EE 411 - Scarcity, Strategy & Secrets: How Trevor Built an Elite CEO Network

He then provides an elite network to them, but also an elite network of advisors such as ex-government ministers, former MI6 agents. It is the stuff from the movies. Here's my chat with Trevor. Off from the movies, here's my chat with Trevor. It takes courage and belief in yourself and your business idea to take the step to set up your own business.

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I was like I have to kind of like start building a network quite right out of the ear and it's hard. But I asked a few people. I was like, oh, you've been there, you know this, and your name cropped up and people said the same thing he's building something cool. I was like what's he building? They I could see how people and then I went on your website and I was like I'm intrigued, I'm in.

These are all very highly accomplished individuals former ministers, global CEOs, ministers, global CEOs, economists all interesting variety of individuals. The B is boardroom, which is our intelligence network.

So this is what the business was first built on and that is a membership for CEOs and government officials where we give them information about geopolitics, geoeconomics, how government policy is in engaging with the private sector, what's happening in the region and what it means for a senior decision maker. The C is consulting. So we consult really upstream from an RFP.

So before there's any kind of request for a proposal, we'll go in and help the board or the government establish what is the interesting idea and then bring in, you know, the consultants. We don't really, although it is a consulting practice, we don't really consider ourselves in that space. We will sit down with the board and say okay, you're trying to do something that's never been done before. Here's interesting ideas of how this could potentially take shape.

And then these we will identify then through our network Now bring in these consultants. But now bring in McKinsey or BCG or whoever it might be Okay, because we don't want to and we don't, we don't want to compete with them and we don't really want to go down the the roof, the model that they have. And then the D is deal making. So we have these networks in different cities and, yes, these clients pay a membership to be part of the network itself, these CEOs.

But then over time hopefully we're not perfect, but hopefully they see we try to do things to a high standard trust is built. And then typically what happens is they say you know, I'm trying to do x, y and z. I'm trying to buy this asset, sell this asset, I want to acquire a company partner with the government, whatever it might be. Um, can you help us do that? And we'll do that then from an advisory capacity on a retainer and then even sit in between these deals on on a success fee.

Okay, so that's it.

And I was at the economist great brands, great people, very sharp, very bright people, and but when I did get there, that was the place I kind of wanted to get into where we based. Um well, therefore, in the UAE and Dubai, but I'd been all over the Middle East, so I was in Istanbul and Doha and Riyadh, abu Dhabi and then Dubai.

If this isn't for me, then I should really try and build something myself. And that was it then, and I'd done something, you know, remarkably stupid. I'd saved all my life savings, which wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was all the money I had and it was a big chunk of change. Just to be fair and they don't call it the economist for nothing they didn't pay it.

So they were, they were clever with how they retained their talent and, um, so I had my savings and I knew the risk was me staying somewhere that, you know, I didn't really want to be to be frank, and so then it didn't even really feel like a risk, so I had my life savings, I handed in my notice. Uh, I tried selling reports. That's basically I was doing right reports. And then I had basically went down the route of okay, let's try this network membership model where were you living at the time?

I gave him a clipboard the ballroom of Virgil Arab. He came, he put on a sooth. I gave him a clipboard the ballroom of Virgil Arab. And, as everybody who had invited, as they were walking into the room, he was standing there like ticking the clipboard, as if there was something even on the clipboard there wasn't, you know, as if we had this kind of infrastructure. And I was like, oh, yes, look, optics matter. And that was that, so I stood up.

And yeah, I'll facilitate, I'll share my views, I'll give a talk and then facilitate interaction. That's how we used to do back in Brazil, arab, for many years. And off the back of that first one, then I'd hosted the event. I had people come, I saw there was okay, there's some traction here, and I was basically trying to do everything myself. You know how did you get people to come to the first one?

And complimentary invite come along, who along, who, who wants to have breakfast at burj al arab, basically fair, which you know, and but I guess there was a bit more to it than that to be fair to us. And off the back of that, then I'd follow up with people and, yeah, I could see people were like no, I enjoyed that and we bundled benefits together and that became the membership. And, yeah, for the last 12 years every quarter we host a large briefing.

Now you know we'll host one this week and there's usually like our Q4, we'd 400. Our Q1 next week will be 200 plus. Ceos private private room.

I give a talk, we facilitate discussion and then they get access to reports and data and, depending on what tier they're on, they get access to me or etc. Etc so it built from there and for many years I was just focused on the network and building that network and trying to make it as sophisticated as possible, in the sense that when you build a network, particularly an elite network where you have decision makers who sit over huge budgets, then there is a circle of individuals who are

trying to get into that and you can make a lot more money, to be frank, if you let those people in. So in the early days, you know, I had private banks, wealth managers, real estate people saying I'll give you a big chunk of change and we'll sponsor your event. But really what they wanted was your, your CRM. So I always turned that down and always rejected that. And I think over the years the members could see we've we have selection criteria of who can become a member.

We are very fastidious in terms of that selection criteria. So when they take time out of their, their busy schedules, they're going and they know it's a couple of hours where they're actually going to meet their peers and hopefully we're, you know, delivering some thought provoking content that is useful that they can bring back to the office.

We survey all the members, we disaggregate the data and we give it back to them, so it becomes quite a valuable tool for them in terms of benchmark and expectations relative to their peers.

He's like I think you should come on this podcasting. We're gonna get like six people together for the next six months. I was like, ah, she sounds really good. I was like who else is in? It's like, oh, you'll be the first. I was let me know why you get a few people. And I was like, if you get a few people that I could really get on with, because I think they'd be really valuable. Peer networks are invaluable.

I'm a huge advocate for them, but I didn't want to be the first, exactly Because I'm like, if I'm the first, I don't want to be, so how did you get over that hurdle?

I just speak as if this is something we're doing which we are yeah, I just speak as if this is something we're doing which we are yeah. So I think obviously that kind of get the sense that, okay, there's all these CEOs in the room Back then it wasn't as senior, so it was part of the journey was really. First you need volume right and then to to ensure that you're building a network, that is, of decision makers.

Then you have to go through this painful process of introducing seniority rules, selection criteria, et cetera, and then you piss off a lot of people who at the beginning were the ones that also were, you know, coming to the session In the ballroom. Yeah, so that was. That was a bit of a journey, you know, in terms of okay, we've, now we're getting this critical mass, now we need to bring it up here, and to do that then you have to let people go.

Or, as it actually played out, was we just we lost some clients as a result of it where we're saying, look, your, your regional director or your CMO can't come to the events anymore. And they'd say, well, we signed up for the membership and sure, and when that membership agreement expires, you're, we'd love to see you renew, obviously.

But if you don't know, we understand, but it will be on the basis that it's the regional number one though you said you had you a company membership at the start it is a corporate membership still now, but it's for the regional number one, which is typically, you know, regional ceo, president, vp, whatever the, the title is, but the decision maker overseeing the region in in dubai, um, and in the the early days and I'm even trying to, you know, pull up my memories here I remember, you

know, with some of the memberships, if they had a secondary member, it might have been their CMO or their, you know, director of government affairs, and then we introduced this rule saying we're sorry, number ones only. Number ones and then, depending on what tier you're on, they'd nominate a number two if they're traveling. Okay, yeah, so that it takes time.

Right, there's the reports and data and all this, but essentially there's no shortage of events in Dubai and they're all free and they're not very good, they're sponsor led. You're going, you're listening to, you know some representative from a, from a company who sponsored, Telling them all over the world that you're like those free events, like you're just yes, it's painful.

So so doubling down on on standards and high standards and we're not perfect, but trying to always be psychotic in terms of your standards Eventually people see that and eventually they start to speak to one another and they say, oh, this one's different and actually you know it, it it does do what it says. On the on the team. It is when you go to the room it's like, ah, okay, these are all the people running, these are the most powerful people here.

Right, and they'll list all these benefits of making you know, more informed decisions, and all of that is true, and the network aspect and connecting into partnerships and growth. And, yes, that's all true, but what we're actually selling is success and selectivity, at least on the network aspect.

We've done all the pre-screening and the people who end up in the room 98% of the time are of the seniority that that they want to engage with and that, in a way, is part of why, um, and we charge a premium, and it's that's part of it. It's you're paying for the screening, you know, in a way, it way it's it's Harvard, right, you often hear Harvard. You can go and get the education in a, in a library. Well, part of what you're paying for is the selectivity of the people who have been allowed in.

This is what I wanted to actually say to you is do you understand the responsibility you have with all of this? And I I kind of you know, I know it sounds naive, but I kind of thought, yeah, I suppose I did, but he made such a point of it that perhaps I'd underestimated it as well, you know how do you mean, as in like, you shape decisions, you shape people's viewpoints.

And then we do a survey and I'm thinking of a specific example here Then we'll do a survey of everybody and everyone's saying they're not doing it. And then you start to realize, ah, okay, we need to be careful, because we need to do the survey first. Okay, because we're actually influencing.

So we all feel like our echo chamber is the right one and I think, being very mindful of the fact and having humility, that you recognize that and this is one of the great things, I think one of the things I'm really grateful for in terms of being able to build a business is you meet so many really high achieving, high functioning individuals who are super bright, very well educated, have achieved an awful lot, well-adjusted people, you know, good people,

good family people, all the stuff that goes with that, and they can just have this diametrically opposed view to you on something that you couldn't, you couldn't possibly, you couldn't understand that. How could they come to that conclusion? And I think when I was younger you know my natural position over this you know, kind of 20 years ago would have been to to revert into your camp, right Of no. Well, that person is wrong.

And now I'm just I realize somebody who is, as I say, as high functioning individual could see the world totally different than I could, and it just makes me curious about that person. It makes me want to spend more time with them actually.

But I would say the vast hopefully not the vast majority, but certainly billions and billions of people are just heading for this untold suffering.

Where we're heading in the world in terms of even just what's happening now, here we are at the start of 2025, right, if you look, if you look how the world's going to change, and by the end of this year, right, and I think we really underestimate this from a geopolitical and geoeconomic perspective, where, even just say, if you start out from a geopolitical point of view, you have what is like a, a volcano erupting, right? I, I was saying this in one of my talks.

It's a, it's a great story, right? So on the 5th of april 1815, right, it was this, uh, this island in indonesia, sambawa island right, beautiful, green, idyllic, you know, lush, paradise, like island, and a volcano erupted Mount Tombora, yeah, on the island, and obviously the people were sadly wiped out on that island? Right, would have been the yeah, it's modern day Indonesia. But that wasn't just any volcano.

It was the largest eruption in recorded human history, right, and it belched these noxious gases and volcanic ash high up into the atmosphere stratospheric implications for all the world. Right, you had the monsoon season in asia and the rain stopped it. There was drought, hunger, famine In 1816, the year later in Europe, right, historians call it the year of no summer.

There was still this dark, pale cloud in the sky and there was almost constant volcanic rain or ash in the rain, which obviously impacted farmers, which then led to hunger. Hunger leads to desperation, desperation, as it always does, and we always, as our species I think about this a lot. I'm blown away. We're always surprised when desperation turns to violence, and I never get that. So there's food riots in Britain, in France, european capitals. There's looting in.

Think of Switzerland, right, you think of Switzerland today. You think of this again, landlocked, peaceful, idyllic type of country. Swiss government declare a national emergency, right? So you think of that. An event that took place on the other side of the world got into the weather system and had all of these implications all around the world. That's exactly what is happening today.

But what we have is this geopolitical, geoeconomic have, is this geopolitical, geoeconomic, sociocultural, technological environment volcano which is Trump 2.0 and AI. And if you look at Trump in the last few weeks, since he's been in power for good or ill, I'm not pro-Trump, I'm not anti-Trump, I'm kind of a dispassionate observer. I'm just kind of curious of wow, this is going to change the world From a geopolitical point of view.

You see that we're entering into this really a new era of geopolitics. He is a very unique and different individual and, yes, you have this era of multipolarityarity right, really, you had obama begins to kind of disengage a little bit, right, particularly from the middle east, and you have trump. And you've america, first, and more of an isolationist type of policy. Then you've biden, which was essential. Biden was essentially the same president as trump.

No, no one wants to say this, but from a foreign policy point of view, and you have Trump again, and you have, you know, this multipolarity where you have China, you have the US, russia to a lesser extent, and that was something we've all kind of anticipated and kind of saw, particularly since Putin went into Ukraine. We've all kind of anticipated and kind of saw, particularly since Putin went into Ukraine.

But now what you have is this kind of predatory multipolarity where you have Trump chiding Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America, you have chiding Canada, panama, greenland, and I think a lot of people really underestimate what is actually going on here. You know geography, really. Geography matters, right. Geography, right, land, earth. We're the only species that we write on our land. Why do we do that?

There's a great political geographer, yves Lacoste, from the 70s, and he says in French but I won't, so I'm not sophisticated enough he says geography first and foremost is about warfare. It's about war making, it's the othering of the other individual, of the other individual. And I really feel now in this era you have Trump, and the people around them recognize that Putin was able to go into Ukraine.

The ramifications of that were manageable for Russia, and now we have this kind of bifurcation of the global economy between US and between China, and you have a president that is very much willing to test the powers of what we would have considered kind of sovereign nations you have from a geoeconomic point of view.

You have him pulling out of the global tax treaty and you have, obviously, from an ai point of view, you have stargate, you have the chinese, and this whole kind of century is going to be defined by knowledge supremacy. Okay, and this is before you get to the environment.

So you have quite a fractious global system and then, at the same time, as a species and for the vast majority of the population, what we need is multilateralism to bring these different parties together in order to solve climate change. And, in actual fact, the opposite has taken place, where Trump has pulled out of Paris Accords, et cetera, and you would have to say 1.5 is dead right. I think.

If you look at the carbon budget, between now and the end of the decade, we have to cut projected carbon emissions by 2030, or for 2030, by I think it's 48, 49%, and if you look at the progress we've made, we've added to it, it seems but it always seemed completely unrealistic.

If you look at global demography and where it's going to happen, you have another billion people added by the end of this decade, two billion by 2050. You put that into context In 1800, we reached our first billion people, right. So now we're on eight. We had another by the end of this decade, another two by 2050. And you've got about 90% of all of that growth happening in Africa and Asia, actually, in eight countries. Eight, yeah, actually in eight countries. Eight, yeah, wow, eight countries.

You're looking at the likes of Egypt, nigeria, indonesia, india, pakistan, congo. The vast majority of population is coming from countries that are also going to face the worst effects of climate change, that are also going to face the worst effects of climate change, and you will have hundreds and millions of people and I would do the same they are going to. If you break it down a bit. I think the UN puts it at 240 million people. So let's say it's even.

Just, let's be very conservative about it right? Let's say it's a hundred million people and let's say you have slow onset change. Right, rising temperatures these are the people that will move over borders. Right, because agriculture will be impacted. Then you will have fast onset events. These are the people that will move into cities maybe not over borders, but into cities and pile huge infrastructure strain onto these cities.

But if you take the first category, let's say it's a hundred million people very conservative and most of these people are going to move North. They move into Europe. Europe votes right when this happens. Yep, see it happen already. Yeah, things get very, very messy, even though, the irony being, again, from a demographic point of view, these are the countries that actually will need the immigration to fuel their economies into the future.

You know, and when you take that into account and you take into account the sheer magnitude of people moving over borders and how we're managing it now, like, think of it, when was it? Was it 2014, 2015? The Syrian refugee crisis? Right, one million left Syria and headed into Europe, like that ended up, even though it wasn't going to impact Britain from a Schengen point of view. That ended up like a core part of the Brexit debate. Remember they had the.

They had billboards up of the immigrants and whatnot. That was a million people. Think of a quantum of a hundred and that's conservative. So you, you do you. It'll be hard not to worry about how we, how we solve that um, and there'll be certain parts of the world that will just thrive. There will be people and individuals. They will. They will actually that will be turned into huge opportunities for them what kind of opportunities are there?

Japan now sells more adult nappies or diapers for our American friends than nappies for babies. I read that recently. And the main brand there has reconfigured their manufacturing plant to serve adult nappies. So if I was talking to my wife about this, she was just back from Japan, uh, last week or the week before. And I was saying, if I was young again, like, say, I was leaving school or university or whatever, and how would I?

I obviously want to look at your life and ask myself, how do I want my life to look and then build a business opportunity around that. So it's not the other way around. And one thing for me would be I love traveling, going out, I'm very curious, going out and seeing the world, and how could I do that and how could I turn it into a way that would then fund this passion as well? And I'm young and I'm going and enjoying all the pleasures of the world.

Right, and I was thinking about this and I was saying, you know, if I was a kid again, I have my nephew there in the green room who's over in Dubai for his work experience you know he's in fourth year and what I would do is I would stay in Ireland and I would save as much money as I can. Let's say, save 50 grand, all right. So you'd have to work a little while and you'd have to be disciplined and put it into your piggy bank.

And then what I would do is I would head to Japan or I would look at the demography of different countries around the world, but Japan would be a perfect example of it. It won't be too long till there's countries in Europe that will fall into this as well, where they, because of the demography, they, have an oversupply of housing and there's islands off Japan I don't know if you travel around Japan, which is an incredible, incredible country.

There's islands off Japan and there's an oversupply of traditional houses where the young population are sadly, aren't as engaged with their culture as much as it was proven to be the case in the past, and you can pick up houses there for $7,000, $8,000, $9,000, $10,000.

But they want to go and take their photo, yeah, I guess. And then you bank that money and then you buy your next one, yeah, and that's why understanding what's happening in the world is so, so important, because it's not an opportunity or a challenge, it's just thinking makes it. So you know.

When there's a housing crisis, homelessness, you know you don't need to take much of a walk through Dublin to recognize the problems in Ireland. The city's in a funny place, yeah.

Yet at the same time, we're a unique country in the sense that we have too much money as a government right, we're creating sovereign wealth funds, we're creating investments for the future, for the inevitable change that we spoke about earlier on, and we have a unique model in terms of not just a low corporate tax rate. I think a lot of people make that point and they probably oversell it a bit. It's a little bit lazy at this stage. Yeah, it's a gateway market into Europe.

You have double taxation treaties, you have a highly talented workforce, highly well-educated, so there's a lot of great things about Ireland. The challenge and this is going to be the challenge for everywhere in the world, particularly now with AI is just the level of inequality is going to go like this.

Ai is just the level of inequality is going to go like this, and from an AI point of view, you don't need a great deal of quantitative insight to figure out that the people who are going to already control assets are going to use AI to their advantage and that, in the simplest case, would be a business and a medium-sized company. Now they're going to need far fewer staff to do that and the benefits the way free market capitalism works, the benefits flow to the top. That's going to.

I feel that's going to broaden actually inequality, and that's been the main, at least looking at it from a distance. That's been the main, at least looking at it from a distance. That's been the thing with Ireland. I can see there's this where we, when you look at any of the metrics of Ireland we're a very wealthy country doesn't feel like a wealthy country. It doesn't. When you're walking around Dublin you don't think, oh wow, and now I know a lot of that sits on balance sheets as as IP.

But even putting that to one side, I feel that inequality issue is going to be the the bigger piece. But what also in this debate, where people, at least in my view, always forget or it kind of impoverishes the whole debate when you don't look at the legacy? Everything is built onto something. The big things rest on the little things, and the legacy for Ireland was that the Irish government, for its good and ill over the years. They had a certain hand to play, a certain economic hand to play.

Right. If you think of Ireland in the eighties, right, I was born in 1980 and it was a. It was a tough. Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe and the government had a opportunity, which was now a lot of people, as I mentioned, have this accusation as Ireland's a McDonald's drive-thru for tax evasion and again, that's a very lazy analysis of it. Yes, we have a very competitive tax rate, which will be interesting how President Trump and his policies may impact that.

But from Ireland's point of view, these were the cards that we had to play. It was a case of we tax at 40% and we get 40% of nothing. Or we can tax at 12.5% and get 12.5%, which now has turned into far more than they would have ever ever got in the first place. And now, from a from a tax policy perspective, ireland is a very, very interesting model. Um, so it's remembering where we came from.

You know the eighties and our bullish or bearish for Ireland in the future, again, everything depends on what happens globally. We're a very open, affluent, supposedly open affluent trading economy that's based on the global economy. And now you have Trump pulling out of the global tax treaty and that will put pressure on the OECD commitments of a 15% baseline tax rate for companies, and I feel that may like.

Here is a good example UAE had decided, okay, we're introducing corporate tax and we're also going to introduce the OECD standard for companies that are revenue, revenueing a certain amount. Okay, now trump comes into power very, very recently and the global, he's pulling out of these global tax agreements and he's saying to countries you, theoretically, they could apply, they could put pressure on these companies to get the tax, the, the top-up tax, the difference, okay, between the tax rates.

That's he's making a very clear, as trumpian policy often does in a, in a very kind of he browbeats people that they won't stand for that. So now, if it puts a lot of pressure on all of these other countries, because now they say, well, if the us isn't doing it and the us is the the apex predator in terms of global geopolitics does it make sense for us to do it? You know, are we putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage?

So, again, that kind of fractures, a lot of progress, or at least, uh, from a tax point of view, that a new forward and that has a that will.

How that plays out for Ireland is a huge thing, because, while I say that the, the competitive tax rate isn't the only advantage, it is a very important one and you have a lot of innovation led uh industries in terms of tech and pharma, as you know, in ireland, and tax isn't only the decision they make, but if president trump is putting huge pressure on them to bring manufacturing back to back to the us.

And then, if I remember correctly, if you look at corporate tax in ireland, if you look at it proportionally or as a percentage, it's and I'm getting this wrong right, just to be clear for everybody but it's something like five or six multinationals account for 80% or something Is it Right.

But Riyadh, in in Saudi now is also competing and wants to be the regional hub. So things change and they change. The constant has changed, yeah, and they can change pretty quickly in the space of like five to nine years. It can feel like, and there's a network effect that I think a lot of people discount in this in terms of the human nature, the aspect of human nature when it comes to investment decisions. How does a certain city become an E amaya hq like ireland for tech companies?

How does uae and dubai specifically become a regional and in many ways now and in international hub? It's because of the human aspect of oh, what are you guys doing? Yeah, you know. Or in your, in your sector, ah, okay, you know, whoever, without mentioning names, the big brands such and such as have gone in Okay.

Yeah, step me through how you've built this, because it's a very sophisticated like your website is a who's who of global movers and shakers. How have you built your own network?

And I think people assume if you run a network, you're out Social butterfly, social butterfly, yeah, and it's quite useful recognizing this about yourself because I also, over the years I was able to see there are certain personality types that are going to buy our membership, you know, and there will be certain ones that just won't.

So what has happened over the years when we have lost members is typically the regional CEO moves on to another role you know could be regional CEO of Europe or wherever, and then a new person comes in and that new person might be without even attending a session, will be no, we don't want this membership anymore, we're canceling it. And I can really kind of empathize with that person because I'd be the person where I'd probably think, yeah, so there's a real kind of personality type to it.

So everyone thinks I'm out shaking everybody's hands. I'm actually pretty hard to get hold of and I'm generally not really. It's a process of how you build a network it's not one person and that process becomes once you have a critical mass. Then actually and this is the psychology of selectivity making it harder for people to get in. And again speaking to their rationality of human beings, people want to be part of it more and then creating a referral.

So the only way now that you can become a member is you're invited by me or you're referred by a member's. No unsolicited kind of can I join your membership? there's no apply here button exactly, yeah, exactly so, and then how I built the network off. That has just been. Once you get the kernel of the network going and then you refine that and then it becomes like a, an engine, a kind of a self-fulfilling engine, where often people will say or you know, trevor knows everybody.

So I I feel like I'm, I'm in a way I'm I. I observe ireland in a way from afar and I don't feel like I. I know when I'm there I'm a very different person, like all my cells and my body relax, we have a house there and I usually't feel like I. I know when I'm there I'm a very different person, like all my cells and my body relax, we have a house there and I usually I feel like a different person. That's good, but and but I'm not.

I'm working there, but obviously working on stuff here related to emir. Here I don't have any projects in ireland or I don't. Uh, yeah, I don't do any work in the market, so your professional persona doesn't exist in that place.

The week before I came out, I got a dinner 14 guests kind of created who I kind of thought would be interesting and kind of like mix and match them together, brought them together for a dinner, just trying to create my own thing, because I don't want to go to them and they have to be rubbish. So I just go right, I'll just, I'll just create an event. That's a great idea. Yeah, and I was like right, there's 14 unbelievably people here. I know they're trying to raise funding under that.

Guy's really like engaged to give back. I know this brand is young, they want to, kind of. So I just brought all these brilliant people. I know I had spent hours with them. That that's kind of like your thing of like you kind of curate and I was like this is kind of fun because I enjoyed it and what is it like? A Jeffersonian type of dinner, not even that, the one problem I call it. And I was like I want you to cause.

I hate going to events where it's just like just come to the event and you're all kind of there and everyone's like just looking around. It's awkward and you might, I might get chatting to you, even though you might be the perfect person to talk to me, I don't know you're there. So I did two things that were kind of different. I got everyone to write me a three-line bio what do you do, what's the company doing and what's your biggest problem and sent that around before.

I said here's the 14 that are coming. If there's someone you particularly want to meet, I'll engineer that. I said well, it's on the third floor of a of a building. It used to be the press up headquarters. It's beautiful, like almost like a penthouse apartment, but he is like a. He has his investment fund there and he incubates startups there it's beautiful, really, really nice. Low lighting, long tables. Feels you're at home. I said look, I want you to feel like're at home.

I want you to feel like you're a group of friends. I was like I've selected all these people and I want you to get value. I said I only want you to come if you've got a problem to solve. I said I want your problem you're trying to work on right now. I said it can be tiny.

So it's not this type of nonsense where you know everyone's going around just shaking, swapping business cards. It's like we're here.

He was kind of like because some of those people want to meet me, they kind of want to like talk to me like they're on the pod, I'm like so I had to go.

Yeah, I'll just be like standing there going what are we doing?

Yeah, we have access to LPs here because of the deals From a private equity perspective. We have access to LPs here because of the network we could OGP. We're constantly being given opportunities. The world does not need another fund. I would say.

The last, which would also, if it were to be successful, would be, I feel, the most lucrative and create the most value in the network, would be participating in the investments themselves, and that would be the final. I've promised my wife that would be the final chapter.

That could be the last part of it. But to, to kind of go back to your question, I'm really just curious of of where it could go. Like a good friend of mine just exited from his business. He's a great guy here in dubai and we're very close to him and his wife and it was brilliant to see him build something 15 years, him and his team, and a very successful exit. And since that, obviously because we're friends, a lot of people have said to me oh, I'm you know, would you do the same?

And I'm kind of like you know, I don't know what it is. I guess it's quite an emotional thought process, but I'm just too curious to see what it could eventually be. You know, I feel like it's not about money, it's just well. I put a lot of effort into this. How, where could it go? Well?

I could get, if you have kids, maybe you'd be more inclined to exit, to take that risk off the table and do that for them. I personally, because I don't have kids, I feel like I, I, I can see the kind of jekyll and hyde in me. On the one hand, I feel like, because I don't have kids, I feel like I'd never give my kids that money anyway. But I know if I had the kids I would then change my tune, right, because you have that profound love for them where you're like no, I want them to be okay.

And being able to identify these patterns in individuals, recognizing the level of narcissism in yourself and other individuals, and recognizing when you, when you are confronted by you, know true narcissism of how to step away from, tell those people, oh, you're a good person, and walk to the other side of the room, that's hugely beneficial.

I feel like building businesses is a great way to see that, because you're really getting to, you're working very closely with individuals and you get a real read or you get a real feel of people.

For more information about how Enterprise Ireland can support you on your startup journey, visit enterprise-irelandcom. Enterprise Ireland helping Irish startups go global Quick fire round. Oh, what book would you recommend? Every founder should read oh um.

You see all this conflict in the world and trying to. What I think about a lot is how is it that we can see this conflict on the other side of the planet or see this untold suffering, yet it doesn't drive us into any kind of action or change? Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations at the beginning has this kind of thought experiment there's some natural disaster on the other side of the world and why we don't really care about it. You know we care enough about it.

We care enough about the perception of ourselves to seem like we're concerned about it, but not enough to actually do anything about it. Um, there's a academic, paul slavich, who talks about psychophysical numbing and and it's usually around. It's usually portrayed as when numbers get to a certain scale or they're inconceivable to us. But actually his paper is about I think the title of it is the more they die, the less we care.

And if you think of what's happened in Palestine recently and you think of what's happening around the world, I think stuff like that understanding trying to read about what's happening in the world and then try to tie that in with micro thinking of how we react to things I'm quite interested in that.

No, I think it's pretty. I try to do that, but I think it's, by large, this there's an opportunity in most things. There's an opportunity to serve someone. There's an opportunity to to try be a better version of yourself. There's an opportunity to react in a certain way. We don't get it right all the time, but so, yeah, my wife does. My wife does often joke, half joke with me, like we're the people in the movie where everything just goes right. For I know that's very annoying on a lot of people.

But what?

Like, I started Amir really because like, oh, I can't do that. You know, sit in a big organization and pile the next 15 years into this to get to here.

It's funny how people find that label funny. I find it interesting.

And then a lot of the guys I grew up with are, you know, tradesmen, builders, electricians, and a great friend of mine does smart homes, david keen, smart homesio, I think he is kevin mcplugged there shout out, I, I think that's his. I think that's it.

But what I would pro, I listen to them a lot, right, and and they all have, you know, small one-man businesses, and when I meet them, I'm curious about this because it's very far removed from me, but I'm curious about how they're approaching these things. And I did think again about how society is changing and the prestige that we put to certain knowledge and, because of that, how there's going to be a huge opportunity, right?

So, for example, you know, the last 20, 30 years there's been this overproduction of elite degrees and most of it is postmodern, gibberish, right, including a lot of the stuff that I've done. And then during that period there were a lot of people that didn't go to university and they went down the route of vocational training electricians, et cetera. They went down the route of vocational training electricians, et cetera.

Now what you have in developed economies is you have an oversupply of elite degrees, white collar workers that are going to be hurt by AI, and then you have blue collar workers who have proven business models, right. They've, as you said earlier, earlier, pay yourself a salary. They've paid themselves a salary for 20-25 years.

But what they're lacking is that kind of and hope they won't find this unfair but a kind of a layer of sophistication in terms of business acumen, in terms of software systems, ai. And you could do a syndicated private. I wouldn't do this because this you know I wouldn't be allowed back into ireland, I'd be excommunicated as a, as a filthy capitalist.

But what you could do is you could do a, you could bundle all of these together and what you're going to have in the future is depending on how quickly, gen I leaps into the physical world, which could be sooner than we think. What you're going to have is because we put this nonsense label of prestige onto a certain type of knowledge. I went to university, right, and we, we did not attach that prestige to blue collar jobs.

You, from a supply and demand point of view, you don't have enough of these people in in advanced economies going into these areas now. And I was with a friend of mine in the alps last year and he has a beautiful place there and he built something in the upstairs part of it, a small wall, and when he told me the cost of it I was like what he said, well, I don't know how to do it and there's no tradesmen here, so they're charging like heart surgeons.

And it made me think I was like, yeah, that's the way the world is going. And and when these guys at least when they come into my house and they open an electric electric box, that shows how much I know about it I might as well be looking at open heart surgery. Yeah, it is.

I'm waiting, yeah, and I'm quite happy to wait, but you can't and none of it's digitized, can't just book an appointment. There's huge. I'm rich on that one, I'll go 50, 50 on you on that one. It's, it has to happen, it will happen it just we might not have the labor to do it. What's been your worst investment?

That's the next question what's been your best investment um, like I, I guess best investment has been emir in that sense. And then I'm loafing low fee index based funds for a long time. That's a. That's my freedom fund. That's done. And then Angel for Learning.

And recognize you have that as well, you have your own flaws, and then just, I think, focusing on trying to improve them. I normally finish by saying where can people learn more about you and your company? No, they can't. For free, they can't. That's it. Cut camera? No, they can't. Realistically, they're not going to be one of our clients and they want him to become a member.