The Final Episode of The Graduate Guide with Jonathan Fitchew, CEO of Apprentify

If I said to you, you can't do an AI apprenticeship, did you know that?

You can't do one.

My definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who has an idea and executes it. If you believe in what you're doing, you want to share it with the biggest audience you can as quickly as possible.

We're in a bit of a confusing time where we don't really know what our goal as a nation is.

Is the UK a good place to have an entrepreneurial journey? We have the greatest starting system in the world.

Would you say you've always had a good relationship with your own ambition?

Just the act of talking about ambition has pumped me up to go out and do a good job.

Companies live and die by talent, and there's not really any getting around that fact.

And this last year I've had one, it's changed my world beyond recognition.

So the deal is done, The Graduate Guide has officially joined The Apprentify Group. Jonny, how are you feeling about it all?

Well, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of a full circle moment for me because all my career has been involved with early talent from when I left university. And then of course I started a graduate recruitment business. So to get involved with this deal and acquire The Graduate Guide, it's a full circle moment because I pulled out of the graduate market for the apprenticeship market, which, and of course they're inextricably linked. But yeah, so I'm back in my hometown really. So it's quite exciting. And because there's loads of debate at the minute about graduates and apprentices and what costs this and who's doing what. I think it's, I think it's, there's room for everybody and the graduate market is really important and it plays a huge part in the UK economic system. So I'm really thrilled to be back with my name associated with The Graduate Guide.

Yes, and It wasn't a traditional pitching for investment kind of story, actually. Our relationship goes back quite a long way to, I think, I believe it started with me interviewing your son and getting the attention of Sarah Skelton. And then about a year ago to almost this day, meeting at the Christmas party and building a relationship from there where I think in the beginning we didn't really know quite what it could be, but where we've landed is incredibly exciting with the, the launch of Caliber coming up. Um, so Caliber is for fast-growing companies. We're focusing on the most underserved people issues by taking the capabilities of the Apprentify Group across sales, marketing, data, AI, and bringing it to companies where the talent mistakes cost 10 times more. And, you know, they haven't really been supported in the same way. And I think there's something really exciting there.

So how do you think you're going to support that with Caliber? Because there's so many badges and labels put on recruitment and people and job roles. And yet what the system you're looking at needs a specialized view or lens to make sure that those founders are supported in the way they are. I mean, on a sort of more On a grander level, if you like, because our business is very established here. I've never had a support person, you know, proper support person in my role as CEO. And this last year I've had one and it's changed my world beyond recognition. Now, I don't know whether my assistant would be called a founder's assistant, probably not, but it feels like that because, you know, they're not making tea or coffee, they're doing really important things.

I think one of my main frustrations is that generally companies live and die by talent, and there's not really any getting around that fact. And there are companies that, that need to exist for many reasons, whether that's for the economy, for employment. And these startups, these scale-ups, like this new sort of market that's emerging, if we can't give them the support that they need to do that with their people, then I don't really want to know what the consequences of that are. And so I think, you know, apprenticeships, for example, it's a really— well, people don't know what it actually means, you know. They either think it's the ironmonger, you know, come learn under them how to make some steel, or it's like what you do instead of going to university. But I think, I mean, you are an expert in this space now, and I think it's changed a lot over time. Can you just explain to us what apprenticeships actually mean in your view?

Well, the apprenticeship— apprenticeships have always existed since time began, you know. I mean, you were talking about the ironmonger or the metalwork. Well, that's probably an early, one of the earliest examples, isn't it? You know, fine metal, you know, you've got to teach people how to produce weapons or trains or wheels or whatever. So it's always existed, but, and governments have covered training apprenticeships in public sector particularly since I can remember, but it really got revolutionized by the Levy plan in 2017-18 where the government were incentivizing companies to join this system by sort of giving them a little bit of a sting by saying, you know, if you're a big company, we're going to tax you half a percent of your payroll and we're going to put it into a levy pot. But the benefit to you is if you use it, first and foremost, you don't lose it, but you can use that to pay for the upskilling and hiring of apprentices. And we'll throw in other incentives like you don't have to pay National Insurance on those people. If they're a certain age at certain times, we'll give you a cash bonus for taking them on. So, so it was to encourage the use of that money and, and it, it was a slow burn because people didn't understand it. But of course, coming off the back of that, we've seen a bit of a, a crisis since, since COVID with, with university education. We, we've seen a change in how universities are financially held together by overseas students and mature students and and research and that sort of thing. And it's because apprenticeships are shorter, you know, they're not tiny, but they're shorter, they're 12-month project generally, it gives somebody the opportunity to upskill far faster. You know, so you cannot do an apprenticeship in geography because it's such a massive subject. You're not going to get the skill to help a company by doing an apprenticeship in geography. You might do If you do a segment of it, like, I don't know, mineral extraction, or meteorology, if somebody's building wind farms and things like that. So it allows for specialized knowledge to be acquired quickly without having to be in a great big generic education system. So it gives that specialization, and it also gives people who don't want that broader university experience to still get upskilled and be considered as part of the journey. So it's very inclusive, and inclusion is very key to what everything's about with education now. So we really like the inclusive element of apprenticeships.

And on the topic of education, from a company side, where is it you think they're going wrong in their actual understanding of it? Because I think, you know, from my conversations that I've had, it's It's an idea of sometimes they don't even know what's happening to their levy, and if they do want to spend their levy, they don't know which trading provider to go to or where it's best put or like the time frames. I think there is a lot of confusion, but what would you say for you is like the number one, like, most misunderstood thing from a company's perspective?

Well, I mean, you know, just in that short snippet of information I gave you, there are a lot of things going on, and of course You know, the rules are always changing. You previously had 24 months to spend your levy, you've now got to do it in 12 months. Well, that's a much shorter timescale to get your act together. So if you think that a lot of people who work in education who were in the public sector have now moved into the private sector, into independent training providers, they've brought some of that mentality with them. So I think what businesses need to do is find providers who put a very commercial lens on the provision of apprenticeships. So it's not just a process to get somebody on a course. It's got to be the right person, the right fit for the right organisation. The business has got to be committed to looking after that individual and mentoring them and making sure they do a good job so that they progress. From that junior post into something quite significant. And we see it all the time. These individuals reveal themselves, you know, 3 years ago they're on a marketing content creator course, then you come across them 3 years later and they're the content creator manager at a decent-sized agency. So it works. But we can't be flippant with apprenticeships, you know, you know, there's people talking of apprenticeship pledges, which I find really irritating, you know, just telling people to take on an apprentice isn't going to solve the problem. It's not going to mean they succeed. It's not going to mean they're in the right company doing the right program. So work with companies that are really excited about finding the right course for the right individuals for the right businesses. And it works then, and it works really well. And the good thing about it is it's open for everyone to see. There's no, no secrecy. Behind the results.

The ambition to actually build an apprenticeship company is really interesting to me because I know you alluded to earlier, you've been in this space for a while. Initially, it maybe was more straight recruitment, and then you built, you know, training into the sales world. And I think actually when you set out to build Apprentify, you are building it for apprenticeships, but the product is, you know, Dale, who's the head of education, is a great example. You bring him on early into the team, and what this behemoth has become is so many expertise across so many different fields that it can be done through apprenticeships, but it can also be done commercially. And we see that happen a lot, is that you've got this really dense amount of talented trainers. And what have you seen, like, companies really benefiting from, from, from actually training their team?

Well, look, the classic scenario, apprenticeships are around early careers, but don't be fooled, you can go on an apprenticeship all the way up to your retirement age. So it is again age inclusive. So what it's meant is businesses can use the concept of the levy to train up more senior people in either new technologies, there's a lot of buzz around AI, which we can talk about for hours, I would imagine. But, or management and leadership, because sometimes, you know, your best people as they evolve haven't got a clue about management. And management's really important today because, you know, people have to be treated based on all the things that's going on in their lives. It's a very different system of managing people. You've got to know what you're doing. So management and leadership has become important. And sometimes businesses want to react faster than the government process can allow them to. And you know, if you're prepared to put somebody on a free training course because you think it's worth doing, then you're probably prepared to pay for it as well. Yeah. Based on the fact that you might have people who don't suit apprenticeship-style learning, they don't want to receive this work over a long period of time. You know, you want to hyperscale, you want to get people in on a, you know, very quick 4-week program so that they've got all the latest techniques in your field. So, you know, training shouldn't exist because of the levy. The levy is just a great support. So apprenticeships in themselves, you know, if you go to the USA, people do apprenticeships, they're not paid for by the government, but they still call it an apprenticeship. You know, we've got a TV programme, The Apprentice, it sort of, it conjures up an image of somebody being nurtured through something. Not that Alan Sugar really nurtures them through.

Or Donald Trump in America.

Yeah, of course, of course.

Well, let's not get into that.

We'll leave Donald to one side this morning, I think.

Let's talk about your actual entrepreneurial journey. And I think the really interesting thing about businesses actually coming to fruition is that they are brought to life by entrepreneurially minded people who are generally quite product and growth obsessed people. And I think you know, they likely haven't come from a people background, you know, they haven't worked in HR or been a CPO, but at some point you get to a scale where you see that you can't get to that next stage without actually not just bringing in great people but giving them the best opportunities to succeed. When did you, like, feel that scale coming, like, really it becoming important to start giving that talent all the best opportunities to succeed in this company?

Well, I mean, I've been reading a lot recently about imposter syndrome, and I think I'm the world's greatest imposter because what I've spent my career doing is surrounding myself with clever people. And the secret of surrounding yourself with clever people is not to tell them too often how clever they are, because you've got to keep that to yourself. So I really get a thrill from it because I've got all these amazing people doing all these amazing things. I'm thinking, how on earth do they do that? How do they know that?

You've kept that very to yourself with me. Yeah.

So, you know, I love the fact that if you, you know, if you're the captain of a supertanker, you've not really got the wheel in your hand, have you? What you've got is your experience and a group of really talented people doing all the important stuff and making things happen. It's interesting. Occasionally I will challenge my imposter syndrome and a good example of that is, you know, I'm the worst DIY person in the world. So to take on the Lego 3,800-piece Ferrari was one of the greatest challenges of my life and it took me a year to finish it. I'm really thrilled by that because that is difficult. It's so difficult. So I take a different view and what it proves to me is anybody can do anything if they put their mind to it and they really push themselves and get out their comfort zone. But back to the question, you just get a really good team of people around you. We had a senior meeting yesterday of some of the leaders and we just generally talked about AI because there's so much rubbish spoken about AI at the moment. I mean, I'll ask you the question, what's an AI job? What would you, if I said, do you want a job in AI? What would you answer? Yeah, what job would you like in AI?

Yeah, I mean, your mind does naturally go to an engineer, you know, coding, the kind of things that creates the AI, but I think, you know, it's so ever-present in everything now, right? It's about optimization, really, and I think a job in AI means basically going into a business and transforming it to be more efficient, to do more. And it's still, I agree, it's all very wishy-washy.

But yeah, because a coder, an engineer, can't have those conversations in businesses, can they? Because their skill is in, you know, I went to a lecture on quantum computing recently, and I think I was finished in the first statement when they were trying to explain to me that using a molecule could create a 0 and a 1 at the same time, whereas with classic computing There had to be one after the other, and I thought it was time for me to leave. It was so mind-blowing. So those people aren't the ones to have a conversation with a leadership group about how AI can help their business.

Yeah.

So you've got different roles coming out of this industry, haven't you? And at the minute, nobody seems to articulate very well what they are. Everyone talks about, I mean, you talk about, was it code-a-thons or hack-a-thons?

Hack-a-thons, yeah.

If you walk down Grove Street in Wilmslow and stopped 100 people going about their business, what would that mean to them?

Yeah, very little. Yeah, I mean—

So actually doesn't mean much to a lot of people, whereas if you went to a business and say, which part of your processes can we look at to try and make more efficient and use technology to improve things or speed things up or make or give you more return on your investment? That's totally different story, isn't it?

I think the other side of it as well, especially from an early talent perspective, is that so when I was at university, ChatGPT had just come to life. It was in my final year, and sadly it wasn't good enough to really support me in my dissertation or in my work. But I noticed myself trying to teach myself how to do this, or not from a coding perspective, how to build it, but how to make the most of it.

And I think your Lego Ferrari experience—

yeah, yeah, something like that. And the result was that I was learning how to get shortcuts, and I wasn't learning the inputs. Yeah, I could get the output, but I think there's a skills gap that is really widening very quickly of your man on the clap on the bus, your average person who's trying to learn how to use a skill to better themselves. They aren't learning it in a curriculum kind of way where it's step-by-step logical learning prompts. They're kind of just speaking at it and hoping that it delivers. And I think the product of that going into a business is that you have all these different people with different understandings of how to be productive with it, and, and that throws the whole team out of equilibrium.

Yeah, I mean, I think the market— if I said to you, you can't do an AI apprenticeship, did you know that?

You can't do one?

There is not an AI apprenticeship.

What is it called?

Well, they're aligned to other apprenticeships, Because to, to get a new standard in the world of apprenticeships, you, you have to have a group of companies that suggest what the curriculum should be, which is your sort of trialing group, isn't it? Then you have to present the curriculum to the, to the departments that deal with it in government and work out what a good program looks like. So actually how AI has evolved as an apprenticeship is that It's being attached to information technology, it's been attached to data technology, it's been attached to digital design, and you then put AI Path to Mastery as part of that curriculum. So, so really people are doing data analytic apprenticeships, digital learning design apprenticeships with an AI theme. However, there's some good news because they've just released the first taste of curriculum for the AI Apprenticeship that's been designed. And when we looked at what we're doing, 70% of it fits in with what we've already designed. So we've just now got to say, well, what's the other 30% that's going to make our course the best one out there? And so it's sort of, there's quite a bit of plug and play and lift and shift to get to the program that works best for the businesses.

What is that, that process of trying to maximize how much you can deliver on? Because Apprentify started with data technology apprenticeships. It's like—

no, marketing. The whole thing was digital marketing. Okay, that was our real USP, anything digital marketing.

So from there you go, okay, we want to do more apprenticeships, but then we also want to service companies on all kinds of things. And so you're having conversations where you're like, 'Can you do this? We need this help.' Where do you, where do you go from there to make sure that you can actually not only deliver but then make this like part of your, your capabilities?

Well, strategically, I always wanted to do technical training, you know, because I'd run a business for 25 years that, that did soft skills training, you know, communication skills, negotiation skills, presentation skills. All that stuff that's good for business around salespeople, commercial business people. And that was great, but I saw other companies and I thought, it always fascinated me because they're doing technical training, you know, computing and coding and data. And I wanted that to be part of my system on the rest of my journey. I thought, it's quite clear there's been a huge revolution in the last 10 years. I mean, we, we had it first, didn't we, in the, in the noughties with, with, you know, all the web growth and all that stuff, and people didn't really understand what was going on with that, and it really worked. And now it's, it's a whole new revolution at the minute, which is all geared around AI and quantum computing and things. So, so I wanted to be in the space because anybody who's trying to grow a fast growth or really exciting business needs those skills. So I wanted a whole broad spectrum of things that different people with different abilities really could do. You know, the data analyst is really, really important function in the business and everybody who's working in the business got to understand data, but they've got, they haven't got to understand how to produce it. So some people, that's them, isn't it? And other people, it's how to explain what it means to a business. And other people, it's what the numbers are all about. So I wanted, I wanted to look at, I wanted to have pillars of excellence in sales and marketing, digital and tech, AI, leadership and management. Then I could go into businesses with that vertical specialism. And then when you were working with the business, you could then have a broader horizontal view of their systems and their people and their plans. And you could go horizontally across the whole population of that business and work out what each of those groups and individuals needed and provide it. So it really works well. I mean, people use this term land and expand, which I'm not a big fan of business chat. We could have a talk about how I hate business Shall we circle back, Peter? I mean, what's worse than that?

Boil the ocean.

Oh, oh. So, you know, but it's good. So you have your vertical to go and start the conversation and then you get a broader opportunity. And that's what we'll do with Caliber, won't we?

Yeah, well, I think the thing that I'm really interested in is I feel like the horizontal is going to get wider and wider, right? Because these companies, you can't even anticipate their problems. Because it's— they're so novel. And I think, yeah, there's something so exciting about that. I mean, you know, watching how you've expanded this in a slow and steady but very healthy way to get to a point where, you know, you're— there aren't many people that, you know, stand alongside Apprentify in what you can do. And I think it's about continuing to put yourself through those paces and innovating from working with the best companies trying to achieve the most.

Yeah, of course. And I think, you know, fast growth people, fast growth companies, which aspirationally you would imagine that's what most people want to be. If you're an entrepreneur, you're not saying, well, I really want to slowly grow over the next 20 years. If you believe in what you're doing, you want to share it with your, the biggest audience you can as quickly as possible because that's half of what being an entrepreneur is. You've got an idea and you execute it. I always relate it to there's a book in everybody, but most people don't write it. That's my parallel to entrepreneurship. I hear lots of people say they've got a business idea, but just never do it. So it remains an idea. So guess what? My definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who has an idea and executes it. So therefore you're gonna execute it, you're gonna do it as quickly as you can, and you're gonna, do what you need to do. So if you take that analogy into business, fast-growth businesses want to work with fast-growth companies. So, you know, it was interesting. I was recently trying to hire a new head of performance because a lot of the fastest-growth businesses in the world talk about performance. You know, whether it's NVIDIA or Revolut, they seem very focused on people growth. And I had a lot of people coming to say they wanted to be my new head of performance, who were one-man bands. So they were consultants. And I said, well, how do you know how to grow teams if you're not in a growing team? That, it didn't sort of click for me, which is a bit unfair on consultants really, because it's quite hard to, unless you're McKinsey, to be a great big consultancy, isn't it? So, um, it doesn't, it does, it does lend itself to smallness, I think, consultants. Say, in specialism.

But yeah, you mentioned about writing a book. Yeah, I can actually see out the corner of my eye How to Survive and Thrive, something that you, you wrote a segment in about entrepreneurship. For young entrepreneurially minded people, I think like there's a lot of, there's a lot of noise around what it means to be a founder. I think you gave your definition there, and I think for me I never set out to be a founder, right? Like, for me, um, I could, I could feel entrepreneurial, but I think you're basically waiting for something that you're sufficiently pissed off by, or, you know, passionate about what solving that problem would allow you to do. And I think, uh, I'm curious how you would put to people that are at the beginning of their career looking to really make a difference and a change, like, how can they actually make their ambitions come to life through entrepreneurship?

Well, without putting a downer on the world of entrepreneurship, I genuinely believe that the reason there's so much noise about it is it's a bit of an exclusive club, really. You know, is a side hustle entrepreneurship, or is it just somebody trying to make some money? If you looked at 100 side hustles— I hate the term side hustle as well. It's just another business opportunity, isn't it, that people are having a go at that might be the main thing. But often they turn into their main thing. Yeah, the ones that turn into the main thing are either great ideas that self-perpetuate, or because that individual is entrepreneurial. But if I said to a lot of people, hey, you know, if they said, really love to go on your journey, Jonathan, I'd say take a really good look at that because it's very, very tough. And it absorbs your life and there's no room for anything else. It is a total absorption. So, you know, I think people like the idea of it. I mean, look, we'd all like the idea of being a Premiership footballer, wouldn't we? But, you know, when you, you know, I know people who are physios and those physios are working on Christmas Day at the clubs. I don't know why they have to, but, you know, so it's real commitment, isn't it? If you're part of a Premiership football club, you're going to be on a plane somewhere to do something on days you don't want to do it. So entrepreneurship is not— it shouldn't be taken lightly. People really need to think, do I want that? Because it's tough, it's tough.

Well, it's— we've reached an interesting intersection of the conversation here where we're talking about like training people in a team and almost like very, well, somewhat regimented way of learning and upskilling yourself. And then you've got entrepreneurship, which is very much throwing yourself at the wall and seeing what sticks. And I think like I very much, after doing a history degree, gone like, you know, no formal training, just like really, it was very hard to like mentally conceptualize like my progress and knowing what I could or couldn't do. And you know, you mentioned about imposter syndrome, but I think like, you know, one day I was sat in front of a microphone claiming that I could do a podcast, the next I was claiming that, you know, I could build a community where talent, you know, can be matched to companies, and, and, and all along the while you're, you're learning these skill sets where I think, yeah, I mean, I thought it's quite a manic depressive feeling, I think, like, you know, being able to actually benchmark where you're at. And so when you actually get somebody who's been doing it and, you know, can see themselves in you a little bit, and early in the journey, I think this is somewhere maybe when, when we first met, you saw a little bit of yourself in me, but I was wondering seeing at the stage that I'm at, like, what is it that you see for me in my stage ahead that is to come?

Well, I think looking at what you've done, I think half of doing what you've done comes from wanting to be able to make decisions that affect you directly. You know, a lot of people are comfortable with decisions to be made for them, especially, you know, this whole buzz around, post-COVID buzz around work-life balance and things. You know, I don't know many entrepreneurs with successful businesses that got great work-life balance. So it's kind of a bit of a cliché really for the world. In other words, people who are working in businesses and enjoying their careers and having work-life balance, that's great. But if you're holding the pen and you're holding the the future of that in your hands. You don't have those things. So I think you represented that because you started doing something you enjoyed so that then you saw the idea and you had a decision to make. You know, do I take a 100 grand a year job on a, you know, in a really exciting business? I don't know, a Google or a LinkedIn or a Revolut, those sort of companies, or maybe something smaller that's just going to Series B. And, and get involved or try and do it myself. And something's made you want to try and do it yourself, and only you know what that is. I don't know what it is, but I think you've got what it is. And that's why, that's why I'm glad we've done this thing we've done together.

Yeah, I think it's, it's the feedback loop that you get in entrepreneurship, and I think it can be careful with that feedback loop. Is this a business?

Isn't that like circle back feedback loop? Yeah, how about feedback? Forever feedback. There's a painting on my wall. Yeah, forever feedback.

It's, uh, yeah, it's amazing, um, how almost addictive that is though, like if it is a loop, right? It's the idea that I have— I have— I've tried other things, right? Like I've built other businesses, I've worked in different environments with different companies, and, and I think while there was, you know, my friend who went to X consulting company and would be there from 8 to 11 in the evening, and I would be there, you know, as his flatmate doing God knows what in the day. Like, it was hard to place, like, I hadn't necessarily worked as many hours, but because you're always thinking about it, you're always thinking, you're always exposed to things that nothing can teach you for. I think this is the admiration that I have for entrepreneurship, to make something part of your life, like, and really care about it. I think that's my ambition, has always been to have that though, you know, like, my ambition has always been to have something that actually made me wake up in the morning and, you know, being able to actually see how you could make a difference. And I think You know, it's what you're exposed to is what you build, really. And I think what I've exposed myself to is this new world of work, right? You know, getting slightly back onto that topic, it's like, I think scale-ups, you know, people that have raised Series A, Series B, I think nobody can quite understand the magnitude of pressure these people are under to achieve these growth targets, whether that's institutionally, whether that's from within, whatever it is. And I think, like, they are so unsupported, right? Like, really, you know, you can build a great team around you, but I feel like there is so much changing in this market. And I think, like, yeah, I'm curious for yourself, you know, you have successfully got to the end of business, you have sold one, and you've gone again. And you continually put yourself through this rigmarole. What is it about entrepreneurship that keeps you coming back to it though? I mean, you know, you've given some warning signals, you've given, you know, your big pitch about why you're doing it, but like on a more human level, like why is it that you keep getting obsessed by doing this?

Well, I think if you go back to the psychology of provision, being a provider. To me, whether it's for people who work for me or with me or for my family, I'm the going out the cave door getting the food. And I view business a bit like that and it's the only thing I know how to do. So if I'm not out providing either for myself or my community, then I'm not being effective. You know, people say to me, why don't you play golf? And I'm really sort of quite envious of people who've found the love of golf. It's pretty time-consuming. They've gone for days, aren't they? Days and days. And I thought, well, that's going to really get in the way of what I want to do. And they go, no, no, it doesn't, because you'll meet somebody who'll give you a big deal. But, you know, being an entrepreneur is not just about getting a deal. It's about growing something meaningful over time. So So yeah, I think it comes back from when I was young, I saw things around me that me and my family didn't have. My dad was an RAF pilot, and although it might be viewed as quite a glamorous thing to do, fly fast jets, it didn't really pay you very well to do it. So we didn't have much when we were growing up, and I quite quickly saw a lot of people around me who had things in abundance. And I thought it seemed a bit unjust to me. And I thought, well, the only way I'm going to deal with that is to do it myself. And that's what set me on the road, you know, at a very early age. And it's never left me. And also, you have to be, you have to do what you're good at. And I'm good at it. So I'm not brilliant at it. Otherwise, I wouldn't probably be talking here. I'd probably be somewhere else. But, you know, I'm pretty good at it. It's all, everything's a comparison. You never want to buy a boat and go to Monaco, do because someone's always got a bigger boat. So I don't want to get into that game. But I love what I do and I love entrepreneurship and I like seeing people flourish and grow and get stuff for themselves. There's nothing, there's no bigger buzz than one of your salespeople turns up with something that they've really aspired to and they go, look, I've got it, I've worked so hard, I've got it. And you're part of that. So you're a little part of that happening. I love that.

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for that, uh, you know, building a team around my ambition. I think like that's, that's the next step for me is, is really being able to— yeah, I, I've been fixated on this problem and, you know, Marleen as my co-founder's come in and supported me and brought, you know, everything I didn't have and more, um, when she didn't really have any, you know, there was no right for her to do that. And I think like even that's, you know, that small exposure to it, seeing that happen on a bigger scale, I think, yeah, I mean, it's amazing. And I think, you know, I wonder, you know, more culturally, like we're talking about building a team around an ambition. What about, you know, the UK as as a country and our ambition. You know, historically we've been through different phases where we've had different goals, and I feel like we're in a bit of a confusing time where we don't really know what our goal as a nation is. And I wonder how we, especially as entrepreneurially-minded people that have these ambitions and want to solve big problems, what is it where you think we're supporting to do? Like, what do you think the UK needs next?

Well, one of the greatest qualities of the UK is democracy, okay? So we live in a mixed economy where the government has quite a big say on a lot of stuff, but at the same time there's a lot of freedom and democracy, which is, which in many places of the world there isn't. So that's wonderful. So that's a great place to be. And you have to take on the chin what they're doing because, you know, I don't have to run my business to keep a hospital running or whatever, or defend the country, or, and you know, we're all quite, um, depends where your politics lie, but everyone's very critical. 50% are critical of one lot and 50% are critical of the other lot. That used to be the tradition, and now it's sort of morphed into a 30-30-30 or a 20-20-20-20. But it's all irrelevant. Is the UK a good place to have an entrepreneurial journey? I think it is because We have the greatest starting system in the world, which is our economic, our economic educational backbone and all the fantastic universities. And from that, you know, so much educational business comes around it. And so it's a great place to be. And, you know, it's a shame when you see people leaving because they're fed up. And hopefully that's, that's faddism and there's a change and it doesn't keep going. But look, the world's an easy place to get around now, so we have no right to keep people anywhere, do we? But I think it's a, I think London's a really dynamic place, Manchester's a dynamic place.

Yeah.

You know, lots, lots of homegrown opportunity and smart people. And you know, Gen Z, I think they're in, they get a lot of bad press. But I mean, you can't hear the noise out there from in here, but I hire loads of Gen Z type people and they're really, they're really fired up. They're ambitious, they, they want to succeed and they're happy to be back in the office. Don't read the news. They're happy to get involved, be in a team, get trained up, get some success. So if that's your pool to work with, I think you're in a good place.

Yeah, I think, uh, it's, it's weird, the concept of ambition, because I think at some point in my life, somebody could have looked at me and typecasted me as lazy or unambitious because I didn't have a good relationship with my ambition or what I wanted to do. It was almost like too ever-present to the point that I was fearful of it, and that would then, you know, lead into escapism and, or, you know, doing anything to kind of like tone it down, right? And I think a lot of people can probably relate to that feeling, you know, I think university, you can get trapped almost like you make instantaneous decisions of like, are you going to be productive? Are you going to rabbit hole into your work? Are you going to build knowledge? Or are you going to go out partying, drinking, and then stay in that cyclical feeling of like not knowing how to participate in this ambitious culture? And I think this will, yeah, it warps our whole understanding of what the UK is offering you, right? Like, as much as the UK can do to support, like a lot of it is individual, right? Would you say you've always had a good relationship with your own ambition or like?

Well, interestingly, I wasn't a very good candidate for university, even though I went and got through it and enjoyed it. You know, one of my sons is studying at the minute and he takes it really seriously and, you know, he hits his deadlines and he'll stay in the library all night to get his essay in. And I wasn't that student. So I probably, I as an individual was probably more suited to on-the-job training than university. But I did love the life and what it gave me. But I think it slowed me up a bit because I think the problem with school onto university now is that the school people are not equipped for what they suddenly have to do. And also the freedom of making your own decisions, if you're not used to it, the easiest decision is just not to take part, isn't it? And just to sort of wallow around. And I was probably one of those people, whereas I'd have been better off if I was, if school had carried on till 21 and you had to be there on the bell and off the bell, because it's a bit rebellious. So I probably was the rebel student, so I'm not a good example of what a good good ambitious graduate from college can be. And, you know, those apprenticeship type things didn't exist for me, sadly.

So, but from that state of mind that you were in, you know, you very quickly found your feet in the working world. And what was that trigger moment?

Well, really simple. I was staying in digs just off Tottenham Court Road under the Post Office Tower. And I was surrounded by agencies and, you know, I think you had Saatchi Saatchi and all those lot all around that part of London. And I just used to see all these guys turn up in Aston Martins and Porsches, all those classic '80s cars. And I thought, "What are they doing?" And, "Oh, they're working. They're getting stuck in." Right. That's what you have to do. And I was off then. I just thought, right. As soon as the bell rang and the whole deal of university was over, I was like manic to get into business. I just wanted to get stuck in as quick as I could. And I did, you know, and I think a lot of people do that now when they finish. They want to get stuck into something. You have so much more opportunity today, information to ideas, you know, you're surrounded with people trying to help you. Like you've done with The Graduate Guide, you know, there were no podcasts, you know, there was no information, there was no web, there was no nothing. So you had to get out there and go knock on doors. And door knocking is a good lesson in life because a lot of people go stop, go, reverse. And that tenacity you get from door knocking is really useful in your business life. Because I think, I mean, we've not spoken about this, but I think, you know, you're in this honeymoon period of starting something. It's all really exciting. And, you know, you're going to get that big sucker punch, aren't you, at some point over the next few months where you're lining up something that looks so exciting for you and computer says no. And it's like, oh, oh, what am I going to do? And it's get up off the floor, take the next punch, isn't it? It really is. And that's the good bit, you know. Adversity, you know, is the opportunity to face your demons really and keep going and get back up. And I think that's a real success component. Being counted, being— everyone's— you're under the spotlight, especially you guys now. You're in charge of your destiny.

Yeah, yeah. I think What you said there about, you know, not having that exposure to, you know, podcasts or, you know, and that kind of career building or, you know, access to information, I think that's going to be way more important than we can even comprehend who you choose to have as your— have exposure to. Like, I think obviously social media came about in this big way now, and actually there's lots of interesting conversation around you know, how much people are using it, where they're choosing to use it, what they're choosing to do with their time online, and getting a bit of fatigue from this. And I think actually, like, for me, having built this voice online, like, I'm starting to realize that the magnitude or the importance of what this could be, um, you know, being able to broadcast my ambitions en masse and have other people bought into that ambition and having other people, you know, essentially coming to me, you know, only 2 years behind on a massive scale. Like, we've never lived in a time where that's been possible, really, you know. Maybe the Prime Minister would, you know, present on BBC News, like, do a speech to the nation, and that's what you would adopt as that's the view, you know. That's all right, that's what we're doing. And then you have some conversations in your local pub and whatever, and And I think, wow, like this really is getting exciting, like, but also, you know, choose carefully. That's, I don't know how you see this world from the outside looking in, being more of a, you know, old-school entrepreneur, should we say.

I think for young people it must be terrifying because they have so much fantasy rammed down their throats. On a daily basis, you know, that they see people, you know, on social media who are presenting these, these lives of abundance and success and glamour and high fashion and all this stuff. Yet behind the scenes, a lot of those people are in turmoil with, with their own mental health issues. So they're presenting something that isn't true, yet the audience doesn't know that. So the audience is then wanting to be part of what's being presented. So it creates a huge pressure to be something that you don't actually need to be. And I think if you can get in amongst the weeds and rushes and go like that and say, no, cut all that nonsense out.

Get back in the office.

People would be in a better— well, not necessarily in the office, but you know, it's interesting. It's like, you know, the world of apprenticeships. If you want to spread the word of apprenticeships, a good place to be would be to go to schools and talk about it. But, you know, you go to higher-level traditional public schools and they don't really want to let you in the door because they're bothered about their university entrance stats. So they don't want me turning up telling all their best Oxbridge pupils not to go to Oxbridge. And I'd be a bit of a fool if I did that, wouldn't I? But that's their fear, you know. So I think that, I think the educational system may, maybe if you could do a GCSE in entrepreneurship, I don't know, because it doesn't mean you end up as an entrepreneur, but it means you understand what's exposure, getting an idea, developing it, you know, all that stuff you've done, um, with some of those, uh, labs. I don't know whether it's Barclays Eagle Labs and people like that, or NatWest Labs or whatever it is. Those things are really useful for people to go This is what you have to do. You have to know all this stuff. You have to understand how to interview people. You have to understand not to hire people in your image because it's the easiest thing in the world. So you guys would surround yourself with Man United supporters and you need a mixed bag of people to get an inclusive workforce from all different backgrounds because they see things that you don't see.

And I think really interestingly, and I And this is where Molly and I's relationship has been so cool to watch it grow and develop, is that we've really understood the importance of perspective. So, you know, 9/10 of the law is perspective. You're gonna have different ones, but it's the alignment, it's holding two truths to be true and coming together where innovation and things happen that couldn't have otherwise happened, right? And I think that's kind of what you were what you're saying there is that exposure is— people are scared of it, they're fearful of what it might cause on a more like macro level, but on an individual level it has to be there and we have to do more. And I think this is what, even going back to training and development, this is what it is. It's like, it's not classroom training, it's opening your mind to the fact that there is more you could do, or that there isn't, and it's you knowing that, right?

Yeah, look, the learning environment is, it's never been better, hasn't it? Because you can, you can get so many different ways of receiving the information and a lot of it depends on your learning style. And I think there's going to be a lot of discussion around learning style because, you know, some people, I mean, what I have noticed about a lot of young people is they can't write freestyle. I mean, It looks like my writing was when I was about 5 because they don't, they've never had to, they don't have to do it, do they? So some people express themselves verbally or visually or through what they hear and learning styles are different. So what's great about digital learning platforms that are being developed is they're really creative, you know, and the greatest thing for schools and early learning is they can use avatars and cartoons and caricatures to to get characters that appeal to children's learning styles, whereas you just got your book, didn't you, in my day, and you read that page, add up that list, do your 2 times table, 10 times table, whatever it was, you know. So I think, I think there's huge abundance of opportunity and people have got to find their, the correct style of development.

I mean, this is true. I like, I, I don't want to get too into the weeds with this all, but I mean, I am a delusional optimist. Like, that is me at its core. Like, obviously I have humbling moments and things that, you know, make me more pessimistic about certain things, but my status quo is to be, you know, youthfully naive and go into things like thinking the best. And I think that I can't help but feel like the world is in a really exciting place where you can almost you know, you can gamify it and you can be more imaginative than ever before. And I think the startup world is a big part of that as well. It's, you know, and that's why I'm so, you know, bullish on this job market for early talent and the way that we can help support this early talent going into it. It's a whole new, you know, we start again. Any practices that were wrong, you know, I used to be a ski instructor, I'm not sure if you know that, and I would teach adults how to ski in Canada. And, you know, I would genuinely, by the end of the whole season, I would jump with joy at the fact that I got someone who didn't know how to ski. Because the worst thing to get was an adult who claimed to be able to go down blacks when they just fling themselves down and having to be a babysitter for the whole time versus somebody who, you know, had never seen snow and you're like, wow, like this is such a magical thing and, you know, you can actually tell them to do a snowplough and they will. And it's, you know, it's—

It really evolves though, doesn't it, skiing? Because how I was taught to ski, when I ski like that now, people go, what is that guy doing? That sort of Austrian feet together stem christies, you know, what's he doing? You know, and I thought, I'm really good at skiing and all these people carving.

It does evolve. Yeah. I say, I want to finish on this, right?

Yes, okay.

We've spoken a lot about ambition, and, and my ultimate goal is to understand it better, right? You know, take entrepreneurial ambition, extrapolate it, and, and make— help it make sense to people. Yeah.

Um, what's your feel— what's your feelings about entrepreneurship and wealth? Because the, the, the, the kind of inextricably linked that if you're an entrepreneur and your business really grows and does amazingly well, you're going to get a big pot of gold for doing it. And some people look at that as a bit distasteful.

So, I mean, wealth is definitely part of it, like, you know, I'm not gonna beat around the bush and say that it's not.

Good, because it has to be.

Yeah, of course it does. And, you know, we have, you know, Jeremy, part of the team, will make you think very commercially minded about things. And of course it's present in your life, so you can't deny it. And you'd be, again, you'd be putting false things out on social media if you said otherwise. But for me, like I was saying about understanding ambition, and for myself, like I'm still definitely on a journey, that's why I'm doing this documentary. But there is— you can define ambitious, you can define ambition, like, you know, for example, mediated urgency is a definition I like to give ambition, you know.

Mediated urgency, crikey.

So The urgency to act is mediated by loads of different factors, and it's about what they're mediated by and what you choose to—

So what could they be mediated by? What sort of thing?

Your personal life, your family, your—

Whether you've just broken your leg.

Yeah, so many things mediate your ability to act with urgency, but ultimately ambition is a feeling to do something, right? And I mean, I don't want to to enforce that definition on people. And actually, I think it's really important that people make their own. And so back to your question, I'd say, well, of all these things to do with entrepreneurship, the LinkedIn Top Voice, the glamour, whatever, what about the celebration of winning? The celebration of winning. This is all for me the pursuit of euphoria. And, and it's, it's a little bit like, oh yeah, all right. But for me, genuinely, like, I've learned with myself not in like a, I'm addicted to it, I can't live without it, but it is the reason I do things. Because I, you know, after this podcast I may well go out there and get a feeling that like, you know, I've done something. I might put on a song that I play after and it's like, you know, it's making life feel like it's, you know, you do it for those moments I think. And everything can contribute to euphoria, but it all has a a moment, you know, buying that car with that wealth or whatever it is, it's the pursuit of it for me. And to close off, I'd love to understand your idea of ambition.

Well, I think, you know, I've never heard that term mediated, but actually the mediation does make a lot of sense because you can go, so many things can change and happen, yet you've still got to, can't suddenly switch the engine off. Once you've started the thing running, you've got to keep going. So whatever happens to you, you've got to keep going. You may pull back a little bit. But ambition to me is, you know, if anyone listens to this particular segment of what we're talking about, what they probably don't know is that I'm going to leave this room and I'm doing a big presentation to, let's say, I don't know, 150 people. And actually just the act of talking about ambition has pumped me up to go out and do a good job. Whereas, you know, I was thinking about Ricky Gervais the other day, 'cause I went to uni with Ricky Gervais and he's become this worldwide phenomenon. And I thought, what gets him out of bed to go on a world tour that you don't have to do? You don't need the money. So he must sometimes wake up, I don't know, in Montreal with a sore throat and a streaming cold and think, 'Oh my goodness, I've got to go out in front of 30,000 people tonight.' What drives somebody to keep doing that? I mean, he's announcing his next tour for the material he hasn't even written yet. I mean, that's incredible. So it's not just about the paycheck, is it? It's that ambition of doing what you're doing and getting a buzz from it. And hey, look, I'm not a public performer, so I don't understand that buzz, but I get it from the people who I work with and the feelings of being part of a really energetic team. The energy in our business, it's phenomenal. If you could put it in a bottle and sell it, that would really, would be a quick way to riches beyond your dreams because, but you can't.

Peter Wood, I'm very excited to be joining that energy and hopefully contribute contribute to it in all the right ways. Johnny, great speaking with you as always.

Great speaking with you, Peter Wood. And hey, listen, like I said right at the beginning, you have to have the idea and execute it, and you're now in proper execution phase. So you should therefore by rights succeed. Pressure.

What pressure?

So I think you will. Yeah, but I know you will. Thank you.