1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,600
Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child

2
00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador

3
00:00:07,720 --> 00:00:11,840
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with

4
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:15,840
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just

5
00:00:15,920 --> 00:00:19,680
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President

6
00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:20,159
Speaker 1: Donald J.

7
00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.

8
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:25,079
Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.

9
00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:29,200
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the

10
00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:33,080
Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal

11
00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:36,920
Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your

12
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:41,160
Speaker 1: next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,

13
00:00:41,479 --> 00:00:42,160
Speaker 1: and deported.

14
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:43,800
Speaker 2: You will never return.

15
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:47,120
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and

16
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,120
Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.

17
00:00:50,479 --> 00:00:52,720
Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.

18
00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:57,840
Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.

19
00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:00,560
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security Earners.

20
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:05,119
Speaker 4: What's going on? Listen, eylu is relaunching, revamping, retooing. That's

21
00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:08,760
Speaker 4: why we're creating a new educational experience that's more expansive.

22
00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:09,679
Speaker 5: Shot tell what we.

23
00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:12,760
Speaker 6: Got Yes twenty twenty three, We got a lot in

24
00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:15,039
Speaker 6: still a lot playing for you guys. So you know

25
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:19,000
Speaker 6: that EYLU already includes monthly financial planning calls with Me,

26
00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:22,280
Speaker 6: book club calls with Troy, real estate calls with MG

27
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,080
Speaker 6: the Mortgage Guy, access to the Home Buying Blueprint Volume

28
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:29,320
Speaker 6: one and Volume two. Part of the revamp will include

29
00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,360
Speaker 6: twenty seven local chapters from across the United States, live

30
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:37,800
Speaker 6: interactive teaching hands on not just pre recorded videos, plus

31
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,840
Speaker 6: fifteen brand new curriculums.

32
00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:42,440
Speaker 4: The biggest just got bigger.

33
00:01:42,959 --> 00:01:46,360
Speaker 7: Head over to e y L University dot com. That's

34
00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:51,200
Speaker 7: EYL you n I V E R s I T

35
00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:53,320
Speaker 7: Y dot com.

36
00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:56,280
Speaker 6: See you there, all right, guys, Welcome back e y L.

37
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:59,840
Speaker 6: So this is an international episode of sorts, even though

38
00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:03,160
Speaker 6: we're home. So Dean Forbes is somebody that we actually

39
00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:05,600
Speaker 6: met when we were in London. We interviewed him for

40
00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:07,880
Speaker 6: the Market Monday. So we did a Market Monday's World tour.

41
00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,800
Speaker 6: If you wasn't familiar with it, pretty legendary situation. We

42
00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:16,799
Speaker 6: did Toronto, London, Ghana, Chicago, and LA and each stop

43
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:20,240
Speaker 6: we interviewed a local person from that area that was

44
00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:23,040
Speaker 6: doing things on a very high level. And we've been

45
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,160
Speaker 6: in London a few times. We had a Royal Albert

46
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,880
Speaker 6: Hall situation. The first time was tapepe London shout out

47
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:31,280
Speaker 6: the tape. We did a few things in London that

48
00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:34,320
Speaker 6: was crazy. So this time we wanted to actually interview

49
00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:36,919
Speaker 6: somebody that was local, but like on the highest level possible.

50
00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:39,400
Speaker 6: And I forgot who was the first person that has

51
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:45,640
Speaker 6: suggested you. It might have been dial maybe not sure

52
00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:49,359
Speaker 6: it was somebody, but they were saying that you were

53
00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:53,640
Speaker 6: like a real success story coming from the neighborhood and

54
00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:56,000
Speaker 6: then working your way up to I believe, correct me

55
00:02:56,040 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 6: if I'm wrong, you are the top black CEO. And okay, right,

56
00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:03,200
Speaker 6: we're going to say that.

57
00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,200
Speaker 4: No, we're saying that someone say someone said, yeah, your

58
00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 4: name came up, not just one time, a few times.

59
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:10,040
Speaker 4: We were trying to figure out who's the person, who's

60
00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:12,880
Speaker 4: the person. It was kind of a consensus amongst the people,

61
00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,160
Speaker 4: like the other person, Yeah, that's nice.

62
00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:19,480
Speaker 6: You led. You led seventeen acquisitions, achieved a billion dollar deal,

63
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,480
Speaker 6: You've doubled companies valuations, You've been a leader in the

64
00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:29,000
Speaker 6: tech industry, reinvented yourself multiple times, and you still have

65
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:32,119
Speaker 6: done it with a strong commitment and uplifting the community

66
00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:36,000
Speaker 6: and keeping true to your your original roots. So we

67
00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:38,680
Speaker 6: did the interview live, a live interview, and it was

68
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,720
Speaker 6: really dope. Everybody that was there enjoyed it. But you know,

69
00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:45,560
Speaker 6: that's an intimate experience, so everybody doesn't actually get to,

70
00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:47,840
Speaker 6: you know, experience that unless it was actually at the

71
00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:51,400
Speaker 6: market Monday's World Tour. So wanted to do something that

72
00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:54,640
Speaker 6: was a little bit more expansive that could reach a

73
00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:56,920
Speaker 6: wider audience as opposed to just the people that was

74
00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,000
Speaker 6: actually there, to share your story and provide the insight

75
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,640
Speaker 6: because it's important, and to show up to our UK

76
00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:03,960
Speaker 6: following because we got a lot of follows in the

77
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:06,680
Speaker 6: UK and we haven't done an episode with somebody from

78
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:08,840
Speaker 6: the UK in a while. It's been a minute probably

79
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:09,840
Speaker 6: over the two years.

80
00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 4: I think his story encompasses everything that we've been built on.

81
00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:15,680
Speaker 4: Right when we had the abservation, it was like, yes,

82
00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:18,600
Speaker 4: sports entertainment's cool, and I know that's the background, but

83
00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:21,440
Speaker 4: there's so many other ways to become successful, and I

84
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:25,760
Speaker 4: feel like your life is really the leisure story, right

85
00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 4: sports entertainment to business how we transition. So it's gonna

86
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:31,080
Speaker 4: it's gonna be amazing story to its bible.

87
00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:32,560
Speaker 6: With the so first and foremo, thank you for joining us,

88
00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:33,640
Speaker 6: appreciate it, my pleasure.

89
00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:34,520
Speaker 5: Good to be back.

90
00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:43,200
Speaker 6: Always so on you on this side of the pond. Yeah,

91
00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:45,000
Speaker 6: so welcome, welcome to America.

92
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:45,600
Speaker 5: Thank you.

93
00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:48,800
Speaker 6: Yeah. So all right, let's get into it. Tell us

94
00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 6: the story for people that are not familiar with you

95
00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:55,320
Speaker 6: from like I said, starting humble, beginnings, sports, then you

96
00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:58,560
Speaker 6: get into business and you just kind of just take off.

97
00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,040
Speaker 6: So kind of walk us through your journey.

98
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:03,520
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, like I said, could to be back. I

99
00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:05,159
Speaker 5: had a lot of fun at market Monday. Is the

100
00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:10,080
Speaker 5: energy energy you guys being is unbelievable. But I mean, yeah,

101
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,080
Speaker 5: the stories, I guess you know a lot of us.

102
00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:15,560
Speaker 5: I grew up on what we call counsel estate in

103
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,720
Speaker 5: the UK we call a council estate here you call

104
00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:24,360
Speaker 5: it a pousand projects assistance in the big blocks. And

105
00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:26,599
Speaker 5: like most people who grew up in those environments, the

106
00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:28,840
Speaker 5: number one way out for people that look like us,

107
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:32,320
Speaker 5: or the kind of most frequent way out is either sports,

108
00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:38,320
Speaker 5: entertainment or some of the unsavory things right right there,

109
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:43,239
Speaker 5: pharmacists right exactly exactly. And that was never really an option,

110
00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:45,800
Speaker 5: although like a lot of people, you kind of saw

111
00:05:45,839 --> 00:05:47,280
Speaker 5: it and you flirted with it, but when you had

112
00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:49,760
Speaker 5: a mother like mine, it was you know, the fear

113
00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:53,359
Speaker 5: of dealing with her was more. You were more scared

114
00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:55,800
Speaker 5: at that than going into a correctional facility, for sure,

115
00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:59,400
Speaker 5: So never really got into that. I played football, which

116
00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:02,440
Speaker 5: you guys call occer, but it's really football. I played.

117
00:06:02,480 --> 00:06:04,760
Speaker 5: I played football a lot, and yeah, that was supposed

118
00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:06,440
Speaker 5: to be my path. I was signed to a team,

119
00:06:06,839 --> 00:06:10,599
Speaker 5: a Crystal Palace for a long time. And when it

120
00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:12,440
Speaker 5: came to being serious, you know, the point in which

121
00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:14,800
Speaker 5: you really become a professional and really doubled down, I

122
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:16,960
Speaker 5: came out of the game. I didn't get my contract,

123
00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:21,200
Speaker 5: wasn't wasn't renewed. And along that journey to be trying

124
00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:24,200
Speaker 5: to become a footballer, my mom lost her home or

125
00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:26,039
Speaker 5: we lost the home that we lived until we were

126
00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 5: we were homeless for a short while, then the football

127
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:32,839
Speaker 5: career ended. Then we were homeless again. And the way,

128
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:34,719
Speaker 5: you know, the fastest way for the family to be

129
00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:37,320
Speaker 5: housed was to break the family up, because the government

130
00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:40,440
Speaker 5: could find smaller properties faster than they could find.

131
00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:42,159
Speaker 6: You know, larger how many people's in your family.

132
00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:45,760
Speaker 5: Four so my mom and my two brothers, so four

133
00:06:45,839 --> 00:06:46,120
Speaker 5: of us.

134
00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:49,000
Speaker 4: So mom is from West Jamaica.

135
00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:53,279
Speaker 5: My mom's Guyanese, and my dad's dad's Jamake it exact. Yeah, So,

136
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:55,719
Speaker 5: you know, that was the second time I was homeless,

137
00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 5: kind of football football crashed and I had a lot

138
00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,360
Speaker 5: of debt at the time, you know, because in pursuing

139
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:02,480
Speaker 5: the football career, I had a lot of friends who

140
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:04,800
Speaker 5: were doing really really well at football, and they were

141
00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,360
Speaker 5: only real money from football at like eighteen nineteen. So

142
00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:10,440
Speaker 5: in order to keep up with them, keep up appearances

143
00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:12,440
Speaker 5: with them on the nights out and you know, with

144
00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:15,240
Speaker 5: girls and stuff around, I was borrowing money. So I

145
00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:18,240
Speaker 5: was spending money on credit cards and borrowing money to

146
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,000
Speaker 5: keep up that appearance. So when I came out of

147
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:23,840
Speaker 5: a game and lost the house, I had like eighteen

148
00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:25,960
Speaker 5: nine pounds of.

149
00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:27,960
Speaker 6: Debt, eighty nine thousand pounds a debt.

150
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:32,720
Speaker 5: Yeah at eighteen at eighteen yeah, yea his credit card

151
00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 5: debt overdraft and credit card debt has a lot of parties, man, Yeah,

152
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,120
Speaker 5: I mean, and I had a car too. I mean

153
00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:42,480
Speaker 5: I really, you know, really went for it because that

154
00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:44,800
Speaker 5: was the environment. It was like I had. Most of

155
00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 5: my friends were doing really well at football, and I

156
00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:48,600
Speaker 5: was only I was one of very few in that

157
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,960
Speaker 5: group who financially wasn't Like I was signed to a team,

158
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:54,840
Speaker 5: but not in the way that they were. So when

159
00:07:54,840 --> 00:07:56,800
Speaker 5: I fell out the game, my agent at the time,

160
00:07:56,880 --> 00:07:58,400
Speaker 5: he said, look, you know, we've been trying to get

161
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:01,000
Speaker 5: you a new deal. There will give you a short

162
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:03,320
Speaker 5: term deal for good money, but then if that doesn't

163
00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:04,880
Speaker 5: work out, what we're going to do. There were clubs

164
00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:06,960
Speaker 5: that will give you a longer term deal, but not

165
00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:10,680
Speaker 5: for good money. You gotta go to work. So that's

166
00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:14,960
Speaker 5: what I did. I went to work at Motorola making

167
00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 5: cold calls and that was the That was the beginning.

168
00:08:18,280 --> 00:08:21,000
Speaker 4: So you're at Motorola, are you still homeless at this point?

169
00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:24,280
Speaker 5: At that point, so I lived in a hostel for

170
00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:28,560
Speaker 5: a bit, which is like it's like a motel, yeah,

171
00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:34,120
Speaker 5: like a bad like a like at it's like what

172
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:37,560
Speaker 5: would you call that, like a dormitory? Right, So you

173
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,319
Speaker 5: live in a big room, there's like twelve beds. There's

174
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:43,360
Speaker 5: Eastern European Turkish people like people from all kinds of

175
00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:47,199
Speaker 5: ethnicities with their families and their bags and you just yeah,

176
00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:48,920
Speaker 5: you stay there until like a.

177
00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,600
Speaker 6: Shelter, Yeah, a shelter.

178
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:55,680
Speaker 5: And then I met my now wife. So at the

179
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:57,760
Speaker 5: point you're going to Motorola, I lived with her. She

180
00:08:57,840 --> 00:09:00,520
Speaker 5: had a one bedroom apartment and she kind of let

181
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:02,840
Speaker 5: me stay there at the beginning. So that's that's that

182
00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,880
Speaker 5: was my route out of being homeless to live with her.

183
00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:10,880
Speaker 6: So all right, so let's okay, So you meet your

184
00:09:11,559 --> 00:09:14,320
Speaker 6: now wife, you get it into a one bedroom apartment,

185
00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 6: You're making coal call for Motorola, you're selling something, you're

186
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:17,960
Speaker 6: selling services.

187
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:21,120
Speaker 5: I'm trying to book appointments for field sales reps. So

188
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:23,719
Speaker 5: I'm calling companies. I'm saying, can I send a guy

189
00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:25,040
Speaker 5: in to spend time with you and talk to you

190
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:27,319
Speaker 5: about Motorola products and services?

191
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,559
Speaker 6: Okay, and I'm assuming you do pretty well. You work

192
00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:32,560
Speaker 6: your way up the ladder, become like one of the

193
00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:34,880
Speaker 6: top sales people, right yeah.

194
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:36,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, not at the beginning, because the transition out of

195
00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:40,120
Speaker 5: playing football to making cold calls like the coldest shower

196
00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:42,640
Speaker 5: you could imagine. But yet over time I managed to

197
00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:44,640
Speaker 5: kind of figure it out and became a leader there.

198
00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:45,920
Speaker 6: So how do you get into how do you what'sh

199
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:47,280
Speaker 6: your journey to become an entrepreneur.

200
00:09:48,240 --> 00:09:51,280
Speaker 5: So I came out of Motorola and went to a

201
00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:56,839
Speaker 5: US based software company that was trying to grow internationally.

202
00:09:56,880 --> 00:09:59,880
Speaker 5: So I went to the you know, the London office

203
00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:01,680
Speaker 5: just been opened. There were like six people. There were

204
00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:03,880
Speaker 5: a couple hundred people in Philly, but there were like

205
00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:05,520
Speaker 5: six people in this London office. So I was one

206
00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:08,600
Speaker 5: of the first in that office in a sales role.

207
00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:12,040
Speaker 5: So as I kind of got better at making sales,

208
00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:15,200
Speaker 5: was making quota, people were leaving, I would say to

209
00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:18,640
Speaker 5: the owners, you know, don't replace that person. Just give

210
00:10:18,679 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 5: me their territory. Don't replace that person who just left,

211
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,320
Speaker 5: give me their territory. So I kind of outstayed a

212
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:29,000
Speaker 5: couple generations of salespeople had most of the territory and

213
00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:31,720
Speaker 5: convinced them to let me kind of look after that

214
00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:33,880
Speaker 5: part of the business. Is almost like a franchise, right,

215
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,079
Speaker 5: So I would run international, they would take care of

216
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,920
Speaker 5: the US, and in return, they would give me equity

217
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,320
Speaker 5: in the entire company. So that's kind of how I

218
00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:47,480
Speaker 5: came out of being at Motorola into understanding what equity meant.

219
00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:49,680
Speaker 5: And we grew that company over the nine years I

220
00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:51,480
Speaker 5: was there, and sold it to Oracle for five hundred

221
00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:55,040
Speaker 5: and fifty million dollars. So my kind of journey into

222
00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:59,720
Speaker 5: entrepreneurialism and liquidating equity was because I landed in this

223
00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:02,840
Speaker 5: American company that was trying to grow internationally.

224
00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,480
Speaker 4: So you watched them sell. So I'm there's six of y'all,

225
00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:08,560
Speaker 4: and as people keep getting let off, you're taking on

226
00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:11,320
Speaker 4: their role right until now you're the international guys and

227
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:13,800
Speaker 4: you're watching this sale about to happen and realizing, like

228
00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:16,560
Speaker 4: there's two sides of the scale, like what is the

229
00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:17,560
Speaker 4: inspirational happened us?

230
00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:20,640
Speaker 5: It was a little bit different after people left and

231
00:11:20,679 --> 00:11:23,320
Speaker 5: I was kind of the lone guy. We built a team.

232
00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:25,959
Speaker 5: So we built that team to about one hundred and

233
00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 5: fifty people out of London, Germany, India, Japan, China. So

234
00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:33,800
Speaker 5: I was responsible for that international expansion. So we opened

235
00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:37,080
Speaker 5: offices and all those places. And by the time we

236
00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:41,200
Speaker 5: were selling, I was the SVP of international and I

237
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:43,040
Speaker 5: was part of the team that you know, did that

238
00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:45,920
Speaker 5: deal right alongside the CEO. So I was right in

239
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:47,520
Speaker 5: the seat. So I got to watch the deal, I

240
00:11:47,559 --> 00:11:49,800
Speaker 5: got to participate in the deal. I knew what my

241
00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:52,439
Speaker 5: equity was worth as time had gone on. I'd been

242
00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:56,080
Speaker 5: given and bought more equity. So I was part of

243
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,960
Speaker 5: that and that changed mine and my family's you know,

244
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:01,800
Speaker 5: life in the material material way.

245
00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:07,760
Speaker 6: So after that, so now you're a full fledge. You're

246
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:12,080
Speaker 6: in the mergers and acquisition game, right right, So what

247
00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:13,120
Speaker 6: happens next after that?

248
00:12:13,920 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 5: So along the way, I got calls from different private

249
00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,839
Speaker 5: equity firms, different French capital firms saying, hey, you know,

250
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 5: we see the job you're doing, we see how it's going,

251
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:23,640
Speaker 5: we hear all the stories. Do you want to come

252
00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:26,560
Speaker 5: and run this software company that we just invested in?

253
00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:30,000
Speaker 5: So I'd become a little bit known to the investment community.

254
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:32,200
Speaker 5: So when the deal got done with Oracle, I had

255
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:33,760
Speaker 5: a lot of calls. But I had a tie in

256
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,040
Speaker 5: with Oracle, and as soon as the tithing ended, I

257
00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:39,800
Speaker 5: had It's pretty lucky like I had a good set

258
00:12:39,800 --> 00:12:42,720
Speaker 5: of office So I chose to go and run a

259
00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:47,720
Speaker 5: Paris headquartered software company with Excel VC. And because my

260
00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:50,320
Speaker 5: situation in Oracle is so strong, both in terms of

261
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:53,720
Speaker 5: equity that I'd had, the tie in that I had

262
00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:55,680
Speaker 5: as part of the deal, the deal, I was able

263
00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:58,560
Speaker 5: to negotiate to go and be CEO there was was

264
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,760
Speaker 5: probably for a level of equity you wouldn't normally see

265
00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:05,520
Speaker 5: in a VC type deal with an external, non founder CEO.

266
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:08,000
Speaker 5: So that kind of set me, you know, set me

267
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,400
Speaker 5: up as a as a first time CEO as well.

268
00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:12,480
Speaker 6: So can you talk about I mean, whatever have and

269
00:13:12,559 --> 00:13:14,240
Speaker 6: much you can talk about, can you kind of talk

270
00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:16,839
Speaker 6: about what that looked like as far as your negotiation

271
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,280
Speaker 6: and what you were able to kind of frame for yourself.

272
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:23,319
Speaker 5: So over time at prima Era, I can't that's the

273
00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:25,880
Speaker 5: new company, No, that's the company we sold to Oracles.

274
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,839
Speaker 5: Over time at Primira, I probably got to just under

275
00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:34,480
Speaker 5: three percent of equity through a stock option vehicle, then

276
00:13:34,559 --> 00:13:37,920
Speaker 5: through the tie and the tie in was, you know,

277
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:41,040
Speaker 5: a multi seven figure tie in at Oracle, and the

278
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:43,520
Speaker 5: longer you stayed it kind of grew over time. So

279
00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:45,840
Speaker 5: after I got through kind of the mandatory period of

280
00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:47,920
Speaker 5: the tie in and I had the option to go

281
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,360
Speaker 5: be CEO, I was able to go to them and say,

282
00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:53,760
Speaker 5: you know, market rate for a CEO in venture capital

283
00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 5: might be four percent to six percent equity, but I'm

284
00:13:57,600 --> 00:13:59,880
Speaker 5: going to need more than that because of the situation

285
00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:02,960
Speaker 5: I'm walking away from and the fact that this is

286
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 5: a what we call in you like a transformational situation,

287
00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:07,600
Speaker 5: Like the company I was going to be CEO of

288
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,560
Speaker 5: wasn't performing well. It's a very difficult situation. So the

289
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:16,360
Speaker 5: combination of the economics I was walking away from what

290
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,800
Speaker 5: I'd had at Primiera meant when they were saying this

291
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:21,360
Speaker 5: is a four to six percenter, I was able to say,

292
00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:23,880
Speaker 5: you know, it's going to need to be it's going

293
00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 5: to need to be more than that. It wasn't quite

294
00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:29,840
Speaker 5: double digit percentage, but it was more than market, which

295
00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:30,520
Speaker 5: is incredible.

296
00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:33,000
Speaker 4: So Larry Arason, Larry Ellison, Oracle.

297
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:34,920
Speaker 5: Correct Oracle, Yeah, exactly, exactly.

298
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 4: So there's a common theme here.

299
00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:41,120
Speaker 5: You got Prime to Prime Vista, Primi Pria, and then

300
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:42,880
Speaker 5: ks KDS.

301
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:47,320
Speaker 4: Or all in technology. Was that part of the blueprint

302
00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:50,040
Speaker 4: for you? Like these are the fastest growing companies I

303
00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,960
Speaker 4: want to be in this sector? Like how did you

304
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:53,040
Speaker 4: approach this?

305
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:57,160
Speaker 5: Well, I fell into Primierra, then we sold Primire to Oracle,

306
00:14:57,200 --> 00:14:59,920
Speaker 5: and Oracle at the time was the number one technology

307
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:03,240
Speaker 5: on Earth. So now I'm in a forty thousand person

308
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,600
Speaker 5: publicly listed one of the biggest technology companies on Earth.

309
00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:10,240
Speaker 5: I just learned, like I just watched everything I watched

310
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:13,320
Speaker 5: Charles Phillips, I watched Affracats, I watched all the execs,

311
00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:15,920
Speaker 5: I sat in meetings. I wasn't supposed to be like,

312
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:19,120
Speaker 5: I just really really soaked it up. So at Primvera,

313
00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:23,040
Speaker 5: I didn't really understand the you know, the velocity of tech,

314
00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:25,200
Speaker 5: the value creation that happens in tech. I was just

315
00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:29,520
Speaker 5: doing pretty much my first meaningful job at Oracle, Like

316
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,680
Speaker 5: it blew my mind what was happening. And as part

317
00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:36,440
Speaker 5: of the transaction, Oracle gave hundreds of people in Primira,

318
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:40,640
Speaker 5: you know, stock options, and that's really opened my mind

319
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:43,320
Speaker 5: to to you know, the value that can be realized

320
00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:47,000
Speaker 5: through equity, even as an employee, which I was at

321
00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:50,000
Speaker 5: the time. So that when I understood that and I

322
00:15:50,040 --> 00:15:53,080
Speaker 5: went to KDS and then to core HR and then

323
00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:57,040
Speaker 5: to Access and now at for Tierro, that lesson from

324
00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 5: Oracle of what value can truly be created through M

325
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:04,720
Speaker 5: and A accelerate and organic growth, you know, add on

326
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:08,640
Speaker 5: up cells like that, that really opened my mind. So

327
00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:13,640
Speaker 5: from there, yeah, it was so clear to me what

328
00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:16,040
Speaker 5: trajectory you could create if you you know, if you

329
00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:17,960
Speaker 5: could really find a niche, if you could really find

330
00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:20,880
Speaker 5: good product market fit, if you could get sales, engine moving,

331
00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 5: what kind of value that you could you could create

332
00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:23,280
Speaker 5: and tech?

333
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:29,160
Speaker 6: So okay, so you're able to scale that up as well. Right,

334
00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:32,920
Speaker 6: So at what point do you really like hit your

335
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:35,840
Speaker 6: stride and become like a superstar in the space. Do

336
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:36,240
Speaker 6: you think?

337
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 5: Well, not yet. What what became important to me was

338
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:48,520
Speaker 5: to try to try to prove that that the good

339
00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:51,400
Speaker 5: things that were happening weren't environmental. But that became that

340
00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:53,960
Speaker 5: became important to me. So I kind of said, Okay,

341
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,000
Speaker 5: Prima Veil was a good company, had momentum us based

342
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,200
Speaker 5: and I kind of found my way there. So now

343
00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:03,760
Speaker 5: at KDS, this company's not going well. Premiere was going well.

344
00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:05,600
Speaker 5: When I write this company's not going well, can I

345
00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:08,760
Speaker 5: turn that company around? Okay? So that was that situation.

346
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:11,119
Speaker 5: I want to find another situation that doesn't look like

347
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:13,800
Speaker 5: any either of these two, and I want to deliver

348
00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:16,120
Speaker 5: in that situation because it's a you know now, I've

349
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:19,160
Speaker 5: got free you know now, then I've got free successes

350
00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:23,440
Speaker 5: different types of technology, different geographic markets, different types of

351
00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:26,919
Speaker 5: end customers. And if I can do free, then that

352
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 5: probably answers a question that it's not environmental, it's not

353
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,480
Speaker 5: that I find you know, I just I'm lucky in

354
00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:37,600
Speaker 5: showing up in your places, So that that became that

355
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:39,359
Speaker 5: became important to me, And I would say after the

356
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,119
Speaker 5: third one, which was core Hr, which we sold to

357
00:17:43,200 --> 00:17:47,720
Speaker 5: ACCESS for two hundred and fifty million euros. After that one,

358
00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:50,919
Speaker 5: I started to feel like I might I might know

359
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,400
Speaker 5: what I'm doing. It was like at that point I thought, mate, yeah.

360
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 6: We mentioned this, well how did you turn Let's talk

361
00:17:57,040 --> 00:17:59,439
Speaker 6: about the second company right that you want to You

362
00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:02,239
Speaker 6: became a c you turned it around, and you ended

363
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:02,800
Speaker 6: up selling it.

364
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,359
Speaker 5: We sold it to an American Express for one twenty five.

365
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:09,399
Speaker 6: So how did you turn it around? And what was

366
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 6: the process of actually selling the company to American Express.

367
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:21,280
Speaker 5: That company was a Paris headquartered SaaS business that had

368
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,840
Speaker 5: ninety five percent of its customers in France. So the

369
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:28,200
Speaker 5: play there was geographic expansion. So we grew that company

370
00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:31,119
Speaker 5: in the UK, Germany and the US. So what I

371
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 5: learned at Motorola in sales, Premieri and sales and Oracle

372
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:36,640
Speaker 5: in sales was pretty much the sharp end of how

373
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:38,879
Speaker 5: we grew KDS. It was a sales play, a go

374
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,760
Speaker 5: to marketplay, so it's really kind of optimizing sales and

375
00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:45,000
Speaker 5: marketing in new new geographies, a little bit of what

376
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:48,879
Speaker 5: I'd done at Primira, and we created a partnership with

377
00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:52,240
Speaker 5: American Express where they were relying on our technology for

378
00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:56,199
Speaker 5: a white label arrangement to service their customers, and as

379
00:18:56,240 --> 00:18:58,920
Speaker 5: a result of that, they were kind of automating, you know,

380
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:00,760
Speaker 5: a big part of their busines. This meant they didn't

381
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:02,760
Speaker 5: need people to do a bunch of stuff they were

382
00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:05,560
Speaker 5: using the technology to do. So when we knew we

383
00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 5: wanted to sell the company, we went to American Express

384
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,119
Speaker 5: and said, we have a partnership. This is delivering a

385
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,920
Speaker 5: lot of value for you. You probably should think about

386
00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:15,679
Speaker 5: buying the company. And they kind of said, you know,

387
00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 5: partnership works. Why would we buy the company if you

388
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,199
Speaker 5: know we can just pay you to white label it.

389
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:24,959
Speaker 5: So then I went to MasterCard and said, we're delivering

390
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:27,720
Speaker 5: a service to American Express. You probably ought to have

391
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,679
Speaker 5: the same service. We know you have some relationships, but

392
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:32,160
Speaker 5: they're not delivering for you in the same way as

393
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:34,400
Speaker 5: we are for American Express. So we signed to deal

394
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:38,040
Speaker 5: with MasterCard. It was a commercial dealer at the time,

395
00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:42,000
Speaker 5: so then I started to negotiate an equity position for them.

396
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:45,320
Speaker 5: To invest in KDS. The talk track was, you know,

397
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:48,960
Speaker 5: if we'd suddenly changed strategy, you're going to be left vulnerable,

398
00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:51,840
Speaker 5: so you should have you know, you should invest, you

399
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:54,439
Speaker 5: should have a seat, you should have a say. And

400
00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:57,560
Speaker 5: it was supposed to be a twenty five percent. In

401
00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:00,800
Speaker 5: the end it was like a five percent negotiate. But

402
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 5: the threat of American Expresses number one competitor taking an

403
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 5: equity position in a partner that they relied on heavily

404
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 5: in Europe brought them, brought them back to the table.

405
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:13,840
Speaker 5: So it's like creating a bit of competitive tension. Even

406
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,440
Speaker 5: though American Express didn't understand that the investment was actually

407
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,080
Speaker 5: going to be you know, it wasn't really material, just

408
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:21,679
Speaker 5: the threat of it brought them back to the table.

409
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 5: And then what followed was one of the most entertaining

410
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:33,639
Speaker 5: negotiations of of my life with the then chairman of

411
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:37,760
Speaker 5: one half of the American Express, which was there their

412
00:20:37,760 --> 00:20:40,439
Speaker 5: travel management business. Like, I negotiated the deal with that

413
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:44,200
Speaker 5: guy and it was just insane. It included him having

414
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:47,520
Speaker 5: me removed from his offices twice by security.

415
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:52,159
Speaker 6: Well you got what was such a big It was

416
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 6: like Dame Dash situations.

417
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,919
Speaker 4: I'm thinking like champagne bowsers coming in there? How did

418
00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:58,760
Speaker 4: you get in this office? And so as it had

419
00:20:58,760 --> 00:20:59,440
Speaker 4: to be removed?

420
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 5: What it was so funny? I was I was pretty

421
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,200
Speaker 5: I was pretty young too. So what I'm trying to

422
00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 5: remember what basically happened was after the MasterCard thing, they

423
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:14,199
Speaker 5: called and said, actually we've thought about it. You know,

424
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,040
Speaker 5: we need to have a conversation about acquiring you. Okay,

425
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:20,880
Speaker 5: So we all showed up, did the presentation. The company

426
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 5: at the time was turning over thirty five million dollars.

427
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 5: It wasn't five million years, so it wasn't huge. So

428
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:29,639
Speaker 5: we do this big presentation. He says, love the company,

429
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:31,399
Speaker 5: Love what you do. I'm going to make you an offer.

430
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:34,160
Speaker 5: But when I make you this offer, the only thing

431
00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 5: you cannot do is negotiate the offer with me. It's

432
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 5: a room full of people. We are not going to

433
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:40,920
Speaker 5: negotiate the offer. But you can ask any question you

434
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:42,679
Speaker 5: want to ask. And we'd had a great meeting up

435
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 5: until this point. So you know, he writes stand a

436
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:49,320
Speaker 5: number on the paper, slides it across the table. So

437
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 5: I opened the paper and it says six million euros.

438
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 5: Now the company's turning over for eighty five million years

439
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:57,640
Speaker 5: as an offer just doesn't make any sense. It's less

440
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:00,639
Speaker 5: than we're paying the developers to develop the offware that

441
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 5: we're talking about the company acquiring. So I was so

442
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 5: stunned when I was like, great, this doesn't make any sense,

443
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 5: Like where did you get six million from? So see,

444
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,400
Speaker 5: I told you don't go shack the offer. That's it.

445
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 5: And he picked up the phone and like just called

446
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 5: somebody and security turned up. The said mister Forlham, sorry

447
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:19,719
Speaker 5: you got to go. And I was looking at him

448
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,240
Speaker 5: like in disbelief. Is this really? And that was the

449
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:26,359
Speaker 5: first time. Then the second time it happened, it was

450
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 5: a long way further down the cycle. He calls me.

451
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 5: He says, listen, I'm going to be in London. I

452
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 5: understand we didn't see I to I last time. Come

453
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 5: up to the office. I'm going to set this straight.

454
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 5: So I said to my wife at the time, Oh,

455
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 5: if he's calling me back, it's a done deal. Like

456
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,400
Speaker 5: we don't, it's going to get done. So I got

457
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 5: to his office. It's just me and him. The office

458
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 5: is huge in London, and I arrived and he's super friendly.

459
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 5: How's your weekend, how's your family? You like jay Z

460
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:54,560
Speaker 5: and Beyonce. I'm like, yeah, I'm a huge fan. He says, Oh,

461
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,399
Speaker 5: they've got the apartment above mine in Manhattan or wherever,

462
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 5: or Jersey. I'm going to bring you over. You should

463
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 5: meet them on my boat next week. Like he's really

464
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 5: laying it on. He says, Anyway, I realized I offended

465
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,719
Speaker 5: you last time. I've made you a new offer. So

466
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 5: he gives me an offer. It's twelve million euros this time,

467
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 5: and we've already told him that the clearing number is

468
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 5: one hundred million euros. You already he knows this. And

469
00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 5: I said to him, going, Greg, this is ridiculous, like,

470
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 5: how could you even imagine this might be possible? And

471
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,959
Speaker 5: it just starts screaming. He just starts withming, you know,

472
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 5: you're an idiot. You don't know what good offer looks like.

473
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 5: I can't believe people told me that you're smart, that

474
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:33,959
Speaker 5: you know what you're doing. I can't believe you've been

475
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 5: running this company. Who's let you run this company? An

476
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 5: he calls security again, that's we removed. And then yea

477
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 5: months after that, we get the deal done at one

478
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty five.

479
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 4: But it was he still there.

480
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 5: He did the deal.

481
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 6: So how did it go from six to twelve to

482
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 6: one hundred and twenty five that's not even close to

483
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 6: each other.

484
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 5: Well, two things happened. We started a conversation with Booking

485
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 5: dot Com and they became aware of that. So again

486
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 5: the competitive tension steeping. The actual free things happened. Booking

487
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 5: dot Com happened. Their partner contract with US was coming

488
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 5: up for renewal, so I terminated the partner contract. So

489
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 5: I said completely.

490
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 6: We're walking away.

491
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say it's a bluff, but said, you know,

492
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 5: we're Yeah, we need to renegotiate the terms of disagreement

493
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 5: because we don't like them, and we're having other conversations

494
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,399
Speaker 5: which may affect whether or not we can partner with you. Right,

495
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 5: That was the next thing that happened. And then the

496
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 5: third thing that happened is I called him and said

497
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 5: he I got a board meeting on Friday, and during

498
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 5: that board meeting, I'm going to be looking at free offers,

499
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 5: and if I accept one of those offers, I won't

500
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 5: be able to negotiate with you to potentially acquire the company.

501
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 5: So if you want to make me an offer, you

502
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 5: have to do it by Friday at five o'clock. Okay by,

503
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 5: and I put the phone down.

504
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 4: No time.

505
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 5: I was small and I had no board meeting on

506
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 5: Friday either, by the way, right, So when I said

507
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 5: that to him, and then I was at home on Friday,

508
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 5: I remember playing. I was playing Fifa with my son

509
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 5: on Friday. I completely forgot about this conversation. So I'm

510
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 5: playing Fifa with my son and I see, I see

511
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 5: he's calling my phone. So I'm looking at phone. I'm thinking,

512
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 5: why is he calling me? And then I remember that

513
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 5: I played this move of like you've got until Friday

514
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:18,719
Speaker 5: to buy a company. So as soon as I remembered,

515
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 5: I'm like, don't answer the phone. So I just let

516
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 5: the phone ring. So he keeps ringing like he's banging

517
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 5: the phone at this point, so I turned the TV down.

518
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 5: I'm like, Craig, I just stepped out, like what's up?

519
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 5: And he said, and he says, you need to not

520
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 5: take any office. I need to speak to you. You

521
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 5: need to step out of the meeting right now. I said, look, Greg,

522
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 5: if you want to make me know, for email it

523
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:39,680
Speaker 5: to me. I'm in able meeting right now. I can't talk.

524
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 5: And I mung the phone off and then this like

525
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 5: just happened for the next fifteen minutes. This kept happening,

526
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 5: and then he sent us He sent us an off

527
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 5: for just under one hundred and I said to him,

528
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 5: you know, I told him I stepped out of the

529
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 5: meeting and I said to him, look, I really want

530
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 5: to do this deal with you. I'm really going to

531
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 5: try it and if this number quite gets you there,

532
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 5: but I'm going to like stop these discussion so that

533
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 5: we can progress this. You know, let's take two or

534
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 5: three days, see where we can get it to. And yeah,

535
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 5: we got it to. We got it brilliant.

536
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 4: That's a brilliant So this is the third time yourself.

537
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 5: That was that was the second second, that was the second.

538
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 5: Yet since then things have been much more things.

539
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 6: Let's let's unpackage before you before you go to the

540
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 6: next topic. So this is a few valuable lessons for people.

541
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 6: And Okay, so you had enough courage to balk at

542
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 6: to it at to right and and you also kind

543
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 6: of finagled it with making up the story about the boardroom.

544
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 6: But then you also brought other people involved. And that's

545
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 6: another strategy as far as like, you know, the competition,

546
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 6: nobody wants to feel like they're losing to something else. Right,

547
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 6: You've done this a few times, so kind of break

548
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 6: that down as far as for people that are entrepreneurs

549
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 6: of how you have to remain calm under these type

550
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 6: of circumstances, because some people might have just you know,

551
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 6: fell to the pressure and did things that they would

552
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 6: have really regretted later on. Yeah.

553
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, to be honest, I thought about that a lot

554
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 5: during that deal cycle. That I grew up in sales,

555
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 5: so ten negotiations were kind of familiar to me. I

556
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 5: grew up in football, where coaches would you know, become emotional,

557
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 5: so that behavior wasn't as threatening to me as someone else.

558
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 5: And I grew up in the projects on a housing

559
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 5: estate where you know, for all of his bluster, he

560
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 5: was nowhere near it intimidating people as people I'd seen.

561
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 5: So those things were super helpful to me. What I

562
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 5: learned in that process and have since always used when

563
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 5: exiting a company is that competitive leverage, competitive tension. You know,

564
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 5: it's key. Otherwise you're sitting opposite somebody trying to tell

565
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 5: them that they should just pay more for something because

566
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 5: you want more money for something, right, And that's difficult

567
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 5: when you both want to buy my thing, and I'm

568
00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 5: able to say to you that the number you've offered

569
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 5: is it's nice, but it's not nice enough for me

570
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 5: to do the deal with you because somebody else is

571
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 5: willing to pay more. That puts a very helpful distance

572
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 5: between me and you and the negotiation. Right. If I'm

573
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 5: just saying, you know prices and one hundred has to

574
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 5: be one twenty, that's not as impactful as saying, if

575
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 5: you can't get above one twenty, there's somebody else who

576
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 5: will do that deal.

577
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 6: And it's crazy because we just spoke with a sports league.

578
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 6: They are we're in a contract with a major TV network, right,

579
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 6: and they were saying that the TV network pretty much

580
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 6: told them like, look, I know that you don't have

581
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 6: anybody else that's bidding for this contract, so we really

582
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 6: can't negotiate. But I know that at some point you

583
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 6: probably will have so at that point in time then

584
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 6: where you're going to be in a position to actually

585
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 6: have a conversation with us. But until then you have

586
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 6: no leverage. So it's important for people to know that,

587
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 6: you know, it's always good to have somebody else exactly

588
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 6: that is bidding for it because even if they're not

589
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 6: going to buy it, at least it raises exactly your interest.

590
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 5: Exactly in the last process, so with Fortira, where we

591
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 5: sold at a billion euros, I did something I never

592
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 5: did before, which was we had free parties competing until

593
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 5: the moment the deal was signed, right, so we ran Normally,

594
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 5: what you do is you get offers, you say, okay,

595
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 5: I like your offer. I'm going to negotiate with you

596
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 5: for thirty days to get it done. You have exclusivity

597
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 5: for thirty days to get it done. It's what you

598
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 5: normally do. In the last process, which was twenty twenty two,

599
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 5: we said, first man to the finish line, you know,

600
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 5: get to it. As long as the offers financially were

601
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 5: in the right zip code. Whoever get it done first.

602
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 5: And that was a new experience for me. And what

603
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 5: that done in the negotiations was something I hadn't seen

604
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 5: in my previous free transactions, which was, you know, somebody

605
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 5: said I need this condition in the contract, and it's

606
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 5: a completely normal condition. I did it in the previous

607
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 5: free deals. It's not something you want to do, but

608
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 5: in this situation, I was just like, oh, actually, we

609
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 5: don't really want to do that no, you know, no

610
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 5: market conditions, deal norms. A lot of them didn't get

611
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 5: done because everybody understood that this was a race to

612
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 5: the finish line and was highly competitive. So that like

613
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 5: that changes dynamics in the negotiations when you've got that

614
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 5: kind of competitive Dang. Yeah.

615
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 4: I think in terms of deals, a lot of times

616
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,239
Speaker 4: people might have taken the twelve because they haven't done

617
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 4: the proper valuation of their actual business. What they might say,

618
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 4: we may not get another offer, we'll do it here

619
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 4: and we'll try to work up to this. So, like,

620
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 4: what's that process for you? Obviously that was you wanted

621
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 4: the one twenty five. The next deal is we had

622
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 4: a billion dollars, how are we figured out the valuation

623
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 4: and how are we negotiating on that?

624
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 5: So good thing about tech is there's tons of comps

625
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 5: and there's a lot of you know, there's a lot

626
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 5: of formulas that guide you to what the price should be. Right,

627
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 5: So a company, you know, a company in our space

628
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 5: that has over thirty percent margins, over seventy percent of

629
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 5: the revenue is recurring, that company's valuation will start at

630
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 5: nineteen times. It's EBITDA Like that's you know, everybody knows that,

631
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 5: and nobody's going to come into the room and try

632
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 5: and offer you fifteen because everybody kind of gets that.

633
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 5: It starts there, So that's helpful. Then from that nineteen

634
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 5: times foundation, Yeah, it's on you to sell your kind

635
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 5: of strategic advantage that you're offering a buyer, the opportunity

636
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 5: you're offering the buyer the eternal investment. That buyer is

637
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 5: going to realize that bits on you between nineteen and

638
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 5: twenty five or thirty times. Ebit done where the deal

639
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 5: gets done. But you get in tech, you get good

640
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 5: you know, you get good formulas that give you foundation

641
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 5: of value. I think that the main threat to underselling

642
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 5: in those situations is people sometimes think, well, they must

643
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 5: know about right. So in that case, we're a tiny

644
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 5: company selling to American Express. I think in that situation

645
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 5: it would have been easier for someone to say, these

646
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 5: guys must know what the valuation, they must know better

647
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 5: than we do. They buy companies all the time. He's

648
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 5: a smart guy. I think that's actually a bigger risk.

649
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 5: It was pretty easy for me. I didn't make I

650
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 5: wouldn't have made any money at twelve million euros. So

651
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 5: discussion closed is there.

652
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 4: A number for the multiple that you look for a

653
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 4: sweet spot, or if it's nineteen as a standard, are

654
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 4: we figuring out how we add components to the company

655
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 4: to get to that twenty five thirty.

656
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, exactly nineteen, Like there are in our space,

657
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 5: so where tech company erp in our space, the things

658
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 5: that move the valuation needle are pretty well understood, right.

659
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 5: So I use an example a moment ago where you

660
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 5: would say seventy percent of the recurring of the revenue

661
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 5: would be recurring. If seventy percent of your revenue for

662
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 5: a company like US is recurring, the valuation is then

663
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 5: done on the last six months profitability and the next

664
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 5: six months projected profitability, because if so much of the

665
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 5: revenue is recurring, the next six months is very predictable.

666
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 5: If eighty five percent of the revenue is recurring, then

667
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 5: the valuation is done on the next twelve months, not

668
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 5: the last six the next twelve months because the markets

669
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 5: assume that the revenue and profitability will be pretty well

670
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 5: solidified because so much of it is on long term,

671
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 5: long term contracts. Right. So one of the things I

672
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 5: would try to do if I wanted to get above

673
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 5: nineteen is I would make I would work hard on

674
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 5: making seventy percent recurring eighty percent. So these these components

675
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 5: in tech are pretty well, pretty well understood.

676
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 6: So okay, so where does fort Arrell come into play?

677
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 5: So we so after KDS and the AMEX steal, one

678
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 5: of the one of the kind of exciting things about

679
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 5: the AMX deal was the chairman with whom negotiated. Once

680
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 5: we were doing the deal and we had, you know,

681
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 5: we started to sign paperwork, he became very very friendly.

682
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 5: You talked a lot about what we were going to do.

683
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 6: To talk about that too, and I think, all right,

684
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 6: so don't take anything personal, right because he is alted

685
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 6: you multiple occasions. That's another lesson. How were you able

686
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 6: to not take it personal? And how did was it

687
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 6: that weird to kind of still be cordial at like.

688
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 5: In that meeting one on one when he was screaming.

689
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 5: It took everything in my life's being, you know, not

690
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 5: to behave in a certain way. And I remember sitting

691
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 5: there just thinking, I just got to get out of

692
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 5: the room. The thing I have to do is just

693
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 5: get out of the room. And in subsequent conversations I

694
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 5: just had in my back, in the back of my

695
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 5: mind that I was going to win in this scenario.

696
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 5: I said, this game ends when I've won, right, And

697
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 5: as things progressed, it became there were two victories I

698
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 5: could see that I could pursue. One was getting the

699
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 5: deal done at a great valuation, especially in the manner

700
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 5: in which it got done like that gave me a

701
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 5: lot of personal satisfaction that he bit against himself, like

702
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 5: he talked himself up from ninety five to one hundred

703
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 5: and twenty five. That was That was beautiful for me.

704
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 5: The second thing was that we'd shaken hands, that I

705
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 5: would work for American Express for three years afterwards. And

706
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 5: I'd always say to him, he'd always say, I'm going

707
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 5: to send you the contract. I've sent your contract. We

708
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 5: should talk about it, so don't wory about it. Well,

709
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 5: we'll talk about it later, like we'll figure out later.

710
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 5: We've got tons of other stuff to deal with. So

711
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 5: I never signed the contract that would have committed me

712
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 5: to work in there. So the day the money cleared,

713
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,760
Speaker 5: I never went back to American Express. I just didn't.

714
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't go back. So that those two

715
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 5: things were my my my victory that I just I

716
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 5: just walked to I just walked away. Okay, so for terror. Yeah.

717
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,720
Speaker 5: After KDS, I went to run an Irish tech company

718
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 5: which we sold to Access, which is the UK's largest

719
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:47,720
Speaker 5: privately held tech company.

720
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 6: And you okay, you start in the UK, then you

721
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 6: go to France, then you go to Ireland.

722
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 5: Yep.

723
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 6: So I got to ask you this question, is the

724
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 6: elephant in the room here? When does racism come in to

725
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 6: play here? Because Europe is has been a notorious racist

726
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 6: continent for a very long period of time. Everybody knows

727
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 6: the history. You're in. This is a unique situation, a

728
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 6: black person whose parents are immigrants running companies in white

729
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 6: countries that we have no representation of black You you

730
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 6: think of Ireland, You're not thinking of black people France.

731
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 6: Like I said, everybody knows the history. UK has a

732
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,800
Speaker 6: terrible history across the world when it comes to racism

733
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 6: and colonization. How is this.

734
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 4: Happening in a sector that well, I don't even when

735
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 4: he was underrepresented, very scarce.

736
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 5: You know, I only have one recollection of a of

737
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 5: a rumor I was siting where I was like, oh, okay,

738
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 5: this is racism. Like what's happening right now is racism.

739
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 5: I've had tons of situations where I think, is this

740
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 5: is it? It doesn't feel right like this is But

741
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 5: I can't. I couldn't say to you, like with my

742
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 5: hand on my heart, that that is the reason this

743
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 5: person is behaving poorly. I've had I've had tons of

744
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 5: those moments. But the truth of the marror is I

745
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 5: think my mind was so focused on the next thing

746
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:21,359
Speaker 5: I wasn't really paying any attention to it. So when

747
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,399
Speaker 5: people behave poorly, I was just like, Okay, well, how

748
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 5: do we get around you? How do we get over you?

749
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 5: How do we get to the point you can't affect

750
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:30,920
Speaker 5: the thing that I need to I need to get to.

751
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 5: So it's possible. It's possible that I experienced tons of racism,

752
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 5: but I just didn't slow down long enough to realize

753
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 5: it was it was happening. And that's my experience. I

754
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 5: know tons of other people have very different experiences, and

755
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 5: I know a lot of those people, but I can't

756
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 5: give you, you know, a set of circumstances where I

757
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 5: was clear that that was happened to me. Only one I.

758
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 4: Know, We're going to go to Fort Over. I'm I'm

759
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 4: thinking right when especially with companies here in America, especially

760
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 4: when it's al our CEO and they sell a company.

761
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 4: There's a stigma that comes with it. We've sold out,

762
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 4: we've done the service to the community and tech. Uh,

763
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 4: we haven't seen it as much. Was there any feedback

764
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 4: as you're selling companies? Are people aware that black ceo

765
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 4: sales company?

766
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 6: I think it's different, I'm saying from his stake he's

767
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 6: taken over. I think we're looking at it from Consumer

768
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 6: Goods in America. It changes because it's like a Robbers

769
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 6: Nobody nobody's ever criticizing Robbers tech company, and he's taking

770
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 6: over companies. It's not like he's starting a company from

771
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 6: the beginning.

772
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 4: True, but this, I mean, you're selling them. There is

773
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 4: there any feedback towards that process or are people even

774
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 4: know where that has happened?

775
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 5: I think to your point, there's a few things that

776
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 5: help into you from that one. There's external investment in

777
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 5: the company. So if it's an entrepreneur, a founding entrepreneur,

778
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 5: especially consumer Goods, who sells that company and they're a

779
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 5: big following, big for it and they're a big employer

780
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 5: in the community, that's where you get some of that.

781
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 5: When Vista Roberts.

782
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 4: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.

783
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 4: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,

784
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 4: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding of professionals

785
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 4: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,

786
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 4: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.

787
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 4: It might seem boring to save, plan and make calculated

788
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 4: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is

789
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 4: what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P

790
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 4: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly

791
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 4: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of

792
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 4: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank

793
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 4: National Association Member FDIC ernest What's up? You ever walk

794
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 4: into a small business and everything just works like the

795
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 4: checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze,

796
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 4: and you're out the door before the line even builds

797
00:39:55,840 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 4: odds are they're using Square? We love supporting businesses that

798
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 4: run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's

799
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 4: a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market,

800
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 4: or even one of our merch partners. Square makes it

801
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,439
Speaker 4: easy for them to take payments, manage inventory, and run

802
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 4: their business with confidence, all from one simple system. If

803
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 4: you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching

804
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 4: something soon, Square is hands down one of the best

805
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 4: tools out there to help you start, run and grow.

806
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 4: It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time

807
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,919
Speaker 4: back so you can focus on what matters most ready.

808
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 4: To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square

809
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 4: dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn more that

810
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 4: Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl, don't wait, don't hesitate.

811
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 4: Let's Square handle the back end so you can keep

812
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,240
Speaker 4: pushing your vision forward.

813
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child

814
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador

815
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with

816
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan.

817
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 2: These are just.

818
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 1: Some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President

819
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: Donald J.

820
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the.

821
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, Attempted

822
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,

823
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 1: and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.

824
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be

825
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day.

826
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,320
Speaker 2: Imprisoned and deported, you will never return.

827
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and

828
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed.

829
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,280
Speaker 2: To return legally. Do what's right. Leave now.

830
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.

831
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

832
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 5: Smith's Companies invested tuesday invest into a company. Everybody knows

833
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 5: at some point in time that company is going to

834
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 5: get sold to that so that helps you, and my

835
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 5: track record helps me. When I show up, people go, Okay,

836
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 5: we know that this is a five years, seven year,

837
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 5: ten year, so yeah, it helps. It helps it in

838
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 5: our community, there's an expectation. So when people in our

839
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 5: community understand that you sold, and if when they understand

840
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 5: that you make money, then the conversation quickly becomes if

841
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 5: you may ten you know, fifty of that needs to

842
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 5: come back and be visible to help us all in

843
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 5: some way, shape or form. So that's more the thing.

844
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 5: You kind of have to deal with it. When you're

845
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 5: doing what do you have the money now?

846
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 7: What?

847
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 5: Yeah? And nobody knows how much money you have. They

848
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 5: just decide for themselves how much money you have, and

849
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 5: they decide for themselves. They decide for themselves how much

850
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 5: money you have, and they decide for themselves how much

851
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 5: money you should you know, play back, and they decide

852
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 5: where exactly that money should should go back to.

853
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know all about it. So all right, sorry

854
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 6: I cut you off a few times. But let's get

855
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 6: to this for Tarot story. So you got it.

856
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 5: Access so we sold out. So we at Croata in Ireland,

857
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 5: which Access bought incredible company run by an incredible CEO,

858
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 5: Chris Baine, and we were wondering if I would be

859
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 5: could be his successor What I learned that Access was

860
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 5: it's a much bigger company than Corey hr and Kles was.

861
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 5: So I learned what it's like to run a big,

862
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 5: much bigger software company because I was. I was president

863
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 5: of Access for a while working with Chris, and I learned.

864
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 5: I learned one thing, which was how to operate at

865
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 5: that scale, because that was the first time I'd really

866
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 5: operated at that scale. And the other thing I learned

867
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 5: is that I was a lousy number two right to Chris,

868
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 5: so he was the CEO, and I just didn't enjoy

869
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 5: being a number two. And it took me a while

870
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 5: to say that out loud, because it's like, well, what

871
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 5: is it?

872
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:44,320
Speaker 4: Is it?

873
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 5: Ego? Is it? You know? Why can't you just it's

874
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 5: a great company, you're a great role, You're well compensated.

875
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:52,879
Speaker 5: But in the end, I was just like, yeah, I'm

876
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 5: just not enjoying being a number two. And the chairman

877
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 5: of core Hr called me and said, I know for

878
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 5: I know the investors at for Tira they're looking for

879
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,959
Speaker 5: a CEO. I think you'd be great. I've told them

880
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 5: that you might look at it, and you know, he

881
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 5: teed up because we'd work together effectively at co HR,

882
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,359
Speaker 5: he teed it up. At for Tira, I met, I

883
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 5: met the investors. We didn't really interview, We just talked

884
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 5: a lot about the company, and then boom.

885
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 6: He became CEO became So what exactly is for what

886
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 6: does the company do?

887
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 5: We make technology? We make software that manufacturers run their

888
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 5: production lines and their accounting and financials such, right at

889
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,680
Speaker 5: the core of how they run and operate their business.

890
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 6: And that position. That's when you acquired You had seventeen

891
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:43,879
Speaker 6: acquisitions by the.

892
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 5: Time I got there, the company had done eight and

893
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,919
Speaker 5: then in the first two years we did we did

894
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 5: nine more. So in total of the company's done seventeen acquisitions.

895
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 6: You've done nine and they did two prior.

896
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:56,919
Speaker 5: Yeah.

897
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 6: Right, And how those nine that you acquired you sold

898
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 6: all nine of those?

899
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 5: No, So now we're now four terras is holding a

900
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,800
Speaker 5: group structure. We're now unifying it into a single company.

901
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 5: But it's like fifteen sorry, seventeen acquired businesses that were

902
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 5: now moving into one.

903
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 6: So you haven't sold any of those companies.

904
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 5: No, no, no, So like.

905
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 4: When you now, as you acquired those you sold, you

906
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 4: had the billion dollar evaluation as you acquire more assets.

907
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 4: Now we're starting to see the evaluation, right, climb and

908
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 4: climate climb as you add more, right, is that the

909
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 4: goal to push the values into a certain umber.

910
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we did the deal so Battery Ventures, who

911
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,839
Speaker 5: brought me on as CEO. We exited Battery Ventures by

912
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 5: bringing in Partners Group, so you know, another much bigger

913
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 5: private equity firm, and they're acquired the company at billion

914
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 5: billion Europe. So when I went a CEO, normal thing happens.

915
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:49,439
Speaker 5: You get equity and I invested my own money too,

916
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 5: So when that deal happened, I reinvested behind a partners

917
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 5: group at a billion at the billion euro evaluation, and

918
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 5: now the plan is to scale to four billion. We're

919
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 5: two years in and we should cross the two billion

920
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 5: mark evaluation in September this year.

921
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 6: So it sold for one billion dollars correct, but the

922
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 6: money was reinvested into the company. Yeah, correct, And now

923
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,240
Speaker 6: you're seeking a two billion essentially four billion valuation.

924
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're climbing through two billion, should be September and

925
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 5: then hopefully two years.

926
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 6: Was the process of That's what I remember. They said

927
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:29,399
Speaker 6: that you were the only how many black CEOs had

928
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 6: achieved Unicorn status in the UK.

929
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 5: At the time, Bloomberg said seven of privately held I

930
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 5: think it was in Europe of privately held companies with

931
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:44,320
Speaker 5: billion year over more seven?

932
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 6: So what was the process of actually selling the billion

933
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 6: dollar valuation and then the restructure and then moving the

934
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 6: company forward to where it's headed them?

935
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 5: So when most of the time I spent with Dave

936
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 5: when I was joining was on how we were going

937
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 5: to get him a good exit, right because he'd been

938
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 5: an investor in Forto for twelve years at that point,

939
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 5: and I knew the now investor from before, so you

940
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 5: know the power of your networking, your previous relationships. We

941
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 5: kind of brought them to the table, and then we

942
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 5: brought some others to the table and that drove the

943
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 5: number to a billion euros. But we were really pitching

944
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 5: the opportunity to get to four billion. That's what we

945
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 5: talked to Partners Group and the other parties who bid

946
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 5: on the company. We said, this is an opportunity to

947
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 5: invest in something that will become a four billion euro

948
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 5: software company. And in Europe, like thet there aren't many

949
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 5: software companies at that scale on the private markets in

950
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 5: that sector, so that's why we had so much interest.

951
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 5: It was a good strategy, I guess, you know. I

952
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 5: had a good track record of delivering outcomes for private

953
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 5: investors and we had a good plan to get to

954
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 5: four billion, and that's that's kind of how we got everybody.

955
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 5: Everybody to the table.

956
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 4: You've made a transition from athlete to businessmen. Now as

957
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 4: you look back and even how your peers who used

958
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 4: to be footballers with we know in that space just

959
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 4: a short term career, there's only going to be five

960
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 4: to ten years where you're going to be great and

961
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 4: hopefully you can make as much as you can during

962
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 4: that timeframe, whereas you're doing something that is sustainable. How

963
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 4: does that relationship now with your former peers are are

964
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 4: they still your peers and how are they viewing you

965
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 4: at this point?

966
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 5: I love it. I love it because at the beginning

967
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,960
Speaker 5: of my career, like when they were all thriving, I

968
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 5: found that very difficult. I was happy for them, right,

969
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 5: really happy for them, and a lot of them was

970
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 5: still I'm still very close to a lot of them.

971
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 5: So it's great to see them five playing for their country,

972
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 5: you know, playing in the Premier League. It was brilliant.

973
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 5: But for me it was hard and I was just

974
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 5: starting my career. Now their earning potential has peaked and

975
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 5: you know, and they've done well. It's not about money

976
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 5: but my you know, I'm just kind of finding my

977
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 5: stride now. Right, the next ten years could be better

978
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 5: than the last ten years for me from a career perspective.

979
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 5: So sometimes, like that's a good joke that we have

980
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,360
Speaker 5: amongst us that they're like, I tell them all was

981
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:07,799
Speaker 5: kind of old and washed up and nobody cares about

982
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 5: you anymore. But like I'm just hitting my stride. So

983
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 5: that's a bit of a funny exchange that we that

984
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 5: we have.

985
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 6: So let me ask you this as far as the

986
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 6: face of mergers and acquisitions currently, right, that is rising

987
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 6: costs of debt. So how has that affected you guys's strategy?

988
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 5: It it hasn't, It hasn't. I mean, it definitely changes

989
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 5: the way we look at things because before we could

990
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 5: buy a business for one hundred million euros, we could

991
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,399
Speaker 5: do that all with debt. That debt might cost us

992
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 5: five million euros. That company we buy might be, you know,

993
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 5: making five million of profit. So from a cash perspective,

994
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 5: completely neutral on the company. You just bought an asset

995
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 5: for one hundred million, your valuation has gone up as

996
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 5: a result, and there's no negative cash impact on the company.

997
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 5: Now that same deal might cost you twelve million a

998
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,959
Speaker 5: year in debt and that company still only making five

999
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,959
Speaker 5: million euros, So there's a net seven million cash out

1000
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,240
Speaker 5: position for us. So in terms of strategy, it doesn't change,

1001
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 5: but the economic engineering of those deals changes a lot.

1002
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 5: To give you an example that you know, that example

1003
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 5: I just I just gave you, we would now have

1004
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 5: to be much more aggressive in making that company able

1005
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 5: to cover the cost of the debt when we acquire it,

1006
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 5: so we would be more aggressive in taking cost out,

1007
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 5: for example, or trying to accelerate the top line, whereas

1008
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 5: three years ago we might be able to be a

1009
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 5: bit more thoughtful, a bit more strategic, and a bit

1010
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 5: more patient.

1011
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 6: So you say that the debt, you could do a

1012
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,359
Speaker 6: one hundred million dollars and pretty much borrowed money. Where

1013
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 6: is it coming from? Banks? Is it coming from hedge funds?

1014
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 6: Is it coming from where?

1015
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 5: Like?

1016
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 6: Where where would that money come from?

1017
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 5: As far as from you banks? Banks? Thanks, Yeah, we

1018
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:50,919
Speaker 5: have a good and it's pretty common in our space.

1019
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 5: You have a good network of banks. You have a

1020
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 5: set of what we were called debt relationships. You find

1021
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 5: an asset you want to buy. You got a good

1022
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 5: track record of buying companies and creating value. You can

1023
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 5: get good terms on the debt. And that's exactly how

1024
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 5: we would fund, you know, our acquisitions, because our growth

1025
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 5: and our profitability are what drives the nineteen times valuation.

1026
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 5: If I've got debt, we just let it out at

1027
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 5: the end of the transactor. It's a billion your evaluation,

1028
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 5: Oh you have two hundred million of debt. Okay, now

1029
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 5: it's eight hundred million of equity value, nobody, you know,

1030
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 5: nobody back to annihilidate it. If I don't have profitability

1031
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 5: because I'm servicing debt with cash, then there's a smaller

1032
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 5: thing to multiply by nineteen and it brings the company

1033
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 5: valuation down. So we're much better off financing acquisitions with

1034
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 5: debt than with cash to the company.

1035
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 4: Race hasn't been as much of a challenge. Does seem

1036
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 4: like debt is a challenge? What are the biggest challenges

1037
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 4: that you face during this process of mergers and acquisitions?

1038
00:51:55,440 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 5: Well, race, I've experienced like cultural disharmony more than I

1039
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 5: would say, you know, direct race. So when you're a

1040
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 5: young black guy trying to buy a company from a

1041
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 5: old white Italian, there's a longer journey to walk to

1042
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 5: you know, to get on the same page, to have

1043
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 5: him become comfortable that he's going to you know, he's

1044
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:25,879
Speaker 5: going to sell his life's work to you. Right. Those

1045
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 5: deals often happen when me and you find a good,

1046
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:31,240
Speaker 5: good rhythm of good alignment. We you know, we eat together,

1047
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 5: we spend time together. I get you comfortable that I'm

1048
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 5: the right person to continue the legacy you've created. You're

1049
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 5: going to sell me your company you want, and I'm

1050
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 5: going to treat your employees well, your customers well. It

1051
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 5: just takes longer to you know, to get that cultural

1052
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 5: alignment when you're me trying to do that across Euroupe

1053
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 5: so that I notice and see that more. The other

1054
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 5: big challenges is talent, like getting and keeping good, you know,

1055
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 5: good good people because it's because of the economy, people

1056
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 5: are just staying in jobs longer, and it's average people

1057
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 5: that stay in jobs longer. Like the top people can

1058
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 5: find an opportunity and move, so average people stay for longer,

1059
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 5: and that, like that can be problematic. And now you're

1060
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 5: trying to wrench our top performer out of another company,

1061
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 5: and that company knows that that's their top performance, so

1062
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 5: that person incredibly well compensated, they're incredibly well looked after.

1063
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 5: So it makes it harder to get top performers. And

1064
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 5: you know, average people just stay stay for longer.

1065
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 6: So when you're actually looking for a company to acquire,

1066
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:40,719
Speaker 6: what are you looking for.

1067
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 5: We're looking for things that are we kind of have

1068
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 5: a playbook, right, so we're looking for things which are

1069
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 5: serving serving the same types of customer that we already

1070
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 5: have we're looking for things which are adjacent technology, so

1071
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 5: we have, you know, our suite of enterprise resource planning applications.

1072
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:09,879
Speaker 5: We're looking for things that we can bolt on or

1073
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 5: add to that, or we're looking for things in new geographies.

1074
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 5: So we're not in Italy at the moment, So can

1075
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 5: we find something that gives us a platform or a

1076
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,759
Speaker 5: first entrance into the Italian market. But it has to

1077
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 5: be within that sphere of what we're you know, what

1078
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 5: we're currently doing. We don't want to step too far

1079
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,360
Speaker 5: outside of this what we call our our aperture.

1080
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 4: So in the world of technology, especially in a business

1081
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 4: that you have with analytics and make it things more efficient.

1082
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 4: Over the past two to three years, how has AI

1083
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,880
Speaker 4: affected adjusted to the game plan? What adaptations have you

1084
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 4: had to make if any?

1085
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 5: Well, the first it took us a while to figure

1086
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 5: out that in considering AI, we had to divide our brain.

1087
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 5: There's one brain looking at how AI will enable internal efficiencies,

1088
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 5: how can we aim at at ourselves to make us

1089
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 5: more effective, more efficient and as a consequence, more profitable.

1090
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 5: Then there's how do we aim AI at our customers

1091
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 5: to help them become And it's two very different thought processes,

1092
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 5: So that took us a long time to kind of

1093
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 5: figure out that dividing the thought process would be would

1094
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 5: be helpful. Internally, we've done a lot of good things

1095
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 5: that automate, you know, automate processes like customer support for example.

1096
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 5: You know, we've been able to train AI to answer

1097
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 5: most frequently asked questions and now we deflect a lot

1098
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 5: of support inquiries that don't need a human being to

1099
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 5: address that AI can take care of that. On the

1100
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,720
Speaker 5: customer side, it's a little bit more difficult because remember

1101
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 5: we're acquiring businesses, so we have seventeen different product lines

1102
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:48,399
Speaker 5: with seventeen different data models. So in order to get

1103
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 5: the best from AI, you need AI to you know,

1104
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 5: you need to aim AI a consistent like data set

1105
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 5: up where we have seventeen different and that's making it

1106
00:55:57,560 --> 00:55:59,839
Speaker 5: a little bit a little bit harder to figure out

1107
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 5: the AI the external AI strategy, but it's age. It

1108
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 5: will be a huge advantage for us once we get

1109
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:06,839
Speaker 5: once we get our heads around it.

1110
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 6: So you have teams in eleven different countries with the

1111
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 6: companies that you.

1112
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 5: Represent, no more, we have teams in about sixteen.

1113
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 6: Sixteen, So how does that work as far as you

1114
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 6: have a CEO for each one of those companies, you're

1115
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,400
Speaker 6: like the head of the operations. You check in with

1116
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 6: them periodically. Do they speak different languages? How does this work?

1117
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:28,120
Speaker 4: Yeah?

1118
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 5: Historically we had fifteen sixteen CEOs, But as I mentioned before,

1119
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:38,760
Speaker 5: we're unifying the company. So now we have we're structured

1120
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 5: what we call functionally. So I'm the CEO. There's a

1121
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:43,640
Speaker 5: head of sales, and that head of sales is responsible

1122
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 5: for all of the sales teams in all sixteen seventeen

1123
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 5: different product lines. There's ahead of marketing, that head of

1124
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 5: marketing responsible for all of the marketing across all of

1125
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:57,320
Speaker 5: the product lines. So we're moving from the structure that

1126
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 5: you described where each product has its own functions to

1127
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 5: a unified so.

1128
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 6: You're ahead of all of it.

1129
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1130
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 6: So all right, So how does that work? When speak

1131
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:12,480
Speaker 6: dealing with different languages, different cultures, different How are you

1132
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 6: able to delegate authority effectively to sixteen different satellites.

1133
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 5: I've been doing that since Primvara, Like when I was

1134
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 5: you know, employees six at Primavera and we grew internationally.

1135
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 5: I was hiring people in Japan, I was hiring people

1136
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 5: in China and I was pretty young. So one of

1137
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 5: the one of the advantages I gained is I was

1138
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 5: able to spend I could stay in China for four weeks.

1139
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 5: I didn't have kids, I wasn't married, so I would

1140
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 5: stay there and I would become attuned to the culture

1141
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 5: in ways that you know, people who didn't have the

1142
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 5: opportunity weren't. I'm probably quite culturally sensitive because of that.

1143
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 5: But I don't speak any other any other languages. So

1144
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 5: my senior leadership team all speak very good English, and

1145
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 5: then they have their second sometimes third languag which but

1146
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:04,160
Speaker 5: business is pretty international now, like it's not. You know,

1147
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 5: it hasn't been a major issue issue for me.

1148
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 6: And what countries do you do you have presence in

1149
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 6: with these countries?

1150
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:19,880
Speaker 5: My biggest Germany, France, Spain, huge center in India, huge

1151
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 5: center in Bulgaria, big center in Morocco, a little bit

1152
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 5: here in the US. So where wherever youwhere?

1153
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 4: In terms of impact, you said that, you know, when

1154
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 4: you when you actually have a sale, people understand that, yes,

1155
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 4: you've made money, and the automatic thing is like, oh,

1156
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 4: this is how you have to give it back. And

1157
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 4: I'm thinking community when you say that. But in terms

1158
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 4: of the space the sector. Are you are you seeing people,

1159
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 4: are you in coming into the space or are you

1160
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 4: still the guide? And it's like when when are the

1161
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 4: crowd's going to come? When are people going to take interest?

1162
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 4: When they're gonna have an idea that this is the

1163
00:58:54,600 --> 00:58:56,880
Speaker 4: opportune way to expand your career.

1164
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 5: People of color coming into space? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean,

1165
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 5: and there's a ton of great networks who are really

1166
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:08,760
Speaker 5: driving that agenda and a fantastic why you've got Black

1167
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 5: Tech Awards, You've got byp in the UK. So they're

1168
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 5: a handful of organizations who are really really driving that agenda.

1169
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 5: And there's like I get hundreds of messages a week

1170
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 5: from young black people trying to get into tech or

1171
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:26,680
Speaker 5: early in tech. We just had an event throughout my

1172
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 5: foundation three hundred people, most of them in or around

1173
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 5: tech enabled services. So yeah, it's brilliant to see the

1174
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 5: energy from the black community coming into tech.

1175
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 6: So what's your advice for companies that want to get

1176
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 6: to a level where they could potentially be purchased by

1177
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 6: somebody like you? Right? Like, what should a founder be

1178
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 6: working on the early levels as far as implementing systems

1179
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 6: because sometimes it's hard to kind of re reverse the

1180
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 6: engineer after it's already three years down line you've made

1181
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:05,920
Speaker 6: systematic mistakes. That's kind of hard to what should they

1182
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 6: be thinking about at day one with the plan in

1183
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 6: five years, I'm going to be trying to sell my company.

1184
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 5: Two things I learned which have really helped me so

1185
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 5: one is team especially for founders, because one of the

1186
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 5: most one of the most value crippling scenarios that I

1187
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 5: see founders walk into time and time again is maintaining ownership,

1188
01:00:32,880 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 5: not just equity ownership, but ownership of each function, everything

1189
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:39,160
Speaker 5: that needs to be done. It's their things, so they

1190
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 5: keep a hold of it. They don't want other They

1191
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 5: don't let others who have experienced expertise relationships in easily.

1192
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 5: And by the time I show up, there's some parts

1193
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 5: of the company that are performing well below the level

1194
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:57,720
Speaker 5: they should be, just because the founder hasn't got the

1195
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 5: experience or the time to service those areas well. So

1196
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 5: get people in who are brilliant on topics, narrow and deep. Right,

1197
01:01:07,240 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 5: that's the first thing. The second thing I learned is

1198
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 5: to start to manage your company in the way that

1199
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,960
Speaker 5: your your target acquirer might manage your company. So for

1200
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:23,439
Speaker 5: me in software, I look at something called the rule

1201
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 5: of that's the percentage of profit the company makes plus

1202
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:31,600
Speaker 5: the rate at which it grows, and that's a starting

1203
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:34,960
Speaker 5: indicator for health of a software company. If a software

1204
01:01:35,000 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 5: company grows at fifty percent and break even, that's okay.

1205
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 5: That's a rule of fifty. If a software company grows

1206
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 5: at fifty percent and makes ten percent margins, that's a

1207
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 5: rule of sixty. That company is better than the one

1208
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 5: that grows. It's a starting indicator. So that rules that

1209
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 5: company is better than the other one. If it grows

1210
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 5: at twenty five percent but makes a ten percent loss,

1211
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 5: that's now a rule of fifteen company. Right, So think

1212
01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 5: about that rule of Then there's something like a CAC

1213
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:04,000
Speaker 5: customer position cost. That's where you take the total cost

1214
01:02:04,240 --> 01:02:07,360
Speaker 5: sales cost, marketing cost, any cost you have to acquire

1215
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 5: a customer, and you put it up against the amount

1216
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 5: of sales that you made, and that gives you your

1217
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:15,640
Speaker 5: customer acquisition cost, and that cost should be as low

1218
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 5: as possible. That says that the sales and marketing engine

1219
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 5: is highly performant. So in our space, there will be

1220
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 5: six or seven of those things that are long distance

1221
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 5: indicators for the health of a company. And when I

1222
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 5: sit with a founder or entrepreneur in an acquisition conversation

1223
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 5: and they sit down and say, my CAC is one

1224
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 5: yuro ten now it was one euro twenty five last year,

1225
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 5: and I think I can get it to ninety nine.

1226
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 5: I almost stopped thinking about whether that number is good

1227
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:48,440
Speaker 5: or bad. I just now know that this company sells

1228
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 5: a marketing engine is running a way that is highly

1229
01:02:51,280 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 5: considerate of optimizing the CAC. That's a brilliant thing, right.

1230
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 5: That means that the company thinks about it, they calculate it,

1231
01:02:57,320 --> 01:02:59,919
Speaker 5: they know it, they know what they spend on. That's

1232
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 5: a very comforting thing. So when when I've been building companies,

1233
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 5: I start to understand what the ultimate acquire is going

1234
01:03:08,760 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 5: to be interested in and start to manage my company,

1235
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:15,439
Speaker 5: you know, using terms, languages and KPIs that ultimately they're

1236
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 5: going to measure me on.

1237
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:17,840
Speaker 6: So you start with to end.

1238
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:20,360
Speaker 4: I literally was good, that was gonna be my next

1239
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:22,800
Speaker 4: question when So that's how they prepare for it. But

1240
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:25,280
Speaker 4: that literally sounds like what you're doing when you're looking

1241
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 4: to acquire. I'm looking at every one of these metrics.

1242
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:30,520
Speaker 5: I look at what I acquire in that way, and

1243
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 5: I run my company because I know I know what

1244
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,640
Speaker 5: questions people are going to ask me when I'm selling.

1245
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 5: I know what things they're going to look at. Yeah,

1246
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:41,360
Speaker 5: but the thing not to mistake that for is to

1247
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,919
Speaker 5: run your company to be bought. You mustn't do that either,

1248
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:48,360
Speaker 5: because you know you can have you can have a

1249
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 5: relationship with American Express. You can think this is the

1250
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:52,800
Speaker 5: most natural bio on earth, This is a no brainer

1251
01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 5: of a deal, and then the thing can go the

1252
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 5: way like it was going with me. So you can't

1253
01:03:56,840 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 5: run the company to be sold, but you should run it,

1254
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 5: you know, using the metrics, the language, the standards of

1255
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 5: excellence that potential potential acquirers are going to be going

1256
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 5: to be interested in.

1257
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 6: So all right, So using that that framework, and your

1258
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 6: plan is to so this company at four billion dollars, right,

1259
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:18,280
Speaker 6: you want to sell that four billion is over?

1260
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:22,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well we have to define over because it could

1261
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:25,400
Speaker 5: be brought by a new investor who has a plan

1262
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 5: to get it to eight billion valuations. It could be

1263
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 5: brought by the oracle.

1264
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:29,960
Speaker 6: The exit is four billion.

1265
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:31,200
Speaker 5: The exit is four billion? Correct?

1266
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:34,440
Speaker 6: What are you doing? So what are you doing to

1267
01:04:34,480 --> 01:04:37,680
Speaker 6: prepare for that four billion dollar exit.

1268
01:04:39,080 --> 01:04:45,320
Speaker 5: Lot. Look where I think we bought the first nine

1269
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 5: companies in twelve years. We bought the next nine companies

1270
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:52,000
Speaker 5: in just over two years. I think in the next

1271
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 5: two years will probably buy another fifteen.

1272
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 6: But even like structurally, right, like when you have made

1273
01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 6: the analogy of like if you're looking to like do

1274
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:03,600
Speaker 6: but you know that somebody is going to buy is

1275
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:06,640
Speaker 6: going to do, right, So are there systems in place

1276
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 6: that you're purposely putting in place because you know that

1277
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 6: this is going to be appealing when we get to

1278
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 6: this point.

1279
01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah, definitely. So to two examples. One is

1280
01:05:20,800 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 5: I mentioned before that we have kind of seventeen companies

1281
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:26,600
Speaker 5: with seventeen different products and seventeen different data sets. We've

1282
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,720
Speaker 5: got a big tech platform investment that we're making to

1283
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 5: multimillion euro every year investment to put a harmonized platform

1284
01:05:35,120 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 5: across or fourteen. The quickest way to describe the reason

1285
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 5: to do that is so when I want to acquire

1286
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 5: things that I can sell to all seventeen customers, right,

1287
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 5: and what I don't want to have to do is

1288
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 5: acquire something and go and walk the streets in all

1289
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 5: seventeen countries to sell it. Can I buy something integrated

1290
01:05:56,560 --> 01:06:00,200
Speaker 5: to this tech platform that all seventeen products are are

1291
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 5: part of, and suddenly, you know, the day after the acquisition,

1292
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:06,560
Speaker 5: all of the customers of all seventeen products have access

1293
01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:08,800
Speaker 5: to a new product that they might pay me for,

1294
01:06:09,760 --> 01:06:11,680
Speaker 5: that they will pay me for. That's something we can't

1295
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 5: do today because everything is siloed. So that's one example.

1296
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 5: Another example is improving the profitability of the company by

1297
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,959
Speaker 5: by unifying it. Simple example that is, I have seventeen

1298
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 5: relationships with laptop providers. Each company negotiates its IT procurement itself.

1299
01:06:31,680 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 5: If I go to Dell and say I buy one

1300
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:36,560
Speaker 5: thousand laptops a year for new starters, I'll get a

1301
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:39,840
Speaker 5: better price than this company who's buying fifty, this company

1302
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 5: who's buying twenty five. So the company can use its

1303
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:46,120
Speaker 5: scale to improve its purchasing power and buy things for less,

1304
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:48,960
Speaker 5: and as a consequence, the profitability the company improved.

1305
01:06:49,000 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 4: But it sounds like a semiconductor where it's like I

1306
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:53,840
Speaker 4: create the chip, all these companies will need it. I

1307
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 4: can sell it to each one of the game. Right,

1308
01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 4: So when you get to this point, like the exits

1309
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:02,080
Speaker 4: four billion in does the equity structure change for you

1310
01:07:02,160 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 4: every time you do the deal or is it is

1311
01:07:04,360 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 4: it strictly the same, like I'm going to keep this

1312
01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:09,120
Speaker 4: amount of equity no matter what the exit is in

1313
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:13,479
Speaker 4: what sense? So let's say you there was a seven

1314
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 4: percent equity state in the Unbroiller company. If it gets reinvested,

1315
01:07:17,640 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 4: if the company gets sold at the eight billion dollar valuation,

1316
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:22,600
Speaker 4: do you restructure that or does it stay at the

1317
01:07:23,040 --> 01:07:23,760
Speaker 4: How does that work?

1318
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 5: Normal? Normally as the company scales, the percentage goes down,

1319
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 5: like that's that's an unfortunate it's an unfortunate market trend

1320
01:07:32,520 --> 01:07:36,760
Speaker 5: that haven't been able to change to change yet. Normally,

1321
01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:39,600
Speaker 5: what happens is, you know, if you are what we

1322
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:43,080
Speaker 5: call go forward management, the new investor wants to see

1323
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,720
Speaker 5: you leave as much money in the company as possible.

1324
01:07:45,840 --> 01:07:48,080
Speaker 5: So if you're seven percent is worth one hundred million,

1325
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,120
Speaker 5: they don't want you to take one hundred million off

1326
01:07:50,120 --> 01:07:53,360
Speaker 5: the table and then give you another seven percent because

1327
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:55,280
Speaker 5: if you're if you're telling them that this can go

1328
01:07:55,320 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 5: from one billion to four billion, they kind of saying, well,

1329
01:07:58,120 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 5: why wouldn't you why why would you want to take

1330
01:07:59,880 --> 01:08:02,040
Speaker 5: a any of your money out now? So I'd like

1331
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:03,960
Speaker 5: to see you leave a lot of money in. What

1332
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:07,120
Speaker 5: I've done is I always leave my money in, and

1333
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 5: I always tried to put more money in and use

1334
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:12,440
Speaker 5: that as a way to negotiate up what might be

1335
01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:15,080
Speaker 5: the seven percent you're going to give me. I say, well, look,

1336
01:08:15,120 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 5: I'm leaving everything in. I'm putting even more money in.

1337
01:08:17,320 --> 01:08:21,760
Speaker 5: Now I'm super invested. This is why you should incentivize

1338
01:08:21,800 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 5: me even further because of how invested I am in this.

1339
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:28,040
Speaker 6: So what do you think makes an effect of CEO

1340
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:29,160
Speaker 6: in today's landscape?

1341
01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:38,640
Speaker 5: Well, the thing I've found, The thing I've found hardest

1342
01:08:39,920 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 5: and most impactful or most accelerating when I do it well,

1343
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:49,240
Speaker 5: which I don't do as often as I should, is

1344
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:54,920
Speaker 5: communication is communication, and especially in our context, as you

1345
01:08:55,040 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 5: described right, there's languages, there's cultures, there's time zones. I

1346
01:09:00,520 --> 01:09:04,840
Speaker 5: was working for this one hundred person German company and

1347
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:08,599
Speaker 5: I'm now part of a three thousand person multinational company.

1348
01:09:08,640 --> 01:09:11,040
Speaker 5: Like I never traveled out of my office before, I

1349
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 5: never spoke to anybody who who wasn't German before, but

1350
01:09:13,960 --> 01:09:20,360
Speaker 5: suddenly now I'm in this. So being able to communicate effectively,

1351
01:09:20,960 --> 01:09:29,040
Speaker 5: motivate effectively, correct effectively thousands of people across multiple countries,

1352
01:09:29,360 --> 01:09:37,080
Speaker 5: multiple cultures, multiple experience frames. Is the number one accelerant

1353
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 5: to performance in that company?

1354
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 4: Is that the most unique trade that has led to

1355
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:42,880
Speaker 4: success for you?

1356
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:43,280
Speaker 5: Right?

1357
01:09:43,320 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 4: Because when you're talking about you have to show somebody

1358
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:49,599
Speaker 4: who's selling the company that you're the best person. So

1359
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:52,280
Speaker 4: there's something unique about what you're doing. Is it the

1360
01:09:52,280 --> 01:09:54,960
Speaker 4: communication or is there something that a gift that you

1361
01:09:55,080 --> 01:09:58,160
Speaker 4: have just been given with that is like, I'm that

1362
01:09:58,200 --> 01:09:58,760
Speaker 4: guy to do this.

1363
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 5: I would There's two things I don't say. There's two

1364
01:10:05,240 --> 01:10:09,800
Speaker 5: things I don't know that I'm brilliant at anything. I

1365
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:13,280
Speaker 5: am extremely resilient, like life has made me, you know,

1366
01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:17,360
Speaker 5: very very resilient. So I'm against my peers and other

1367
01:10:17,400 --> 01:10:20,240
Speaker 5: people I see, I'm more able to wake up tomorrow

1368
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:23,360
Speaker 5: after a terrible today and get right back at it

1369
01:10:23,560 --> 01:10:26,800
Speaker 5: like quicker than most you know, most other people. And

1370
01:10:26,840 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 5: I think that's how the positive drag on the company. Too.

1371
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 5: Bad things happen in business, Bad things happen in the company.

1372
01:10:31,760 --> 01:10:35,400
Speaker 5: So when my team or my organization know that today

1373
01:10:35,560 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 5: was bad and they see me bounce back tomorrow and say, Okay,

1374
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 5: you know it's gonna be fine, let's go again. I

1375
01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 5: think I've been able to get us out of the

1376
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 5: down moments pretty quickly, So I think that's one thing.

1377
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,960
Speaker 5: And the other thing I tried very hard to do

1378
01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 5: is translate the aspiration of the company into something that's

1379
01:10:54,240 --> 01:10:58,240
Speaker 5: meaningful for employees, right because I just don't fundamentally believe

1380
01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:04,679
Speaker 5: that employees come to work for the company that unless maybe, well,

1381
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:07,040
Speaker 5: people like Google and Facebook a few years ago, that

1382
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:09,439
Speaker 5: was the tone that people are so proud that they

1383
01:11:09,479 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 5: worked for Google and Facebook. That's not really the case

1384
01:11:13,240 --> 01:11:17,439
Speaker 5: at Fotira, like me explaining to three thousand people come

1385
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:19,080
Speaker 5: to work because we're trying to be a four billion

1386
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:22,719
Speaker 5: euro company, and nobody leaves their kids in the morning

1387
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:25,720
Speaker 5: to come to do that, especially when they don't have

1388
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:28,720
Speaker 5: you know, they don't have to gain what I have

1389
01:11:28,840 --> 01:11:32,240
Speaker 5: to gain. So what I've tried hard to do is

1390
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:34,439
Speaker 5: is figure out how to talk about the fact we

1391
01:11:34,479 --> 01:11:36,760
Speaker 5: do need to become a four billion euro company in

1392
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:39,479
Speaker 5: a way that you will care about and will make

1393
01:11:39,560 --> 01:11:42,120
Speaker 5: you motivated and excited to come to work. And I

1394
01:11:42,120 --> 01:11:46,640
Speaker 5: spend a lot of time on adjusting the message or

1395
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 5: adjusting what I'm going to say or write or present

1396
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:52,639
Speaker 5: so that it lands on employees like that.

1397
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:55,160
Speaker 6: So how do you look at other asset classes, whether

1398
01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 6: it's for business or your own personal investment like real

1399
01:11:58,920 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 6: estate or stocks or so, like, you know, do you

1400
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 6: indulge in that or what's your thoughts on those other

1401
01:12:05,080 --> 01:12:06,920
Speaker 6: asset classes? I?

1402
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:11,600
Speaker 5: Uh so, personally, I only invest in things I know

1403
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,280
Speaker 5: and understand. I always say that, right, So I know tech,

1404
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 5: so most of my investments in tech. I know property,

1405
01:12:18,120 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 5: most of my investments in property. And then there's like

1406
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:23,639
Speaker 5: a small handful of things I did because I was curious.

1407
01:12:23,680 --> 01:12:26,360
Speaker 5: So I liked the person. I'm invested in a Champagne

1408
01:12:26,360 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 5: brand because I'm just you know, that would be cool.

1409
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:33,360
Speaker 5: There's a small handful of those things. But tech and

1410
01:12:33,360 --> 01:12:36,599
Speaker 5: and property. I didn't do the crypto thing at all.

1411
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 5: I still don't really a crypto.

1412
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:42,439
Speaker 6: So property like talk about that.

1413
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:43,360
Speaker 5: What's your.

1414
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:48,920
Speaker 6: Philosophy on how you buying houses or commercial real estate?

1415
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:51,639
Speaker 5: Like? What's your So what I did for a long

1416
01:12:51,680 --> 01:12:56,160
Speaker 5: time was just as we were getting cash, my wife

1417
01:12:56,200 --> 01:12:59,479
Speaker 5: and I were getting cash, we owned every house we

1418
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:01,760
Speaker 5: lived in. We've continued to own every house we ever

1419
01:13:01,800 --> 01:13:03,760
Speaker 5: lived into. That was one way, and then as we

1420
01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:07,320
Speaker 5: saw deals opportunistically, we bought places and we rent them

1421
01:13:07,800 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 5: and we rent them out, and we were quite liquid buyers,

1422
01:13:11,080 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 5: so we were able to get good, you know, good

1423
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:16,720
Speaker 5: good deals because we would close quickly. So that is

1424
01:13:16,800 --> 01:13:19,280
Speaker 5: one strategy. Now, you know, one of my well my

1425
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:24,639
Speaker 5: two best friends are developers, so they're always out finding

1426
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:27,040
Speaker 5: properties to buy and adding a lot of value through

1427
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:31,639
Speaker 5: doing development. So I'm cash investor along a passive cash

1428
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:34,040
Speaker 5: investor alongside them, like they really know what they're doing.

1429
01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:37,200
Speaker 5: So I'm just a cash investor. There does your wife

1430
01:13:37,200 --> 01:13:39,679
Speaker 5: working inside of the business. She works in the foundation.

1431
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:42,479
Speaker 5: So we've set up a foundation, which is that's the

1432
01:13:42,560 --> 01:13:45,519
Speaker 5: vehicle through which we do our community work, you know,

1433
01:13:45,640 --> 01:13:48,240
Speaker 5: back in the community. So she runs, she runs that.

1434
01:13:49,320 --> 01:13:52,599
Speaker 4: What I'm thinking is like everybody talks about generational wealth

1435
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:55,080
Speaker 4: and you know, having a family as part of that, right,

1436
01:13:55,160 --> 01:13:59,320
Speaker 4: creating sustainability. But when you talk about financial freedom, I

1437
01:13:59,360 --> 01:14:01,479
Speaker 4: wonder for you, is it a number or is it

1438
01:14:01,560 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 4: a mindset? More so, at this level.

1439
01:14:07,880 --> 01:14:16,960
Speaker 5: It's not a number, because how do I explain this?

1440
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:23,040
Speaker 5: My life, My life now is well beyond the wildest

1441
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:26,240
Speaker 5: of my wildest dream growing up. So to sit here

1442
01:14:26,240 --> 01:14:29,719
Speaker 5: and say, you know, the number at which life would

1443
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:32,719
Speaker 5: be good would be It's like ridiculous, such a ridiculous

1444
01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:34,960
Speaker 5: thing for someone like me to say, coming from where

1445
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:41,160
Speaker 5: I come from. I'm I'm still competing with myself and

1446
01:14:41,200 --> 01:14:43,080
Speaker 5: the prize in the in the sport. I mean, is

1447
01:14:43,080 --> 01:14:44,720
Speaker 5: it happens to be money, like it happens to be

1448
01:14:44,800 --> 01:14:50,120
Speaker 5: exits which attract money. So I'm still trying to see

1449
01:14:50,280 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 5: can I do a thought? But can I build a

1450
01:14:52,280 --> 01:14:55,000
Speaker 5: company to four? But like that would be pretty cool

1451
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:58,720
Speaker 5: to do that, and with that comes money. When I

1452
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:01,719
Speaker 5: think about my life after working, I just think about time,

1453
01:15:01,880 --> 01:15:05,120
Speaker 5: like just having just the thing I don't have at

1454
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:07,000
Speaker 5: the moment. I have any time at the moment, So

1455
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:09,760
Speaker 5: I don't look forward to money or luxury. I just

1456
01:15:09,760 --> 01:15:11,880
Speaker 5: look forward to waking up in the morning and thinking

1457
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:15,000
Speaker 5: I'm well my dogs for two hours instead of one

1458
01:15:15,080 --> 01:15:18,040
Speaker 5: like that. That's that is the thing I'm ultimately trying

1459
01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:22,479
Speaker 5: to attain, just getting back total time and freedom. I

1460
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:25,439
Speaker 5: think that's what wealth is. Time and choice. That to

1461
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 5: me is what wealth really is.

1462
01:15:27,800 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 6: So before we leave, you talk about your foundation, like

1463
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:33,040
Speaker 6: what is what are you guys doing, What does that

1464
01:15:33,080 --> 01:15:34,439
Speaker 6: consist of, and what's the division for that.

1465
01:15:34,640 --> 01:15:39,400
Speaker 5: The foundation is called Falls Having Group. So yeah, so

1466
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:44,200
Speaker 5: our foundation is is the Falls Family Group. And what

1467
01:15:44,320 --> 01:15:46,360
Speaker 5: my wife and I realized is as our life was changing,

1468
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:50,920
Speaker 5: we had this incredible network that we built up or

1469
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 5: you know, that I built up as my career was developing,

1470
01:15:54,600 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 5: and we're just scratching our head saying, how do we

1471
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:59,760
Speaker 5: put this network to good use? And we try to

1472
01:15:59,800 --> 01:16:02,040
Speaker 5: cup different ways at the beginning that didn't quite work,

1473
01:16:02,120 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 5: weren't scalable, weren't received in the way that we intended.

1474
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:10,280
Speaker 5: But now the foundation is about you know, connections, it's

1475
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:13,920
Speaker 5: about community, it's about capital. So it's about using the

1476
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:19,160
Speaker 5: network to connect young aspiring entrepreneurs or young professionals to

1477
01:16:19,280 --> 01:16:23,080
Speaker 5: people who can help them on their entrepreneur or business journey,

1478
01:16:23,680 --> 01:16:27,080
Speaker 5: professional journey. It's about capital. So we've got a lot

1479
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:30,839
Speaker 5: of friends who are investors, private equity friends, venture capital friends.

1480
01:16:31,280 --> 01:16:33,240
Speaker 5: So we're dragging them back to say there are good

1481
01:16:33,240 --> 01:16:36,000
Speaker 5: businesses in the community, there are good businesses, good entrepreneurs.

1482
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:39,559
Speaker 5: We know invest and will invest alongside you because you know,

1483
01:16:39,880 --> 01:16:44,439
Speaker 5: we get incredibly underinvested as a people, So we're doing that.

1484
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:47,880
Speaker 5: And then there are a couple of charities which are

1485
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:50,160
Speaker 5: very close to us personally. One is Power the Fight,

1486
01:16:50,240 --> 01:16:52,800
Speaker 5: which is an anti knife crime charity, and the other

1487
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:56,839
Speaker 5: words the Africa Caribbean Leukemia Trust. Very you know, we're

1488
01:16:56,960 --> 01:17:00,559
Speaker 5: very attached to those personally because we're aways getting into

1489
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:04,080
Speaker 5: philanthropy conversation. So we said, instead of doing twenty things

1490
01:17:04,080 --> 01:17:06,960
Speaker 5: for twenty different charities, everything we do is for these

1491
01:17:07,439 --> 01:17:10,360
Speaker 5: two and that's what we use the foundation for the community,

1492
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:12,200
Speaker 5: the connections and capital.

1493
01:17:13,600 --> 01:17:16,680
Speaker 6: Well, it's been a pleasure, my brother. Anything else that

1494
01:17:16,760 --> 01:17:19,240
Speaker 6: you want to discuss before we let you go.

1495
01:17:19,439 --> 01:17:22,320
Speaker 5: So as a friend of mine who started a Champagne

1496
01:17:22,360 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 5: brand with originates in Africa, it's finished in the UK,

1497
01:17:27,760 --> 01:17:30,120
Speaker 5: but the spirit of it is he opened up that

1498
01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:32,920
Speaker 5: brand to me to invest in, like it was already

1499
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:35,760
Speaker 5: he'd already raised money, he already had product, he was

1500
01:17:35,760 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 5: already going to market. And I said to well, you know,

1501
01:17:38,840 --> 01:17:41,439
Speaker 5: I wouldn't mind being part of this. He was like,

1502
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:42,920
Speaker 5: if you want to be part of it, I'll make

1503
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:44,840
Speaker 5: way for you to be part of it. And I

1504
01:17:44,840 --> 01:17:48,240
Speaker 5: think it's just a good story of sometimes we don't

1505
01:17:48,280 --> 01:17:51,679
Speaker 5: see enough among us, just just making way for us

1506
01:17:51,800 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 5: both to do something together. Like he didn't he didn't

1507
01:17:54,320 --> 01:17:56,439
Speaker 5: need me. He's very well known in the culture. He's

1508
01:17:56,479 --> 01:17:59,080
Speaker 5: got a lot of connectivity. He had this business going,

1509
01:17:59,160 --> 01:18:00,599
Speaker 5: but when I said I wanted to be part of it,

1510
01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:03,920
Speaker 5: it was like very very accommodating. And now it's doing

1511
01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 5: he's doing really, really well. But just that that openness

1512
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:11,760
Speaker 5: to say, yeah, let's make room, let's let's make there

1513
01:18:11,760 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 5: be a seat at the table so you can be

1514
01:18:13,400 --> 01:18:15,800
Speaker 5: you can be part of it. I guess we just

1515
01:18:15,840 --> 01:18:19,880
Speaker 5: did it. It's called it's called seven Severn.

1516
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:21,320
Speaker 4: That's what we'll be sipping on.

1517
01:18:22,479 --> 01:18:23,200
Speaker 5: Did you have it?

1518
01:18:23,600 --> 01:18:28,480
Speaker 6: Mogul's edition. Appreciate your time. Thank you coming to America.

1519
01:18:28,520 --> 01:18:29,519
Speaker 6: I know you've got a feel of the things I

1520
01:18:29,520 --> 01:18:31,519
Speaker 6: should be doing while your state side. So next time

1521
01:18:31,560 --> 01:18:34,000
Speaker 6: we're in London, we gotta connect.

1522
01:18:34,080 --> 01:18:35,679
Speaker 5: Absolutely, we shall have them coming.

1523
01:18:35,960 --> 01:18:39,559
Speaker 6: We'll be coming. Uh So we'll.

1524
01:18:39,360 --> 01:18:42,120
Speaker 4: Have dinner, We'll have Severn on the table, and we'll

1525
01:18:42,120 --> 01:18:43,280
Speaker 4: just make the table a little bigger.

1526
01:18:43,560 --> 01:18:44,680
Speaker 5: There you go. That's it.

1527
01:18:44,840 --> 01:18:48,160
Speaker 6: That's the movie. Sure well, I appreciate it. Keep up

1528
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:50,120
Speaker 6: the great work, and let's stay in touch. When you

1529
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:52,919
Speaker 6: hit that four billion mark, let's do a follow up. Absolutely,

1530
01:18:52,920 --> 01:18:55,920
Speaker 6: Thank you guys, Thank you guys. Rocking See you next week.

1531
01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:00,759
Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child

1532
01:19:00,800 --> 01:19:04,600
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador

1533
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:08,960
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with

1534
01:19:09,040 --> 01:19:12,920
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just

1535
01:19:13,040 --> 01:19:16,799
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President

1536
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:17,240
Speaker 1: Donald J.

1537
01:19:17,320 --> 01:19:19,720
Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the.

1538
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:24,400
Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted

1539
01:19:24,439 --> 01:19:28,120
Speaker 1: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,

1540
01:19:28,439 --> 01:19:31,519
Speaker 1: and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.

1541
01:19:31,760 --> 01:19:35,320
Speaker 1: If you are here illegally your next you will be

1542
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:39,240
Speaker 1: fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.

1543
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:40,879
Speaker 2: You will never return.

1544
01:19:41,200 --> 01:19:44,240
Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and

1545
01:19:44,320 --> 01:19:47,720
Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. Do

1546
01:19:47,800 --> 01:19:52,919
Speaker 1: what's right, leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, border

1547
01:19:53,120 --> 01:19:54,919
Speaker 1: and families will be protected.

1548
01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:57,160
Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,