Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett E49: Dame Stephanie Shirley - Escaping Nazi Germany and Making £2.3bn About this episode In this week's episode of The Diary of a CEO, I chat to Dame Stephanie Shirley also known as "Steve". At the age of 5, Steve fled from Nazi persecution in her hometown of Dortmund and arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport, luckily escaping the...
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:10 Steven Bartlett? I really don't know where to start. Do you know what? I genuinely believe the story you're going to hear today, if you choose to listen, might just be one of the most mind-blowing, remarkable business stories that I think I'll probably ever get to tell. My guest today is nothing short of astonishing. And you know, when I do these intros, of course, my job is to market this podcast so that you listen. But I think this is more me begging you to listen because in all my years in business, I've not heard a story quite like this. Today's guest is Dame Stephanie Shirley. She fled a Nazi regime at five years old and came to the UK with absolutely no family, no friends, no parents, no nothing. And one might expect someone in that circumstance
0:55 Steven Bartlett? to fall by the wayside. But Stephanie had other plans. With just six pounds in her pocket, she founded a female-first software company, which was ahead of its time in almost every respect. It allowed its 90% female workforce to work flexibly from home. It pioneered software that would change the world. And all of this in a male-dominated world that was the 1960s. Stephanie's company became a multi-billion dollar company. I'm not sure if you're hearing me. A multi-billion dollar company, right? And she founded this company in the 1960s when women weren't even allowed to establish a company without their husband's signature. The company is a software company, again, a heavily male-dominated industry, and it was sold for 2.3 billion pounds.
1:40 Steven Bartlett? She might just be the most successful female entrepreneur this country has ever seen. And she's now 86 years old. So I travelled across the country to go and meet her at her home in Henley, to sit down with her and uncover her truth, to peer into her diary and to ask her the things that we all want to know. Wow. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
2:17 Steven Bartlett? Dame Stephanie Shirley, I think the first question I have to ask you because of a few things that I read online is, what do you want to be called today?
2:26 Speaker 01 Ah, well, I'm always called Dame Stephanie if you're prepared to do a bow or curtsy if you're down. But if you're not prepared to do that, then you just call me Steve.
2:36 Steven Bartlett? Steve.
2:37 Speaker 01 And I've been called Steve for many, many years, simply because Stephanie didn't get any appointments when I wrote letters under the name of Stephanie. Nobody wanted to see me. Because I date from the days when women were not expected to do serious things, perhaps run a little cat shop or something like that. But in the 50s and 60s, women were not expected to run a financial services company or a software house or anything really what I call serious business.
3:05 Steven Bartlett? Your story is tremendous and it goes back, you know, a long way. So I didn't know where the best place to start would be. And typically with with the guests that we have on this podcast, I kind of have an idea of where the most relevant or pertinent place to start is. But with you, I wanted you to tell me where where your story should start and what the sort of most relevant beginning is.
3:28 Speaker 01 Well, the film that's being made of my book is focused very much on the years in business. And there were 40 of those. But especially in the early days, it was predominantly female oriented. It was a policy to use female. It was one of the earliest high tech companies set up in 1962. And then if we talk about, you know, if we think about what motivates me to work in the way that I do, because work is not just something I do when I'd rather be doing something else. I love my work and I think you do as well. And it's simply that that workaholism, and I know it's not fashionable to talk about that
4:11 Speaker 01 any these days, but really that dates from my traumatic childhood. And that has motivated me, because my life was saved from the Holocaust, really motivated me today as it was 70, 80 years ago to.
4:29 Speaker 01 Make sure that mine was a life that was worth saving. So the Kindertransport, which was the rescue mission that that brought me out of Nazi Europe, is still current as far as I'm concerned, because it's what drives me. What can I do today? What can I, what is it that I can offer at my age with my skills to make the world a better place?
4:55 Steven Bartlett? And was that the, the reason what, because again, I'm, so a lot of the things I'm going to say are incredibly naive, right? For obvious reasons, because, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I was born in ninety two. And going back to the very start of your entrepreneurial endeavors, was the reason you started your business because of that? Because you felt that you needed to do something with your life that because it was saved? Or was it because you saw a problem in the world that you felt you could solve?
5:25 Speaker 01 It was very much a feminist issue, that I'd been patronized as a Jew. And I was not going to be patronized as a woman. And at that time, women were not allowed legally to do certain things. You couldn't work on the stock exchange. You couldn't take out a hire purchase agreement. You couldn't drive a bus or fly an aeroplane. And I couldn't even open the company's bank account without getting my husband's signature. You needed male authorization. So women were very much second-class citizens. And I began to get very fed up with that and was really battling for equal pay and, and opportunities and fighting to be allowed to do what I wanted to do. So that was the original motivation. It was very much for women.
6:10 Speaker 01 It was a social business. I did not go into business to make money. I went into business to offer opportunities for women.
6:17 Steven Bartlett? And, and why you though? Because.
6:21 Speaker 01 Why not me? I mean, that's the, the classic question, Stephen.
6:24 Steven Bartlett? I, I, the reason I ask that question is I'm like, so many people were exist, existed in that same environment of, of, you know, gender oppression, shall I say? I'm trying to understand why it was you that took on that fight and why you felt you had the confidence to take on.
6:39 Speaker 01 Well, maybe it is something to do with with the Kinder Transport story. Um. Because there's a high proportion of um British companies, at least something like seven percent are founded by immigrants.
6:53 Steven Bartlett? Um hum.
6:53 Speaker 01 And you think, why should that be? And it's partly because um we're subject to discrimination, perhaps. Partly because we can bring something from our from one country to another with a higher possibility of success. But also, I think, because we've become very cussid driven people. And that with the thought that if somebody says no, the more they say no, I want to do it, the more I want to do it.
7:19 Steven Bartlett? Um. And I I heard that you were, um, I read that you were uh adopted from your.
7:25 Speaker 01 Fostered.
7:25 Steven Bartlett? Fostered from your biological parents. Wha- what role did that, do you think, that uh event played in your later life? Uh uh uh and also your entrepreneurial um journey?
7:36 Speaker 01 Well, in my later life, um, the Holocaust is is slipping from human memory. So in the last few years, I've tried to do more about talking about national on National Holocaust Memorial Day and things like that. But I'm not Jewish in culture. I've lost anything that ever was um Jewish in my family. And I'm really the child of my foster parents in all but birth.
8:00 Steven Bartlett? Um hum.
8:00 Speaker 01 And so I'm pretty traditionally English. Um, I'm a very.
8:07 Speaker 01 I'm a patriot. I really love this country with um passion that perhaps only someone who has lost their human rights can feel. Um. And that is a driver for me.
8:19 Steven Bartlett? Um hum. And in those early days, I I. It almost boggles my mind, you know, because in in my industry, in the technology industry, in the social media industry, there there's all there's still conversations around how hard it is for women to break through.
8:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:35 Steven Bartlett? I mean, if you look at the the, you know, the the boards of the big sort of tech technology firms, it's still.
8:40 Speaker 01 Pathetic.
8:41 Steven Bartlett? Completely dominated by. By men, so I it boggles my mind how how hard it must have been.
8:46 Speaker 01 It was a very young industry. I mean, I think it was a virgin territory. So that in the early days, women during the war, for example, World War Two, um, were working in coding at Bletchley Park, which was the pre-runner of software as I know it. Um, and it was a very vibrant industry. Um, the excitement would would would look banal to you. We got excited because we got a photocopier, a photocopy, and it printed white on black, you know. Um, everything was so different and and software was given away free with the hardware. So the idea of of writing software and then selling it was quite alien.
9:30 Speaker 01 So we were breaking new ground and that really drove us.
9:34 Steven Bartlett? Hmm. What was the outside impression of um of you as a as a as a female founder?
9:40 Speaker 01 People laughed, they really did. Um, they laughed at my crusade for women. Um, they laughed at the idea of selling software. It's free. Can you sell air, you know? Um, and it I that in a way that again, I I'm a very proud person and I didn't want to be ridiculed. And when things got really tough, where somebody else might have given up. Um, I knew that my success opened the door for a lot of other women.
10:12 Steven Bartlett? Hmm.
10:12 Speaker 01 And within a few years, we got three hundred staff, um, two hundred and ninety seven of whom were women. You know, it was very much a crusade. And that lasted um until nineteen seventy five, when equal opportunities legislation came in in this country. And it was not um legal to have a pro-female policy. And so my woman's company had to let the men in.
10:39 Steven Bartlett? And you started with, I read, six pounds.
10:41 Speaker 01 Yes. But I it was financed by my own labour. You know, for years I didn't draw even expenses. Um. So it was a very slow burn.
10:52 Steven Bartlett? It's almost uh hard to fathom how, because of the entrepreneurial world that I've grown up into, where you raise millions and millions of pounds and, you know, you before you've got a profit or really a a product that fits the market and you inflate the team and then the hope is to sell it within three years or something.
11:11 Speaker 01 No, no, no, I definitely wanted to build, not a corporation, but I wanted to build this culture, the sort of um organisation that I wanted to work in, that I wanted to live in, that I thought was right for people in a holistic way.
11:25 Steven Bartlett? And what do you think of the the world of work today?
11:30 Speaker 01 Well, I'm surprised it hasn't changed more, um because some of the things that I was doing about uh uh job shares, um about co-ownership, um about paying people with a cafeteria benefits, uh about real um opportunities, about team working, um these things are still being talked about. And I was doing it fifty years ago. So I, in a way, I'm disappointed that it hasn't moved faster, but it's moving in the right direction at least.
12:04 Steven Bartlett? And so so what happened to your business then? You you started that business um and then it was it twenty twenty years? From from when you you founded the business to when it sold or was acquired?
12:14 Speaker 01 No, forty forty five years.
12:15 Steven Bartlett? Forty five years.
12:16 Speaker 01 It's a long history. So it's quite different. I mean, it employed eight and a half thousand people when it was acquired. Um. A quarter owned by the staff. So I was doing lots of things in an entrepreneurial way, like getting it into share ownership, um getting share ownership embedded into the organisation. And that really underlined the sort of rather collegiate way of working that we always had. Because with our female start, we worked as teams, we worked multitasking, we worked, we we liked each other. We may not have been in the same office because we all worked from home, but we liked each other. We were friends. It was a team. We were going to do it.
12:58 Steven Bartlett? You worked from home?
12:59 Speaker 01 Yes, all of us. I still work from home.
13:02 Steven Bartlett? It's really, uh, this is becoming popular now.
13:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:04 Steven Bartlett? The model of remote working.
13:06 Speaker 01 But I mean, that's what I T allows you to do. We had in our application forms, which were fairly traditional. But it, we actually asked, do you have access to a telephone? Not do you have a telephone, you have access. It was a different world. But the skills that we used were intellectual skills, code, coding skills, pattern recognition skills and people's skills.
13:30 Steven Bartlett? And did you teach yourself to code?
13:32 Speaker 01 Yes, the was before the days of coding books.
13:36 Steven Bartlett? Hmm.
13:38 Steven Bartlett? It's really, really fascinating. It's almost, it's, it's.
13:40 Speaker 01 It's only one generation back. It's if we forget everything that was revolutionary in my time, you take for granted. What you're doing now will be thing, thought of as quite naive in fifty years' time.
13:54 Steven Bartlett? Sure. And, and it's, it's really fascinating because of the industry. And it's such a male, you know, Silicon Valley, if you go to Silicon Valley, it's such a male dominated place typically. And technology as a, as a pursuit is so male dominated to, so. The, the, the prospect or the thought of being able to create a, in a company worth what billions? Um, from, from that era, which was, um.
14:19 Speaker 01 We finished up at two point eight million dollars.
14:22 Steven Bartlett? Blimey, it's a lot of money.
14:23 Speaker 01 Hmm.
14:24 Steven Bartlett? What do you do with that much money? Like, I mean, I, you know.
14:27 Speaker 01 I'm glad you asked that.
14:29 Steven Bartlett? No, I mean, like, so, so this is normally a question I, I come to a bit later on, but. What has been the, the impact of financial, uh, re, not even financial, that much financial, um, wealth on you? In terms of happiness and possibilities and.
14:47 Speaker 01 I don't think wealth in any way is correlated with happiness. What, what it gives you that is pleasant is choice, choice of how to live. And I. Think I've kept my feet on the ground because a lot of wealthy people start living at a different level and are still worried about money because can they afford a bigger yacht or whatever it is. To me, my feet was kept on the ground because our only child was learning disabled. And so there were a lot of things we couldn't do if we were going to have a family life with him. And it was quite clear that that's what both of us wanted. But, um, forgotten your question.
15:30 Steven Bartlett? Oh, so just about wealth and what that enables for you in terms of happiness and possibilities. And, you know, because so many people, including me, when I was broke growing up, just almost fantasized about the day that I would get money and.
15:46 Speaker 01 What would you, what would you do with it?
15:49 Steven Bartlett? I mean, if you'd asked me when I was sixteen or eighteen, I would have said I would have bought a Lamborghini, a big house. And then I would have been, you know, exponentially just happy all the time, like a permanent smile.
16:02 Speaker 01 But it doesn't work that way at all.
16:03 Steven Bartlett? It doesn't work that way, no. But I, I, I.
16:07 Speaker 01 What it has given me is a lifestyle that suits me in retirement because I did retire at sixty. In that I now enjoy learning to give my money away wisely. So I've turned into an ardent philanthropist. I really enjoy it. That's what I do. I try and do it as a venture philanthropist, really thinking about projects, thinking about things and starting in an entrepreneurial way, three charities and taking them again to sustainability. Now, the first charity took me seventeen years to get financially and managerially independent of me. The second one, I am a learning person, only took me five years. The third one, only two years.
16:49 Speaker 01 But, you know, it's like running a business, except that the metrics are different.
16:54 Steven Bartlett? And what were some of the lessons that you would impart to young women that are trying to make it in their own sort of endeavours or careers or as entrepreneurs today that you learnt through your journey that you think are still sort of relevant today? Obviously, I know the story of you, you know, saying your name was Steve.
17:14 Speaker 01 I think we all have to dissemble a little bit and put the best foot forward. Any way of getting through the door is important.
17:22 Steven Bartlett? So if my name, my name, if I'm Shirley and it's 2020 as it is today, what advice would you give to me as a, as a female entrepreneur who's, who's setting off on my journey to, to make it in this, in this world?
17:37 Speaker 01 It's much the same as the advice I would give to any young man, to you as Stephen. And that is to get into an area that you really enjoy, get trained in it so that you are up to speed, get retrained so you're really at the leading edge and know what the sector is all about, and then just take a risk. I think a lot of people just are not prepared to take that risk. And it is a risk. Most organised, most new companies fail, most new projects fail, but you can always start another one.
18:12 Steven Bartlett? People, people don't like risk though, do they? Because.
18:16 Speaker 01 I do, you know, I have a very low boredom threshold and I like to, I mean, I sometimes say when people are thinking about jobs, to apply for something that is so, so risky that you have that frisson of fear about it, that's the one to go for.
18:35 Steven Bartlett? Why is that?
18:37 Speaker 01 Because you'll never get bored, you know, you know, it's going to stretch you.
18:40 Steven Bartlett? And you're going to let, it's good, I guess it's a growth opportunity if it's terrifying to some degree. Is there?
18:48 Steven Bartlett? Why do you think that the world hasn't changed fast enough? And because it's it's it's so fascinating for me to hear that a lot of the the things that you espoused back back then, remote working, flexible working, shared ownership of corporations and and and even giving your personal wealth to your team. These are concepts which we're as employers just kind of wrestling with and getting to terms with today.
19:14 Speaker 01 Maybe every generation does that because people are intrinsically selfish and and I think today's culture is very much me, me, me. So anyone that goes outside that is really treading on not virgin ground, well trodden ground. Um. But nobody really knows what happens.
19:33 Steven Bartlett? And in your and your book, I was um very, very fascinated about it, particularly because.
19:39 Speaker 01 Did you find it honest?
19:40 Steven Bartlett? Everything that you've done, I found honest. I was I was literally watching your TED Talk in the car on the way here as well, which was fascinating as well. The book is fascinating to me for a number of reasons. The main reason is because I'm in the process of writing a book.
19:53 Speaker 01 How are you tackling it?
19:55 Steven Bartlett? Uh. So I took myself to a jungle in Indonesia on my own because it's it feels like it would be impossible to write a book whilst I'm running the business because it's just constant. Um. So I took myself to a jungle in Indonesia and I sat by the lake for about two weeks and I I I made good progress there with with a clear head over New Year's and Christmas when no one would really be bothering me anyway.
20:19 Speaker 01 You physically wrote yourself.
20:20 Steven Bartlett? Physically wrote, wrote it. I'm about.
20:22 Speaker 01 I dictated.
20:23 Steven Bartlett? Okay, I'm about forty percent in. When you wrote this book, were there things that you found out about yourself in hindsight or dots that you connected because you wrote the book?
20:34 Speaker 01 Yes, there certainly were. And then the the whole concept of of letting go, letting go of the ranker of my childhood um to to to start each day afresh, um the whole concept of um.
20:49 Speaker 01 Letting go of the company, once I'd lost control of it, you know, at the time I found it extremely difficult.
20:57 Steven Bartlett? Tell me about that.
20:59 Speaker 01 Well, I'd always been the boss, I'd made it, I'd created it and I was the boss. And gradually, through co-ownership and acquisitions, my share of the company dropped. For one time it was ninety five percent or something and then we dropped and I finished up with five percent. But when it hit, dropped below the majority shareholder, I was still the major shareholder, but not a majority shareholder. People's attitude changed, there were professional managers running it now, they're the ones whose, whose views were taken into account. And I found that, a bit like, I think I mentioned it in the book, King Lear, who, once he gives
21:42 Speaker 01 his kingdom away, sorry, this is Shakespeare, maybe you don't know.
21:46 Steven Bartlett? No. You see.
21:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. Um, you know, once you've lost control of something, you can't necessarily get it back.
21:54 Steven Bartlett? That's really, I think, relevant to every entrepreneur, especially entrepreneurs these days who raise a lot of investment very quickly and find themselves at the mercy of venture capitalists and those kinds of things.
22:05 Speaker 01 Um. Well, you see, while you've got fifty one percent, you're not vulnerable to that at all, you don't have to. But once you've lost that, then other people's decisions, hey. And we floated at a time where I wouldn't have floated, but.
22:20 Steven Bartlett? But that was pressure from investors and stake shareholders.
22:23 Speaker 01 They, they obviously wanted to.
22:24 Steven Bartlett? Hmm.
22:25 Speaker 01 Capitalise.
22:26 Steven Bartlett? When you look back over your, your professional business career, what are the things that you wish you did differently? And I ask this question because I think it's going to help me, this is a very selfish thing. I'm, I'm, I think in many respects, at the start of my professional business career, and there's a lot of lessons that I'm learning, uh, which I wish I didn't have to learn.
22:48 Speaker 01 Without being big headed, I really don't regret much. I made a lot of mistakes. Um, but I don't regret things because whatever I do, I do to the best of my ability. I get myself trained. I spend enough time on it. Um, and and so I can't do more than my best. And if it if it doesn't succeed, it doesn't worry me. I don't look back and say, oh, if only I'd done this. There were some very classic mistakes that I made because I thought I knew better. And that was to replicate our success in the UK in, first of all, in Scandinavia, then in Benelux, and thirdly, in the States.
23:28 Speaker 01 And none of those really took off. They were more trouble than they were worth. Um, but um.
23:36 Speaker 01 What did take off was India. And we started off, well, I started off writing theoretical papers about exporting software to India. Because there was a um workforce there in in short supply. Um, and eventually we we had half our people in in India, and they were very highly skilled. So you you never quite know what you've you've got to be opportunistic about things. So we tried that. It doesn't work, you know. And I I'm a scientist. If if something works, I do more of it. If something doesn't work, I do something else.
24:13 Steven Bartlett? Um hum. I I I still I still am I'm trying to put my finger on where where this this level of confidence and conviction came from because. From what I know about the past, it it would have been so tremendously difficult for a um for a black entrepreneur, for um a a woman entrepreneur. Um, to to go at an industry which was dominated by typically by white men.
24:44 Steven Bartlett? And and and I I'm really trying to understand where the confidence, where the conviction came from.
24:48 Speaker 01 I don't think it was confidence. I think it was just sheer guts.
24:52 Steven Bartlett? Guts.
24:52 Speaker 01 Um. I was not confident I would be petrified going into some of the presentations that I was doing. I would be physically sick sometimes. Um. But what I had was determination and resilience that, you know, if somebody knocks me down, I pick myself up, pressure myself down and put a smile on my face and go go ahead.
25:11 Steven Bartlett? Maybe that's the immigrant thing.
25:13 Speaker 01 Well, I think it's a characteristic of entrepreneurs that people remember us for our successes. But actually, what epitomizes the entrepreneurial drive is our ability to cope with failure.
25:26 Steven Bartlett? What's the most worthwhile thing that you think you've done um over the last seventy years, the most worthwhile?
25:33 Speaker 01 Probably taking a company into co-ownership.
25:36 Steven Bartlett? Right.
25:36 Speaker 01 Um.
25:37 Steven Bartlett? You made a lot of people very wealthy?
25:39 Speaker 01 Um. Yes, I also acted as a role model, not only for women, but also for co-ownership, a lot of people.
25:48 Steven Bartlett? I read somewhere that you made seventy but seventy.
25:50 Speaker 01 Yes, I'm proud of that as well. Yes.
25:53 Steven Bartlett? It's pretty staggering. Puts a lot of pressure on me with my team.
25:57 Speaker 01 But I do think that, you know, if you share the team, you know, you've got a smaller proportion of a larger cake, which is how people explained it to me.
26:04 Steven Bartlett? Mm hmm.
26:04 Speaker 01 Because I was quite, I really want to let it go.
26:08 Steven Bartlett? And your your philanthropic endeavors these days, um, which which one are you are you most proud of? It's probably a tricky question to to answer, but is there one particular philanthropic endeavor that you've you've you've created or funded that you think that's the thing that I'm most proud of?
26:26 Speaker 01 Well, I've taken three charities in the autism field um to sustainability. One of them cost me most in in human terms. Uh. One of them cost me most thirty million in in sheer five years of my life. But the most strategic one is the last one, and it shows, I think, that I'm learning because it's a research charity. The one you might be interested in, though, is I co-founded the Oxford Internet Institute, which, that was in the year 2000, it actually opened in 2001. And that concentrates not on the technology of the internet, but on the social, economic, legal, and ethical issues of the internet.
27:11 Speaker 01 And I'm very proud of that, actually, because it's a way in which I've been able to contribute to the sector long, long after I was technically competent.
27:19 Steven Bartlett? And even that's somewhat ahead of its time.
27:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think so.
27:23 Steven Bartlett? Because, you know, even, you know, 2020 we're in now, which is almost 20 years later, and the ethical implications and the social.
27:29 Speaker 01 We're just starting to nibble at them.
27:31 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
27:34 Steven Bartlett? You talked about the autism charities that you've supported and created. I understand that you had a son?
27:42 Speaker 01 Yes.
27:43 Steven Bartlett? And that's really the sort of.
27:44 Speaker 01 Oh, that's the motivator.
27:45 Steven Bartlett? The motivator.
27:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:47 Steven Bartlett? The, how did that change your life? You know, you.
27:50 Speaker 01 Oh, phenomenally, my life has gone in a completely different direction. I spend my time now with schools and support services and learning disabled people and academe and so on, quite, quite different to how I might have imagined. I could see me, when I was a child, I would have liked to have been an academic. I've never went to college. You haven't either, I think?
28:13 Steven Bartlett? No.
28:14 Speaker 01 And maybe college sort of knocks some of the spark out of people, I'm not sure.
28:18 Steven Bartlett? It would appear that way to some degree. I don't mean to be offensive to anybody, but I typically think that learning is, I mean, learning in that context is incredibly good for.
28:33 Steven Bartlett? Information, but maybe not so good for creativity. Because you're, you know, I, we would.
28:38 Speaker 01 I mean, nobody really knows where innovation comes from, but I'm sure um. The universities don't encourage innovation, they encourage rigidity, they encourage um. Um perfectionism.
28:52 Steven Bartlett? And I, I would think that if you're taught how to think to, that's, that's a bit of an issue. We were saying that in my business, in any way, our naivety is responsible for um our best work. Or our best ideas.
29:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:08 Steven Bartlett? So not knowing how it was supposed to be done gave birth to things that were considered special. And I, when I, when I think about innovators that exist in the world like Elon Musk and others, um it's actually their naivety. Elon Musk talks a lot about how when he started the, the first, his first electric car, everybody told him that you couldn't make fast electric cars affordable. Because.
29:30 Speaker 01 Couldn't make electric cars full stop.
29:32 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, and, and, and, and those that were incredibly expensive, couldn't go far and weren't fast and weren't sexy. And so he broke it down to these fundamentals. He rejected convention and thought, well, if you buy the metal on the metal exchange. And these kind of like, yeah, you can, you can build a new, and that requires some level of naivety. Um or, you know, the same sort of guts, I guess, that you've described.
29:53 Speaker 01 Because I didn't have first class education, nobody told me what one wasn't supposed to do in business. So I just went ahead and did it.
30:02 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, that's true. And that's that same naivety, which. There must be quite a fine line between being a genius and an idiot.
30:12 Steven Bartlett? I guess that's how it ends. I guess that's how people decide. I'm really, I'm really curious, you know, you've got a retrospective clarity on business and life and what matters that I haven't got.
30:23 Speaker 01 But do you read business books?
30:25 Steven Bartlett? I do, and I'm naturally curious.
30:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:29 Steven Bartlett? So I'm, I'm, I'm really intrigued as to what you think I might not know.
30:37 Steven Bartlett? Because it's an unknown unknown to me, of course, so.
30:40 Speaker 01 Well, you've got a big smile on your face and I wonder whether you yet know the sort of tragedies that are going to hit you when you're responsible for a lot of staff. You have a death, you have an illness, you have breakaway groups, you have all sorts of things that are really hurtful to you as an individual. And have you gone through that sort of experience yet? Well, long may it be in the future, but I'm sure that is.
31:03 Steven Bartlett? What do I need to know about those experiences and how to?
31:05 Speaker 01 But you are resilient, that, you know, you don't have to go down under, that there are ways, that, you know, if you can't go through something, you can go under it or around it or over it or go elsewhere. I mean, you know, if, if a business doesn't take off, there are other things that you can do. And that gives you the confidence to sort of face, what's the worst that can happen? I can deal with this.
31:31 Steven Bartlett? And resilience, I guess, is built like muscle in the gym by repeat survival, I guess of.
31:39 Speaker 01 Yes, but it's also basic character, I think, that, you know, you've got to have good health and energy. I learnt to be healthily selfish after a bit, to actually look after my own well being and not just health, but probably mental health in that not to let things get me down. And because I find business very tough, it's nice looking back on it, you know, and everybody's pats you on the back and says, how terrific. Other people did it, but what did I do? I'm a leader, not a real manager.
32:16 Steven Bartlett? And you talk about being selfish, though, what does that look like practically?
32:20 Speaker 01 Learning to say no, because you get a lot of demands on you and just learning to say no. Spending time on yourself, spending.
32:31 Speaker 01 Care and attention, giving care and attention to your family and your nearest and dearest, um, rather than just everything to the business.
32:41 Steven Bartlett? One of the things that you mentioned earlier was about tragedy and about, um, about death and those things, you know. You asked if they had str- like struck, struck me yet. I think I'm somewhat haunted by this idea that someday one of my parents is gonna, um, is gonna, is gonna pass away. And I will suddenly realise in that moment that I misprioritised what was important. Because I know that I'm giving everything to, to my business now and.
33:06 Speaker 01 It's fine if it just turns out to be a part of your life. But if for whatever reason it then becomes a whole part of your life, then you do still think, my goodness, I didn't spend enough of my time with my parents. I wish I'd done this or had more children or whatever.
33:20 Steven Bartlett? And do you think those things? Do you think you, you wish you'd spent more time with your parents or your, your certain family members that aren't around anymore?
33:27 Speaker 01 I don't think any parent is happy with how they brought up their children. In my case, just one child. But they're decisions that I took that I would take again in the similar circumstances.
33:42 Speaker 01 But I think it's worth contemplating some of those issues. And you do know that your parents are going to die and the chances are they will die before you. And to, to actually think, well, what's the worst that can happen? Supposing you had a phone call now, um, of, of a death, how would you react? And if you can face that, then you may change the way your life goes. Or you may be even more determined to continue on the path that you're doing. I mean, I love what I do. And I'm, I think, you know, especially at age of six, I, I'm so lucky to have something to get up for each morning. But other people don't want to live like I do. So it's a very personal choice.
34:26 Steven Bartlett? The next point in my diary this week is about the podcast sponsor, which is Boost by Facebook. They are a dedicated one-stop shop for entrepreneurs, for CEOs, for small businesses, job seekers and anybody with ambition that's looking to thrive in this digital economy. They launched with the aim of creating a place where all of us can understand this new world of digital and social. It can be incredibly intimidating. My mum, I was talking to her about Boost with Facebook the other day. She doesn't know how to use a phone. She doesn't know how to type and she's trying to run a business in 2020 and compete against people that do. Boost is a place for people like her, where she can learn more about the digital economy, about features and skills and training and all of the things
35:08 Steven Bartlett? that matter, the things that might level the playing field for her as someone that doesn't know about this new world that we live in. You can learn more about this at facebook.com/boostwithfacebookUK. And if you do check it out, drop me a message and let me know how you find it. I always pop on there every now and then to try and make sure I'm staying ahead of the curve. But yeah, do let me know how you find it.
35:30 Steven Bartlett? Do you think that entrepreneurship is somewhat a curse? Because I almost describe it as something that I can't unsee, because the way that I live my life is quite neurotic and I'm quite obsessed and I think I'm probably not the most social person. And I think if people really understood the true extent of like my personal obsession with what I'm doing in my business, they would probably describe it as an illness.
35:53 Speaker 01 But some of it may come from you, but some of it is the demands of the business. I mean, I used to feel that the business had so many demands on me. I was absolutely, you know, crouched under this heavy load that I was carrying. And then a few years later, you learn to delegate a bit more, things have gone, you had a couple of good things happen and it all starts to be much more fun. And then something else happens, you know, you've got a breakaway group. And I mention that because I've found that very debilitating.
36:26 Steven Bartlett? What was that?
36:28 Speaker 01 A group of staff who, knowing...
36:32 Speaker 01 The business plans of my business decided to break away and progress it without the overheads and the baggage of the past. So they started off on the fresh piece of paper.
36:48 Speaker 01 And so I lost a lot of staff, I lost certain contracts were put at risk, and I found that pretty depressing. But again, you learn to deal with it, and it's just the way the business goes. I'm surprised that you're you're writing a book yet, because I would have thought it was so early on, or is this just chapters one and two?
37:12 Steven Bartlett? It's not actually heavily about my business story. The the the book is, in essence, talking more about the journey from being 12 years old and being this broke kid that wanted to get successful and wealthy and whatever else, because my family were bankrupt and we didn't have any money ever, to going on that journey of believing that I would become super happy if I just managed to achieve these things. I wrote in my diary, which was, I wanted to be a millionaire before I was 25.
37:38 Speaker 01 You set that as an actual target?
37:40 Steven Bartlett? So I can show you the piece of paper. It says, four girls before I'm 25. I wrote this when I was 18. I want to be a millionaire. I want a Range Rover to be my first car. Didn't have a driving licence, never driven in my life. I wanted to have a girlfriend, a long term girlfriend, because again, my the toxic relationship between my parents made me despise relationships. And the last thing was, I wanted to work on my body image because I was incredibly skinny and short. And so it's just really the journey from there to getting to
38:06 Speaker 01 So it's more about confidence and growing, growing up?
38:10 Steven Bartlett? And just realising that everything I thought was really wrong. And and also having the self-awareness to suddenly realise why I wrote that I wanted a million quid and a fast car, and how wrong I was upon getting those things.
38:23 Speaker 01 We would still like to have some of those things.
38:26 Steven Bartlett? I mean, but for different reasons, right? For much more intrinsically motivated reasons, before it was because
38:32 Speaker 01 That's what you're thinking.
38:34 Steven Bartlett? I thought maybe Jasmine in school would would date me if I had a ring, you know. And the reason I'm writing it while I'm young is because I think that empowers the message a little bit more. Being able to say that when I'm twenty six or twenty seven, to other twenty six and twenty seven year olds is much more powerful than I think in that moment. So it was not the perfect timing and it's not that book, it's not this book.
38:57 Speaker 01 No.
38:58 Steven Bartlett? Um, it's just a message really to to to younger audiences about um. Understanding.
39:04 Speaker 01 So it it the fact that it's about business is almost incidental to your growth pattern.
39:10 Steven Bartlett? Completely, yeah.
39:11 Speaker 01 So you wouldn't market it as a business.
39:13 Steven Bartlett? I wouldn't say it was a business book, no, and I don't think the publisher would say that either. It's more about inspiration from like a young life.
39:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:21 Steven Bartlett? And um you'd I that's why I said I know I don't know everything now. I know this because and the reason I know I don't know everything is because I thought I knew everything when I was like twenty five and then twenty four and twenty three. And you and you change so drastically. That's why I find it I was so keen to come here and meet you because the wisdom you have is is would be, I mean. There's nothing I could do to pay for such wisdom, but I mean, this is one way of trying to get some of it is, you know, coming here and asking you questions. So. Yeah, on that point of families, it's um it's something that I think a lot about. Um, I also I also understand the importance of really being mission orientated because.
40:02 Speaker 01 Where am I trying to get to? What sort of a person am I trying to be?
40:06 Steven Bartlett? Exactly, because that I mean, that's what keeps you going for thirty, forty years, I'm guessing, right? Having that genuine. Purpose behind what you're doing.
40:16 Speaker 01 I'm always sorry for people who don't have a per- per- purpose. Uh, my purpose has changed several times in my life, um but I've always had a purpose, building up the company.
40:27 Steven Bartlett? And what were your purposes across the years? How how how did they change?
40:30 Speaker 01 I think like you, I first of all, I wanted to get out of poverty. And um it was clear, presumably from what people told me, that learning and education was the best way out of poverty. So I was very keen to do well at school. I was very keen to um go to university, which I didn't manage.
40:55 Speaker 01 And that was a dream that was put on hold. Um, now I've got honorary degrees in Cambridge and goodness knows what. Um, but they don't really give me a lot of pleasure because life has moved on. What I want now is um a, a role in the philanthropic field, the, the feeling that I have made the world a better place. Um, and that is, that's pretty strong. There's always things that you can do, always ways in which you can cut costs by 10%, always they.
41:29 Steven Bartlett? And when you, and when you, when you get out of bed these days, what's the, what's your typical day like now?
41:36 Speaker 01 Quite a lot of time spent at this desk because I find going out, um, I don't travel a great deal now. Um, went to Europe once last year, I think.
41:50 Speaker 01 But I try and pace myself so that I do the things that I want to do and don't get stuck with a lot of stuff. So, you know, I have people that do my accounts and people who do my look after the house for me and, and. Um, I have a very easy life, except when I'm sitting usually alone at my desk, which is where innovation comes from. I'm sure it's a solitary activity and everything else is teamwork, but the innovation comes from one individual, one spark, you capture it.
42:21 Steven Bartlett? So true.
42:24 Steven Bartlett? Very true. Consensus doesn't really come up with, uh, doesn't produce innovation, does it?
42:28 Speaker 01 And yet all the time we're teaching young people to work as teams because you need these complementary skills to do most things.
42:37 Steven Bartlett? It's, it's almost quite, yeah, it's, it's against the professional narrative to, for one person to come up with the idea and tell the others what the idea is. I've found in my own organisation that working in really small teams, so I might have an idea and then pulling together like three or four people.
42:54 Speaker 01 To develop it.
42:55 Steven Bartlett? To develop it at pace. If we go to 15 people, 20 people, you know, nothing happens.
43:01 Speaker 01 What I found very disappointing was I, I went into software because I really do find it fascinating. And in the early days you needed mathematics to do it as well, which is. Totally and utterly absorbing once you get lost in the mathematical algorithms. Technology was what I wanted to do. And you start off one person, two persons, five persons. And very, very quickly, you're having to delegate the bits you really love, the software. And I got landed with the tax, the human resources, the financing, the dealing with HR issues. I mean, it's very, that happens so quickly.
43:42 Speaker 01 And that's a shame because the motivation then has to come from something else.
43:48 Steven Bartlett? And that's, that happens in a lot of businesses. I think it's pretty much happened in mine.
43:51 Speaker 01 Good thing, must do.
43:52 Steven Bartlett? Where the, the founder probably has a very unique skill and then they have, in order to not be a bottleneck to the, the growth of the business, they have to move out of the way and delegate to other people. Something I definitely struggled with. Delegation. And I mean, at the scale you were at with eight thousand people.
44:11 Speaker 01 So you start to be like a corporate person, you know, you're learning to discuss the quarterly results and
44:20 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
44:20 Speaker 01 It's such a bore.
44:22 Steven Bartlett? And what do you think of entrepreneurship these days? Cause in our, in our culture now, it's like this somewhat rock star career choice where it's over like tremendously glamorized. And people don't talk a lot about the, the cost, whether that's an emotional or mental health or you know, a physical cost, whatever it might be. People don't talk enough about that. And part of the reason I started this podcast was because I wanted to shine a bit of a light on the non glamorous.
44:49 Speaker 01 But you see, who is going to let you publicize the failures? You know, we might glancing comment about various failures that we've had, but, but by instinct, we're always promoting not only today's success, but what do you want to do tomorrow and the day after?
45:07 Steven Bartlett? Was there ever a moment when you were stuck building your business where you thought that you were finished?
45:11 Speaker 01 Yes, yes. And I can remember sitting in our living room, actually rocking with some sort of fear. What am I going to do? What can I do? What can I do? Yeah.
45:25 Steven Bartlett? Because of some, because something had happened?
45:27 Speaker 01 I was, it was a recession and I was going out of business, basically. I'd got to the stage of selling personal items to get money to keep us, keep us going. Um, so it's, that's part of the cost as far as I was concerned. And you will have comparable costs in different ways.
45:44 Steven Bartlett? Was there ever a moment where you wished you could trade your entrepreneurial, obsessive rocking in your chair life for a more blissful ignorance of?
45:58 Speaker 01 There's a lot to be said for ignorance.
46:00 Steven Bartlett? Do you know what I mean?
46:01 Speaker 01 Yes.
46:02 Steven Bartlett? If you didn't have, if you didn't even know about the entrepreneurial lifestyle and you could just, you know, come to work at nine and leave at five and then.
46:10 Speaker 01 No, I, I, I have this very low boredom threshold, it would really be awful. I remember at one stage I had a beast of a boss, actually. Um, and he, he gave me tasks that I didn't like and basically I wasn't trained or competent to do so. And so I was time watching and got to get through from nine to desperately trying. And life was so, it was, the, the black dog was sort of hanging around you. Um, I don't want that.
46:40 Steven Bartlett? And what age was that? How old are you then?
46:44 Speaker 01 Thirty.
46:45 Steven Bartlett? Thirty.
46:47 Speaker 01 No, I had my child then, earlier than that, mid twenties.
46:51 Steven Bartlett? Mid twenties.
46:53 Steven Bartlett? What would you say to somebody that's in a job now that, that they despise because they've got a boss like that?
46:59 Speaker 01 Get out, get out, get out.
47:02 Steven Bartlett? What, what if they say to you, they say, you know, but I've got a mortgage to pay and I've got this, so.
47:06 Speaker 01 So you've got a mortgage to pay.
47:09 Steven Bartlett? And they say, so I feel like I can't leave because my mortgage and my, I've got this kid to pay for and my car and.
47:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, there, there obviously are situations where it's very difficult to make a career change. But I think the younger you are and the, the fewer responsibilities you have, the easier it is to make a free choice. For you, that's right, for you now. Now, you may look back in 10 years' time and say, I wish I'd have thought of something else. Um, but you, you do have a free choice.
47:36 Steven Bartlett? Even in the context of all those sort of practical obligations, you think you have to get out. You have to find a way out, you have to not give up the fight of finding a way out.
47:45 Speaker 01 Well, you mustn't give up the fight, must you? Otherwise you really are finished.
47:49 Steven Bartlett? Just find that topic very interesting because a lot of people that message me will say, I'm miserable, but.
47:56 Speaker 01 It's worth it, worth it because look at my nice car, my nice home.
47:59 Steven Bartlett? And even, but I'm almost pinned down because of all these obligations, all these.
48:03 Speaker 01 A lot of wealthy people still get pinned down by changing a lifestyle to a level where again, they're having to think about, spend time with their finance people.
48:15 Steven Bartlett? We've, we've just taken a little tour through your lovely home here and it's just filled with such beautiful art. And typically, when you think about software and technology and those things, you don't think those people are so into art. And that was quite surprising to me because I don't know what I was expecting, but did you understand the, I guess, the naive assumption I made there was that.
48:41 Speaker 01 Artists, patterns and different senses. You've got sight and smell and hearing. My husband's more keen on music and I like music, but I mean, he's the one that really knows about it.
48:58 Speaker 01 But I, I'm, I feel as if I'm hungry if I don't see good art. And, and I like the contemporary work. I also liked op art, maybe I got into the contemporary art through op art, which is this sort of cubist and, and, but.
49:16 Steven Bartlett? Did your love for art manifest itself at all in your professional life?
49:21 Speaker 01 Uh, I don't think so, really. I used to put works of art into the, into the business. I don't think other people appreciated them very much, but I, I thought it gave a different dimension to the business.
49:35 Steven Bartlett? I read, I read that you've donated all of your art to.
49:39 Speaker 01 Paintings in hospitals.
49:40 Steven Bartlett? Paintings in hospitals.
49:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:42 Steven Bartlett? Incredibly generous.
49:43 Speaker 01 Well, it, it, we were talking about how difficult it is to do if you have responsibilities. It's very much easier, our son is dead, there's nothing, you know, what else would I do with the money? Could leave it to the R S P C A, but I'd much rather spend it in a, like a venture philanthropist and really thinking what that needs doing. And I could make that into that.
50:04 Steven Bartlett? And what, what do you, what are you planning to do with your wealth when, when you go outside of that? Is it?
50:10 Speaker 01 It all goes to charity.
50:11 Steven Bartlett? Charity.
50:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that also gives a quite a nice atmosphere because people are very sycophantic with people who are known to be wealthy. Um, and um, it's quite clear, everybody knows it's going to charity, it's going to the research charity and it's decided.
50:31 Steven Bartlett? It's um, it's a, it's a pretty, pretty interesting phenomenon that, you know, philanthropy tends to take place later in people's lives. Is there, do you think that's the correct way around for, even for someone like me? I try and, you know, I remember one day I asked myself, I said, if I could have over the last five years of building my business, maybe saved five people's lives, would that have been a more worthwhile pursuit than building?
50:56 Speaker 01 And what did you decide?
50:58 Steven Bartlett? I decided that because I poured into myself, I will have more to pour out for others later, um, if that makes sense.
51:08 Speaker 01 Most people in your position do make that type of decision, that they're saying, I'm going to spend a portion of my life making the money and, and then start spending it. But the real joy of giving is when it becomes part of your, your life, part of your whole being and that you're always thinking in terms of, why, what is that person doing in the street? Why are they not in a hostel? Why is he not in work? You know, you start really thinking all the time, well, I could make that little one happen, um, not just make a lot of money and then.
51:45 Steven Bartlett? And on your book, A Little Birdie told me that this was being made into a movie.
51:50 Speaker 01 Indeed, yes. Um, it's only taken, everything in business takes a long time. It's only taken, what, six years to get to this stage? We thought they were going to start actual filming this year, but I don't think they will. I think it's going to be twenty twenty one. But it's such fun to think of it being, um, going through another artistic process, really.
52:13 Steven Bartlett? It's a, it's, it must be mind boggling for you as a, an entrepreneur to, to know that your life is going to be made into a movie.
52:21 Speaker 01 It would be lovely, wouldn't it? Yes, looking forward to it. I, I keep saying though, get it soon. I want to see it happen. I want to.
52:29 Steven Bartlett? And and you know who it's being produced by and.
52:31 Speaker 01 Yes, we have Damian Jones as the producer and he did Lady in the Van.
52:37 Steven Bartlett? Mm hmm.
52:37 Speaker 01 And he did the Iron Lady, so I'm in good company.
52:43 Steven Bartlett? That's incredible, really, really, really incredible. And I can't if, you know, knowing your story as I know it, it will make it such a brilliant.
52:51 Speaker 01 I hope it will, yeah. I think some of it is social history as well, because with the emphasis on um the years, the early years in business, when there was this hundred percent female companies are struggling to make a mark in the world.
53:07 Steven Bartlett? It's almost like the suffragettes of entrepreneurship in some.
53:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:10 Steven Bartlett? In some respects. What can we do as employers to correct the social sort of injustices as as they relate to gender inequality and such today? What more, what more should we be doing? We've seen the rise in this Me Too movement, which is.
53:26 Speaker 01 That's that's made quite a difference.
53:27 Steven Bartlett? Yeah.
53:28 Speaker 01 Quite a difference, because people are now aware that women are coming forward and other minorities, because women behave as a minority or have been, but they're now coming forward when things are not acceptable and people are listening to them. Um but we still have a long way to go. I think the businesses also are learning that it's not just the bottom line, that it that they it's not the only metric that that matters. Um but that they need their branding depends on how people view them, their employment practices, um their corporate social responsibility, the way in which they source their materials.
54:08 Speaker 01 These are things that customers are interested in, and so it does go to the bottom line. Um and that is a big change. Now, you do your social um marketing and branding, it's very equivalent to to some of the charitable work.
54:25 Steven Bartlett? Yeah, and as you say, the world is, I've seen the world changing even in my lifetime, because once upon a time corporations were like black boxes and you couldn't see inside. All you saw was what they produced.
54:37 Speaker 01 Now we have to be all transparent, yeah.
54:40 Steven Bartlett? Because, I mean, social media's played a huge role in that, because all of your employees have
54:44 Speaker 01 Access to.
54:45 Steven Bartlett? Access to the internet and they can say whatever, they can post a photo of whatever's happening, they can write a testimonial about you online. So internal company culture has now become brand. As you say, and brand is the bottom line. Say you had a dinner party in this, in this room here, and you could, there's two, so we occupied two seats at this table, and there was four other seats, and you could invite anybody from history, dead or alive, anybody you want, who would you invite and why? Four seats. And also, what are we going to eat?
55:17 Speaker 01 Oh, I don't know anything about food. I didn't like Michelle Obama. I think she's a very interesting woman, who would probably make a good dinner party guest.
55:34 Speaker 01 Nelson Mandela, because I think the way in which his, his level of forgiveness is just so wonderful, that I, and I've read two of his books now.
55:48 Speaker 01 The third one, Winston Churchill, has to be.
55:51 Steven Bartlett? One more I'm gonna need.
55:54 Speaker 01 Mother Teresa.
55:55 Steven Bartlett? Mother Teresa.
55:56 Speaker 01 Again, it's these inspirational people, you, you, you get inspiration from other people, and Mother Teresa's ability to love
56:06 Speaker 01 is so all-embracing that I would like to
56:11 Speaker 01 experience it.
56:12 Steven Bartlett? It's two things I do, I'm really surprised your husband didn't get an invite, which I think you, he might be.
56:17 Speaker 01 He's very antisocial.
56:19 Steven Bartlett? And the last one was just a point about forgiveness and why is forgiveness important?
56:25 Speaker 01 Well, the title of my book, Let It Go, is something to do with, it's a Buddhist principle of let it go. Don't let the rancor of the past spoil the present. Don't hang on to things when you can give them away. And forgiveness is one of those things that if you can genuinely forgive somebody for how they've hurt you, or whatever it is, the world, all the pain goes.
56:53 Steven Bartlett? Amazing. Thank you so much, Steve.
56:55 Speaker 01 It's been a great pleasure.
56:57 Steven Bartlett? Dame Stephanie Shirley for the time today. It feels like a tremendous honour to get to meet you and talk to you.
57:02 Speaker 01 Thank you.
57:02 Steven Bartlett? And I am incredibly excited about your movie coming out, which I think is just the most incredible thing ever. I think it's probably somewhere inside every entrepreneur's mind, a dream to have such a thing created about them. So, but I think it's in this case definitely deserving. And yeah, it's, I feel indebted to you for allowing me to come here and speak to you.
57:23 Speaker 01 That's lovely. Very nicely said.
57:25 Steven Bartlett? And Let It Go, your book, My Extraordinary Story, From Refugee to Entrepreneur to Flantrapist, everybody can get everywhere and I highly recommend that they do. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Pleasure.
57:35 Speaker 01 Thank you, Steve.
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