Lets just come back to
investing in tech because
there's an awful lot of money
out there a lot of hot money
out there and a lot of money
that's been pulled out for
instance real estate when
people got out at the right time
and they're trying to invest in
anything and it's funded a lot
of the time we could say
that it's been mis-invested
arguably we're actually living
in an era of misallocation of
capital one of the best
if you like
not just arguably
certainly we are
so the misallocation of
capital this is the era and
economic historians will go
back and look at it and say
my God those people got it
horribly wrong
A lot of things have been
funded in the tech space that
shouldn't have been
and we've got these race
evaluations on unicorns
and all the language that goes
with it is that not also
an uber bubble and I don't mean
to uber in that sense
excuse the pun but is that not
a massive bubble that's
going to collapse at some point
or is tech so entrenched
now that the effect of
that deflating isn't going to
be as big
well it's a good question
I mean I think one of the
reasons that a lot of these
tech companies are not going
public is because their private
equity or venture capital
investors don't want them to
because then they might be
marked to market so
and be found out
and be found out
right so
you know that's why you're
getting you know
very late IPOs or getting
no IPOs I think there's been
almost no IPOs in the US of
tech companies
the number of bleeding unicorns
out there is going you know
dying unicorns is going to be
absolutely phenomenal
but one of the really
interesting things is that
that the US
is absolutely dominant in
technology I've got an
apartment in San Francisco
you can just see it there it's
in a different league to here
and this is an interesting
statistic I think anyway
in the last four years the
profits of the 50 top internet
platforms in the world have
been have a guess how much
I couldn't I mean
1.6 trillion
U.S. dollars not billion
trillion US dollars
proportionally what does
that mean if we're comparing
what
half the size of the UK
economy in profits
on an annual basis
right
that's the profits of the
internet platforms that's the
Googles Facebook
10 cent and China
Alibaba that sort of thing
alright that's just their
profits not their revenues
of that
80 percent of
those profits went to the
United States eight zero
percent went to the United
States guess what percentage
was in Europe
it's going to be it's
it's a horror story isn't it
5 percent
we are pathetic at technology
here in Europe and they can do
all the conferences and all
that sort of stuff they just do
not have the mojo or
the capability or
the economic environment
to compete against the
Americans that is going to be a
very very big challenge Europe
so rip up the rule book start
again create a really truly
entrepreneurial society if you
can think of one successful
genuinely disruptive Internet
company that's come out of
Europe I can't
I can't and that
that pains me because it isn't
as if you don't have the this
is back to the misallocation of
capital it pains me because
it's not as if you don't have
the talent
but the the management is
pretty poor
poor.
and the way we think
about it our approach and key
point our mindset and our
approach to failure certainly
in the UK is awful
yeah
it's seen as a business
disaster whereas in the US
it's seen as a badge of honor
is that what you've
experienced
yes I mean I think that
you know if I'm looking at the
companies that are supposedly
worth a billion dollars in
Europe so you've got 'Shazam'
which I would think is worth
like 50 million dollars
I mean that's yesterday's
technology
Google can do it,
Apple can do anyone can do it
'Spotify' which has a great way
of taking a one dollar
and fifty cents and making it a
dollar every time you
do it there's no positive
model for 'Spotify'
I mean I think that's a
complete disaster
here in the UK 'Just
Eat' well is that really
internet disruption?
I mean to me that's just like a
service,
you know, 'Deliveroo' or anyone
else can do that  I could do
it we could we can serve one
tomorrow morning basically
'Deliveroo'?
another one that's going
to you know it's not going to
deliver the goods so to speak
It might deliver the food but
it won't deliver the returns
So we're a copycat
we're not disruptive and
something's wrong and it's all
got to do with the construct
of the European Union and the
meddling the tinkering that
George Osborneism
We absolutely need a crisis
and we need a new form of
leadership basically
