Why is there no British Elon Musk? 🇬🇧 🚀 🚗
Mr. Beast and the future of hiring …
Times Deputy Business Editor, leaves to start a Substack …
Series 5 Announcement …
Picture of the week …
Welcome to the 19 new subscribers since our last edition. If you’re new here, my name is Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser turned podcaster. I write this notebook on the most interesting things I have seen on the future of work, jobs, technology and somewhat occasionally politics.
Now the super alert of you may be thinking, ‘Jimmy only wrote to us last Sunday, is this turning into a weekly newsletter?’
The short answer is no, it is largely because we are still awaiting the arrival of our second daughter, you may remember I started season 4 of Jimmy’s Jobs asking Rishi Sunak for his advice on bringing up two daughters.
So I thought I would take perhaps the last Sunday naptime I ever have to write you an email, because there have been a couple of particularly thought provoking stories …
Why no British Elon Musk? 🇬🇧 🚀 🚗
Oliver Shah wrote on this topic in the Sunday Times yesterday, he puts it primarily down to culture, and I think he is largely right, but I did want to offer a couple of other points and why things may change. After all, this is one of my favourite topics to discuss.
One of the main arguments as to why Britain has never had a Google / Facebook / Microsoft / Apple is because we simply do not have a large enough market - 70 million versus 250 million people.
Another key factor, also comes down to pipeline and mentorship there are more billion dollar entrepreneurs in the USA and so they are able to dispense wisdom, act as rolemoldels and guide people on the journey more. .
Both of these points are changing though, Britain is arguably onto its third generation of tech entrepreneurs, the likes of Brent Hoberman, Martha Lane Fox and Saul Klein were at 1.0, Matt Moulding of THG, Greg Marsh of OneFineStay, Will Shu of Deliveroo and Tom Blomfield were at 2.0.
All of them could have taken the money they made and gone and sat on a beach. However, they are now all playing pivotal roles in investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs and being involved in different areas of tech ecosystem, in Shu’s and Moulding’s case they are running public companies and dealing with the brickbats that involves. They are some of the first British entrepreneurs to do this, and will be picking up vital lessons for the next generation.
Previous guests on Jimmy’s Jobs like Alex Depledge and Pete Dowds who made money in housekeeping marketplaces in 2.0 revolution are now onto new start ups in 3.0 tech entrepreneurship in housing and elderly care respectively, that can only be a good thing. Who do you think are the outstanding entrepreneurs leading 3.0 tech revolution that we should get to appear on the podcast? Just hit reply to this email with their names, or drop us a line at hello@jobsofthefuture.co
There is an argument that market size is becoming less important, as the internet allows you to reach global markets much quicker. I have written before in the Telegraph about both Ben Francis of Gymshark and Steven Bartlett of SocialChain being able to make tens of millions of pounds before the age of 30. That would simply not have been possible before the 2010s.
I speculated in the piece that some of these people may consider politics, in particular Mayorlty routes, one thing is for sure, they’ll definitely inspire other entrepreneurs coming through and improve the tech ecosystem.
See Shah’s full piece below 👇👇👇
Mr. Beast and the future of hiring
I grew up like a lot of other boys in my class dreaming of being a footballer or perhaps even rugby or cricket player.
Now if you ask youngsters, you get responses such as ‘influencer or YouTuber’, according to CBS, a staggering 86% of young Americans want to become a social media influencer.
Older generations can be slightly dismissive of these surveys, pointing to the shallowness of youth, but actually could we reframe the answer a different way?
Arguably the number is so high in these surveys because it is such a catch all term for Gen Z. What if by influencer, we actually mean entertainer?
Arguably hasn’t every generation since WW2 wanted in some form to take advantage of the new technologies to create new entertainment?
And so who is Mr. Beast?
Most of this email list is made up of FTSE100 Chief Execs and Chairs, MPs, journalists and Westminster and Whitehall types.
And I am going to wager that a good number may not have heard of Mr. Beast.
Well, he is the worlds largest YouTuber and he is 21, some of his videos, such as Squid Game have 250 million people watch them …
Just think about that, that is almost one in every 25 people have watched that video on planet earth.
It is more people than watch the Superbowl.
He announced on Twitter that he was hiring:
He has had over 12,000 responses to that tweet alone …
Now I haven’t read them all, but I was taken aback by the amount that focus on what a great opportunity it is for them as an individual, not on what they could actually bring the Mr. Beast team, based not in fashionable New York or LA, but North Carolina.
Personally I found it fascinating to go through all of the jobs available for Mr. Beast
If Mr. Beast is or his team reading this, you have an open invitation to come on Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future and explain all the different roles you are hiring for 😂. 😂
A reminder that Eliza Filby and I are currently hiring for a visual content creator, effectively someone who can help the content we create around generations, the future of work into something that is more digestable for different generations.
Times Deputy Business Editor leaves to start a substack
To some, it may have been a surprise to see Graham Ruddick leave The Times to start his own newsletter on Substack.
However, when I write my columns for newspapers, the way the process works like so …. I pitch a couple of ideas that I am thinking of, one that is political/public policy focused, another one that is entrepreneurship/technology related and then perhaps a bit of a wildcard idea.
Now when Graham was covering my pieces, he would invariably go for the wildcard option, saying ‘that one sounds the most interesting’..
And I would think … ‘oh crap, I now have to write 800 words for Times readers on the passion economy or career coaches.’
So I wasn’t surprised to see Graham launch his own Substack a couple of weeks ago, called ‘off to lunch’. which will be covering business, finance, markets, venture capital and crypto.
Email newsletters have become really big business in the US with the likes of Morning Brew reaching nine figure valuations.
Even in politics, Politico and Red Box have become staple reading and agenda setting.
I imagine that the UK business scene will catch up and Graham’s newsletter will be a part of it.
The first edition comes out this week and you can subscribe here or below 👇👇
Series 5 Announcement
For every series of Jimmy’s Jobs, I try to line up a big name to kickstart things:
Series 1, Hayden Wood, Bulb at the time Europe’s fastest growing company
Series 2, Nigel Toon, Graphcore in Bristol, backed by Seqouia for have backed the likes of Apple, AirBnb, Instagram and Zoom (to name a couple)
Series 3, Ben Francis and Noel Mack of Gymshark in Birmingham
Series 4, Rishi Sunak, Chancellor the Exchequer in Darlington
Series 5 ….
The pressure has been on to raise the bar again, but we have found them, we have recorded it and we’ll be announcing it exclusively to readers of this newsletter in the coming weeks
Picture of the week …
On Good Friday, Derby County should have been relegated …
They played table topping Fulham, who if they were victorious would have been crowned Champions.
Not for the first time this season, Derby County flipped the script and came from behind to win 2-1, asked how the team managed it, Wayne Rooney responded with just one word, ‘character’.
And so Derby fans spend the Easter weekend, with just that tiny glimmer of hope … just need to win all four and for Reading to lose all four ….
I sometimes wonder why there are quite so many photographers at sports matches, I wonder how can the unit economics of it add up, particularly with so many automated cameras etc.
And then you get a picture like this of Nathan Bryne setting up the winning goal from an impossible angle, and I just think to myself, ‘sod the unit economics and enjoy it’.
End of the Notebook …
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Until next time!