Orson Francescone, MD @ Financial Times Live

I suspect the world of university is going to be changed or disrupted very rapidly over the next 10 years because, as you said, you know, okay, I can't afford to go to university or, you know, it's not as accessible as I wanted it to be, but I can go on ChatGPT and essentially I can learn anything I like for free. I think market corrections are healthy because it teaches people not to be too silly with their money, teaches people to be more discerning in their investments. And so if sometimes people make losses on their investments, it's a good thing. Because it disciplines people in terms of funneling money into the best, best projects, really. And also remember, we're now living in a world where, you know, work and life are so intertwined, right? So even when I started 20 years ago, work was work, private life was private life, with very separate, clear demarcations.

I did a pretty good job of that.

I think COVID, I think technology, I think Twitter, whatever, you know, lots of different factors.

Welcome back to The Grand Tour Guide. Today we're joined by Awesome. Awesome, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

So you are the managing director of Financial Times Live, to be specific. I think everybody knows the Financial Times, everybody reads the Financial Times, but they might not know what Financial Times Live does. Could you just give us an overview of Financial Times Live and what your role as managing director is within it?

Of course. So good morning everyone. Thank you for having me again. So FT Live is essentially the conferences Events division of the Financial Times. And so we all know the Financial Times is this incredible daily publication around business, finance, economics, and global affairs. And we run a series of events around the world essentially to help business professionals make better decisions and better connections. I mean, this is the best way of describing what FT Live does. In practice, what that means is we run, last year I think we ran over 250 events all over the world on all sorts of topics and industries.

You were at every one of them though.

No, I wasn't at every one of them. No, no. Well, fortunately I wasn't.

Yeah.

And these range from, they can be breakfast roundtables, they can be dinners all the way to conferences for 5,000, 6,000 people. They are primarily business-oriented conferences in particular niches or areas or industries. And the beauty of the Financial Times brand, of course, is that allows us to play globally and be across lots of different industries and sectors and verticals. And in fact, one of my challenges is also to try and rein in the amount of events we do or the amount of territories we cover. And so as managing director, essentially I'm in charge of running that division or business. It is an important profit driver of the Financial Times. So obviously we've got the paper, which is our main engine with our incredible journalism, but actually, you know, events can be also a very profitable endeavor for some of these publishers. And so, As a team, we have about 170 people globally, primarily based in London, but then with teams in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. And we have lots of fun. We work very hard, but we have lots of fun as well.

Amazing. Did you see yourself being in the industry of events and working in a role like this when you were graduating from Trinity College Dublin?

Yeah, no, absolutely not is the answer. I was in London and I needed to pay the rent. And so you start, you know, hopefully this will sound familiar. You start sending CVs left, right, and center. You start with a structured idea of what you'd like to do. And then as the months go by and you need to pay your rent, you get more desperate. And so you start scattering CVs everywhere. And somebody replied, I remember a recruitment agent replied, and they said, oh, we want to send you for an interview. It's a research role. It's kind of an economics and finance research role. And I said, oh, that sounds great. Cause I, you know, I studied economics. And then when I asked what the company was like, oh, well, it's kind of some research company. Turned out, I turned up for the interview. It turned out it was a financial publishing company called Euromoney Institutional Investor, which at the time was owned by DMGT, which is a Daily Mail group. And the job they were advertising was for a content editor for their conferences. And so I, to be honest, I had no idea what that meant or what that was. But of course I realized that there is this world of business events and somebody needs to curate the content and research the content and invite the speakers. And so they gave me a project to do and two weeks later they hired me. But absolutely no, I'd never thought of events. You know, it's not to this day. I still think, gosh, this is, this is a weird the way my life has kind of fallen into this industry. The beauty of it is that it's a hybrid role. I run events, but I work within media companies. And so one of the wonderful things specifically about working at the FT, I get lots of exposure to our amazing newsroom and journalists. And so as you can imagine, the FT is full of very smart people and the brand attracts lots of incredible speakers at our events. And so I'm very lucky to be able to meet lots of very interesting people. Uh, and so I guess I get bored quite quickly, and the fact that we run lots of events in lots of different sectors and lots of different countries really, really helps because essentially I am never bored and every day is very different.

And I bet when you first got into this world, it's changed a lot, both on the publication side but also the event side. For example, events, you know, when COVID happened, I guess it became this sort of all online, and then you're— it's about integrating real life and online, and then the same publication, it's like, okay, it was just newspapers maybe in the beginning, but now it's social media and there's a whole different world. So what would you say are the glaringly obvious, or at least relevant maybe to a younger cohort, differences between old and new?

Oh, well, so I started my career around 2005, and this was really when the transition from print to digital was happening, and it wasn't happening very well. It was— these weren't happy days for publishers because essentially their whole model was being disrupted. And they hadn't really figured out a way as to how to manage it, how to transition from print to digital. And in a way, events was the best place to be because you had all of this print advertising that started finding its way to sponsorship of events. Marketers very quickly realized that the return on investment from sponsoring and speaking at event was much more A, measurable, and B, higher than putting a print ad in a magazine or a paper where essentially you've got no idea who sees your your ad, and other than brand awareness, it's very difficult to track any return on investment. And so suddenly, you know, I joined the industry at this kind of crux of transition from print to digital, and events started exploding because marketeers realized they were getting a lot more bang for the buck from sponsoring business events. We then, of course, went through COVID, and we were very lucky. I mean, we worked very hard, but a brand like the FT, which is a content-rich type of event brand, um, was able to transition to digital very successfully. So we had a very successful transition to digital. It was a wonderful kind of roller coaster time. Essentially, you're trying to transform an analog business into a digital business while you're working from home and you're kind of in lockdown. And so it was one of the biggest and most exciting professional challenges for me and my colleagues. And remember, you know, up until before COVID events were 100% physical iterations. So you'd run an event in exhibition center or in a Congress center or a hotel. And overnight we had to become experts in broadcasting technology, television. But I have to say, you know, I loved it even though it was a real roller coaster. Now we're back in person as COVID has waned, but all our events are still transmitted digitally. And so I'm a big believer in the digital medium. And so we're one of the few companies that hasn't dropped the digital element of our events. So you will go to any of DFT Live events around the world, and you can either attend in person, you can watch them from home.

I want to pick up on something you said there about being content-rich events. Um, maybe this is a bit of a selfish question, being in events myself, but careers and business, you know, for us respectively, is, uh, can be quite inaccessible topics to the masses. And I feel like, uh, the key to a good event is being able to like relay information in a way that is actually digestible for that cohort. But I think that's a challenge in itself, right? Knowing how long people's attention spans last, knowing how you could prompt networking and actually getting those more tangible benefits. What have been some big learnings that maybe you could say to me as someone at the beginning of my events career?

Yeah, I think it's a really good point. I remember the days when I started in events, we used to print the event documentation, which essentially was a printed copy of the PowerPoint slides that the speakers would have presented during that morning. And so in those days, it makes me feel old now, but we're only talking 20 years ago, we used to collect the PowerPoint slides before the event and we would insist on that. And then we would spend a fortune and kill lots of trees printing these huge ridiculous folders and packs. And then as you arrived, you got your pack full of presentations and you went home with it. And of course, you know, that's completely gone. A, because there's no need to print stuff. B, because at the time people were coming to events to get information they couldn't get elsewhere. And of course, digital and internet and Google was a great disruptor to an extent for events as well, because suddenly that need to go to an event to get either competitive information from your competitors or your peers. Essentially, you could start getting that online. And so it meant that the experience at a conference room had to move from content, not only content, but also to networking. And so people started thinking, well, unless I'm, unless I'm meeting people to do business, content alone isn't enough for me to get out of bed and go to a conference. And so you will now know that conferences now are a lot more networking focused rather than content focused. Content is still key, right? Because without the content, you don't have credibility at the event. The first thing people look at when they're making a decision, who's speaking at the event and who's going? That's all we're interested in, right? Are there people that I'm gonna be interested in meeting or learn something from or do business with? And so the content is what gets you to kind of get out of bed and get onto the tube to go to the conference. But of course, once you're there, the last thing you want is sit in a conference room for hours listening to content. And I do this for a living and I can tell you that I've got a very short attention span. And so, I will pop into a conference room, I'll sit down for 10 minutes and then I'll start fidgeting with my phone and then I'll go out 'cause I wanna meet people. And in a way, that's fine, you know, but as long as you're catering for a very kind of multi-level experience, I think people love events, right? Because it's a bit of content, a bit of networking, lunch, some fun, some music, some great food. These are all the ingredients now that you didn't need 20 years ago.

What would a speaker have to do to make you stay longer than 10 minutes in that conference room?

Yeah, it's a really good, it's a really good point. And you know, we, Well, A, we've shortened the time, the amount of time that people can speak. And again, back in the days, you used to have presentation after presentation. So single speakers presenting their PowerPoint slides. We then went all the way to panel discussions and banning presentations and PowerPoints because they were boring. I'm actually a big believer that you need a bit of both. And so panel discussions are great because they're a lot more informal and interactive, but also, and specifically if you're paying quite a lot of money to go to a conference and our business model is that people need to pay, they also want some crunchy information. And so a few presentations with some crunchy data and numbers that help you do your job better, quicker, and faster that I think are really important. But by and large, we've shortened the amount of time people can speak. We try and make the sessions more interactive, but I mean, ultimately, you know, people need to come up with something that's memorable or important for you. You know, I guess the test I always use is the fear-greed factor. Is this speaker going to appeal to my fear or my greed factor? And by that, I mean the fear factor is, am I going to be fearful of missing out from listening to Peter speak at this conference. And so, because Peter's going to say something really important that's important for myself or for my business, so I don't want to miss out. Or the greed factor, or is Peter going to say something that's going to help me make a lot more money and advance my business? And so—

See if that day ever comes.

Well, yes. And so, but when we're writing our conference programs, and this, whoever taught me how to do this many years ago, I still use this test and I read a lot of the draft conference programs that we create. And I always say to the content producer, you know, is this session hitting the fear-greed factor? Because it sounds okay, but is it really like kind of gripping me? When I read the topic of this session, I'm really going to think I must go because I'm either going to miss out something or I'll make better business decisions from going.

Okay, so that makes a great speech maybe, but then a panel discussion. I found it interesting that before the conversation, you said, I didn't want the questions before. You were up for that more conversational flow. Why do you think that should be a more adopted approach to conversation?

Yeah, I mean, I think, listen, you know, people get stage fright and especially when you're invited to speak at an FT conference, you know that the world is watching, right? And so a lot of people, I can understand, they're kind of nervous and they want to say the right thing and they've got their corporate communications people watching on the sidelines in case they say something they shouldn't be saying. But of course, when the conversations are stilted and prepared, they're really boring and people switch off, right? And so, you know, again, I'm out of the room on my phone or having a coffee, right? And so I guess my approach and, you know, we try and instill this with some of our speakers is like, don't ask for the questions because, well, A, actually at the FT, we're not going to tell you what the questions are. And so we've got a very strict policy, but you know, we do have preparatory kind of panel phone calls with the speakers and the moderators to get introduced to them. But I always say to people, and when I do my town halls at FT Live, I say, you know, you can ask me anything you like. If I can answer it, I'll answer it. And if I can't answer it, I'll tell you. And so in a way, you know, I think if you're more relaxed, it's a lot better experience for yourself, for the people listening, and it's actually probably better, you know, it's very difficult for you to get into trouble because if you get a question that you don't know the answer to, or frankly you don't want to answer, you can just say, sorry, I don't have the answer to that. I'll get back to you. Right. But it's when people are like super prepared, super stilted, they've prepared the script, people switch off. And actually it's probably when you probably make more mistakes. And so I always say to people, be natural. Don't ask for the questions. We're not going to give them to you anyway. Just turn up and be yourself.

And to add on to that, I guess you wouldn't have invited them to speak in the first place if they didn't have value to give, right?

Yeah, I guess so. And obviously, we try and invite people who we know are going to contribute something meaningful. Sometimes you're inviting the institution rather than the person. And so, with regards to governments or presidents or prime ministers or central banks, in a way, the institution sometimes is more important than the person. And so, of course, we're going to invite the governor of the Bank of England to speak at one of our conferences, but you never know what you're going to get essentially because you're inviting them in terms of what they're doing, right?

This word of institutions that you're using, corporations, correct me if I'm wrong, but it kind of feels like FT Live is almost a startup within a corporation. It feels like you had the agility during COVID for example, to adapt and maybe you didn't have that red tape and they were like, okay, just go, we trust you.

Yes.

More broadly, are big corporations scared of startups and do you think they should be?

Not sure about that. I think the startup world is something that's really kind of fascinating and interesting. FT does quite a bit in the startup world. We've got some events that are geared towards that world. I think lots of big old-fashioned corporations are looking at startups in terms of corporate innovation. And because you get into this stage when a corporation is so big and so institutionalized, uh, that no matter how much money or power or might they have, sometimes those infrastructures stifle innovation, right? And I think most companies that are serious and well-run realize that, uh, and it's just a fact of life. You know, if you're a big company with lots of procedures and structures in place, which are important, or otherwise the wheels would fall off the wagon of your business, also recognize that that structure kind of stifles some innovation. And so I think most Certainly in my experience, a lot of big companies do lots of partnerships with startups in terms of getting them in to help them on the corporate innovation piece. And I think big corporates that are scared of startups, I think is probably a big mistake, right? Because there's a synergy there rather than competition, I guess.

That takes real self-awareness though, as an actual company there, right?

I guess so, yeah. I mean, we've started a corporate investment fund recently at the FT and so It's called FT Ventures. And so it's a, it's a fund where the FT invests in primarily scale-ups rather than startups. We have some criteria. So we like companies that work in the media space or the content space, or they're a piece of technology that could help the FT kind of do their job better, quicker, and faster. And so it's been nearly 2 years now. We've made about 4 or 5 investments. And so we recognize the value in not only partnering, but also investing in primary scale-ups.

But yeah, that's really interesting. Do you have any takes on sort of somewhat similar on how big institutions in the education space, like universities, could adopt a similar approach?

Interesting, because of course, you know, I guess the incentives of a private corporation versus university tend to be different. And so, Private corporations are profit-driven and they have the profit incentive and the profit motive.

But universities need help, right?

University needs a lot of help. Gosh, when I look at the fees that are being charged for courses, especially in the UK, it's pretty incredible, right?

And what courses you can do.

And what courses you can do. And the fact that even with these humongous fees, a lot of universities are still in the red, right? I mean, I'm not a huge expert on the sector, but I mean, I'm pretty convinced that a lot of universities need to consolidate or close down. I think there's a proliferation of all sorts of, to be frank, completely irrelevant universities offering irrelevant courses that aren't economically sustainable. And I hope that the market will weed those out. But yeah, I'm like, when I hear the figures in terms of how much universities are struggling, even though they're charging probably the highest fees in the world, something's broken. But I guess we're entering territory where I'm not an expert, but there's something that's not working there.

You're an academic though. You're Dublin, LSE, Cambridge.

Oh, well, I mean, I'm not an academic now, but I mean, I was very lucky that when I went to university, these were the days when university was free, right? And so we never had the pressure of, you know, kind of the pressure of paying fees. And I was lucky as be able to to live with my grandparents when I moved to Dublin. I grew up in Rome and then I moved to Dublin. And those days, Irish university was completely free. I think now, technically, they still call it free, but they've got this university tax. So, you know, I think it's more like £3,000 or £4,000 a year. And UK is like something crazy. And now that you're outside of the EU, I was looking, my nephew lives in Rome and he was thinking of coming to study here. Of course, an Italian coming to the UK now is paying international fees. So they're not paying £8,000 a year, they're paying £25,000 a year. And so, Yeah.

And there's not—

that definitely is off the table.

And then also the employability out the back of it.

Well, I mean, listen, the UK still has got this cachet of being one of the best countries in the world for third-level education. I hope it doesn't lose that. And so there's a reason that people want to come here because, you know, UK universities are recognized as some of the best in the world. But certainly it's becoming harder and harder to access it, not only for foreigners, but also for people living here.

What about graduating into the Financial Times and what are you looking for in a standout candidate for specifically the live section?

Yeah. So I'm a big fan of hiring graduates, by the way, and I've hired many graduates in, in throughout my career in the different companies that I've worked for. And I just, as I was a graduate. And so the most important thing I look for is curiosity and I guess intelligence and curiosity, right? And you—

Can that be shown on a CV?

Well, not really. I mean, I'm a big believer in kind of face-to-face interviews. I mean, there are some way of kind of sifting through CVs that kind of give you— there's some signaling in CVs in terms of, certainly in terms of, I like people with CVs with lots of extracurricular activities. And so going to a great university is fine, but actually, is this person a well-rounded individual? So are they involved in a sports club or are they involved in a debating society or have they done the Mountbatten thing or have they done the, what's the thing you have in the UK where you scale a mountain and you go for it? DUV. The Duke of Edinburgh Challenge. So I always think that's always a good one, right? Not that I would, not that I did something like that when I was kind of growing up. I'm always impressed when I see that on a CV. Or even, and the other thing I really like is kind of someone who has a commercial mind. And so I love it when I see people who've worked in a pub or even in a retail store, because even the simple interaction of like, you know, working in retail gives you an understanding of how a business runs, right? And so in a way, I've seen, you know, I come across lots of CVs with a perfect first-class degree from the best university, but if they've got no extracurricular activities or some work experience, probably wouldn't even make the cut for the interview, I guess. And so that's what I look for, is like someone who's well-rounded, intelligent, well-rounded, and curious, I guess, is what I look for.

Could you condense that down into somebody that's doing? You know, I think that's like a really underrated thing to try and come across as in terms of your employability, because it doesn't just give you those experiences, you know, like just giving it a shot at a pub or giving it a shot following your curiosity and doing things you didn't have to do as a traditional tick box of success. But it also, I think it has this infectiousness as a personality trait that when you come into an interview, you just have ample life experiences and maturity to call on.

And the other one I didn't mention is, you know, ideally traveling more. Certainly, you know, the FT is a global player and talks about the world. And so, especially at the FT, you know, we're looking for people who are curious about the world and what's happening in the world. And there's so much happening that, I mean, it's hard not to be curious, but you know, you don't have to have traveled the world because that, I think that's probably an unfair kind of bar and not everyone can do that, but at least you need to be curious about the world or what's happening around the world. And so that's another thing that I always try and test for in an interview. But I think the more things you can do, And obviously be careful, you still want to get a good 2:1 or a first. Don't spend all your time down at the pub or at the rowing club and you don't want to come out with a third class degree, right? But the more you can balance getting a relatively decent degree and experience, whether it's a sports club or working in a pub or getting involved in the societies, I think that's so important because it just shows curiosity and just shows that get up and go that that I like.

What can a top-level grad expect from a career in the FT?

Yeah, so obviously we have lots of different jobs at the FT, and so, you know, the most obvious one is coming in as a graduate trainee to become a journalist, and there's a program that our newsroom runs. If you go on FT Careers, you will find the detail of that. And obviously, you know, if anyone who's got a passion for journalism, I can't think of a better brand to go and work for. It's just the most incredible brand, gives you the most incredible access to some of the most incredible people in the world, and you're surrounded by incredible journalists that'll teach you an amazing life skill. But of course, the newsroom being the beating heart of the organization, we have huge amounts of people that support the organization in the commercial division of the FT. So it could be in the advertising department, it could be in the marketing department, or it could be in the events department, really. We have a lovely culture. It's probably of all the places I've worked for, it's the most caring culture. One of the feedback we get lots of times of people who join the FT is like, oh gosh, I didn't realize how, like, what a lovely culture that's caring and nurturing. Because you think of Financial Times, it's a bit stuffy and it's about finance, but actually we have a wonderful culture of being very caring and we have lots of fun and we work hard, but we also have a very, very caring kind of environment.

I think that probably is because of your screening process involving curiosity so much, right? Yeah. Like I'm trying to make the terminology of nerd great again. Like I think that Being sat opposite a nerd is like one of my favorite things to do because just seeing someone so obsessed, so fascinated by what they're talking about, that's what sets a culture apart really, I think.

Yeah. And also remember, we're now living in a world where, you know, work and life are so intertwined, right? So even when I started 20 years ago, work was work, private life was private life. They're very separate, clear demarcations.

COVID did a Pretty good film about that.

Yeah, I think COVID, I think technology, I think Twitter, whatever, you know, lots of different factors means that now, you know, Gen Z or Gen A, whatever the next one is, you know, essentially life and career are one and the same. And so if you don't provide an environment where people feel like they can, they can live their life in a, in a, in a hardworking but fun and rewarding way. Then people aren't just going to, they're just not going to stay, right? So, this whole, and so creating an environment that helps people relax and kind of also have fun and be able to pursue their own personal interests. So, we still have a hybrid working policy so people can still relatively flexible. We've gone back to about 2.5 days in the office and 2.5 days a week from home. And we trust people a lot, essentially. I mean, that's kind of our way of being, essentially. This is your task, but we trust you to do it. We're not too overbearing, but also there to support people when they need support. But we're conscious of the fact that people's lives and career are completely intertwined these days.

Can we talk about industries that grads should be looking out for? What would you say are, beyond perhaps the obvious ones, or maybe even the more incumbent industries, are some ones that people should be looking out for?

Gosh, that's a very big question. And so I am going to mention the obvious ones. And so I think if you are not, uh, at least curious, I'm not saying you got to be a proficient coder or like a complete tech geek, but if you, if you're, you need to be at least proficient and curious about what's happening in the world of technology because, and I, I'm a big fan of technology and I'm just so excited and fascinated, fascinated about what's happening in the world. On the spectrum of people who are worried versus excited, I'm very much on the excited kind of phase of the AI spectrum. Of course, there are things that need to be considered in terms of safety and security, but I'm so excited because essentially we're living in the second, third, or fourth industrial revolution. And so in 500 years, when people will look back at our generation, they will say these were like, these were incredible times, right? A bit like the Renaissance and then the Industrial Revolution.

I mean— More to be titled this. Gosh, uh, can I give a suggestion?

Yeah, go on.

The democratization of career building.

The democratization of career building. And explain to me what you mean by that.

I just don't think it's ever been as accessible to upskill yourself and find out things and just generally make yourself an employable person. But I think the problem is, and where this could go wrong, this period, is Okay, let's say that quality of education is very difficult, quality of opportunities is very difficult, quality of awareness is probably the one thing that you can actually really strive to hit.

I think that's a really good point. I mean, back to the universities and I suspect the world university is going to be changed or disrupted very rapidly over the next 10 years because as you said, okay, I can't afford to go to university or it's not as accessible as I wanted it to be, but I can go on ChatGPT and essentially I can learn anything I like for free.

Do you talk to ChatGPT?

Yeah, yeah, I love it. I'm a huge fan. I use it daily. I was trying to figure out something quite complex about accounting and finance yesterday, something boring but dry but important. And of course I knew that I could go on ChatGPT and I asked it to explain to me this concept. And then the way it was explaining to me was a bit too complicated. So I said, you need to dumb it down. I remember saying, you need to dumb this down. Explain it to me in simple language. It's pretty incredible, right? It's just incredible. So I think the democratization of career building is a really good phrase. So back to sectors. So, you know, even if you don't want to work in technology, you have to be aware of what's happening in technology because, you know, the term technology sector for career, you know, isn't going to exist anymore. Everything is technology, right? And so every line of business you can think of is being disrupted or enhanced by technology. So I would say You know, if you're not that inclined, you know, try and make an effort. And so it could be like, I went on a coding weekend about 10 years ago. You know, I kind of knew what coding was, but I never really knew what coding was. Uh, and it was fascinating. I mean, completely boring and I hated it, but I came out of the weekend, uh, thinking now I understand what coding means and how you build a website. And of course that world's been completely disrupted for those of you following. AI and I can do coding better than any human being, right? So in a way, I'm glad I didn't go into coding, but I knew I needed to know what kind of the basics and the foundation. So get yourself interested, even if you're not planning on going into the industry. And if you think of medicine, right, the way technology and AI is enhancing, disrupting in a positive way medicine is just fascinating. The way it's going to save lives, right? It's going to help people interpret scans and it's going to help doctors make much faster and better decisions.

Um, so just on medicine, yeah, do you have something you'd say to someone who's maybe in their fourth year of their seven-year medicine degree and questioning, you know, the NHS salary they might be about to start on and thinking, okay, what is there for me to do in this industry?

Gosh, I mean, I'm not a huge expert. My father was a GP, so I guess I come from a medical family and it's a wonderful profession, right? Sure.

Uh, um, it's not going anywhere.

Uh, well, it's a real people profession. I think again, I look at some of the advances and it's just incredible. So, you know, I think I would say to them, listen, you're living through an incredible phase in time where the profession is going to change quite dramatically, but in a good way, right? And so you're going to be able to provide much better outcomes to your patients through the use of technology. And so I would say if you're in year 4, year 7, you're probably going through like a bit of an existential crisis. I would say hang in there because it is a beautiful profession. Being able to help people is incredible. And you're going to be able to help them much quicker, faster, and better over the next 10, 15 years. Remember, you know, the advances in technologies and medicine are pretty incredible. You know, when I was born, ultrasound scans did not exist. And so I was born in 1977, which is only not that long ago. And in those days, you couldn't know what the sex of your child was because ultrasound scans didn't exist. And then suddenly in 1980, 1981, ultrasounds came and then CT scans came and then MRI scans came. And so the advances are moving so fast and thick that it's like an incredible time to be in that profession. And so, you know, if I probably wasn't doing what I was doing now, I probably might be doing something in that field.

It's an interesting point though. It's so easy to get like bubbled up in your own sphere of influence and period of time. Like even my dad, you know, he tells me about people are smoking on airplanes. I know I'm not going, man. And I just think that's the wildest thing ever as a 23-year-old.

Yeah. And then, I mean, obviously I can talk about careers in banking, finance, not that I've been a banker or finance, but I'm exposed a lot to them. I think they're great careers because we live in an interconnected world, right? Where capital flows are borderless. You know, the world of banking and finance has got no borders and money moves around the world and it's a really fascinating, fascinating profession. And there are so many different types of bits of banking and finance you can go into. And so, If you're interested in how the world works or even geopolitics or how interconnected the world is, I think a career in banking and finance is really fascinating. It's not just about making money. I mean, I think you can also make lots of money, but it's more about how money helps the world go round. You know, this famous show. And I mean, this AI revolution is funded by people investing in AI, right? And these are international capital flows, which are really fascinating.

You must have some incredible alumni stories from the Financial Times.

In terms of people I've met?

People that have worked at Financial Times even as a graduate and gone on because of the exposure they've got.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know if anyone's following Canadian politics, it might be a bit niche, but there's a leadership election for the new leader of the Liberal Party because Justin Trudeau has just stepped down. And one of the front runners is Chrystia Freeland, who used to be a journalist at the Financial Times up until very recently. And she was Trudeau's finance minister and she may well be the next leader of the Liberal Party and potentially prime minister. So I mean, there's one just off the top of my head. Yeah.

Amazing. And what do you think is the future of— I'm trying to work out how to phrase this correctly because I don't think that you can apply the term bubble to AI like you could housing one or the financial one. But yeah, I'm just— do you think there is one?

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

But I mean, I'm not concerned about that. I mean, I think I'm a big believer that capitalism is a great force for good, right? In the sense that it democratizes great ideas and it weeds out bad ideas. Whenever there's a new idea, people, that is exciting and potentially making money, people rush to it to invest because they want to make a return on their investment. And that money helps fuel whatever product or technology is. Eventually, if people go crazy and start throwing too much money into something, then sometimes there is a bubble, right? But I mean, if you remember the dot-com bubble in the 2000s, you know, there's a huge mighty crash because people were just pumping money into anything that was a website. And there was a big crash, lots of people lost lots of money. But of course, that didn't mean that that industry was going away. It just meant that you had a small dislocation for a bit of time, and then it's like probably grown 20-fold since then, right? So I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of a kind of financial bubble in AI because people are rushing to it. And there may be a bit of a dislocation, but I mean, you know, the long-term fundamentals of that technology are not going anywhere. And so. But I think market corrections are healthy because it teaches people not to be too silly with their money, teaches people to be more discerning in their investments. And so sometimes people make losses on their investments. It's a good thing because it disciplines people in terms of funneling money into the best projects really. And so that's the way capitalism works. I mean, capitalism is not painless, right? And so there are winners and losers, but ultimately it's a system that is efficient and helps kind of global economy progress.

I like what you said about weeds out bad ideas.

Yeah.

Can you explain what that means a bit more?

Oh, in the sense that, you know, in a free market system, competition is fierce and essentially the winning idea wins and the losing idea doesn't. And so an efficient economy means that you need to let inefficient companies also go bust. And obviously there's always pain, especially when we hear about big industries or big companies making redundancies or closing down. It's painful, right? Because it's to do with people, it's to do with people's livelihoods. But artificially supporting industries in the long run is a game that doesn't work, right? And so sometimes you need to take the short-term pain and let I think, I don't know what the statistics are, but for every startup, I think, I don't know what the average life span is.

92%.

Is it 92% fail?

Fail, yeah.

Gosh, is it that much? I didn't realize it was that much. And that's just the way the world works, right? And so you come up with an idea, you try it out, it doesn't work, come up with another idea. And there are countless examples of billionaires who've lost all their money and then come back, right?

It's so interesting if you apply the same concept to careers though, about when do you let something stick and when do you acknowledge to, you know, let it be. And I mean, obviously you kind of stumbled into your role.

Yeah.

But then there was a point of inflection where you might have been like, I could be good at this. I could add a lot of value doing this.

Yeah. I mean, I still to this day wake up every morning like, gosh, what the hell am I doing in this industry? I don't remember studying for it. But of course, I'm very happy. I think, listen, you, I mean, we only live once, right? And so you need to try and, you know, life is also hard, right? And life throws at you all sorts of hard things from a personal point of view, professional point of view. And so if you can, if you can be happy and fulfilled in your career, it's a, it's a really important factor because years go by very quickly, days go by very quickly, and you don't want to be miserable in a job and, and look back in 20 years' time saying, my God, I wish I hadn't done that, or I wish I I'd, uh, I hadn't stuck around and looked for something else. And so, you know, I'm a big believer, you know, obviously everyone's got good and bad days at the office. I'm not saying on a bad day you've got to get up and go, but you know, if you're somewhere where you're not happy, um, you know, do something about it. Um, because you only live once and, you know, kind of wasting days on being unhappy is just not, not a productive way of living your life, I guess.

Before I ask my final question, I wanted to ask, uh, Bit more of a stupid question maybe. You're Irish.

Yeah.

Are you a fan of Guinness?

I'm not actually. There's a Guinness bubble, isn't there? I don't know if you've been following.

No, tell me about the Guinness bubble.

Oh, well, there's a— I don't know the full details, but there's been a shortage of Guinness over the past 6 months.

Interesting. So you haven't just pumping it all out?

You can't get Guinness, or it's really hard to get Guinness. I don't know if this is a kind of a clever marketing ploy from Guinness. And essentially, if you go to many pubs, certainly outside Ireland, so essentially Guinness has said, we will guarantee Guinness in Ireland, but the rest of the world, essentially there's a bottleneck in production. Don't ask me why, if this was orchestrated by their marketing department or Israel. And so there's a Guinness shortage and people are going crazy. So there's some Guinness substitutes, other brands that do stout, is the word for the drink, have made a fortune. These were tiny brands that nobody had heard of. And because you can't get Guinness now, some of these startups doing stout are making loads of money. Back to the capitalism and the free market. It's really interesting. But sorry, no, I'm not a huge fan.

No, yeah, well, I mean, I didn't think your answer would go that way, but interesting though, right?

I mean, but if you go to Dublin, you will still, and if you walk close to the Guinness factory, you will still smell the beautiful smell of Guinness being made. And you can only get that smell in Dublin. So if you haven't been to Dublin, go to Dublin and there's a beautiful Guinness factory museum, and you will get guaranteed Guinness in Ireland because Guinness have promised that.

I felt a bit sensitive still about the topic of Dublin based on the rugby on the weekend.

Oh really?

Did Ireland beat—

I don't follow. Did the IRN beat England? Yeah, probably.

Yeah, you might win the Six Nations tonight, but that's okay. Okay, my final question to you, and I want to leave this completely open to you, but But one thing I love to do with this is take people that are building really innovative, amazing things, whether that's a founder or managing director, and I guess outline any struggles you're having in your next phase that you don't yet have within your team, or you don't yet understand how you might achieve it, and maybe how someone listening to this could latch onto that and rabbit hole into how they could contribute in solving it?

That's a really interesting question. So I guess, touch wood, we're actually, we're doing really well. So we're growing very fast over the past 5 years. We've had pretty aggressive growth in NFT Live, which is amazing. And, you know, one of the things that I think of on a daily basis when I wake up is how do we maintain the momentum, right? Because, you know, my experience in business is that great things never last forever, right? Disruption happens. Pandemic happens, competitors coming out again. Well, hopefully not again. Uh, and so I don't know if this is a problem that someone can help me with, but I guess, uh, you know, we run an events business and we're always looking for new ideas that are going to be successful. And as I said, we run over 250 events and lots of different topics, lots of different industries, lots of different geographies. So I guess if someone's got a great event idea for a business-type conference, um, then get in touch because I'm constantly looking for, for good new event launches. And so, uh, get in touch, uh, drop me a line on LinkedIn, um, and, um, and maybe we can work together.

Okay, awesome. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks, Peter. Thank you so much for having me.