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In this podcast, we talk to some of the greatest founders and leaders about their journey to where they are as well as discuss their companies and many other subjects depending on the guest.
We are aiming to create meaningful content that everyone can get value from. We hope you enjoy 😁
you're listening to the Far Side
with founders and Leaders Podcast
the podcast that gives you a behind the scenes
look of some of the world's most
amazing founders and leaders
looking at their journeys
and how they got to where they are today
David welcome to the podcast
thank you very much Rupert
so for people that don't know
give us a bit more in terms of your broader background
and a bit more about the business today
and what you guys do over at um
at TLC I don't know
well I'm just in from myself
from my own experience so I've
one of those kind of very fortuitous
career paths over the years
I actually started off as a developer many
many years ago on the initial PlayStation games
and I was doing that also whilst in university as well
and that was a real kind of hot bed of activity
and you were it was very much a focus on delivery
and getting things over the line
and you get a real insight as to how teams work
and how you need to collaborate
to be able to generate success
particularly in those types of environments later um
as I moved on in my career
I went into the more broader
technology transformations
and worked for some very large organizations
including the likes of CGI
and also Hula Packard as well
and we were dealing with global
technology transformations
these were transformations which are
in some cases
were in the hundreds of millions of dollars
if not the kind of billion dollar type of accounts um
those huge
monolithic accounts don't tend to exist these days yeah
but certainly that was kind of the background
on which I was brought up on um
through the industry and what that really
embedded into me is
a real strong sense of good practice
of having a process and a way of working
and I think that's
that's really served me well throughout my career
because you're always
you always step forward from that foundation
and an actual fact I was watching a
a podcast a few weeks ago and it was Jeff Bezos
and Bezos was saying
one of the things he would always advise founders to do
is actually have that
that kind of bedding in an organization
where you learn best practice
really well yeah
because then you can step forward from there
understanding what good should look like
and that served me really well throughout my career
so as I've moved into the more private equity VC space
and work with companies who are
clearly of a much smaller scale than the likes of HP
and some of the others I've worked with
I've been able to
identify the best practices and the ways of working
and how we can generally improve the business
whether that be from a point of view of sales activity
and pipeline generation
whether that's back office transformation
or whether that's actually core product development
because I've got that kind of grounding in real good
solid processes and ways of working
and all that training which is associated with that
yup and that really helps me get some quite valuable
or bring forward some very valuable insight
which I think
sits well with private equity organizations as well
because they're always constantly looking for that
kind of expertise that insight
which is going to be the differentiator
for them and their businesses
and how do you um
I suppose sort of put the value on on good right
because it can be quite subjective
like good to one person is
very different to good to another person
so what does good look like
oh that you
and again you're absolutely right
everyone has their own perspective on that
and I think that's really
that's one of the tricks in this whole process
you have to understand
what everyone's definition of good
really is yeah
um
and whether or not we think there's a way to actually
get to that position
and what are the compromises as well
that you might need to take on that journey
so to speak but having that ability to communicate
having that ability to uh
kind of articulate the journey
and work with business people
who are not necessarily from a technical background
and don't
maybe understand the challenges of transformation
once you start to fill that in
the definition of good starts to become clear
not just for yourself mm hmm
but also maybe for the CEO of the business
maybe also for the COO or the CFO as well
and also for the investors yeah
because often where that
where you reach there is almost a compromised position
which is okay that's good
this may this view might be good
but to get to that
here's the steps that we've got to take at that point
the business might look at it again and say okay
maybe we can find a different way
a more of the kind of a way with less steps in this
or less challenge and
because you're always looking for the most efficient
the most productive
way to use the resources that you have at hand yeah
to gain the outcome that you need nice
and and in terms of we
we mentioned you've got experience working across
in different locations with companies across
across the world yeah
how do you think that shaped your leadership style
it makes you very attuned to the nuances of culture uh
and also the value of that
within various different work environments
as well and also
just more broadly that
I lived a long time in places like Austria and Germany
and and
you become more attuned to the language
barriers that exist yes
people all speak English um
and you know in some countries
some of the English is really excellent
but
there is nuances in the way that you use your language
and it it makes you understand that
you need to just step back
and make sure that communication is real clear
mm hmm and that then also drives again a
a kind of understanding of
having good documentation in place
having good control in place
making sure that everyone is crystal clear
on what is being asked to them
and what again
good looks like um
so that's that's
something which I've certainly learnt as I've worked
in places like Malaysia also in India as well um
and also not just kind of being there for a week
but actually being within those cultures
for elongated periods of time
sometimes a year two
3 or 2 or three years
and that really serves you well because you can then uh
once you start to understand some of the challenges
of those cultures and those working environments
hmm it becomes easier for
to work with people in those areas as well yeah
I think that's so important because most
most leaders who work in international organizations
they tend to go on a business trip
and they'll go there for a week or two at a time
there's no way
you can get ingrained into the culture and
align yourself with okay
what are the challenges that these people are facing
comparatively to what we're facing
it's a completely different dynamic uh
being somewhere where you're staying in a hotel
and you're basically there for two weeks
is a completely different dynamic
to living and working in those environments
in those countries for two and three years
and you really
you really don't get a sense of the culture
if you're not there for a long period of time
because that's not that's not present
you know
the hotels that people stay in are very Westernized
yup and you're moving from a hotel to an office
which is also very Westernized in its structure
when you actually live in these locations
and you actually see what goes on day to day
and again the challenges that people have
that's when you start to understand the
the cultural nuances yeah
I particularly found this out um
it was quite interesting during my time in Austria
where um
where I it's one of those places that you can
you go skiing
go visit and it's beautiful and it's wonderful
love it um
but different when you're there yeah
yeah and not
not not that it's not good
but just different from maybe the kind of the
the Broken Mountains yeah
yeah so to speak
everyone's wearing their lederhosen with the yodel
and you also get you
you start to get an insight into the mindset
of the people who live in those countries
as well because
you know slightly different
we like to think that we all
and there are some common groundings
amongst people across the world always
but those cultural differences
are what makes it all unique
and really special as well
and it's embracing those
which is really key cause once you understand that
you can also then get the best out of the people
who are working with you as well yeah okay
and that's so key that is so key
what's the thing that surprised you the most about like
all your different sort of
your places that you've you've been in terms of the
that sort of cultural difference
and having to really understand it
where you went oh my God
I didn't expect that I think what I've seen is
some of the things that you take for granted
when you live in a country like the
the UK and you're brought up in the
in and in such a country
when you step out into certain countries
around the world
which are maybe less developed in certain areas um
you see the challenges of them
of people just getting things done
in those environments
uh so it becomes very bureaucratic in certain
in certain countries to just get rather
simple things done mm hmm
um now fortunately
I've always had
support mechanisms around me to help employees
kind of overcome some of those hurdles
but these might be in some cases some private things
yeah OK
that employees have some
just general day to day living challenges
uh and that's
that's where that's where getting involved
and really caring for the employees welfare
really helping and supporting people in the right way
and again that's what really makes the difference get
that's that's where
where
you start to see the change in the mindset of the team
that you're there to actually really support them
and help them
not just from a point of view of their professional
capability
but also as well you're looking out for their welfare
you're looking out for their lives more broadly
and how you can make sure that the
the work life balance
and how work operates around their lives as well
is structured in the right way
unfortunately
it is sometimes the case that when you go into uh
when I've gone into certain countries in the past
some of the employees have come through from
other organizations
who have not really tried to build that type
type of support capability
mm hmm in place
so when they always
when I've brought people into work for me
they often have seen that step change of
you know
I'm genuinely interested in the people who work with me
and work as part of the team
yeah because I'm
I really want to see people succeed and drive
their career forward that's really
you know that
that
for me is the thing which really drives me in terms of
yeah people's performance
yeah nice
and it might sound like a silly question because it
again may seem simple to you
but to other people out there
because as you mentioned there's lots of businesses
that don't have these mechanisms in place
and I can't believe
it's because they're all narcissists
and they don't want to help people right they
they just don't know how to do it or there's blockers
like how do you put these processes in place
is it just putting in like SOS structure
the beginning of this is having a
a form a very formulaic structure
yeah yeah
so that everyone knows where they stand
everyone knows what they're doing um
and everyone knows their responsibilities
and their accountabilities
that's the starting point
because that makes it very clear
to everyone about what what the expectations are
and how to work with colleagues
and so on and so forth
and then you can start to also as well um
align behaviours as well
and make sure that we were all working in the right way
in a very respectful way which really kind of heightens
or gets the best behavior out of people yep
uh so the yeah
the again the
the this always challenges throughout that because
and it's
it's never one unique way of addressing the problem
but getting that kind of structure in place
from the very outset really helps people
and again going back to the early stages in my career
the need for good process
there really helps people as well
yeah because again
people sometimes have come from organizations
where there is less focus on structure and process
and that doesn't really give people
always the foundation that is needed to be successful
yeah so putting that in place often really
and I've seen it myself
I've seen people who come in and they start off
and they're kind of you know
they're not a great performer
they're fairly solid
but you put that structure in place
you put that foundation in place
you invest in them and you work with them
and you be honest
and truthful and transparent with them
you can change people into real star performers
yep really get the best from them
and that's a reciprocal thing as well
because then they see the growth and the capability
yep that and what they could do
and that sometimes is eye opening for the individuals
as well which is a fascinating journey to be on
with those people it's great
isn't it yeah
to see how people develop is really insightful
it tends to be the enjoyable part of the job
once you get into leadership for
for most not some
but for most is seeing people develop and come
through and being able to help them to
to sometimes even light a bit of a fire to go right
this is exciting it is and
and you can you can see as you say the
the the
the the fire is kind of on the
the shine in their eyes so to speak
yep um
because they're doing the thing that they love
hmm
and this is also another thing which I think I've uh
Learned throughout my career
is give people the opportunity
to do the thing that they love
really and to that extent
give them the right support and guidance and to
to a degree get out of their way
mm hmm as well yeah
because if people love what they're doing
they will invest the time
they will kind of coach themselves as well they
they you know
they will do a lot of that themselves
yep um
and they will go out and try to learn more
around the subject
and I see that a lot with the team which I've got now
and teams which I've had previously as well
nice and and you've done
you know lots of advisory workers you said for P firms
vcs on strategy yes
solving some of their problems
like what are the typical
things that they're asking you to solve
like what are the
the problems that they're tending to have
from a tech perspective I mean
to it general themes which come across
because every every business is different
and every private equity has somewhat different focus
but generally it is
it is a real need for clarity around vision
strategy and the
the plan that we're gonna execute which supports that
and ultimately
the organization that you need to achieve those
that vision and strategy and that sounds kind of very
kind of like obvious to say
but it's when you start to get into the detail of that
having a strategy that you know
is actually gonna work and actually deliver and the
the plan which supports that
mm hmm
that is not as as easy to execute through yep uh
so it's that so generally what
what I see when I'm speaking with peas
is that need for clarity around that okay
so that they know okay what's coming when it's coming
how does that address on
how does that help enterprise value
how does that grow the value of the business
mm hmm how does that grows from a revenue perspective
how does that grows from an EBITDA perspective
um and how does that
maybe differentiate us away from others in the market
gives us something unique cause again
all these things contribute to enterprise value
which is really helpful for ultimately
an exit for a PA
and but having that
that plan and aligning that to the strategy
and the broader strategy of the business as well yeah
and being able to articulate that on terms
which everyone understands
gets and sees clearly where the value is being created
that is is generally the
the the points which come across yep
um of course as you go through that journey
certain things change
people get more into a little bit more into the detail
yeah um
but you have to build that solid foundation
of a clear picture
and a clear way forward from the outset
and
would you categorize those things under due diligence
or would you separate those two things
so some of it so at
at diligence you can kind of get a view of that
mm hmm but a lot of this comes post the
the deal okay
okay so this is post deal
so rather than yeah
okay post deal
and you will see and you will be familiar with this
a lot of recruitments of Ctos
and also chief product officers and various other uh
key staff is done post a deal
yep because sometimes there is a need for a step change
sometimes the CTO that got you to here is not the CTO
which is gonna get you to there fact
very often that's the case yeah
we know this right
so we know this cause a CTO is not a CTO
so to speak there's different flavours
yeah there is
and they don't want to do that next job
they often go this isn't for me yeah
there there are those
you know the
the the typical founder CEOs
more of of more of that engineering background
hmm as where the
the PE CEOs the more
the more kind of main stage
uh PE CEOs
or
people who've been through that transformation journey
yeah and have the ability and
and can intuitively talk about value
that they're generating and not technology
that they're kind of bringing into the business
because at the end of the day
the technology is always a means to an end yeah
should be and that's
I think always the
one of the challenges which I've always seen
is making sure that if we're gonna do anything
from a technology point of view
if the technology strategy is gonna drive an outcome
that has to be aligned to the business metrics
to the to the
the value of the business
to the revenue to the EBITDA that we're gonna drive
do you think that's an area that
sometimes you've seen people get wrong
I've frequently seen unfortunately
situations where it becomes a
far too technical conversation
or the clarity is not there okay
the and this is where
you know this this
this is where the experience comes into play
you've got to be able to articulate this in terms
which everyone can follow
in terms which everyone can kind of get
because everyone these days
particularly exact teams have a limited um
ability to actually absorb huge amounts of information
they're dealing with so many things yeah
the world moves so fast
they what you need
to do is the CTO
is increasingly take very complex challenges
and crystallize them into
this is what that means and ultimately
that's the outcome that we reach for the business yeah
if you can do that
then you'll find a far easier conversation
always with other exes with peers
but certainly with investors as well yeah
it's about those business outcomes
as you say it's taking it away from everything else is
is ultimately to those people as investors and exes is
is noise I don't really care
they wanna know
what's the return on the investment that I'm making
yeah and and you do uh
from time to time you come across uh
various different investors who are very technically
savvy and they really want to understand the
the the challenges and again
the
a good thing with my experience is I'm able to kind of
if you wanna go into the the the detail
we'll go into the detail yeah
um but generally the conversation is
is much more about what we're trying to achieve
by when that's gonna be achieved
and what the best benefits are for the business
the important thing is alignment yeah OK
everyone has to believe that
everyone has to be assured that that's the right thing
and I spend a lot of time
making sure that we're constantly keeping alignment
on a day to day basis
because it's easy to get for misunderstandings to
to arise it's easy for for transformation
activities to start to not deliver in the right way
yeah so keeping that alignment um
with your peers is so critical these days
because at the end of the day
it's a team effort and it's the team
which achieves the outcome with the business uh
and that that's one of the things which I think
I think it's the biggest transformation for Ctos
yep over the last few years
and particularly over the last 20 years
I've seen a lot of CTOs were the technical gurus
but they almost sat separate outside of the business
yep
now CTOs are an integral part of the team
they have to be
and the technology is an integral part of the business
yeah I
during previous years gone by
I used to rail against this concept of the business
and tech yep
the business is tech tech is part of the business
yep it's all one and the same thing
and they used to often you'd hear this in conversation
which was the kind of like
the tech team
perceived as some sort of addition or some
they just siloed by themselves
renegades doing what they want
exactly yeah
some strange organization which is not
we don't talk to them yeah
yeah don't and
and there wasn't that line
so I always pushed back against that and yeah
I always worked with CEOs and with investors to say
we're core we're absolutely core to the
and let's not talk in those terms
hmm because by talking in those terms
it's
almost becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy
if you talk like that
then you're instantly gonna start to behave like that
yep and it's also not good for the technology
and the product people on the ground as well
they need to know that what they're doing is core
and really drives the value
and that comes back to you know
people at an individual level
want to know that
the things that they're doing as part of a business
really have an impact yeah
and have you seen um
investment firms and companies
miss out on technology opportunities
because they've not been so aligned with the tech
and the the business
they're not as one yeah
absolutely um
and unfortunately I've seen it um quite often yeah
where there isn't an alignment around the
the kind of business strategy and the technology
and often they're
the points that
someone like me is often brought into the whole
conversation but I've frequently
frequently seen it where
the reason that alignment
or the business has this mindset of
tech is something else hmm
and date and to an extent
and to an extent
that's also happened with data and data science
because a very complex
very difficult challenging subject okay
let's keep it at an arms length right
not really engage it
or we need that in far more simplistic terms
and I particularly through
I think there was a period between
I would say 2,010 to 2000
well just pre covid
so that kind of decade
where I was consistently seeing that disconnect
between what tech organizations can achieve
within a broader business
um and also as well
what data organizations can achieve as an outcome
and businesses
weren't leveraging that in the right way
mm hmm uh
the businesses for me
who are really gonna be successful
who are
those who really integrate that
as part of the soul and core of what they're doing
yep if you get that right
then all of a sudden you have products and capabilities
which are differentiating
you have people who are far more actively engaged
and it becomes quite an exciting atmosphere
and that's you know
that's something which I've always pushed for
to achieve within the working environment
people then come along the journey with you
they're as you say
more engaged right
they want to do the work it's
it's a wonderful thing to see when you've got CFO's
CEO's
COO's actively engaged in the conversations around data
yeah and it's
it's actually and I'm not
I'm not saying that the the
it's always completely aligned right right
at least they're talking about it though
but the fact is that they're talking yeah
yeah and that's
that's an exciting thing because then
you start to talk about the art of the possible
and where you can take this
and what new things can be achieved
and that's really you know
that for me
that's the bit which always gets me out of bed
so to speak yeah
um is that level of excitement
is that level of enthusiasm of
what can we achieve today
yeah
it takes it beyond the the baseline
right that everyone's doing
it's great when you get when you're not
and I think that's one of the things which
which I I personally Mark myself um
in terms of my own measurements of success
if I get a business
everyone in the business talking in those terms
I know I'm doing a good job
yeah at that point
yeah because they must have
at some point listened to what I was saying
ha ha ha um
and the fact that they're kind of
relaying things in that way
and understanding not just that this is kind of
magic and smoke and mirrors
and we can all achieve everything
but understanding the practicalities
and the steps that we need to take yeah
if businesses are talking in those terms
then certainly I've had some success as a CEO
yeah good
and we talked a bit about AI
and we can not talk about AI
I'm sorry I have to bring it up again um
but when we previously spoke
you mentioned
you've sort of moved beyond not just building like
predictive models you're looking at like
true agentic AI systems
and some of the work that you're doing
yeah um'cause there's a lot
there's a lot of noise around AI right
everyone's doing something with AI again
we spoke about
I've been to some events recently and there
everyone's talking about AI
which is great I'm very happy to talk about it yeah
now now
95% of any conference that you go to
at this moment in time is AI
and then there's usually a stall somewhere
so where someone's not talking about AI yeah
no one's standing there
no one is so everyone's talking about it right
so it it is and unfortunately we
we do as an industry
we do have this if we do we do it to ourselves um
we are constantly
always kind of bringing forward the next great thing
and so on so yeah
and you could
if you looked over the technology industry
over the last 30 years
you could be critical and say every five
every seven years we're always doing this right
it's something new there's something yeah
something game changing something evolutionary um
but in actual fact this I think is
is different yeah
and it's different because there is firstly
and let's not talk about the levels of investment
which you've gone into it
but the the volume of incredibly bright people
and the structure and the organisations
which should be put around
trying to get more value out of this techno
technological capability is really
really uh
that's really exciting mmm hmm
cause if you start to have organizations like anthropic
like uh
open AI with the resources that they've got
and again I don't just mean the financial resources
but the people the knowledge
the insight
then you're inevitably gonna generate something
which is which is really quite game changing
I think the for businesses
and that that's kind of one end of the scale
because these
kind of trillion dollar valuation businesses
which I'm as I understand
that's where anthropic is gonna be when it uh
floats on the on the stock exchange on the um
it's mad in itself right
yeah exactly
you know they're literally talking about a valuation
which is just short of $1 trillion
so but that is one end of the scale
and the problem is that we can get
quickly absorbed into that type of bubble
the reality for most businesses who are kind of 3
400 people on a certain level of revenue is
how do we get that into our business
how do we adopt that where do we utilize it
what does it mean for us yep
right and are you
when you actually start to have honest conversations
with many other CTOs and CIOs
which I've done
quite frequently over the last two years or so
in actual fact
they're all struggling with the same questions
yeah
some have gone into
what I would refer as pilot purgatory right
where they've got 300 pilots of whatever it is
that's running in the background
burning a huge amount of tokens
yep to um
but these are very disjointed activities
and they're not kind of looking at how you redesign
the ways of working they're just kind of very isolated
very uh reactive
yeah and very tactical actions
which in some ways
do inform a broader knowledge base of what can be done
but you've got to join the pitch together
mm hmm this is a transformation journey
yeah and it's something that we Learned particularly um
18 months ago when we started to really introduce some
really good AI capabilities
into TLC we learn very quickly
that this was about transformation
this was about taking people on the journey
you can't redesign the way that people work
if you haven't included people in that conversation
yeah it's a fundamental part of it right
I I
you know at
at best you're gonna be disjointed
at worst you're gonna get a complete push back yeah
you need uh
people to be part of that conversation
and again it comes back to a little bit of having
process and structure in place
uh because your
if you're gonna restructure your way of working
you actually have to have a baseline
cause otherwise you're investing in AI
but you're if you don't
if you don't know where you're at as a baseline
how can you ever prove the value of the investment
yeah exactly
you'll never know you go
we're not sure if it worked
yeah exactly
maybe it did maybe it didn't
we think it's better you're yeah
it'll be
it becomes a very subjective judgement based call
which was we were there
we're now there and there is better we think yeah yeah
most people will say there is better
because they just will yeah
exactly they won't even say we think you're
you're never gonna say well
we spent six months to trying to do this
and a load of cash and actually millions of dollars
yeah we just kind of gone somewhere else yeah
it has to be you're always gonna stand by the notion
that it's better
so you have to then take a step back and say okay look
what's the transformation that we're on here
what's that
broader processes that we're trying to enable again
align what you're trying to achieve
to the objectives of the business
hmm you know
there's no point in going off and investing
not just again not just financially investing
but people's time and training and insights
into AI capabilities without
really understanding
where you're gonna take the business
with that yeah uh
and that has to be clear again
because I would never step into those journeys
unless my my peers are clear where we're going
cause you know they
I have an obligation to them
to make sure that what I'm suggesting is
what they're aligned with is yeah
and equally with our investors as well yeah
you know going off on random tangents with
just because AI is the kind of flavour of the month
it's not really good but the and again
it's not
it's the whole challenge with AI is not a kind of one
one size fits all type of thing cause of course
you got the and I again
everyone's initial focus was the generative stuff great
but the generative stuff is very reactive
very tactical it's not
gonna really be the thing which moves the needle
in your business the agentic stuff potentially is yup
uh because then you're joining
multiple activities together yep
there's pitfalls in the agentic approach as well
where you've got to really step back and think
about how you're implementing this
mm hmm you know
we were having a debate some time ago about this
and the structure of the agents
and what you want agents to do yeah
and do you want one monolithic agent
yeah or do you want to actually take kind of a
a microservices approach yeah
and have smaller agents with discreet function
yeah okay
and then join these things together well
again horses for courses
it depends right
yeah some people might say actually look
I know this and end to end
and I wanted to do all these steps equally
some other businesses might say
you know what I really want that flexibility
that actually these discreet agents give me
mm hmm so again
you need to look at that overall architecture
of your agentic AI
and what you're trying to achieve as a
business objectives
and make sure that all that's aligned
it's not and that's the bit where
CTOs need to step into that mindset
mm hmm and some are yeah
some are a little bit behind the curve on that yeah
um but you have to absorb this
you have to take it on board and you have to learn it
you have to understand the nuances of things like MCP
you have to understand Langchain
and these types of technologies these days yeah
because they are
in the same way that we used to talk client server
in many many years ago ha ha ha pre cloud doctor yeah
um
you have to have these frames
these terms of reference yeah
and you have to be able to understand
how you can leverage these
and what is appropriate and what is not yeah
that's the role of the CTO
it's just it's just a I was gonna say simple
that's the wrong word'cause nothing's simple
necessarily but it's a transformation in its
in its true core right
so we've had the age of digital transformation
which there are also plenty of organisations
still going through
a traditional digital transformation
by the way as you know um
but now it's looking at OK
well
digital transformation 2.0 or whatever we wanna call it
is is involving AI right
we're taking it to the next level
so
we're gonna go through the same processes to work out
like how this transformation fits
the business bringing experts to help us do it
rather than just trying to figure it out by ourselves
yeah and I
I I think that's where the gap in the knowledge
still exists hmm
is not necessarily
do you understand AI technologies and the capabilities
do the question is more
do you understand how to drive a transformation
with that yeah
capability and most people haven't done this
because that's the thing
so people are still learning as they figure it out
at this was said earlier
everyone's still figuring out how it works
they may have done a
a traditional digital transformation in the past
which is similar
but there's gonna be nuance things and terms and
and that that but that's the
that's the actual
you've hit on one of the key points there
there is a lot of learnings from the
technology and digital transformations
that have been done in the past
and there's a lot
lots of practices that you just need to bring into
an AI based transformation
yep and
but equally as well
you need to start to get your business talking in those
frames of reference as well
you know
we used to have cloud first now we've got AI first okay
well to a certain extent I
it does make me laugh when when we do that as an Indian
yeah um
but there is something in it yeah
which is we need to all think like that
and once you get again
it's not just the CTO function to think like that
once you get the entire business thinking like that
you're then on a really good path
you're then on a path where
it becomes second nature to the business to say
actually you know what if we actually do the following
we can achieve the same outcome
without necessarily having
three times more staff in a certain area yeah um
so yeah there there is lots of potential there
but there is lots of learning and lots of maturing
that needs to happen really quickly
the thing that I will say is
I'll sit here now and I'll say this in 12 months
every that that will have been caught up a lot yeah
and that's what I'm seeing where
whereas if I step back fifteen years ago
technologies used to answer enter into the market
which was sometimes game changing in the approach
and uh let's take cloud as an example yep
cloud took a huge time for businesses to really adopt
yeah of course
there were larger
much bigger scale enterprises who completely got this
right but they had the investment and they could do it
they were more hindered by the legacy
challenge that they had well yeah
taking everything off the prem to the cloud
bunch of prem servers that no one knew exactly what
what these things did right
so um
but I was surprised by the amount of businesses
who were in
that kind of like 100 to kind of thousand headcount
business space
um who still hadn't gone cloud
mm hmm now I think fast majority
eventually organizations have got round the hurdle
and nearly everyone's kind of got
their heads around that problem
what I'm seeing with the AI first approach
if we use that yup
is that
I think people held their ground initially for the
for the last 18 months or so
but now there is a real push yeah
so then that's why I say within the next 12 months
people will have made that transformation
they will have had to do that
they will have had to drive that outcome
and that's what I that's why again I
I say there is something far more tangible here
than the ebbs and flows
of what's happened in the technology market
in the past yeah
people are getting used to the technology now
and they understand it a little better
no one understands it perfectly
I don't think uh well
maybe a few people here and there
but people now start to really
sort of realize the benefits
and they are asking a lot of the right questions
and going okay
this isn't just noise it's not going away
we need to work out how we can harness this yeah
in whatever we're doing I think yeah
and
and I think this is where kind of anthropic and open AI
particularly but even Microsoft and many others now
get it right is
because
employees in the work environment are exposed through
generative AI to the potential power
so
it makes it actually a bit of an easier step for CTOs
when you start to talk about what else you can do
and you introduce concepts of agenic AI yup
then it's not that
it's not so much of a leap for people
it's not a hard sell to your finance team to say
we're gonna use this stuff in AI
and they're not suddenly so scared going yeah
what happened to my job yeah
I look I see as an enabler
I remember in 2012 trying to have
having to explain to our finance teams
why you couldn't capitalize
all the stuff that is now in cloud right right
which was a bit of a shock to them um
so so because of that
the work and the the services that open AI and
and anthropic and many others have
have brought to the market
that has got everyone thinking in those terms hmm
so um
so I'm I'm optimistic and hopefully
you know
I think
our use of this type of technology will rapidly mature
and not we we tend to as humans use this
use these types of technologies for superficial stuff
initially but eventually we get our heads around it
yeah and start to really bring forward some true
game changing business applications
but you know it's
it's it's
it's always the
the nature of these types of advancements
which is the the people
the benefit which is identified comes later
hmm yeah
so great we've got a foundational game changing tech
in what these guys have done um
in these in these organizations
there will be a a next step
a new generation of people who start to build out
really really tangible use cases against this
and you can see this already starting to happen
yeah with more and more kind of agent
agentic capabilities coming online
and some of it is
you now start to look at some of it and go
that's really smart
someone's really thought that through
and when we spoke last time
you mentioned uh
that you guys have been working on building
some recommendation engines
that had yeah
around about 90% 8% accuracy
yeah or over
that's quite smart to me yeah
so that's what how did that
how did that start talk to me about that project
no that this is
and it all starts from the same position of you have
you understand what your market needs
yeah you understand what you can offer
as a potential proposition within that market
so it's not necessarily an instinctive okay
here's what we can do with AI yeah
you're trying to solve a business problem
you're trying to uh
bring something new and exciting
and innovative to your customers
you're trying to get that competitive edge
yeah a little bit
and again you know that
that is the the your your starting point
then you start to look at what you could do with AI
to solve problems because in many cases
what you're able to do is
you knew these problems existed previously
but you could never solve them right
because it was never there
now you've got the opportunity to kind of say right
how do we get to a position where
we can build something where we have a
an engine which recommends
the right type of campaign for our customers
in such a way that it delivers
that with a high level of accuracy
so our customers can be assured
that if they follow the guidance that we're giving
uh they
they're gonna drive the outcome
that they want to achieve
on their side
which you know that might be more brand awareness
that might be an uptick
in the sales that they see of that particular brand
but we want to make sure that we always
get to that place where
we've done all the hard work in the background
where we've got the models in the background
and we can say with a level of credibility
based on our expertise based on our knowledge
here's the best way to go about achieving
your business goals your outcomes
we've got
the AI is operating as part of that to augment the
the whole thinking
but ultimately that takes you as
as a as a provider of these type of services
that takes you into a place where
you're really showing that you've got the
your focus is on the best interests of your customers
and where you can take your customers
and that's really what was driving that is
how can we do something extraordinary for customers
yeah how can I
sit there with a brand manager of a multinational
and say I can within a level of accuracy
guarantee an outcome for you
we gotta be careful with the word guarantee yeah
but um
almost guarantee almost guarantee
but have models in the background
which show
that there is a level of accuracy and predictability
on the outcome could you do that without AI
because could a human
give that level of accuracy in the prediction
do you think
not consistently um
and there are too many variables okay
far too many variables because if you look at
if you look at what you can do with AI
you can bring in literally thousands of variables
including you know
let's say there is a cause
we do a lot of stuff which is kind of days out
offers these types of rewards
okay what happens if you have a really bad summer
right
well actually you can use AI to kind of say right
look what's the long term weather forecast
and that can actually play in
mm hmm potentially yeah yeah
now you could never do that with a human right
they they
for them to be able to do that at any speed
it's not scalable
it's gonna by the time it's some will have passed right
by the time they probably managed to do it
if you have 100 organizations every month
asking roughly those types of questions
yeah
and you need to respond literally in no more than a
a few minutes if not maybe an hour right yeah
maximum yeah
you just couldn't you couldn't do that yeah
um
and that's what really AI gives you is that capability
which is again you know
one of the really strong use cases for AI
is being able to do to get
serve up analytics and insights exceptionally quickly
in ways that we've never had the opportunity to do
now
that is not maybe a direct line sight of cost saving
but it really is right yeah
it really gives
people that decision making capability to act on
almost immediately yeah
and you know
if you can do that if you can do something at pace
then OK that might help our customers in certain ways
well it definitely helps
doesn't it with things like reporting
because think about traditional reports
it takes takes a while for them to be compiled
every all the data to go into it
someone to build something that someone who's see
sweet level
who's doesn't like looking at lots of numbers
they'll go I wanna see the tell me show me the graph
for example simplest form
that's a that's the other shift which I think
which is really this one which is exciting for me
is traditional approach has always been get uh
technology teams or business insight teams
or business intelligence teams
to build out some reports
mm hmm and we kind of go through this kind of
definition process and then eventually we
someone goes off builds these reports and hey
presto four weeks later here's your report right
we don't need to do that anymore
mm hmm forward
now it's about
have we got all the data in the background
is that data of a good quality
and is it all joined together
yeah that's the key right
yup yup
absolutely and we mustn't miss the data part of this
yup because often that gets pushed over with with AI
but the reason why all these
companies need the investment
and the levels of people that they need
is not about the AI capabilities
it's about the data in the background
and how they manage and curate that data
so getting your data in a really fit state
then enables you to basically go back to a customer
and say you want reports
ask the system just type into the system
and it will tell you what data you have available
and then you can ask it to build a report for you
and it will build that report for you within seconds
that completely shifts the dynamic
because it's not about what report do you want right
it's not about a visualization of a report
it's about here's your data
it's structured in this certain type of way
use the AI to interrogate it
and ask the questions that you want
yup and that is empowering people again
yeah and that is what really drives businesses forward
and that's where you get excited
decision making in like seconds
exactly exactly
ultimately rather than having to wait a month
as you say you know
you can imagine
if you've got this wealth of data in the background
and you're and your CFO
or your CEO is asking these questions around
the value of what we're getting from the likes of
you know whatever services that TLC delivers
yeah the wealth of data is there
you can just ask
and you can produce the reports literally in seconds
yeah that is again
a game changer yeah
it's amazing um
and we talked a bit about um
like the use of tokens
and you're spending lots of money on uh
on AI cause it's not this
say the cost saving is is not really the
the thing that's driving it for
for most people these days
I think a lot of people still selling that um
bit bit of snake oil
in my opinion yeah
um should be looking at
the other things that we've been speaking about yeah
um
we talked a bit about about budgets and having budgets
and you need to have budgets for
for AI I
believe
and there's been a lot of people not having budgets
for AI and just throwing money at
at things and having unlimited budgets and just going
yeah just spend
and I know you've been through this scenario for
from other things you've been doing
so I've had unlimited budget to do yeah
but not not particularly with AI
but certainly from a people point of view but no
just to to come back to the AI point
and it's a critical thing
you have to put usage limits into your AI capabilities
and that has to be a default
uh you cannot just leave that open ended
because if you leave AI open
say for example I give data to a
a customer or or give an AI capability to a customer
and data is in the background
and I put no limitation on that in the background okay
they can run run run keep going Gary
and they can potentially
generate a huge amount of cost
really quickly yep
so one of the
the things which I always insist on with all my teams
is anything that we do
which is leveraging large language models
as we build out the kind of
the rag structures
and various other things that we've built out
is we have to have usage limits
and that is monitored um
almost on a daily basis
so that we can see how it's being used
what it's being used for
and that's not necessarily to kind of like
restrict anyone
but it's always to kind of look at what's happening
mm hmm because then you can kind of
proactively address any usage
yeah or those usage patterns
and to a certain extent
you can also reach out to people and say
what is it you're doing
cause you're generating a huge amount of cost here
and sometimes that's that
what they're doing is actually a huge business value
so yeah
yeah and go yeah
it's fine right
can I yeah yeah
but it's like any consumption model
don't leave it untethered
yeah yeah
you suddenly find you've got a huge Bill at the end and
yeah and no value
and there was kind of a bit of a unique
situation in the past where
those consumption models were kind of in the remit
of the the tech teams who understood right
don't do this don't do that
otherwise you'll spend a lot of cash really easily with
particularly with the large language models
and their availability
the opportunity for that to go wrong really quickly is
is there yeah
so you have to put in those limitations
and like this this comes back to something
which I think is
coming a bit more hotly up on the rails
when people talk about AI
is governance structure
a real oversight on what you're doing with that
with that tech yeah
if you don't and it's like anything
it's like any innovation right
all these things all technological innovations
can be used in a very good
positive way which really enhances what we're doing
but can also be very destructive very easily hmm
and we see many examples of that
outside of the work environment yeah
of course but
there are examples where it's becoming deconstructive
inside the work environment as well yeah
so you've got to be able to monitor it and you know
also as well
there is a tendency for people to play with AI yeah
well most people are playing with AI
experimenting at the moment
cause they're getting used to it and they don't know
they want to understand what's happening yeah
yeah and
and you've got to be careful again with that
because there there is a danger that you
you consume a lot of resources in that
in that learning activity um
which is why we try to particularly in TLC
but also as well in other places which I've worked
you try to always align back to
if we're gonna do something in this space
let's make sure that it's gonna
generate the value that we want to
do your leg work do the rigour in the background
before you start committing down these directions
otherwise
you will inevitably end up with a situation where CFO's
if you haven't done that leg work
and all of a sudden you're generating cost
CFO's will come up and then say well
why have we got all this cost all of a sudden yep
and that's again
a responsibility of a CTO in the modern context
is to have got all that level setting done
yep in advance
so that when you start to leverage
AI capabilities at scale and it does come with cost
everyone's okay with that because you can budget for it
yeah and they know that it's offering far more value
yep then it is cost yeah
right you know
no one you're lying it yeah
yeah yeah
many many years ago when I no one used to kind of uh
bat an eyelid at the huge expense
that people used to pay for
SAP
transformations ERP transformations
yep because everyone
CFO's and CEO's and everyone in the business
were completely aligned
to the fact that these types of systems offer
huge value
now
you need to make sure that you're doing that with AI
as well it's the Val
it's spell out the value proposition
spell out where this is going
spell out what this is gonna do for the business
and then everyone becomes fairly
a lot more relaxed
about the cost that it's gonna generate
but you still need to monitor closely in terms of like
the future and what it holds
crystal ball moment but what are the
I suppose like what's the
what's the
give me the one technology trend that you think
people should pay attention to
quantum computing yeah
yeah
seriously it's a great one yeah
um because
and oddly enough this goes back to my university days
I I wrote my thesis on quantum computing
albeit it was very kind of uh high level and um
probably wildly inaccurate at the time
but the
the potential that
that has to do things that we've never even
and it it's really out the
outside of the realms of even speculation
hmm um
but the first type of services are coming online
and you'll see that increasingly
come of influence
over the course of the next 10 years or so
as more and more use cases for that type of capability
start to pull around I'm really
excited to see the intercept point between AI
and quantum computing yes
I agree that will be game changing yep
um it will when that will come
I'm I'm sure who knows yeah
I'm sure that you know Google will probably work
they've they've
probably made the biggest advancements in quantum
computing over the course of the last few uh
months with the stability of qubits
and that's just
you know
that that has gone past thresholds that many uh
researchers in this space
thought were never gonna be achievable
you know the
the actual stabilization that they've now got
in those types of environments is um
something really exciting
that then lays
the foundation for commercial applications
of this type of technology
and you can see now that the universities
are starting to get universities
and various different research organizations
are starting to get access to that for the first time
yep there's teams in various different UK universities
and US universities
who are now signing contracts with Google
and many others
to get access to that quantum computing capability
almost in the way that they kind of like
buy time from the telescopes and stuff like that
they're buying time from these things now
the potential for that is huge
and again
there is a downside to that
which and I I wouldn't kind of panic everyone
but
every cryptocurrency in the world is all of a sudden
at risk
because
there is no way that
those systems can literally go through any type of
cryptography or any type of security that we've got
almost within minutes yep
so there is a downside of that
that's why we have to have the kind of
controls and governance
I think if you look at in the same way
that there is a bit of a battleground emerging
between various different uh
countries around the world around AI
that battleground will increasingly heat up
around quantum computing
well let's see where it goes David
it has been absolutely fascinating talking to you
thank you so much again for taking the time
pleasure I think we've uh
we've set a few things straight today
ha ha ha uh
hopefully given some people
some insight into some things they didn't know
as well uh
I've certainly enjoyed it
so I'm sure the
the listeners and the watchers have as well
thanks Rupert
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