obviously good people like your wordwares, where you can get a five on thirty, five on, and then light speed and general catalysts come in and suddenly it's six on eighty. And it just goes nuts. I see now a complete removal of lick preps. And it's because we don't have the supply. The capital concentrates and just inflates in a way that's much more so than the US. And so I think we have this fundamental talent problem. And then we have a narrative problem, which is based around behaviour of venture investors in Europe, which is if you speak to Philippe, Philip, he'll tell you that like, it was super fast in the US. They totally got me. They gave me a great experience. And in Europe, it takes weeks.

• 16:10Harry Stebbings?

  The partners aren't here and they're slower. We have a very bad customer experience for founders in Europe, which I think makes it a less attractive funding product than the US.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  I think that's certainly true, but my solution for that would be let's increase the amount of capital here. And the best founders will seek out the best VCs. The best VCs will generate outsized returns and they'll be able to raise the next round of the next capital, basically. So you will gradually, hopefully quickly, ratchet up the performance, essentially, of venture in Europe, actually.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  The thing that has scared me historically, when people have talked about, for example, government investing in startups is, I think it's an incredibly difficult thing to do. I think VCs take, I don't know if I'm any good at it still, because the feedback loop is probably a decade. It's like the worst learning loop ever. And so the important thing is to make sure that if there is more capital in the system, it's deployed by the experts. And they can sort of really see that compound effect.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Agree, it'd be absolute disaster for government to be making direct investments in companies, I think, because there's no way they can do it, I think.

• 17:19Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, if we want to get really spicy there, and Tom's seen my Twitter and I give not many shits anymore. I, most of the BBB. Portfolio is just dire.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  I mean, they're direct.

• 17:30Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, they're fund of funds investing. I mean, these funds should not be in existence. Like, the question is, do you have a right to win? Do you have a right to find companies, pick them, win them, help better? And the majority are honestly dire and they will not do well. Government money will be wasted. And I think I get both of what you're saying, but I think then if you're like, well, I want this to go to truly gifted individuals who will invest it wisely. Well, then we should see real concentration of capital to three to five players in the UK. Because honestly, I think that's only the amount that's very good. Probably Tom, if I push you, you'd agree.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Couple of quick reactions. Firstly, I don't think it needs to just be to players in the UK. It can be global funds. I think you have some of the best. And the second thing is the best funds have proven themselves for multiple vintages now. They're oversubscribed, but I would hope that the UK PLC could get into those funds.

• 18:24Harry Stebbings?

  But there's no way.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Well, that's the question.

• 18:26Harry Stebbings?

  Calling a spade a spade. There's no way they could get into Excel index or any of the brand names.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  That's the question.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say that there's firstly, no large fund of funds has ever lost money. From a investment perspective, government ought to be willing to take a much bigger risk on fund of funds investments here in the UK. I think BBB puts something like $424 million a year into fund of funds investments, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the 15.4 billion that we ought to be investing. So, yeah, so, yeah, that number needs to be like 10x in my view. And then secondly, I think, I think there is a venture talent pool that can be energized. I think below partner level in a lot of these firms, there are a bunch of people who are principal level, whoever, who could be

• 19:15Speaker 00

  interested and willing to run a new fund and would do a bloody good job at it, actually. And I also think that we're at a time when US partners would consider coming to Europe if the capital was available. If we, because here, you know, there is, there is talent in Europe. Valuations are lower. If you could put the money in place, then I think we owe. Not only would we have some homegrown talent we can release from venture firms, but I think we could also imagine yeah, some of the leading partners in US firms coming to London or or UK to to basically get this economy really moving, actually.

• 19:51Harry Stebbings?

  Sometimes in my head, I think, how many friends do I want to lose in one single show? My question to you, I mean, I I don't agree that prices are better here, honestly, like for the best companies, for your word, whereas if they were to stay, they're just super, they're so inflated.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  I think just to quit, you saw on, no, no, I, so if I look at where we sit today, some of the best deals are overpriced. I think it's often because they're the ones with the traction and they're therefore somewhat de-risked. And I think there's two things that make this a really difficult thing we to answer. We talked about lagging indicators. The first is we're basically trading against or we're working against sources of capital that were raised in the past. Like, these are not brand new funds often, and often they were raised in Zer. The cost of capital has gone through the roof, like given the current interest rate environment. I think that's going to get worse, if anything. The fact that a lot of these funds are giving out so many stock grants, you basically need to hit 20% IRR to break even.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  These numbers are really high, so that's the first thing. I actually think there's probably going to be less money in the market for venture in two years than there is today. It's kind of a question for us. And then the second thing is classic machine learning. I think we're overfitting to history. I don't think we know what the biggest companies look like going forward. And so it's very difficult for me to say that actually the sort of returns profile that funds got from investments 10 years ago, are they going to be the ones they looked like before? My belief is that AI is creating a real power law, far more than we've ever seen before. And so the job to be done is going to be be in those handful of global champions.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  If you look at Israel is an interesting example for us at the moment. Amazing story recently, the Wiz acquisition, 32 billion, that's like 7% of Israel's GDP. A lot of that is actually flowing back to Israel and it will create this multiplier effect. That business was basically built in five years. It was assembled without actual clear sort of problem identified. They just got a world class team and they really well capitalized the business on day one. I think the businesses we want to build look more like whiz and so concentrate capital into the best founders. Can that be done from the UK or Europe? Hell yes. What we do often at the moment is we say be

• 22:09Speaker 03

  close to your customer. We say go to the US because the market size is roughly an order of magnitude bigger than it is in the UK. We're not saying give up the US market. Absolutely go to the market, but build a global business on day one.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. I think it's almost pointless building a sort of number three or number four in the marketplace today. So if if we're going to under capitalize businesses and build businesses at number three or number four, it is not what we need because those businesses have got no choice but to be sold to US companies. We're never going to create companies here that stand up on their own two feet and generate the jobs growth and the diffusion of wealth that the country desperately needs really. So so I think, yeah, we've got to concentrate on companies that could be global number one or global number two, which does require big checks to be written into those companies at the right point.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Can I give another example of this where I think actually because we asked, in a way, we've got a problem that we're subscale in the way we described it at the moment. I agree with that. The other place we could sort of that I think our relative size hurts us is, you know, the subscale pension funds, for example, you've got 90 local pension funds. Actually, a policy that I was really excited about the the Chancellor, I think, mentioned last year is this idea that they should be aggregated so that they can have a world class investment office so they can do something like Yale. Like when I do LP calls for emerging talent.

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Thanks, dude.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  You're very welcome.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Tom had to do like 10. I think it was more.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Literally.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  I just told you about the 10. No, I did do a few. And the thing that's stunning about the US firms and then the really, I think, more sophisticated ones here, like Welcome Trust, just phenomenal investors, is they understand the power law. They understand they've got to build relationships for the long term and they can.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Can actually have world class analysts inside those firms and you can't expect a tiny fund to do that. So this idea that we might aggregate ninety local pension funds in the UK to enable them to think more like Yale, rather than just replicating the asset split, I'd be really excited about.

• 24:13Harry Stebbings?

  I thought it was so interesting you said that it doesn't make sense to build these like three or four tier players in a market. Cause I've been in venture for ten years now. A lot of the job has been like, oh, well, it's like HR platform X, but in Europe it's Y for Europe. And actually you can build billion dollar, two billion or three billion dollar companies on the back of that. Where can the UK and Europe then be a number one market leader and beat the US and China?

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think you, if you think of it as a stack from like semiconductors and hardware up to sort of applications layer, then I, I think it's easier for Europe to think about building at the bottom of the stack or at the top of the stack, actually. I think it's quite hard for Europe to sort of build in the middle of the stack. So I think AI application companies that are solving a particular problem, particularly if there's a sort of defensive moat that exists in Europe, but obviously a good place to sort of start. And, and then I think at the bottom of the stack, I think something that's attached to the metal. So semiconductors that are solving a particular problem happen to be somewhere where we have the expertise to do that.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  And it happens to be a B two B sale where we get paid for the value of the architecture that we put down and the utility it delivers. It's easier to think top and bottom of the stack as places that we can build those companies, actually. So it's not necessarily where we're focused on, but it is kind of where we should be focused. Whereas I think if you're building some middleware layer or some tools layer, I think it's a little bit easier to imagine doing that in the States, I think, than doing that here.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  I think the interesting thing with Stan's argument, I, I really agree with it. I like the idea of focus and specialization. One of the things that concerns me is just this idea that we can be experts at everything. Instead, I think we have to say, actually, let's have, understand our unfair advantages. If, for example, and I agree with it, the bottom of the stack, the infrastructure layer is somewhere we can be world class. We've certainly got the technical talent, then I think we have to build the whole. And structure it and say, actually, in this one location, we're going to be effective. We then have to do second order things like we have probably the highest electricity or energy costs in the whole of the Western world in the UK. That just does not enable you to do a great job of this.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  It doesn't even enable you to do a great job of training foundation models. Like if the blended cost of training a large language model is 20% energy, we're already kind of losing. So the important thing is to say, actually, what are we going to be world class at? And where are we going to be? And we have some advantages, like one of the things that's interesting, we've done it in this conversation. It's easier to sort of aggregate everything at the national or continental level. In truth, we should be honest that London is incredibly different, for example, from the rest of the UK. Building a startup in Europe is doing it on ultra hard mode. We've talked about it before, but actually, if you do it in London, it's slightly easier mode at the moment because of the talent, because it's where the investors are.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  So we have to start to just acknowledge that, lean into it and actually have this pockets of specialization, I think.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  I mean, I wasn't so much thinking, by the way, of building lots and lots of data centers on the expensive.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  The IP.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Because that would be nuts right now, obviously. But I was more thinking about the chip design layer, so not even chip fabrication, but chip design, which is where 75% of the value in the semiconductor space is. It's what Nvidia is, what Qualcomm is, what Broadcom is, or basically semiconductor design companies that basically sell chips that they get them fabbed by TSMC or whoever. That's the model that we ought to be playing in. We have something like 2% of that global market in Europe. It's insane, honestly. So, yeah, so in the fabulous space, so we must be building successful fabulous companies, I think. And Europe has got the, in fact, the UK in Bristol, as it turns out, happens to have this full custom microprocessor design capability that stems 20, 30 years ago

• 28:05Speaker 00

  from the creation of Inmos, which is kind of unique, actually. There's, there's only probably two places in Europe you could do that. And Bristol happens to be one of them. I think it's plausible to build companies in this space that are. Global winners and you're right that we do need to put much larger checks into those companies. But that's the reason why we need more venture money here is to write those checks.

• 28:25Harry Stebbings?

  It's interesting you said about the cost of energy. I was speaking to the CEO of one of the largest data providers in the world or data center providers in the world. And he said, Harry, in the US, my energy costs four percent. In UK, if I set up today, it's going to be seventeen percent in total. And I was like, I get it. That I did not know. You know, I was pushing, pushing, pushing. He said that. I'm like, all right, fine. You do you. My question to you then is like, when we look at that and we look at the money that's needed to fund that, where does that money come from? I understand your argument around the scale and the scale of cash needing to change. How do we fund the four fifty million that BBB does invest to whatever we want to call it, two billion, three billion?

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Four billion, yeah. Well, firstly, I think, I think the money, Europe has a lot of money, actually. So that's the first thing to say. So Europe's got a lot of money in, obviously in pensions, we talk a lot about pensions. So it's got a lot of money in family, family offices that are sort of locked up all over the place, actually. So Europe actually is not capital short, it's just not investing in this particular asset class. So the job, I think, of BBB is to create that asset class at speed and to play an enabling role in doing that, essentially. So my suggestion would be that we get the government to increase the amount that British Business Bank, and we may need to uprate the quality and talent in BBB to be able to do this.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  But BBB puts like four billion a year in and would, would require like a fifty fifty funding ratio. So the GPs have to raise matching money. Otherwise, yeah, BBB doesn't participate, but it can be fifty percent. So, so if I want to create a billion dollar fund, I know I'm going to get half a billion from BBB and I've got to raise the other half a billion, essentially. So raising the funding ratio to fifty fifty would be a good start. And then I think we've got to be creative, which I guess is another call to action for BBB, about how we split the fees and split the carry between the different LPs in the fund. So at the moment, there's a lot of hand wringing and anguish about the fact pension funds won't pay a two percent fee. And I would say, fine, yeah, let's do it on a half percent fee then.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  But instead, you know, the, the carry that the partners have. Is higher and quid pro quo is the BBB might pay a three percent fee and the carrier for the partners is lower. But net net, we're still at two plus twenty. So, so let's be creative about how we do it and let's flex. To be, the job is to bring the capital in and make it mesh with public money to mint these large funds. They can write these big checks that allow us to play seriously in some of these sectors that are basically capital intensive and winner takes all. That's kind of what we need to do, I think, to sort of pull ourselves out of the, the nosedive that the country is currently in, I think.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Where would we get that money from?

• 30:59Speaker 00

  The government has created its own fiscal freedom to do this, actually. So the government is able to treat any investment in BBB money as being not borrowing, not public spending. So it forms part of public sector net worth. And it doesn't count as current year spending because, because the argument is, and I think this is correct. That, yeah, what we're doing is building up a financial asset on the government's balance sheet. So if you did this consistently over like ten years. You have forty billion on the government's balance sheet of fund of fund investments in venture. The, the worst performing fund of funds generate maybe six percent IRR. The best performing generate mid twenties. So, yeah, so, yeah, so always higher than gilt yields.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  And, and, and I would say you could go even further. You could say like in ten years' time, we've got forty billion on the public balance sheet. Why don't we make an offer to the public? Why don't we offer it to individual pension plans to invest in this stock? So, yeah, so we could, we could create like a Thatcher moment really where you privatize. But, yeah, people in their twenties and thirties should be owning assets in the future of the country, actually. They should be owning those assets. And it should be, it should be recycled into making the country more successful competitively. And technology is the place to put it, obviously. So that's kind of what we ought to be doing.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  I do see it as investing. We're talking about infrastructure projects. We look at Germany's trillion dollars. I think it's incredibly important. I like the idea that we have a kind of intellectual infrastructure investment that you're describing. The big thing to design around, and it sounds like you've started to think that through, is the adverse selection bias. My biggest fear, because of such a power law of return. What you don't want to do is just end up with the worst investors making the worst investments. And so placing an emphasis on those maybe first, you know, supporting perhaps first time funds. Solo GPs initially to get going could make sense. But it's incredibly important for the UK taxpayer to get into the best funds.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  And so I do believe there are, there's got to be incentives that UK PLC can provide. So that the best funds that Harry describes actually are excited to take money from that BBB fund of funds.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  But Tom, do you think, do you think if we put such a system in place and we made it plausible, feasible for GPs to go raise like half a billion or a billion dollar fund here. Do you think we'd get partners in US firms with a strong track record to consider coming to London to basically raise a fund here because it can be done here. And yeah, they could build it and you could also imagine there'd have to be some conditions on those funds. If BBB is going to fund them, like half of the money or whatever's got to be invested in the UK. But you, you could imagine somebody trying to set up a startup in, say, Stuttgart or something. The call could be, well, we'll fund it, but you've got to move to London.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  And we'll fund it.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  So I think the answer is yes, but again, it sort of speaks to specialization. The question for me would be in what areas would you get the best people saying it's worth me doing that? And it's not going to be, it wouldn't be necessarily in digital health. Where the UK has one major customer, none else. It would be in places like fintech where we have a good track record. Because we're in a great position sort of globally at this point. That's why we've done disproportionate number of fintech investments. Defence, I think, is an interesting area at the moment where, you know, we're going to have to look more to 3% of GDP spend in defence. So there'll be areas where I think actually very smart, rational people would make that call. But there's others where it would be a harder stretch like consumer.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Where it doesn't really make sense to like be outside one of the biggest markets.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:38Harry Stebbings?

  Why do you think defence is different to health? I think in defence, you still have one primary buyer here really, which is obviously the MOD. And then you have very splintered. Fractured buyers, which is the rest of Europe, and each wants to have their own dominant domestic provider.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  So disclaimer, I'm a reservist, as you know, so this is something I'm really passionate about. And I'd say there's three things happening at the moment that make it significantly more interesting than it has been in the past. The first is very smart people are interested in doing it because they think it's right. There are people like our peers that are interested in doing defence companies because for the first time, they actually think there's existential threat. Second thing is actually while you do say, you're right, there's maybe a single buyer. It's it's more complicated that in the UK, we have multiple services, we have multiple regiments within each. Each is a potential customer and they're being forced to innovate at the moment.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  For the final reason, which is to some extent, we are on the geopolitically, we are close to a war zone at the moment. And we have a point of view in that war. We occasionally have some of our armed servicemen at risk. I think those three things together mean that actually, when you look at Anduril in the US. And they had a recent round, eight billion dollars oversubscribed. It shows you there's an appetite of people and capital to go in there. I think the UK has interesting talent. The UK is playing its part in Ukraine at the moment. It's an amazing place to test new technologies and I think it's an opportunity to build next generation primes here. So as a category, I think defence in Europe is an important one at the moment.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  And there's probably what, two to three trillion can be spent over the next five to eight years in Europe in defence, actually. And and all layers, not just final product, but like components and there's lots of layers here, I think.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Agreed. And then I do think it's that will forge some dual use technologies. If you look out there at the sort of the biggest defence companies, you could argue that DJI is one of them at the moment. And actually, I think you'll see the same thing in reverse, some of the technologies, whether it be cyber or maybe it will be UAVs, drones. I think you'll start to see they'll have other applications outside military.

• 36:52Harry Stebbings?

  To what extent is it, when we think about kind of amazing companies, you mentioned Anduril there. We've mentioned some other amazing ones. In the US, there is a market for them to go public. There is a liquidity market that is much more vibrant. In the UK, we have the London Stock Exchange, where a lot of people throw a lot of criticism and people choose to not list on the London Stock Exchange. To what extent do we need local domestic liquidity markets? Or are we in a global world where you can just go to Nasdaq?

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, I've thought about this a bit, actually. I, I think it's a supply problem again. The lack of like tech companies in London. There, there's only one London listed tech company worth more than 10 billion, and that is Sage. And Sage is like a 30-year-old ERP company. It's a very nice company, but it, it is a, is an output of the 20 billion a year that we pump into tech in the UK. To have one company worth $10 billion on the stock exchange is not a great outturn, really. So whilst the US has minted 20.5 trillion of value in its tech companies, we've minted about 100 billion over that period of time. So firstly, let's accept it's not good. But I think the problem is

• 38:01Speaker 00

  supply, actually, is that companies grow to a certain size, they're stunted for all sorts of reasons. Yeah, it could be quite early on, the cap table's broken, the hire the wrong people, the wrong product market focus. But it could also be lack of swinging over the fences, lack of money to swing over the fences, actually, and net result being companies just have to be sold to typically US buyers. So they never get to the point where they're into growth and they're capable of being IPO. So there's not a big pipeline of companies coming through. There could be IPO, yeah, there's a handful in fintech maybe, but apart from that, not, not very many. So, so I think it's a, it's a supply problem, actually. And I think that's why it's really important, I think, that we grow

• 38:42Speaker 00

  the amount of capital here and it's UK capital that is patient and will put the money in and we can fund the companies all the way through to eventually go in public. And then I think, I think it will be natural to list them where there's a market for them. And, and I think that could be London, it could be Nasdaq, it could be wherever is suitable for the company.

• 39:00Harry Stebbings?

  Agree. Definitely supply problem. Doesn't help if we had much, many more, much bigger companies, we wouldn't see it.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Give two other reasons. So the first is a sentiment problem. I have not spoken to anyone for months. That is positive about LSE or listing and whether it be valuation or it be perceptions about. For example, the product itself because of the stamp duty driving down liquidity. And I'm afraid these stories are kind of like SEO for our minds. We hear the story, we remember them. And there's just a negative sentiment about it. So most good companies are getting. A more kind of open to the US and they're getting courted very effectively. They have the red carpet rolled out for them. That's the first one. Sentiment problem needs to be turned around. I mean, you interviewed Julia Hoggatt.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Don't know your point of view, but the sentiment isn't great. The other one I just point out is. I think it's an easy thing to measure. That doesn't mean it's the best thing to measure. Actually, if I'm completely honest, given the choice between picking where a company's HQ is. Or where the bulk of the employees are, or where the IP is generated, or where it's listed, I'm taking the first three. They're way more valuable. I know that they're kind of interlinked. But the most important thing is where is the sort of economic driver? And where are the employees and that value creation? And so, you know, if we do have a period where the very best. UK and European companies end up listing in the US, I think that's okay.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  As long as we have a great kind of platform of big value generation here.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  And I think it'd be it'd be okay if the ownership of those companies when they go public is predominantly here in the UK. Because because I really think we've got to set a national goal here for wealth creation. I mean, the UK really, it's clear, you just look around and the country is getting poorer, really. So and we can't afford all the services that we want. So.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  What do you mean a national goal for wealth?

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Like firstly, I think tech and innovation is really the engine of economic growth here. There's no other engine that we can rely on. So it's that. And if you look at the US has created this 20 trillion of value. Over the last year, 20, 30 years in new tech companies, UK 0.1 trillion. Pro rata, we should be about four trillion, we should have created, and we've created naught point one trillion. So we're about four trillion short the way we should be. So I think we could set a goal to say, look, what if in twenty years, we set a national goal of creating four trillion of wealth in tech? That's a sort of escalating growth of values. So yeah, so let's say at year ten, the goal is about half a trillion. And thereafter, you know, we grow from that point.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  So growing half a trillion is already quite a big goal for us, given that we've only created a hundred billion right now. But it also sets the mindset for saying, what are we going to have to invest to do that? What will these companies look like? How much capital are they going to need? They're going to need about a hundred billion of capital to do that, really, realistically. And you think, okay, well, that hundred billion, where's it going to come from? Well, yeah, it's going to be something like ten billion a year is what we've got to put in additional to what we're currently doing. And that's roughly the gap in our venture. So I think, I think if you could find a way of putting more capital to work, we can end up growing that half a trillion in ten years and four trillion over twenty and fill the, fill the hole.

• 42:19Harry Stebbings?

  In terms of putting more capital to work and encouraging that, SEIS EIS has been very effective in terms of encouraging more direct investing from individuals. When I look at my cap table today or, you know, LP list today, eighty five percent of dollars, maybe ninety percent of dollars are from the US for me. And I'm so thrilled and honoured to have them, but it is slightly alarming, but I think about it that, you know, I think we'll do very well. And I think our funds will make a lot of money and all of that will go straight to the US. That doesn't thrill me for my grandparents who have pensions and my mother's got pensions and everything around us in the UK. Is there anything that could be done to unlock the huge amount of family office, corporate pension fund money to invest directly into funds?

• 43:03Harry Stebbings?

  Whether it's an SEIS for funds, an EIS for funds, because otherwise they're not fricking moving.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  I think, I think the, the BBB role I spoke about earlier, I think is critical to this actually is if you look at where the money came from in the US. You look at the distribution of where that money came from, it's pretty evenly spread across endowments and family offices and pension funds, insurance companies. So it's not just pension funds, actually, there are other sources of capital that we need to energise and create. But yeah.

• 43:28Harry Stebbings?

  We don't have, we don't have the endowment fund pool, which is a big gaping hole.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  That's true, but we do have more family offices, I think. There's a lot of old, there's a lot of old money here.

• 43:35Harry Stebbings?

  There's eleven hundred family offices in London.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Blimey.

• 43:38Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah.

• 43:39Harry Stebbings?

  I met every one of them.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Which is why I think we need an energized BBB, actually, which is creative about the structuring of deals to bring those people in to to structure them in a way that makes it easy for them to participate in this illiquid 15 year asset class, really, where the fee structure and the carriage structure works for them and works for BBB. So you'd end up with LPs that are 50%, you know, the national balance sheet and 50% UK based pension, endowment, family offices and insurance companies. So I think I think that is the job, actually, of BBB is to do that.

• 44:19Harry Stebbings?

  Spending more and more time with politicians now, and they're all just terrified of getting fired, and they're all just terrified of headline risk. And when I listen to you, I'm like, great, great. I see all this. But then I see the Daily Mail headline, which is about how your taxpayer dollars are going to fund Tom or Sarah's venture fund where they have a Porsche and a nice house in Hampstead, and the concentration of wealth on your taxpayer dollars. Do you think we're actually being reasonable by thinking we can do that? And do you share my concern around that headline risk?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  It is definitely a challenge, I think. So I definitely see the the challenge. But I actually think we've got to make the case, really, for why the UK needs to change, really. I mean, yeah, the I mean, clearly, we're not really fulfilling our potential right now. Clearly, we've got a lot more to achieve, actually. And yeah, and it's about raising everybody's sights to build this country to be the best it can be, really, is is let's build this value that is kind of missing in tech. Yeah, because it's not in any way coordinated right now. You know, this 20, 30 billion a year that we pump in at the front end per annum in tech. So like 150 billion over

• 45:36Speaker 00

  a parliament in university funding for science and tech, in SEIS, in EIS, in VCTs, in on the tax credits and patent box and and so on. All those things, you add them up, and what's coming out of the pipeline is nothing. Think really. So yeah, so there's some people are making some wealth along the way, but that's not what we want. We're not achieving a national goal, really. So I think, I think if we say, let's do this together as a country, let's build this value and let's, yeah, to energize people. It's clear to me that active money is the way to go. Passive money is not the way to go. And active money means, yeah, when things are going well, investors double down. When things are not going well, they kill it.

• 46:18Speaker 00

  So, yeah, and we've got to be courageous enough to do that, really. And that does require, I mean, VCs require OpEx cover, don't they? So you, you've got to basically fund them, really.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  I think two, two ideas that Stan's thoughts remind me of. So the first is, one of the things I admire about Sequoia is that their meeting rooms, I think, are named after their LPs. I think that's a really interesting thing to remind everyone who they're in the service of. And I think one of the challenges we have in the UK is we perhaps don't celebrate entrepreneurs as much as we might. If we were able to say to those entrepreneurs, they can tell the story about the wealth they've given back, whether it be through BBB or another vehicle. I actually think the public would see more of the value they're creating. The second story I think about is the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, extraordinary business.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  If you look at their sort of ownership at the moment, it's mind blowing. But the other thing they do is they effectively have a stock ticker. So that everyone can see in real time what that sort of national wealth is.

• 47:19Harry Stebbings?

  They have a literal stock. I interviewed him and he's literally like, you know, the happiness of the country does go up and down depending on the ticker.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Exactly. So this is all about just reminding society that actually some of these great entrepreneurs are building business in society's service. I think that's what we've lost sight of.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  We, if we, if we have this like four trillion goal, it'd be a great idea to have a national ticker as we climb our way towards it, wouldn't it?

• 47:44Speaker 03

  And I think it would glue culture and society a bit more than perhaps you have at the moment where it's perceived to be haves or have nots.

• 47:50Harry Stebbings?

  You mentioned Norway there. Norway innovated in their tax system and they seem to misunderstand that kind of models are variable. And that when you change a certain tax rate, you will see people leave. We've seen the removal of non-doms. Every single day I have friends saying, hey, I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Why are you staying? To what extent is the removal of non-doms a massive problem impacting the future of the UK?

• 48:15Speaker 03

  That I am, I think this is one of those classic cases of whether you want a sort of principled approach or a pragmatic approach. I'm a pragmatist. I do say, see the brain drain. I recognize it. And I do see that many of the people I know well that have chosen to leave have left, they were also incredible angel investors. They employed a bunch of people. And so do I think everyone should pay equal tax? Yes, in principle, but practically speaking, I would rather that talent was in the UK. I mean, I am seeing some exceptions to that. I heard about a billionaire VC who you know, I think has moved to the UK recently. You do get some movement back in the other direction, but I would take seriously, again,

• 48:58Speaker 03

  leading and lagging indicators, I would take seriously the leading indicator of some of the non-doms leaving.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it looks honestly like the, you know, one of the challenges with the UK is this, this tug of war between principles on the one side and practicality on the other. The principles have been remove non-dom status, change inheritance tax rules, change capital gain tax, put fees on private schools, and then assume that everybody's going to be happy to stay, really. I mean, yeah, that, I just think that's too much, actually. And the impulse on the system is too much and that we are shooting ourselves in the foot, really. So, yeah, so I agree with Tom that in principle, as a sort of UK taxpayer, I'd like everybody to pay the same taxes, but, but I recognize not everybody's in the same starting point. And people do come to the country with existing wealth, really.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  And it can't be fully right to then seek to tax that. So therefore, there has to be some provision for that, I think, that makes it possible for people to stay here and so on. So, and I think it's also part of this thing. Look, if we're serious about building the country to be a country that clearly wants to win, then we better fix this as well, actually.

• 50:08Harry Stebbings?

  Well, this is where like for me, like pandering Trump, Trump's pragmatism, which is like the Labour government's desire to pander to traditional left wing policies is destroying a pragmatic approach to wealth creation and wealth sustenance, because all of the things that you said, inheritance tax, cap gains, schools is bluntly Pandering to traditional left wing policy.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  And probably don't even make economic sense.

• 50:30Harry Stebbings?

  It makes absolutely zero economic sense. I mean, listen, I interviewed, can't say it live on air, but tell you afterwards, one of the most famous politicians in the country the other day, and they said, we have to get rid of the treasury. Because they do not have variable models. And so they literally have static models, which say, if you increase the tax rate to X, you will get Y.

• 50:49Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 50:50Harry Stebbings?

  They do not have any variability to what happens with import and export of anything.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Good.

• 50:56Harry Stebbings?

  And that is why their numbers say we should do this.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Oh, God, that's not good.

• 51:01Harry Stebbings?

  It's terrifying. Do you believe the multiplier effect? Because I always get the pushback. Whenever I'm on social, I'm like, listen, it is great having non-doms. They spend in restaurants. They hire people, they buy homes, they spend in shops. Do you buy it? Or do you think that actually trickle down economics is a lie that we continuously?

• 51:19Speaker 00

  There's pantry of some trickle down economics, but there is also this need for fairness as well. And I think it is just a balance that we've got to strike between the two. People that don't enjoy a privileged tax status and pay full taxes, sitting in the same restaurant as people that do enjoy privileged status, that's also not right. So, yeah, so we've got to find a balance between the two is how to, how to sort of, yeah, make it feasible for people to stay here and not be penalized, but at the same time, try to be as fair as possible as a country as a whole. Because we kind of need to hold hands together on this actually as a nation. So we need both people that have come from outside the UK and people inside the UK to feel we're on a shared mission together, really. And so that there's got to be somewhat fair at the same time.

• 52:04Speaker 00

  And I just think the balance right now is probably swung too far in the opposite direction and that we're, we're actually making it much harder to do that.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  I'm a strong believer in a sort of Keynesian multiplier effect. And just in our small world of tech, the only bit, only sort of part of the economy I know much about. I see it on a daily basis, like angel investing in GoCardless. If I look at some of the other angel investors in that business, they were non-doms, they were actually Europeans, some Americans. The founders of that business built an important. Company for London employing hundreds of people. One of the founders left and built Monzo. Another founder has left and is a VC at another firm in London. If you look at the number of senior talent in Go Cardless that has gone on to create other business.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  Amazing alumni there.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  It's an incredible multiplier effect. And so that's what we're saying. Actually, you've got to have those initial pockets of innovation and growth. And then I do think you get this real multiplier. And the good news is businesses are growing faster than they ever had before. So I think those cycles will happen quicker quicker. Previous, it might be five or 10 years that you start to see the best uh senior operators come out and build a company. Now it might be 18 months, 24 months.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Is there anything you change with SEIS and EIS? Yeah, I think a lot of these EIS funds are not very effective and VCT funds are not very effective. Why is that? I agree with you, but I don't know why. Because the quality of investment managers is quite low. And because they feel they've done a good job if they get anywhere close to just returning capital. So instead of saying, here's an investment, go swing for the fences is that you have got to say, don't lose it. Take the low risk return and and you flip the companies quickly as you can and get if I get 80 cents on the dollar back, I'm happy. And in fact, all the returns are somewhere between 80 cents and $1.20 on the dollar. I mean, it's ridiculous. So so I think those funds are freaking disaster, really. Would you get rid of them?

• 53:58Speaker 00

  I'd get rid of them, yeah. And I think there's a there's a lot wrong actually with the UK tax system that is maintaining too many zombies, I think, in the UK. Like what what? Well, the most obvious is R and D tax credits, which is deeply unpopular for me to say. Go on. But as a as a founder and a CEO, I'd never say this, by the way. But as as somebody who's not currently a VC and who's not currently running a company, I can free to say what I think is true. Which is that, you know, we we're currently investing about seven and a half billion dollars a year in R and D tax credits for SMEs in 55,000 companies per annum in the UK.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, there is no quality check, if you like, on the value that's been created there. All you have to do is. Prove that you spent the money on something you can loosely classify as R and D and you get a cheque from the government. So yeah, so this is classic helicopter money. Passive money goes to good and bad, and I think if you're going to be brutal, it either goes to companies that don't need it, or it goes to companies who shouldn't have it. But in my view, it would be much, much, much better to take that same amount of money and put it into fund of funds and put it into active venture. And that way, yeah, when things are going well, you double down. If things are not going well, you kill it really. And yeah, so we do end up tying up national talent and national treasure

• 55:22Speaker 00

  in companies that are never going to be successful globally, that limp on from year to year, living on R and D tax credits. So I'd much, I'd much rather see it in venture. I'd much rather see valuations go up actually, which I know as a VC, you're probably not very keen on hearing. But I'd much rather see that because, you know, we end up with the same dilutive effect as we get this like free money from the government every year. So by being actively managed, we get to recycle our limited amount of talent and our limited amount of capital into companies that are really going to make a difference really. That is one thing we can do.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  Right, as I said, unsurprisingly, I think tax credits are pretty important. What I hadn't thought about, because I have a sort of biased view of just higher growth companies at the early stage of their life, where you're investing in the future. I like, in the same way as I like your point about E I S and E S E I S, because I just think about angel investors.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Angel investors, I think it makes sense, yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  But like to your point, actually, just on the R and D tax credit, what I don't see is these kind of zombie companies that have been claiming it for a decade and actually aren't necessarily building for the future. So maybe we should start to take into account time, like they do in the US with capital gains tax, and start to actually maybe taper off R and D tax credits to avoid what you're describing.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're running at roughly two X the rate of the US. So I think if you look at four big differences between the US and the UK. One is the attention to talent and the need to sort of keep people in the country. The second is the quality of mentoring very early stage needs to be ratcheted up a lot higher. And it can be, I think, it just needs more coordination. The third is the excess of props in the UK for companies that are not making it that limp on forever. And the fourth is the massive shortfall, which again, I don't feel I've got quite the agreement expected. A massive shortfall in capital that I think we just need here, actually, we need to really, we need to flood the UK with venture capital. That's what we need.

• 57:19Harry Stebbings?

  My takeaway from this show is that we just need to put Stan in for the BBB lead and just let him run it. I mean, that's, that's.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  Not sure of a banker, to be honest.

• 57:28Harry Stebbings?

  I think you'd do a brilliant job.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  You're qualified, you're hired.

• 57:32Harry Stebbings?

  Literally, just saying. You mentioned the mentoring there and you said there are ways that we could do it. How do you think we could do it and increase that level of mentoring? I agree with you.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  And one of the things we do is just whenever I think we're making investment, we will bring in often other founders from our network, people that we've worked with before. And the value add from those people, partly because they've got experience, partly because they're paying it forward, is unbelievable. So.

• 57:54Harry Stebbings?

  I totally agree. I always say to founders, like, never have a minimum check size for amazing angels. Some who can only do 5K or, I mean, some are 1K and you can do that with angelless syndicates. Like, it's just as valuable and often they'll give more because it means more to them. And so I really always push on that. Obviously, we have Project Europe now and I spend a lot of time with Kitty, the CEO.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  Congrats.

• 58:15Harry Stebbings?

  Thank you.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  We love it.

• 58:17Harry Stebbings?

  That is very kind. I'm so pleased that you're in it, Stan. You're not allowed.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Tom's, Tom can't be in it.

• 58:23Harry Stebbings?

  No, he's not.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  It's not stopped him asking me about it for a year.

• 58:27Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, yeah, Tom's heard it all. My question to you is Kitty always tells me that the biggest enemy of talent in the UK is quant funds. And I was like, and she goes, yeah, quant funds, they go to the universities. Maybe, maybe this is a private conversation and Kitty's going to kill me, but let's roll with it. Quant funds go to universities, they source the best talent and they throw 250K at them straight away. So the best engineering talent is just going straight to quant funds and quant funds are much better recruiters than anyone else.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  How many people work in quant funds though? Is it, is it a big number? A member of our family works at a quant fund, actually, and who's paid a lot of money, I think, to do something very similar. So, but they can't.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Be that many people, so it can't be the biggest drain on talent.

• 59:09Harry Stebbings?

  Maybe not, but probably a thousand, which is two years of full computer science and robotics graduates, which is quite a lot. I mean, a thousand more in the ecosystem would probably be a pretty significant move.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  There's definitely competition from that for this, from the smartest quants. I think one of our jobs is to make startups even more appealing, celebrate the successes, actually show the alternative. I think E I A, like the sort of entrepreneur relief is a wonderful example of something that can maybe tip that balance because often the economics from a quant fund are income tax. So I think things can be done.

• 59:44Harry Stebbings?

  What would you do with entrepreneur relief to make championing entrepreneurship better?

• 59:47Speaker 03

  I'd, I'd expand it. Um.

• 59:50Speaker 00

  It's what it's limited to like a million quid or something.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, from it was taken was down, exactly, uh, which to me, given the amount of time and effort that people are spending, I understand that.

• 1:00:00Harry Stebbings?

  For those who don't know, entrepreneur relief is what and what does it mean?

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Entrepreneur relief is the ability for you to get preferable track tax treatment if you've grown a company. And I actually think the idea of making for entrepreneurs capital gains exempt uh, would maybe tip that balance when you're comparing against quant funds, if that's a competition.

• 1:00:19Harry Stebbings?

  I do just want to touch on the wider world around us in two ways. One is the US and the other is China. Again, this wonderful politician that I interviewed the other day said, ah, you know what? We were an afterthought for the US and now we're not even that. In a wider world perspective, what does not even being an afterthought mean for us and what we need to do?

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  We do actually have, as Tom was saying, universities that are global grade universities. I mean, Cambridge is not that different to Stanford. It may be a little bit smaller, a bit, a bit less funded, but the quality of research that we're doing here is as good. So we, so there is raw talent here. I do think London is a really great city, probably the best city this side of the, of the Atlantic and arguably the best city in the world actually to do this. So, so, so I think it's a great place.

• 1:01:07Harry Stebbings?

  Do you not think London's got worse? Everyone says the crime, the lack of public services or the poor quality of public services. I think London will revert back to London in seventies, which is grim, it's gloomy, it's no growth.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  Well, it could if we let it, but um yeah, I I think it's it's it's possibly not as shiny and as smart as it was. But I I actually still think it's a pretty good city, actually, and there's lots of good things to like about London.

• 1:01:31Harry Stebbings?

  Are you concerned that Labour will let it get to that deplorable state in the next four years?

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  I don't think they will, but I would like to see them move more quickly on policy changes and action than they're currently doing. That's certainly true, but I think they will listen and change, actually. So I'm optimistic about our ability to get change.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  I think London's a special place and I feel lucky if I compare living here to other places. Just it's the sort of multiculturalism, the diversity, but actually just it's an interesting place to live. The fact that I can jump on a Lime bike, come over to do this in the afternoon. I could have a meeting at number ten shortly thereafter. I could go to the European headquarters of a big brand. I could do that all on a Lime bike. It would take five hour flights to do it between those stakeholders in the US. So actually, that proximity effect, I think, adds a real richness to life. So does it have its challenges? Yes, but there's an incredible pool of talent. So I think the kind of petri dish for continued growth is there.

• 1:02:34Harry Stebbings?

  My word, if that's a standard afternoon, you're a very important person. I'm huge, it's great. I just pop down to number ten, I pop down to like a global CEO.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  Only sightseeing.

• 1:02:43Harry Stebbings?

  I'm like, wow, that's a.

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  I was mainly sightseeing.

• 1:02:46Harry Stebbings?

  God, I just bet he managed to get through the emails.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  Well, Lime bike is, Lime bikes is actually a portfolio company, so I'm just driving up the revenue.

• 1:02:53Harry Stebbings?

  Ah, yeah.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Just constantly cycling around on it.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  It's an advert.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I'm going to expense it to your show.

• 1:02:59Harry Stebbings?

  Thank you so much. I'm going to get Brad to sponsor it.

• 1:03:03Harry Stebbings?

  That's amazing. Uh, final one before a quick fire. China is changing faster than ever. Tom, you said before when we were walking around the block that China is the thing that you've changed your mind on.

• 1:03:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've changed my mind on China a lot, so I think strategically they're in an amazing position. For the obvious reason, which I think actually uh more countries are more open minded to working with them, given what's happening in the world. But I think there's a less obvious reason, and that is partly as a result of deep sea. But more broadly, we've learnt a lesson in the last twelve months, and that is that actually foundation models can be distilled relatively quickly. When I was on your show last time, I talked about how foundation models were sort of going to be the fastest depreciating assets in human history, like weeks, it's almost days now. And so if you live in a world where the foundation models commoditizing really quickly, then you say, where does the value accrue?

• 1:03:56Speaker 03

  And I think the value accrues at the application layer. So we're investing in companies like Synthesia in London or Harvey in the US at the application layer. And then I actually think it accrues to in hardware as well. And if I look at hardware, China is so much better than the rest of the world at manufacturing and hardware and value add. And I think those devices are actually going to be the conduit for commoditized AI. So in that world, I've probably gone from thinking, been excited about the US dominance on foundation models to some extent, to thinking, actually, maybe the value is going to accrue also in the hardware layer. And that's somewhere that I think we're playing catch up.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think I completely agree with that, actually. I think actually it's the hardware layer is just sitting just above the semiconductor layer. And actually, I think the one that we can play in is the semiconductor layer. But I do agree with you. I think China is in a really good position. Partly because it has done this like very significant continuous investment in startups and in venture over the last like twenty years. And as a result, if you look at a, if you look at a blob chart, if you like, of what investment is going into AI and you colour code it for US, you colour code it for China, you colour code it for Europe. It's basically US and China and these tiny little dots of Europe, actually. And so, I mean, Europe is really missing. So it is kind of US with China sort of chasing its tail, actually.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  And but I also think the sort of geopolitics of America trying to dislocate itself from the rest of the world will put China in a much better position, actually, as well geopolitically. So I think Europeans are going to be much more open to, to working with Chinese companies and doing business in China than they were even a year ago, actually. So I do think, I do think things are changing and it's probably not good for the US, actually, but that's what I think is happening.

• 1:05:44Speaker 03

  Do you think we should be open to doing business with them?

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  I do actually, yeah. I mean, I I've sold a company to Huawei, actually. So I spent about, I only spent about a month working for them, I have to say, because they didn't give me authority to buy a box of pencils after they bought the company. So it was, it was.

• 1:06:00Harry Stebbings?

  But this is a country that doesn't allow our companies in there. They put their companies in ours. They acquire data on all of our consumers. We don't know where it goes. Every single piece of data that a Chinese company has, the Chinese government has authority to acquire at will.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, all that's probably true, but but also they are commercial as well. So you can do business in China. So when I ran this chip company, Isera, actually, our biggest customers were in China. So our biggest customers were Huawei and ZTE. And yeah, and it was easier to get them to do a deal with you, to sell product to them than it was a kind of US company or a European company. Because they, you had to negotiate pretty hard on price and stuff. But nevertheless, they were willing to engage. And we built some really good relationships with them. And at a personal level, I think people are actually pretty decent people. And yeah, I think that you can do business with them.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  The Chinese state is something different, obviously be wary of. But but I think I think there's a lot of scope actually for us to to do a lot more business in China than we're currently doing.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Do you agree? If I look at the talent, the areas that they have decided to focus on, they're all important. Battery technology, BYD is a force to be reckoned with, DJI is a force to be reckoned with. If I look at DeepSeek and the.

• 1:07:16Harry Stebbings?

  But you know, sorry, you mentioned BYD. Do you not worry about the Chinese subsidization of their car industry and what it's doing to the European car markets? I mean, the German car market is being destroyed by BYD and Chinese cars. And it's because the Chinese government are subsidizing between 20 and 30% of their car production. It feels a little bit unfair.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  It's certainly cornered the market in some of the rare materials and industry of the batteries and so on. And I think it's got scale and it's got ability to compete really. So so in that sense. But I mean, the German car industry has got other challenges. So one of the other businesses I sold was to to Bosch, actually. And so I'm sort of vaguely aware of what it's like working in a large German company. And yeah, they they have their own challenges and they're not.

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Could you buy your own pencils, though?

• 1:07:55Speaker 00

  Not really. I've started a lot more pencils for a while.

• 1:07:57Harry Stebbings?

  He's just waiting for the fourth acquirer so he can buy a rubber.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  I love stationery, yeah.

• 1:08:04Harry Stebbings?

  Listen guys, I want to move into a quick fire. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. That sound okay? Yeah. Stan, what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  Things like R and D tax credits ought to be curtailed and we should put the money into a lot more venture is the, is a really unpopular thought actually, but I still think is right.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  Mine would be, I think I keep hearing people talking about the first one person billion dollar business is already created. I think that's absolutely ridiculous. On the one hand, companies are growing faster and more efficiently than ever, like bold dot new forty million dollars revenue run rate in three months. They're going to grow incredibly quickly, but I think we've seen distillation of foundation models. We're going to start to see distillation of business models, businesses. And so I would expect these really successful businesses to get copied ridiculously quickly. So I think this idea that you're going to have a sort of moat that enables one person to deliver billion dollars of revenue a year is a myth.

• 1:09:01Harry Stebbings?

  What is the distribution of value in the foundational model landscape in five years?

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  My big one here is that I've changed my mind. I thought OpenAI was a foundation model company. I now think it's a consumer company. So a twelve billion dollar run rate or something. So my thought here would be it's going to aggregate to the application layer. And brand is really important. They signed up a million chat GPT users in an hour last week it was announced. Brand is incredibly important. The application layer is important. And then I think hardware, as I mentioned, is important. This is one of the things, reasons we invested in nothing. We believe they've got seven million devices out there that are potentially conduits for their AI.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, I think that might be right, Tom, that the value is going to be balanced up in the application layer. But I also think the hardware and semiconductor layer below, it's all plausible because L L M's are not the end of the story here in AI. Yeah. So there are some, obviously some big limitations on what L L M's are going to be able to do. So there's more innovation to come and that's going to change. Models, it's going to change the math that we've got to do and so on. But some of the things that are going to be concept, we, we're still going to be doing very.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Large matrix vector multipliers at high speed in silicon. And I think, yeah, that's the sort of thing I think we can build competitive long term advantage in here. So I think that we'd be value accruing even more value accruing to competitors to say Nvidia, I think will be big. And I think at the application layer, exactly as you say, I think, yeah, there'll be value accruing there.

• 1:10:33Harry Stebbings?

  And how about inference at the edge as well? I mean, that's something you understand better than me, but they're lighter, these models, more and more could happen on device.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. I mean, yeah, but with that is coming a lot more sort of chain of thought reasoning, a lot more test time compute. So the the token generation is still going up actually. So I still think there's going to be a large amount of silicon required to be able to do sort of high performance inference, even at the edge, actually. So so there's a lot of scope, I think, in inference. I think the investment in inference has grown like fifty seven times in the last year. That that rate will probably continue for a while.

• 1:11:09Harry Stebbings?

  You know what I just can't get? I can't get how if we all appreciate the shift in focus from training to inference, how Jensen and Nvidia are just sitting there going, ah, well, we're going to get screwed because actually our architecture means that we're not optimized for inference. That is not happening. Jensen does not just say, oh, fine, we'll just enjoy the training era while it lasts. Help me understand, why am I missing this?

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  They are making a bunch of architectural changes to GPUs to make them better and better inference. So there is a lot of architectural change going on there. It's obviously not a big surprise to see if we saw Jensen starting to adopt and reinvent himself as a in memory compute company. I mean, that wouldn't really surprise me actually that he he'll be working on that. So whether he does that organically internally or he does it through some sort of acquisition, it remains to be seen really. But but I think that it's certainly it's certainly likely that, you know, he's got the resource and he's got the cash to be able to sort of move the organization or build an organization in pretty much any area he wants. And one thing about Jensen, as I spent about a year and a half working for him, is he he he's definitely paying attention to and listening to the market and he's got very big ears and tracks what's happening with enormous study.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  So I I do think we've got to expect them to be tracking in the direction towards being more efficient at inference.

• 1:12:33Harry Stebbings?

  What's your biggest takeaway from working with Jensen?

• 1:12:36Speaker 00

  Well firstly, he's a good human. So that's good, I think, that we've got, you know, one of the world's richest people is actually, I think, a good person. He is, however, a bit of a control freak. Many would be the time we're just about to give a sort of presentation to a major customer and Jensen wants to go to the deck and will change product name, schedule, pricing and resources and everything on the fly, like with like 10 minutes to spare before the meeting. So he's quite hard to work for in terms of his desire to have command of detail and to be in control of the most important variables in the company.

• 1:13:16Speaker 00

  But in a way, as a sort of founder, I do sort of respect that, actually. It's just, so within Nvidia, we used to have a Jensen at the top, we had a layer of people whose job was to buffer everybody else in the company, actually. And so this buffer layer would deal with Jensen, which is great.

• 1:13:32Harry Stebbings?

  Human shield.

• 1:13:33Speaker 00

  A human shield. And the people below the can actually get on with stuff, actually. But obviously, I like the guy and he's an incredible communicator.

• 1:13:41Harry Stebbings?

  We always hear of his, I don't have direct, you know, the direct reports, I have so many of like 50 or 60. And it sounds great when you hear him say it, but the 50 or 60, we never hear from them. Is it good for them?

• 1:13:55Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, it's, I mean, it is a sort of, it's a brutal culture, I'd say.

• 1:14:01Harry Stebbings?

  Is it?

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. Yeah. But i- i- in a way that is not malevolent. So if it's possible to imagine. So, yeah, so he will tear people apart in public on stuff that they've not got command of, or he thinks they're wrong about. And he will rip them to shreds and leave them whimpering in the corner to lick their wounds. But I think he, I think he then sort of forgets it and hopes that the exercise will have resulted in some improvement in the way the person thinks and acts and so on. So so that, yeah, so that it's not, it's not for everybody, that that style of management. But honestly, you've got to admit, it's worked. So he's, he has done an amazing job.

• 1:14:46Harry Stebbings?

  Would you buy OpenAI at three hundred billion?

• 1:14:48Speaker 00

  Yes, no.

• 1:14:50Harry Stebbings?

  Why yes, why no?

• 1:14:51Speaker 03

  I think if you look at it as a consumer business, it has extraordinary momentum. And it's only just started integrating moats. So historically, there's been no switching cost, one of the most important powers of a business. But now people have started using it. I actually think the memory is helping people stick. So if I just look anecdotally at my kids at school, for them, L L Ms are ChatGPT. So they're very well placed. Now, do I think?

• 1:15:16Harry Stebbings?

  And for my mother on the other end of the age spectrum, same thing.

• 1:15:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:20Harry Stebbings?

  They own brand.

• 1:15:20Speaker 03

  So it's incredibly powerful. It doesn't mean I think it's the best gen AI investment. But if I was sitting independently, do I think it's a good investment now when your downside is somewhat protected? And they're at a twelve billion dollar run rate. Let's say it's a twenty times forward multiple. I think it's a reasonable place to put money.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I I think a lot of the demand on these foundation models is going to be through APIs by application software. That are basically sort of those APIs are going to be driven by latency and performance of the model and so on. And things like Claude are as good, if not better than OpenAI's models. And that, given this demand will of agents that are basically calling APIs will be driving a lot of demand here. It's it's not obvious to me that the consumer chat interface is the winning interface, really. It seems to me that the API interface and the application calling agent calling might be a bigger interface. So I'd probably put the money elsewhere.

• 1:16:20Harry Stebbings?

  Both good answers.

• 1:16:21Speaker 03

  Would you?

• 1:16:22Harry Stebbings?

  I would. I I always love businesses where everyone thinks it's kind of reaching the top. And then actually, it's just actually reaching escape velocity. I think the same with actually Revolut right now, whereas like people think forty five billion or sixty billion New York is pricey. I would buy the shit out of Revolut right now. But I totally agree with you in terms of just introducing the moats and the memory, I think, is so important. You go back to where they remember what you did past. I'm always doing past searches. And actually, I do. It's so funny. For every single show, I put the prompt in to Grok, Poplacity, OpenAI. You can buy and hold one pub public stock for ten years. Which one?

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  I mean, I I'm so concentrated in. Tech, I'll avoid tech stocks and say uranium ETF.

• 1:17:00Harry Stebbings?

  I've never had that before.

• 1:17:02Speaker 03

  I have concerns about costs of energy for productivity. I think climate change is real. I think the best source of energy going forward is nuclear fusion and potentially fishing. And SMRs are going to be important. I think it's the predictable cleanest energy source we have. I'm not betting on one individual company. That's difficult to do. So I think if I take an ETF in uranium, I might enjoy the upside of the market because it will be needed.

• 1:17:31Harry Stebbings?

  What's your stand?

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I probably would avoid tech as well, actually. Same reason, probably Rolls Royce, actually, because I do think defence is going to be a big kicker in terms of demand. So the air engine business and I mean, it's actually gone like a rocket this year anyway, that stock. I mean, this is on my three X this year, but I actually think we're at the beginning of a journey and I think it could be much bigger. Cause as a European air engine vendor, I think it's going to see high demand, actually.

• 1:17:57Harry Stebbings?

  You can snap your fingers and change one thing about the UK tech ecosystem. What would you change?

• 1:18:02Speaker 00

  Flood it with venture capital. I mean, seriously, I think that's the, yeah, the thing that will, the one lever that we can pull that will make a big difference is that. Everything else will take time and stuff, but I, but I do think a lot flows from capital availability.

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  I love that. I would say sentiment at the moment. I think there's more, this question is being asked so much, it becomes a drag.

• 1:18:25Harry Stebbings?

  What's the most under invested but exciting area today?

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, Tom, you do this for a living.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  I, I'll go hardware. I think if you take a hardware company out to market, the people, investors, immediate response is, oh, that's really hard. But the paradox about venture capital is you need it to be difficult to be valuable. You need to be contrarian and right. And I think hardware is a place you can do that at the moment. A huge amount of value will accrue there.

• 1:18:52Speaker 00

  I'd go the level below semis. I think semiconductors that fit into the hardware that Tom's talking about.

• 1:18:58Harry Stebbings?

  Which politician do you most respect and admire and why?

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  Lee Kuan Yew, specialisation.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I'm going to stick to the UK. So at the moment, I'd say none of the current government really fill me with enormous enthusiasm. I think Patrick Vallance is a useful guy who's trying his best to sort of make an impact on the UK. So I think, but he's not really a politician. I do think in the in the current government, Darren Jones, I think, has got the potential to be great.

• 1:19:28Harry Stebbings?

  Final one, guys. Ten years' time. Where is the UK, one? And how many $10 billion companies will we have on the LSE then?

• 1:19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I think we will get the UK pointing in the right direction. I think it will require some government embracing of the challenge and a lot more communication by government on what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. I think we're approaching a point, we're about a year into this current government, four years to go to the next election, things have not gone well. And I think we're approaching a point when they've got to recognize a change and make some changes. And I think we are going to see some changes that will be positive. And assuming that happens, I think in in 10 years' time, I think we will be on, we will have achieved this $500

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  billion valuation in tech, and the UK will be seen as the magnet in Europe in which people come to kind of build these companies. So that's what I think we're going to achieve.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  So I'm an optimist. I think sometimes the best companies grow from adversity, partly because of the concentration of talent. They'll just aggregate more than they have. So I don't know, 1999, was it Salesforce? And then you have Airbnb and Uber in 2008. I think we'll look back, and the companies that are most impactful in the decade will have grown in the UK, and they won't be names we know today, because these companies are growing faster than ever. So they'll be AI-native, incredibly fast-growing businesses, and it's not clear to me they'll list at all. If you look at the trend direction there, we spent a lot of time assuming listing makes sense. But some of our best portfolio companies like Stripe aren't listing anytime

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  soon, and they're finding ways to deliver liquidity. So I wonder whether we'll even be talking about whether they did or didn't list in the UK.

• 1:21:21Harry Stebbings?

  God, that's opening up a can of worms. I mean, I could spend another two hours on that, but I cannot thank you both enough for joining me. It's been such a fantastic discussion. Honestly, there were two people that I most wanted being you two because I think it's such a different perspective you both bring. So thank you so much for doing it. Thanks for inviting us. We've enjoyed it. Loved it. Really fun. Thanks a lot.

• 1:21:40Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, that was such a special show for me to do. If you want to watch the episode, you can find it on YouTube by searching for 20 VC. I also want your feedback. Let me know what you think of having three together in the studio. I really want to do more of them. And so if you like them, let me know and we'll make sure they happen. But before we leave you today, here are two fun facts about our newest brand sponsor, Kajabi. First, their customers just crossed a collective $8 billion in total revenue. Wow. Second, Kajabi's users keep 100% of their earnings, with the average Kajabi creator bringing in over $30,000 per year. In case you didn't know, Kajabi is the leading creator commerce platform with an all-in-one suite of tools, including websites, email marketing, digital products, payment processing,

• 1:22:23Harry Stebbings?

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• 1:23:06Harry Stebbings?

  how I work, tools that don't just save time but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what AlphaSense does. With the acquisition of Tegus, AlphaSense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust, fast. I've used Tegus before for company deep dives right here on the podcast. It's been an incredible resource for expert insights. But now with AlphaSense leading the way, it combines those insights... Insights with premium content, top broker research and cutting edge generative AI. The result, a platform that works like a supercharged junior analyst, delivering trusted insights and analysis on demand. AlphaSense has completely reimagined fundamental research, helping you uncover opportunities from perspectives you didn't even know how they existed.

• 1:23:50Harry Stebbings?

  It's faster, it's smarter, and it's built to give you the edge in every decision you make. 20 VC listeners, don't miss your chance to try AlphaSense for free. Visit alphasense.com/20 to unlock your trial. That's alphasense.com/20. And once you've got the insights from AlphaSense, you're going to need a bank that actually moves as fast as you do. Well, that's where Mercury comes in. Mercury is changing how businesses think about banking. Just listen to Bryce Ferguson, the founder of Turnkey.com, which builds secure, flexible and scalable crypto wallet infrastructure and is a 20 VC portfolio company. So he says, "Mercury's spoiled us. There's no going back to a regular bank account after being with Mercury because everything just feels so easy and intuitive.

• 1:24:33Harry Stebbings?

  It saves our team a ton of time from sending wires to paying bills, creating reports. Mercury has simplified our banking no end. Visit mercury.com to see for yourself how our powerful bank account can transform your business operating." Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust, members of the FDIC.