YouSaid · the spoken record

Will Butler-Adams

lines on the record: 50
first: 2022-08-19
most recent: 2022-08-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I mean, it does my head in. The problem we have in the isacultural thing, I've done all sorts of work outside of Brompton in the education space. It starts right at primary. You are to, or are you all sort of massy? I mean, it's like by the time you're about five, you've been pigeonhol Look at Leonardo da Vinci. I mean, he wasn't maths or art, he was everything. And there's this idea that you go down one road or you go down the other. That's absolutely, if you want to innovate, you need to be a thinker. You need to be coming up with new ideas. You need to be challenging. You need to be inspired by nature. You need to turn that into a product. You need to have an appreciation of maths because maths runs through creation in terms of making stuff.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way you communicate and your imagery, then they're never going to feel like it's something for them. And the bike is the most, you know, it's so welcoming. Anyone can jump on a bike. Most people have learned to ride a bike because their parents run behind them. So it should be for everyone, but you need to somehow bring that into your organization. And London really does help because it's so cosmopolitan.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pool of talent. And it is hard. We're trying our best. And the thing is to my mind, Even more important for a business like ours to have a sort of equal representation because half our market are women. You know, I mean, if we were selling a product that was only for men, I wouldn't be so bothered about it. But we're not. We are absolutely the bike is totally useful and totally relevant to men and women. And so, and that's one of the other great things about London. It's so cosmopolitan. We've got 50 different nationalities. It's not just gender. It's everything else. The more different perspectives you have in a business, whether it's religion, race, gender, anything else in between, the more likely you are to engage with that community. The person you're selling to has to feel welcome in the product that they see. And if they're not seeing themselves in the product because you're a one-dimensional, you're selling it as a one-dimensional product in all of them.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who'd come from the company in different parts of the company? She was just awesome. And then she's headed up our training with Abdul. So now that's really changed the whole sort of one of the best phrases is a female and that inspires a lot of other people to join. And then across the company, we're not just a manufacturer, we're a distributor, we're a brand. We've got customer service. We've got all these other things in between. The bit that's tricky is design and mechanical engineering and production engineering because that sector is not attracting women. I mean, you know, when I went to university studying mechanical engineering, they were in a course of 50, there were probably less than 5% women. So that pool of talent, particularly that pool of talent with 20 years experience, there are companies with much deeper pockets and bigger than us that also want to have women represented in their business. So you're fighting over a very small”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it depends where you're talking because shop floor there were challenges and I mean I've got three older sisters my wife is one of three sisters and I've got three daughters so I'm a sort of roaring feminist but I'm an engineer and that often is very male orientated. So on the shop floor on the assembly side we made a lot of progress quite quickly actually because it's very we had to get rid of some of the jobs that were very physical but we've got machinery and cobots and all that sort of stuff so done. The braising side took a lot longer because it sort of seen as being more male but no reason for that at all. It's a very delicate fine job so it's not about male or female, it's about the person whether they like that care and it's very focused and we're getting there and now you know one of the great steps forward was one of our female braves.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Women both front of house, back of house, and our stores are airy and just Interesting. Come and have a look around. You don't have to buy anything. Just come and pot around. And what we did that is because we wanted to try and demonstrate if we tried this and if it worked, we could then say to our dealers, we've tried it. We've taken the risk. We've recruited female staff and it's having a really positive effect on our sales and it's opening up a market that you're not even talking to, which is half of the market, which are women. We've still got a long way to go. And again, it's slightly unfathomable, actually, why the industry is so male, but it is, and that needs to change.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From 250 representatives of our stores all over the world. And that's one of the reasons we actually opened our junctions. It wasn't to sell bikes direct to the consumer. It was to redefine the purchasing experience for the consumer. Because if your store is very male dominated and also a lot of the stores are getting better, but a lot of the stores historically were just cluttered techie like not a normal shopping experience. You'd get in there and it would be heaving with bikes and bits and bobs and parts everywhere and a guy would turn up and say, well, do you want the Shimano 364, the 296? And you want the hardtail softail? Do you want the gravel bite the softer? Just like, bike, please. Oh, and they look down at you. What do you mean? Well, bike, you know, so you've got to understand your audience. And so in our stores, we try to have 50.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we tend to sell through urban bike stores, obviously, because we're an urban and brand. And pre-COVID, one of our biggest investments in marketing was bringing all of those independent bike dealers to the factory and to London to have a few days of fun to really understand who we were, what we stood for, and just have a laugh, eat fish and chips and peddle up the mall. And we were bringing in 250 dealers from Japan, America, Italy, France, wherever to spend a few days with us. And out of that 250, we had 12 women.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not linear globally, so it changes depending on where you are in the world. We're about 35% women in the UK. And then that changes a bit more in southern Europe, a bit less in Northern Europe. Funnily enough, in Asia, actually, we have a pretty high percentage of women because couples do the recreation together. And the biggest barrier is safety. And I think that is a fact that men are less safety conscious than women. So whilst your infrastructure isn't as comprehensive, there is that risk. But I think the industry as a whole, and this is not a UK thing at all, also has a large part to play. So we are focusing, we sell most of our bikes through independent bike dealers, IBDs.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have to have segregated cycle lengths period. Nothing else will do. No mother's going to take their child and trust a little bit of white paint on the side of a road when there's a two-ton truck. I mean, that's a joke. So it might be the way you get there, you start with a white line, out's better than out, but that is not going to transform cities. It has to be segregated. That's the way it is.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first changes to infrastructure getting cycle lanes in and bringing that community of cycling. And what happens is as you get more people, you can't go that fast in the city because there are just too many cyclists. So it actually naturally sorts itself out. It all begins to slow down and you've got parents and children on cycle lanes. So this is all part of a journey. And every country takes that journey and that trajectory in a slightly different way. But I think we're all aiming for the same place, which is a 25 to 30 percent cycling in a city, which is by all accounts about right because a lot of people will be walking and some people on public transport. But that feels about right. But how we get there is different city by city, country by country.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's slightly what is going on in the urban sense. It's fine if you're doing it for exercising at the weekend or whatever, but inside a city, you're not a walkist. No one's a walkist. You just walk. And in many parts of Northern Europe, you're not a cyclist even. You just cycle. You don't have showers. You don't wear funny clothes. No one in the Netherlands has a shower in their office. Did they think that's odd? You just get on your bike because you're not going at sweating speed. You're just going. And of course the Netherlands fact, but it's quite windy too. And so, but we are getting there and it's a bit like all these other things. The cycling, the sort of mammal culture has been good for cycling. There are risks to it as well, but actually that community has really brought cycling and certainly in the early days they were the ones who were putting pressure on.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Earlier, but they've had to go off and get a shower off, and they obviously had a rucksack on their back with all their normal clothes on, and they've gone off to have a shower. So you go to the meeting, they're coming in and they're still letting themselves down and they've just got changed into their clothes and they come to join you.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Training session. And imagine if you were going to a meeting and it was a 25 minute walk away and you're leaving the office and you just decide to get up from your desk, give yourself 25 minutes to walk to the meeting on the other side of town. Off you go. The colleague you're going with says I'll meet you there, but I'm just going to go off and get changed. Bit weird. Funny. Anyway, don't think anything of it. You leave the building, you wander off. And you've been gone about sort of seven, eight minutes. And then your colleague who decided you've got, suddenly come shooting past you with like these spiked shoes on full running gear like herring along like legging it to this meeting charging along running like fury you're like bloody hell now if they're doing they shoot off and you just potter along you get to the um meeting takes you 25 minutes and you discover that your colleague arrived like 10 minutes”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do. And it's a very. UK thing actually because we are in we sell bikes in 50 countries around the world so I've been lucky enough to travel and learn and see and cycle with lots of people all over the world it's a particularly UK where it's so sporty and so a sort of hardcore exercise thing. I mean, I tell you a little story which best describes it and reminds us you have to hold the mirror up in front of yourself to remind yourself from time to time what a waller you are. Don't get me wrong. Row cycling and cycling. I've done great rides 300 miles and I like my licra and I get on my Brompton of course because I've got something to prove which is never really designed for 100 mile rides and I love it. But when we're talking about urban travel and you're traveling three to five miles, it's not a sort of triathlon.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To customers. We've now got 80 locations. We have people trying to bike. And it's glorious, but it's being difficult. But we've done it in a slow way. And we are, if you like, more like the tortoise. I mean, you say we've been having this stun in growth. And you look back over 20 years, and it has been, but it's been bit by bit. But disruption will come and we have to just accept it. It's just not the approach I would take.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There will be disruption and quite a lot of it will go wrong and you have to take some of that on the chin and accept that part of the change result in disruption. You could argue the friction between car drivers and cyclists is another consequence of that. And there's been a lot of that, but it's just part of the journey of change. What we're trying to do, I'm repeating myself, is grow compound growth. We're not going to try and raise half a billion pounds and then spank it on an ill thought through just gush of, I don't know what we set up a little bike car scheme. It's been phenomenally difficult. And I've been absolutely hounded by my board and shareholders for it. But 10 years on, we're still going, quietly, growing the network and we're delivering value.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“it it's a good question and i think disruption i mean i think what these a lot of these companies did is just horrendous and it's absolutely rinsing the inverted commas greenness it's the sort of classic another example of awful capitalism because they're sort of riddled in greenness pretending it's amazing and absolutely wrecking a place and producing tons of rubbish and waste so don't get me wrong the fundamental principle is wrong but when you're going through a transition which we are globally we've for 50 60 years we've created cities that are so ill conceived which you know we've now on reflection realize are bad for our health bad for the vast majority of the world that live in cities we've created cities that are not in line with”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Compound investment just like compound growth don't bet the farm bet enough know you can afford it learn you know lick your wounds go at it again go at it again and bit by bit you learn and you get there and we are we've now got 25 people just doing software electronics i mean we are getting pretty damn good at it but we're certainly not there there's so much cool stuff and then this is a world that's fast moving and and technology is changing so what was even you know impossible five years ago is now possible so that's quite exciting”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Electronics and software world, but we were forced into it a bit like Andrew was forced into designing his own bike and making it because no one else would make it for us. And all we were offered was stuff that went on to e-bikes seven years ago, ginormous big bulky heavy things, which is fine for a bog standard e-bike, but not if you want to try and carry it. So we do it ourselves. And as ever with all great leaps of faith, we totally underestimated how complicated it was. We underestimated how much resource we'd need. You know, we went in with naive enthusiasm, and it's been a bit of a steep learning curve, you know, to a point where we had all sorts of false starts and made mistakes and thought somebody was making it for us and then they let us down. All the good stuff. But if you're determined, and as long as you don't.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't say overcome is quite the word, but because you're permanently, the more you learn, the more you know, the more you know, the more you learn, it's a journey. But we, for at the time, 30 years, 35 years had effectively been a metal basher. That's what we were doing. Quite sophisticated, quite clever, fine design. But it was mechanical engineering. We didn't really want to get into”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you could have a factory with people living above it right in a city. No reason you can't do that. But that mentally we've lost sight of that and we're all shove it into these industrial estates and hide it away. And I think that's a bad thing.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we really do want to reconsider how we make things in the world. And the idea of hiding them away is actually not clever because you then cease to inspire the next generation to be makers because it's hidden away. It's a bit like in the extreme, you know, an abattoir. Everybody sees lovely sheep and then you suddenly see lamb, but you don't see the bit in between. Well, we can understand why you don't want to see that bit in between. you know but with manufacturing if you don't inspire people if people don't see it if it's hidden away they don't think that they ever want to be it so actually there's no reason manufacturing is not dark satanic mills it's not you know people in a you know over or with a monkey wrench it's sophisticated interesting creative fascinating rewarding business”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And of course, then they get annoyed by the fact that this little thing doesn't work or that's a bit annoying or I was riding this prototype and this funny thing happened. And that's just very valuable. So we didn't want to let that go. And then more broadly, I think”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, that's going to save us some money in the short term because the rent's going to be cheaper and we may even get a grant to fit it out. But none of us are going to need to use the bike. I mean, you don't need a Brompton to go to a factory in absolute middle of nowhere, which is where most of these industrial sites are. You have to drive there. There's no way there's going to be a cycle lane to your factory. And if you do get to decide to go on a bike, you're probably going a road bike. And so, and that's not going to matter in a year or two, but over time, we're going to be making a product for which none of us have a use. That's a bit weird. And for me, that is so important. So many of us use this bike. I mean, you know, we've got racking, we've probably got, I mean, it's a Monday, so attendance is a bit low. We're trying hard to get everybody in all the way from Monday through to Friday, but Mondays and Fridays is a bit of a nightmare. But still, you probably got 150 Bromptons down there from staff right across the company using them.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We moved to the new location that we're in six years ago. And at the time, we did explore moving, never thought of moving outside the UK, but looked at moving outside of London. But one of the problems, I mean, manufacturing, and it has happened when we've looked at other sites, there's endless people, councils or some sort of investment bodies, regional investment bodies come along and say, oh yes, you must come here. In fact, we'll pay you to come. And we'll stick you in the arse end of nowhere on some enormous industrial estate with some gates at the front.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What the purpose of this business we have total alignment on, which is to impact society, to see people riding around on it, to give people a sense of the freedom that comes with the bike that he invented. So whilst we might have disagreements and he can be frustrating, the purpose is very, very uniform across both of us.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Completely fat. But life isn't full of loads of roses and everyone skipping around. Life is full of challenges. I mean, I'm a massive fan. It doesn't mean he doesn't do my head in and occasionally drive me potty. And we've got to where we've got to through that tension in many respects. And the reason we are here is because he gave up his controlling stake in the business. And that's quite a big commitment from him back in 2008. He needed a bit of help from his friends to persuade him. And I think once or twice he sees me do things and decided it was total disaster. He should never have done it. But that's normal and transition, particularly with any founder inventor, is always quite a challenge. But even though we are so different, we're both engineers, but our absolute thing that may”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The next beer is a completely new one, and perpetual new and improved. The bike industry was chasing the cheapest bike and the easiest, quickest way to make a bike is welding. Spending two and a half years investing in staff to teach them how to braise just didn't fit with the supply chain model for the sort of recreational fashion bikes we've had for 50 years. And luckily for Brompton, Andrew, as he took him 13 years to get this thing off the ground, he didn't have a problem disregarding what everyone was saying to him. He did that for so long. He went with what he felt was the right thing. And here we are today. And we've taken quite a long time in perfecting it.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Particularly important on a folding bike, and also it weakens the metal less because you get something, you get shrinking when the metal cools, particularly the bead of weld, and then you get something called the heat affected zone, and the less heat you put in, the less shrinking and then the less stresses in that part, which means the bike is actually stronger. The downside is it's quite hard to train someone. It takes a long, long time. It's not so much an art because it's highly skilled less than an art because we can't have art. It can't be artisans. It's got to be very repeatable, but it requires high skill. That takes a long time, two to three years, which is why when the bike sort of became a bit of a fashion thing from the 50s, when it sort of ceased to be a mode of transport and it became a sort of literally the cheapest place you can make it and one year you produced one bike.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I mean, in the simplistic term, when you think of welding, you think of two bits of metal, and then you think of a filler metal, which melts, it's the same metal as the two bits are trying to sort of stick together, and the bit in the middle melts, and the other two bits melt, and all three melt, and then it's stuck together. What we're doing is we're using something more similar to sort of solder or glue, where effectively the metal is not actually melting at all. And the stuff you're gluing it together with is something different. It's not the same as the other two bits of metal. And in our case, we'll heat it to about 890 degrees. It melts at about 1300 degrees. When you're welding, you take it to about 1350. So all three melt. This is lower temperature. And it has some real advantages by putting in less heat you distort the frame less, which gives you better wheel alignment.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look like they'd ever been used, he was devastated because he wants to see them covered in crap and literally worn to bits. But actually that group of customers have made cycling aspirational. We had two amazing Indonesian Brompton customers just do the Edinburgh London Edinburgh ride, which is insanely hardcore onto Bromptons, has to be done at a certain time. They did it and they had a man, they were sponsored in their club, their Brompton Club in Indonesia helped them come over and then they met the ambassador and the whole thing's amazing. But those people are slightly movers and shakers. They're becoming keen cyclists. They are influential in introducing the first cycle lanes and then few of them start to use it as happened in Taipei and in Seoul actually as a mode of transport. So they're the early adopters. And behind them, there are a whole load of people who are realizing cycling is cool again. They're not going to buy a Brompton.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, there are two things in Europe. We are broadly a transport tool, even though we have lots of fun. I had a fantastic ride down the Thames yesterday with some friends. Nothing transport about. It was glorious. In Asia, we are much more of a recreational tool. And that is because the infrastructure isn't there because the sort of days of when the bicycle was something that poor people rode and therefore anyone who was affluent wouldn't want to be seen on a bicycle. They'd want to be seen in their car. They're further behind in the trajectory. But what's quite exciting about Asia is the Brompton is making cycling cool again. It is aspirational. It is sort of premium and even super premium in China. And that's not really what it was designed for. When Andrew and I went out in the early days, certainly in Japan, Andrew was sort of aghast to see Bromptons that were polished within an inch of their life.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is pretty much affordable in Europe if somebody genuinely wants one and have a useful one, just like we were saying with cars for most people in Europe. That's not the case in”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's counterintuitive, but actually it adds value. Actually, it's awesome. Actually, it does more than you think. And eight years on, you've still got another 10, 15 years to go. Back to the dear old iPhone. When you're using your iPhone in 20 years, no chance. Three years, and it's in the bin. So somehow the little club is that you as a consumer or as a person have seen past the obvious and realized this thing works. And that's a little bit, you can be maybe even a little bit smug about that because actually you've discovered it where others may not see it. I don't know. I think that's probably what it is. And it's not the same all over the world because we have a different. The bike sits in a different place in Europe than it does in North America, than it does in Asia for all sorts of different reasons.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's because it's so counterintuitive. I mean, everything about it is not what it is. I mean, if you took a picture of a, I don't know, a Lamborghini or a Porsche anywhere in the world, even to the deepest, darkest parts of the world and showed it somebody who'd never seen it before, they'd look at whatever this thing is and they'd tell you two things. It goes fast, whatever it is, and it's expensive. It just tells you. The Brompton is so at the other end of the scale. I mean, well, I mean, what is it for starters when it's folded up? Is that a wheelchair? Oh no, no, it's a bike. Like, what? And then you sort of unfold it. And then they go, oh, well, I don't want to get on that thing. It's immediately going to collapse on me. That looks a bit dodgy, but it can't be any good. Anyway, it's got funny little wheels. So surely you're going to have to pedal so hard. And then you say it's a thousand pounds and they've keeled over because they're like, what?”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Articulate the value of this product. And historically, engineering companies are not so good at that. They're not very good. They're good at designing stuff and making stuff, but articulating the value where we've been so lucky with Brompton is the thing flipping well works. And our customers have done a better job at articulating the value to the community and to the customer than us. And we just happen to have been launching this product or the tenure that I've been involved. The world of social media has come of age. And that value has been communicated by our customers. And that's been completely awesome. So I've been able to focus on bikes, making stuff. And the customer's done most of the work in telling other people about this thing. It's bloody brilliant.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think you can't start with that. People aren't going to do things to improve the world. We're not quite that egotistical. Not egotistical. We think about ourselves. And I think a better example than the car even is this thing, this phone. That's about a thousand pounds. And when that came out, the Apple phone, everybody thought, well, that was an elitist unless you're completely loaded. Who on earth's going to spend that much money? The truth is the reason why so many people have bought it is because it's useful. It genuinely does add value to our lives, unlike so many other things that have been promising that this thing does. You could argue some of the things it does really don't really add that much value, but we love it anyway, so we still use it. And then the second thing is it's being made affordable because you don't spend $1,000 on a phone, you spend whatever it is, £40 a month. So we as a company need to”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Reckon within about two years I knew this product could change people's lives. That's quite rare. There are lots of products that claim that they'll do all sorts of amazing things to your life. Most of them are overrated and you never needed them in the first place. But this bike that Andrew invented genuinely does really add value. So pretty early on, I had a feeling believed if I was able to be supported and find great people to help me we could do something pretty cool. And remember, it's been about just under 20% year on year growth. And when you read all the financial papers, we're all going to be unicorns in two years and we're all going to be millionaires overnight. And the quiet compound growth is a very, very powerful thing. And people think it's been an overnight success, but it's the classic.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And for a time, I did wonder what on earth I was doing, whether this was the right decision. But that's half the fun of life. You can't always be in your safety sort of net.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's not typical in the UK, it's a bit more typical in Germany. So I did engineering at Newcastle and then got a job with ICI and a sort of management professional development scheme where they gave me ludicrous responsibility when I hadn't a clue what I was doing, managing ginormous chemical plants that really could kill people. I mean, if they didn't things didn't work correctly, great puffs of acetic acid. So it was a real adventure and really interesting, steep, steep learning curve. And then, of course, gave up all of that because I had a lot of responsibility, huge budgets, lots of staff, and then ended up working for someone at a complete different spectrum where he signed every check, you know, a bit of a megalomaniac, genius, but megalomaniac.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bike didn't feature much actually in me taking the decision, it was the fact that the factory was so disorganized. I thought I could add value, but then the bike slightly changed my life. I was not really an urbanite, but I had such fun on it and got, you know, I thought I was going to be there for two years and I've now been there for 20. And in the process over a period of time then became the CEO.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're being a bit generous there because I certainly wasn't asked to run it. I was 28. I met a guy on a bus. I was living in Middlesbrough. The guy on the bus was a great friend of the mad inventor. I went along to meet the mad inventor, saw a factory that looked like something out of the sort of, I don't know, 1880s, or maybe that's being a bit unfair, but it was pretty chaotic. And I thought, well, London's a pretty cool place. I'll come to a couple of years with a mad inventor, have a laugh, and get on with my career.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And use that responsibility of where they spend their money more carefully to contribute to the power that business has to solve many of the world's problems.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Those businesses can be more successful, and I think they will be more successful because the consumer is not an idiot. The consumer can see what we're living through at the moment. I mean, just in the UK at the moment, we're going through the most extraordinary weather, which is, you know, in our lives, we've never seen anything like it. And this is happening. We've got situations in Germany where the river, they can't send boats up. I mean, it's pretty extraordinary light today. So the consumer is going to be more aware of who they're buying from and what they're buying and what the company is doing behind the product or service that they're buying. So my feeling is unless organizations are thinking and rethinking how they set about caring for the environment, they won't have any customers. They will go out of business and that will drive change because the most important person is the customer. The customer just forgets how powerful they are and they need to use that power.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the sad truth is at the moment the CEOs won't listen because the status quo pays and they can get away with it. What we need to do, and we as quite a big group of businesses that have a slightly different perspective, that the role of businesses to contribute to society and to contribute to the environment. And if you get that right, you will then deliver to shareholders, but that way round, and that's very important.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, and also we all went through lockdown, so that makes you reflect so much on what you're doing, and that made me think, well, come on, let's go for it.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Passion, and I wanted to just demystify that and remind people that in fact you can be entrepreneurial inside a business. You can be a leader inside a large organization and that that business is not intimidating. It's a really exciting positive thing. Occasionally a little bit scary, but that's life. And then the final thing is we've got to change the world. We really do. We really do. Because if we don't We've got problems and we And I say we in the West are very, very privileged. We have been brought up in a place where there isn't hunger, drought, war. We've broadly been given a pretty decent education. So if we the privileged are not worrying about solving the world's problems, we'll don't expect anyone else who's going to because they've got bigger things to worry about. So we have to take that responsibility and do something about it.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Many of our bright minds are getting taken off into not really adding value to society. And the other one is you can't have an impact on society if you just have a brilliant idea. You've somehow got to turn that brilliant idea into a viable business and you won't impact society if your business is just sort of theory. It's got to make a profit. You've got to employ people. You've got to grow bit by bit. You've got to be international and growing a business means you impact society, but it's terribly important. And it's often sort of overrated with sort of I'm the boss, some special amazing person, which is not true or you're some very rare, amazing entrepreneur, which is all guff. Anyone can do it. You've met enough of these so-called successful people to know that they're pretty average. What you need is belief.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Principally because we have a pretty large problem globally. Capitalism is not really quite delivering in the way that we had hoped. It's just too much wealth in relatively small number of people's hands. And I've observed things in 20 years in my career. And the book is really around the main observations I have, one of which is we need to make things. You're not going to solve the world's problems by moving numbers from one screen to another in banking. And you're not going to solve the world's problems by creating another litigious document at £600 an hour. We've got plenty of that. We've got to create real solutions to the problems we face as a globe. And that requires making stuff, doing stuff, creating tangible physical solutions. And I worry that too.”
2022-08-19 · Intelligence Squared · Engineering for Change, with Will Butler-Adams · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT