I'm really excited to be able to do this first episode with my good friend, Pipp Jameson, she is the founder of The Ducks as an amazing business and social network and we have become mentors and mentees to each other at different points in our journey. Pipp's journey has some really highs but also some really lows. Some of those include some public stumbles but one thing that's really inspired me about her is her ability to not just be a great leader and take accountability for where things have gone wrong but then to use experiences to make her an even better founder. I am a non-tech tech founder so I don't have a computer science degree. I literally was just one of these naive people that wanted to just make a business, a tech business. I saw 60% of our revenue disappear overnight and it was just terrifying and my board were encouraging me to get rid of my team or a lot of my team to basically extend our runway. So I always made them the promise that if something went wrong with The Ducks I would find you another role before and that was the one time I wasn't going to be able to keep that promise because there was no jobs going in Covid. There's an incident that happened a few years ago where actually do you know what I'm referring to with the equipment process? Can you tell us a little bit about that story?  Actually that sounds really dramatic but it probably was 24 hours of my career. And I can understand why it happened. I'm Claude Williams, the founder of Dream Nation and welcome to the Behind The Dreams podcast. Hi, Fit. Hey, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you doing? Do you know what? It's just really nice to see you in real life. It's been so long. It's amazing to be here. I was just saying we haven't seen each other in the real world for loads and loads. So it's so hard to really do it. Anyway, go. Because I thought yeah it was Google that we saw each other and said that then this crazy thing called Covid happened. We've seen each other virtually but it's really nice to be with you. Yeah, 100%. And yeah, no it's been a journey because I guess for something it was 2014, right? Or 2015? Oh my gosh. Do you know what? I'm really bad at dates but yeah it would have been like yeah I was speaking at Dream Nation and it was such an amazing event. I've never been so terrified because it's the first time I've ever spoken without slides. Really? Oh yes. Because I use slides to remind myself what to say. So I was like oh my gosh I have to do it without slides. But yeah it was such an amazing crowd and everyone was really supportive and I did remember what I had to say in the end after rehearsing it a million times. They really did love you. I don't know. I think I still have to record and sit in a hard drive somewhere that I should have on YouTube but you know just one of those things that just never get around to doing. So yeah, so hopefully by the time people watch this I would have actually got my app together. Got that online. Only what? Seven years too late. But no you was amazing. You really was. Thank you so much for that. For today I did want to have a conversation with you about difficult decisions. So as an amazing founder that you are you have made some really tough choices that have led to some really great outcomes. So I'd love to explore how you went about making those decisions and also sharing I guess any lessons that people can learn from your process as well. It was so funny when you asked me to talk about this because in my head I'm like oh my gosh how do I make decisions but actually that it made me think about making decisions. So yeah I'd love to share I guess my process which isn't always right. But I think that's the game. In reality as practical dreamers we have to just make the choices and we will never know if they're right or wrong in the moment. It's just hindsight. So with all that said one of your first major decisions was around your first company. Can you tell us a little bit about the story? Yeah so I am a non tech tech founder so I don't have a computer science degree. I literally was just one of these naive people that wanted to just make a business a tech business. So I started my first tech business in Australia. I had a co-founder and it was a bit like a baby sister version of the dots. It was a creative networking platform and you know I probably made every mistake you probably could make on your first business. The biggest challenge was actually me and my founder wanted different things from the business and so they always say you should never go into business with someone who hasn't got like the same I guess values as you or the same work ethic or the same skills. I did all three. We had the same skills, different work ethics and different values. So I basically made all the mistakes you could make from a co-founder decision. But very long story short we wanted to take the business in different directions. So I wanted to kind of go international, expansion, grow the business. He really wanted a lifestyle business and those things aren't right. I have no criticism for anyone who ever wants a lifestyle business. We just wanted different things and so it just got increasingly challenging day to day. So I ended up having to leave the business. I sold the business. All the money I made from the business I reinvested into the dots. I funded the dots. It was like all eggs, one basket, my poor husband finally made some money. And then I had to restart all over again. And it was really because you know what it's like, you put your love into a business and it becomes almost like your child. So it's really tough to go through that and lots of highs and lows. But yeah, it was in hindsight the right decision. Yeah. Before we I guess talk about the dots, what was it that actually got you to make that choice? So you said the pressure was getting worse etc. But what was the cut and off point where I need to choose between? I mean that one to be honest was a necessity like it just wasn't sustainable. So I think more I was forced into that decision. I think the harder thing is then the decisions you make after that. So actually when I was going through that process you go through a decision of do you play hardball and maybe step outside your value set and start being the sort of business person I never wanted to be. Yeah. Or do you recognize this isn't working, it's becoming quite toxic. I'm going to just try and be the better person and let it go. And I think that was more the decisions like I wanted to stay true to who I was. And even though it's horrific giving up one business I just didn't want to fight in a nasty way to save it. Yeah. Which was my only other option at the time. Was you able to maintain that relationship? No, sadly not. And so it was one of those really horrific kind of times where you know you just if I look back I wish we'd communicated much earlier about it. It just inspired to the point that it wasn't sustainable after that. Yeah sorry to hear that. I think for myself you might not notice but Dream Nation is actually like the sixth or seventh like business projects that I've done. But for the first like five or six all of them before Dream Nation I did that with my best friend. His name is Bola and yeah we've always been each other's back for that. So it's the first time I stepped out without him on that. But when he came to the decision of me going into Dream Nation versus running what we had called the creative circle at the time which was like a marketing agency. It was we were lucky in the sense that we had already had those conversations around like the values, work ethic etc. And the contracts we had between each other literally said like if we ever get to the point where the business is going to impact our friendship then that's the time to walk away. And that's what was happening like we were beginning to want different things, move in different directions and was able to actually have that conversation beforehand. And so now he's still my best friend like his children are my godchildren, best man at his wedding etc. So yeah like I wish other founders had that information before at the start of their journey of like that communication what you need to have decided between yourselves. Yeah communication is key like not just for co-founder relationships but everything. Yeah that's such an important lesson which was don't let things fester. I kind of in that first business I was trying to just fix things and cover up the the cracks and now with this business I'm very much like if there is a problem I'll address it because actually you don't know unless you know and so if you're letting something fester it's you that's getting wound up they just might not know and actually if you address it straight away it's so much better and so yeah I learned that the very hard way. Thank you for listening to these episodes. If you haven't already make sure you sign up to our mailing list at dreamnation.co forward slash mailing list and from there you'll be able to find out about all the things that we have coming for you. Please make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube or wherever platform you're listening to this podcast on. Don't forget to like this video as well. With the dots your your current baby being successful for quite a while now you would have had to make quite a few big decisions obviously you're not in Australia anymore and obviously as well like you are now a solo founder in that regard could you walk us through making those choices around like why you made them how you got to them etc. Yeah so I mean I was so passionate about creating a networking platform that allowed people to find opportunities and really level the playing field so that was the same vision for the platform in Australia so I just wasn't ready to let that go so I restarted all over here um I think the that was kind of a no-brainer decision because I was someone once said to me like if I gave you a million pounds tomorrow for your previous business would you take it and I was like no and then you realize how passionate you are so if you're ever wondering like do you want to sell a business or not ask yourself that maybe a hundred thousand or ten thousand um but yeah so they're kind of starting again and while I'm a solo founder I do have an amazing founding team yeah who've actually been with me right from the beginning so I have to give them credit for this whole journey as well but I am solo founder and CEO but yeah I mean for me it was just about democratizing the creative industries opening up access for everyone so in the early days it was very much like profiles and jobs yeah we realized very quickly particularly in the creative industries that most people do not get a job through applying for a job on a job board um actually most opportunities come through a network and through meeting people and especially in the freelance space and like everything you did at the events and dream nation bringing people together to do that networking that's really actually where the magic happens yeah so again somewhat naively we were like okay jobs aren't good for our community in some ways because it's quite depressing when you apply for a job 500 people apply you don't get a response for a company so we were like actually to really help our community we have to move really heavily into the community networking space so yeah we just basically worked out how do we build an engaged community of really a platform where no one has something necessarily in common apart from they worked in the creative industries so we spent five years working out how do we bring value to people community and networking so what you're saying I guess if we were and I know I know we don't do technical that much in this podcast but you'll read to my product market fit so trying to find like the right product for the right people um and like I said it took you five years to get there like what was that process like trying to find the right answer yeah I mean it was literally test iterate test iterate I mean when we first started out we were really guilty of going oh I've got this brilliant idea for the platform and then we'd spend like a month building it only to find like three people click that button and actually used it and so we then got a lot better at doing tests on the site so let's test a feature let's actually just build the button see if anyone clicks it and then have a little thing that says coming soon yeah so we got a lot better at that process and then it was just looking at kind of the data how people are using it and a lot of kind of in-person chats with our community as well to make it more valuable for them but I think what the secret source was is just a recognition that we wanted to connect people in the real world as much as digital so you know that is the stuff that you did is where the magic happens so how do we help our community find out about amazing events and networking opportunities where they can actually make magic yeah together kind of so going back to the idea of decision making so even though I don't know if you realize it but you did walk us through one way to make a choice um which is that idea of testing the things out um don't do necessarily all the work just find what is the simplest way to run that experiment and decide whether it's worth doing the investment or not yeah there's a brilliant book oh my gosh there's lean startup but there's another one which is um testing business ideas is another brilliant book on that and it's everything from like surveys chatting to a community just testing things it's a great way to kind of cycle through and I think it's found as you know what it's like we've got so many ideas all the time so test and learn test learn test learn make a lot of mistakes but kind of acknowledge they're the wrong mistakes and move on to the next thing so funnily enough we've probably taken as much code out of the dots as we put in it because there's so many tests that went live that totally failed that we had to sort of take out of the process have you ever gone against what the data has told you when you're making a decision and what was the consequence of that yes I actually I I love using data as one of the data points but I think it's really important that the community the data can tell you one thing like a button can tell you one thing but there could be so many problems with that button it could be the wrong wording it could be in the wrong place it could be so working off that instinct of what actually do my community really need that's the more important bit for me using the data to validate it but actually listening to people and trying to help those people is I find the more magic the magic bit for me yeah yeah and but I guess what informs your instincts so yeah how do you how do you instinctively know what people your community need um I think well we're both dyslexic we have a kind of a a dislink just yeah there's my dyslexic sometimes I'm mispronounced word um so we have a distinct advantage where I mean if you think about humans being like the most sophisticated robots that exist you know we take in data all the time and information all the time in the real world and we synthesize that into like intuition and gut feeling the advantage of being a dyslexic is we tend to take in more information from the world so our intuition tends to be more honed and there's loads of research on this so anyone who's listening who's a dyslexic it is a superpower but um so yeah I think that instinct of taking in the data and kind of acting on gut but then using other you know the team the community the data to also validate that gut gut's not always right but it really does help on that journey particularly yeah there was I remember years ago when I came to your office you just gave me some advice around planning for apps but there was something that you was doing that was seemed quite unique to me around um neurodiversity in your team if I remember correctly you would deliberately hire people with certain like neurodiversity to do certain roles could you tell us a little bit about that yeah I mean it's sort of I mean I've always had to be really open about my dyslexia so you know I there are challenges obviously so my written my written and pronunciation sometimes the words aren't so good but and we both now have and I've started having an email signature says just likefully dyslexic excuse typos I've completely stole that yeah no I'm so glad you did and anyone who's listening steal the likefully excuse typos and put it at the end of your email because it goes from people going oh they're an idiot yeah oh I understand context um but because I guess I was always so open about it my team who I didn't realize had different neurodiverse traits started being more open about their neurodiverse traits and there's some roles that are just brilliant for people that are neurodiverse so you know engineering teams autism is a absolute superpower for engineering and so yeah it's not it's been a kind of more because I'm open it makes it an open place for also other people to be open and then recognizing also that in interviews it's you know you there's those biases that you can have about certain neurodiversity but it's being open to that which has been the most important thing no I doubt I've so literally since I stole that e-mail signature from you like it has opened so many conversations where there are people all around us who are hiding um their neurodiversity because unfortunately there still is a bit of a stigma around it in the world um and I guess the decision to do that has been like it's been liberating for a lot of people as well as for myself like now I don't feel scared if I write an email and there's a typo and it's like you you all survive um although one of my experiences in the corporate world I remember artskin hr from allowed to include it in my signature and they said no um and I was a really weird experience kind of just like but so what are you trying to say I need to hide who I actually am um in that regard so yeah and it's not constructive and the thing is is there's such brilliant strengths and there are negatives like you know I have some real challenges so you know but lean into your strengths so 35 percent of entrepreneurs are dyslexic and 40 percent of self-made millionaires and as only 10 percent of the population have dyslexia we're more likely to be entrepreneurs and when we are we're more successful so um lean into those entrepreneurial strengths that's brilliant and also recognize that you I'm never going to be able to code right I I can't spell I would be the courage would be a very scary place to be in your cover today have there been any other I guess really difficult choices you've had to make yeah so I mean COVID was horrific for everyone right um uh what happened with us is with the dots obviously we're a community-based platform but we made money through jobs so people advertising jobs on the platform um in about a week I saw 60 percent of our revenue disappear overnight um and it was just terrifying um so very long story short um my board um were encouraging me to get rid of my team uh or a lot of my team to basically extend our runway and yeah um however I'd made a promise to my team that I've always been transparent this is a startup right we we there's a likelihood we can fail but if we do I will get you a job before I go and like cry at home and collapse and have that holiday I haven't had in eight months I mean it is um but uh so I always made them the promise that if something went wrong with the dots I would find you another role before and that was the one time I wasn't going to be able to keep that promise because there was no jobs going in COVID so I was like there is no way I'm getting rid of this team that's the one promise I made so very long story short I end up having a very big board discussion I'll use my words carefully here um and I was like I'm going to find a way through and so um as serendipity came about is we actually got contacted by um the so house group uh who wanted to build an app for so her works which is their co-working space um and they got in touch and said well we love what you've done with the dots would you consider white labeling the technology for so her works um and obviously I was like yes please um so we found a way through and we started white labeling the dots um we now have 23 partners we shipped our first product 19 months ago no one knows we're doing this because if we haven't even had time to talk about it there isn't even a website um so really I have this baby which is the dots and then we have like 23 other partners um so funnily enough I've moved a team and operational team running the dots now and I'm running this thing entity up here which we haven't got a brand name we started to think of the dots as one of our partners one of our clients um and it's just been this most magical kind of journey seeing my tech now adopted by all these different other communities when things have gone hard you know that was one of the most horrific it sounds like that was an easy process it wasn't it was the most terrifying bit where I have to I have to find a way through I have to find something that is going to keep us in business so that I don't have to let my team go and that was just grit basically that's amazing so first I do you want to acknowledge that you did this dropping exclusive on the podcast yeah we're now talking about it with a brand name on no by the way so whatever this new brand is that could be a name brand name on no but beyond that um I do want to ask what was it like going against your boards so they told you to do one thing but you're got as a founder said to do otherwise I mean it was horrific um luckily I have an amazing our chairman of our board is this amazing guy called John Higgity um who started bbh um and he really had my back and so that was brilliant um but yeah I mean at the time we didn't know I did that you know somehow hasn't gotten in touch we just I just had to work out what we were gonna do um so yeah I mean it's complete sleepless nights and you know mild panics and you know transparency with the team but also just will I actually be able to do it um but we did find a way and I think if you if you really want something work really hard you can find a way um but yeah it was it was horrific at the time I can imagine even the um choice to be transparent with your team that is that's still a decision you need to make like what led you to make that decision we've always I've always been transparent so they've always known like how long we've got cash flow um yeah I don't give them all the gory details and board fights but yeah I think that's always been my mantra with the team it's not fair on them otherwise um and I think that security of always saying I'll always find your job has meant that everyone just gives it their crack uh oh their crack a crack but yeah I mean that's that's I've never wanted to be one of those founders where decisions are made in a vacuum and you'll just dictate to your team actually the team helps shape everything we do so I'm I'm probably overly transparent if I'm sure honest Claude I'm sure sometimes they're like please don't tell me that but yeah I think it's really important because then they can be collaborative in the solution yeah right and actually sorry one of the things that happened off the actual we people did take a pay cut because they knew what was happening right so um the founding team took the biggest pay cut um seniors took the next biggest mid-levels next and we didn't cut any of the pay of the juniors right so we basically all came together to made that happen and then when we got through it everyone got back to their original pay but we also gave them a 10% pay rise as well that's amazing so but you know that was them all coming together my actually head of back engineering offered to cut his entire salary I was like no way and you're amazing I'm not doing that to you but um but yeah that was it was all of us grinding it through together yeah I just want to take a minute just to let you know about an amazing book that I've read this year my friend Kenny methadone has written a book called that pecking boy it's a autobiography about his life and his journey up until this point and I can say out of doubt it's the best book I've read in 2023 check it out I hope you enjoy but also let me know what you think about it I'm hearing three themes coming up in terms of how you make decisions um I'm hearing be guarded by your values trust your gut and be collaborative with it um actually a fourth is also do do use data um but don't make don't let data be the deciding factor and I think the other one actually when I was sort of thinking about it was actually sometimes you just have to make a decision like I think when I was starting out I would sort of sit in limbo land like am I going to make the wrong decision am I going to make the right but actually being in that limbo land is really bad right because you're not doing one way or the other yeah so I've just got better at making a decision as quickly as possible so everyone knows where we're going and I think more importantly especially when you have a team making sure everyone is aligned behind that decision because the worst thing that can happen is if you've made a decision but one team's going off in a different direction and you're going off in this direction you don't know which if it's right or wrong yeah so you're always going to make the wrong decisions I've made so many wrong decisions but the important thing is we make the decision we're aligned behind it we test it validate it and we quickly realize it's the wrong decision and we can change that decision and move somewhere else but if you're not if you're in limbo land or people are going off in directions you just don't know what's right what's wrong yeah um but if you're working together you can go okay actually that wasn't all right so let's do that instead so how do you get people to align behind the decision even when you don't know if it's the right one so I think it's transparency again collaboration again don't like make a decision and just tell them that's a decision it's like yeah get people involved so we do we use something called the unkillable process okay it's based on objectives and key results which are a bit like KPIs but the problem with KPIs is their performance you have to hit them when you're scaling a business you don't know if they're realistic or not so okay ours are aspirational so it's like you know you shoot for the moon you land in the stars type situation but you're not accountable for them and the unkillable process is basically where you have core and explore okay ours so the core ones you can bet your house on and the explore ones are more like I'm not sure if this is the right decision but let's test it and go and sorry back to your original question the reason that's so important for the team is they have a kind of a model to work around so they know why the explorer okay ours are the ones we're like we're probably wrong but we're gonna test it and the core ones are like this is what we have to definitely focus on just for clarity because we you did use both terms so okay ours are objectives and key results objectives and key results and then we split them into explore ones where these are things where we might be right we might be wrong and then core ones which are we've validated them let's focus on them and that's a principle that was made popular by google is that right okay ours yeah where unkillable was whatever all the start up started adopting because they realized even with okay ours sometimes you're just testing and iterating so much yeah um okay ours can be set for too long so you're like you're trying to achieve a goal but you don't know how to get to that goal so the unkillable model kind of balances the two it's awesome do you happen to know where people can learn more about the unkillable model oh my gosh do you know i don't think it's online so what i'm gonna do claude i'm gonna give it to you i've got a whole slide deck on it and anyone who contacts you you can get in contact with so you know what that was awesome thank you another decision that you've made and i guess well we've gone in separate directions is around funding so you started off with an investment right from the beginning of your business um what made you go for that decision so yeah i mean i seed funded the business originally from my exit in australia but yeah we've been through three rounds of investment um why because tech is very expensive um and engineers are very expensive so and it was kind of the thing to do back then you know this is eight years ago i was like yeah i've got an app i'm gonna raise some investment and i did and then you forget that actually when you raise investment you're giving up a part of your company right you are no longer the boss you are accountable to shareholders they own a percentage of business it's a completely different business so i think i somewhat sort of naively went in there um somewhat from necessity because i don't have an engineering background so i needed to build tech that i couldn't afford to build and the money i made from australia wasn't enough to scale that through yeah however the problem with raising money is i also spent stuff that i should never have spent like we spent loads on instagram ads and facebook ads what a disaster anyone listening like get this is one thing you definitely need to look look at your data for so we spent loads on instagram loads of people are signing up to the dots are like this is amazing yeah about six months later we were like are those people still on the dots and no they just churned and we suddenly realized that was a complete waste of investment so that was one where the data did tell us the right thing or did was should have guided us so yeah i think the problem with money as well is you like suddenly have this money and also you have investors like grow grow grow and we almost grow too quickly you know we're a million members now but that's great but at the same time i actually tell all our partners grow slower so you learn more about your community and you can help them or we almost scaled too quick that it was a bit discombobulated so that was now i definitely get that and i think that's part of the reason why i like all the things you said is part of the reason why i've chose to do the opposite um i will raise investment at some point but actually advice that once again you gave me if you don't you might not remember it is get product market fit and then add investment to grow so don't use investment money to try and find out what your real product is meant to be and that's exactly what yeah we did and that's why meta and instagram just didn't work because the product wasn't there yet and so product market fit should have been everything yeah but also if you can do it without investment if someone can do it without investment and i would like that's an amazing way to go as well because yeah as i said it's a raising investment is a bit like going into a relationship but without the benefit of makeup so it's basically stuck with them forever at least it's not meant to include that oh yeah there's some really bad investors out there luckily they're not on my gap day but but yes but yeah it's uh it's you know you are you can't get rid of the mental you get rid of your business yeah essentially and that's it yeah it's a root that you really need to think very carefully about there's an incident that happened a few years ago where actually do you know what i'm referring to with the uh the equipment process do you can you tell us a little bit about that story yeah so um i mean we obviously with the dots we were working with all these companies that were using the dots to hire and one of the things they could do on the platform was search for profiles um and look for profiles and there was a huge amount of research that was coming out around bias and that people make decisions on looking at like if you're doing a search say for videographers and you get a list of videographers people make a snap to judgment in like 0.01 second if they should put them into their shortened list or not yeah at the same time there's lots of research that was also coming out that say someone called adam was four times more likely to hit a short list than someone called Muhammad and so um on the dots we launched like a bias free browsing toggle that our partners could use that basically hid anything where you could make snap decisions so profile picture educational background companies you've worked at because that's the other thing like it's much easier as a junior to get into a really famous company if you're more affluent that sort of thing so yeah we removed all that um and then we got a really big backlash on twitter um and it was probably probably the worst 24 hours of my 24 hours of my life oh I actually that sounds really dramatic but it probably was 24 hours of my career yeah that's stuff that happens um and I can understand why it happened like I have a hidden disability but I don't know what it's like to be hidden because of something someone can see um and in hindsight it was a decision that we made with the right intentions but we should have done more consultation yeah and it was just one of those things that I learned a lot about that process I'm very grateful for very dear friends like yourself who helped mentor me through that process um and it was yeah it was you know we all I've always gone into this morning to build like up our algorithm is based on positivity and kindness the kind of the community are the higher they come off and I always wanted to build a positive environment not a negative and so that was the one time where I let myself down but also I just it was just one of those things where I've just it was just horrific in the eye of the storm um and so you learn I guess you learn from mistakes and I mean the interesting bit with it is yeah you just I have this little sticky on my computer for mistakes to never repeat and one of them is just more consultation on some features can't do that on everything though and that's the challenge especially as a small business it's quite hard as you're scaling you're gonna make mistakes we all make mistakes I guess how do you find that balance when yeah when to go down this whole consultation process versus we just need to get something up and running um well we have a beta club now which are amazing so that's like a community that we give early releases to um but we have actually all the other communities we have we have like either what we call founding member groups or committees and so we release everything early to them and I think when it comes to and then there's certain things where we're like you know this is something that we need to be more conscious of and build a huge bigger sort of um more experts around the decision but I think what's lovely around making it also very collaborative with our community is they they pick stuff up really quickly but also I love my community because they they we get the loveliest complaint emails that's like I love the dots but I think people who use us they know that our intentions are good we're not always going to get it right and so um but yeah we love we love feedback you can't grow unless you're getting feedback from the community on what's working and what isn't I think that's another principle that you've just pointed out so yeah this idea of um consultation with the people you're trying to serve and yeah feedback our one expression I stole from my sister is um I'm always now repeating the feedback as a gift um it's both a gift to the person receiving it but it's also a gift that you can give others so if you can build a community that feels it that way and sees it that way then yeah like it results in successful business as I find I love that because in our training deck so for all our partners that we on board we have like a training deck for the app um for the apps and one of them is feedback as a gift direct messages on our product is where the magic happened if you get the feedback that's the perfect way to kind of evolve and iterate what you're doing so that's like um just we did touch on it a little bit earlier but do you want to go into a little bit more informational detail on it so you have this new brand unknown situation you have Woody's amazing partners you've told us about days can you tell us about any others already top secret yeah so Apple was one I'm terrifying um so we're 180 the strands um networking platform so for anyone who doesn't know 180 it's the new kind of creative hub that's on the strand near Somerset house so it's very kind of fashion focused freeze which is their freeze art fair um that's the that's the most interesting one for me in the fact that it's the first one that's social not professional so that is more talking about our exhibitions and it's not about getting work um and yeah we've got a brand called a Dorian which is like a founders club so we're doing more and more founders ones and business ones so yeah it's just kind of really magic seeing and we ual's alumni platform for as well so but for their founders and freelancers and my favorite recent one is the brit school so we're looking after the brit school which is oh my god they're so driven it's like the last year final year brit school kids and they're alum as well so amazing and also just for clarity what is the platform or that you're providing for them on that white label so it's basically a white label app so it's um it's our app our app that we have in the app store but it's white labeled for these different communities it's their color palette their branding their community so if you tried to get into the 180 so if you downloaded 180 studios tried to get into the app um it uh basically recognizes are you a tenant in the building are you not so you have to be a tenant in the building to join it if you are a tenant you can join that space and then it's essentially a space so the only thing that doesn't exist on any of our white label apps is jobs it's all around um events connecting around events direct messaging connecting with individuals in that space and why i'm so excited about the days club app which is coming out now is the first one that's open to everyone so um days to have this amazing um days club which is all about opportunities for the industry and so that's the first one that anyone can download and join and that's all days club branding days club opportunities day club community so that's going to be great and although you haven't said it yet and you probably wouldn't because of uh and they you're humble in that regard but it sounds like this is a great financial opportunity for you as well yeah i mean it is to be completely transparent i mean it's you know it's the majority of our revenue now um and if i'm honest again recruitment was probably the worst business model ever um why because um one as i said jobs people don't really get work through jobs so i was making money from people posting jobs but the majority of my community were getting jobs from meeting each other so it was a bit of a weird circle secondly um i just hated how the companies never got back to people but i was selling to companies because we had to make money the other thing is that as soon as something happens like covid or an economic downturn yeah all the money disappears so we might have got through covid maybe but then jobs are going down again now we wouldn't have survived now so um this is way more sustainable because it's a long term subscription so thank god because we couldn't have gone through another downturn and i think the other thing is recruiters just move all the time so it's not like our products don't still have jobs on but they're all people posting those now is someone doing a call out and saying can you recommend a videographer so you're actually talking to a human you're not talking to a vacuous job with a non-human behind it and an HR person that's never going to get back to you so i way prefer it that way i'd rather clod post i'm hiring than you know this weird brand never getting back to you and doing it through a recruiter or a talent manager yeah well massive congratulations on that you worked hard you massively deserve it so i'm kind of floak as well found a serendipity it is but the reality is one that i've kind of learned in business or life is when you don't quit sooner or later you end up with the right answer so and you hang in there you went you went through covid you didn't drop your team so as much as it's serendipity and a bit of luck which we all need to be successful like you did the hard part or sticking by your values and like believing in your your team and your objective yeah and you're you're right i mean like it's it's about not giving up um and i really believe it's about being nice but the actually the interesting bit with the serhouse partnership is the guy who mentioned us in a meeting with nick jones who's the founder yeah he used to work at vice and when he left vice he came to me for advice advice when he left vice he came to me for advice on his next career move and he was interested in joining tech so i took him to a couple of tech networking events he decided he didn't want to join i think he'd met too many bitcoin founders was like this is way too scary for me um but he ended up at um the vinyl factory which is linked to serhouse and he mentioned us in that meeting and so sorry the reason i mentioned that is yeah it's sort of like not giving up but also it's amazing how many times i've basically helped someone out not for any reason and then like five seven years time they're helping me out and that's like the power of a network you know just be a nice person it always comes back around um when you need it without a doubt you have been so intentional uh in terms of not necessarily growing your network because are this person useful that person's useful but just giving and sharing and i love how what you've just said is a perfect example of when you do treat relationships like that it does eventually come back to you in one way or another there's this amazing kind of piece of research that was talking about people who give and people who take and they were saying that actually the most successful people are the ones that give um and also the most unsuccessful people are the ones that give but we're never the medium ones and um i guess there's layers of giving right yeah there's a giving that is positive and constructive and then you know we've all been in relationships where we're giving and we're not going back at all um but you know i think that whole like i've just i think maybe it's from when i was young i had to have so much help i'm always willing to help others if i can and so it's always just come back around but i just that's just be a nice person it's just the it's the easiest networking kind of trip ever just be kind be nice help people if you can help them i mean it's also a magic feeling where you're like i know that person i can connect you i guess that's why i built a networking platform no i've never actually put two and two together because i do believe in giving etc and i've always said i was because i've all feel like i've had so much given to me but i didn't realize until you just said it that i had so much i had to depend on so many people throughout my life because of my dyslexia so i don't know about you but the first part of my life i was so it was so like debilitating um i couldn't really do anything um in terms of like i couldn't read this by myself i couldn't like write that etc i couldn't struggle with emails so i had to depend on people around me um because i've had so many people that were willing to be so patient with me and put into me like at this point i feel like i've got so much that i want to give back because of that so yeah i mean i'm the same i mean i couldn't read till i was 11 and you you know what it's like when you're at school and they're all like oh that's too stupid my mom amazing was not having any of it but um yeah you just you learn very young that actually you have to rely on other people yeah um but then you can help other people too and you that kind of it's magical right because it means then everyone's focusing on their strengths instead of doing everything and yeah collaboration just grows the pie for everyone everyone's got to stop trying to eat each other's pie let's all just grow the pie together there's enough there's a client which if we work together would be this massive pie that we could all work together um and i think that's sort of the key but yeah we i guess we have a massive advantage that we learned that that empathy of like what is it like when you're really struggling and you need that help um because yeah i like you like my team is amazing um i a hundred like i look like i do all these amazing things and yes i do but more people don't see is like just how much i'm being supported but i guess to begin to wrap things up i do this want to say thank you pit for for being here today but also thank you for all that you have invested into multiple communities over the years um like without a doubt dream nation like yeah your contribution to that whether that was taking the time to be to be at an event speak for us or to open doors for us or just even be giving me advice or encouragement has meant a lot and with that it's part of why i'm now able to bring this back to the world and hopefully make a huge difference and and there's so many other people that have nothing but amazing things to say about what you what you've done and who you are so on behalf of everybody thank you oh bless you but same same to you claude like everything you've done is unbelievable so maybe it's dyslexic which we're not very good at taking compliments so that was my final question before you pit if i could have anybody else in this podcast who would you recommend it would be natasha chawanda and she was the founder of bow and arrow um it's an agency it was 20 people when they sold it to excenture she scaled it to 200 people and she's literally the badass female boss with the biggest heart and she has just um now she's built that business and sold it she is now focusing on her next venture which is having a baby while she focuses on her next thing and she would be an incredible woman to talk to because i have no idea what it would be like to sell to something like excenture that's huge that's so huge that's amazing that wouldn't note her down but everyone's again thank you so much thank you for tuning in to today's episode if you'd like more information on dyslexia and how the bda can support you please visit bda dyslexia.org.uk we release new episodes every sunday so make sure that you subscribe and follow us so that you never miss out if you'd like some more inspiration why you wait for the next new episode then check out the recommendation above don't forget to follow us on social media and you can send us a question or a dilemma that you'd like us to answer on the podcast. This is Club Williams, you've been watching Behind the Dreams and we look forward to seeing you at the next Dream Nation event.


Well, thank you very much. And I would like to say at the outset that Garrett was going to give me dinner before I gave the speech, or afterwards I forgot which. And he is a huge loss to your country and he is a huge loss to those of us who loved him. And I had a hell of a lot of disagreements with him. It never made one jot or tittle difference to a deep and abiding friendship.  Yn ymddangosol, mae'n gweithio yn ymddangosol, mae'n mynd ymddangosol ac mae'n gwneud ymddangosol ar lŵn mynd i Llebiadau. A dyna'n ar hyn o'n gweithio y Llebiadau yn ymddangosol a'r hyn sydd yn ffordd, ac mae'n gweithio i'r ymddangosol, mae'n gweithio i'r ymddangosol. Yn y brydw i'r hyn sydd unifyddion o Constan â 21 yma yma dda, yw'r tymhwil yn cyfwyr dri, y llyfrionedd a ddechrau. Ond mae'r cyfwyr, y cyfwyr sydd gyda ddweud sydd yn cyfwyr y llyfrionedd a ddweud. Oedd yn gallu bod y ddweud yma o ddweud cyfwyr wedi cyfwyr a ddweud ddweud ar gyfer y mae hynny o rhywbeth. Rhywbeth fyddain yn y clywed, ac yn y bwysig o'u cychwyn ar gyfer hynny nid o'r llyfrionedd, is not just an add-on but it's something that has been striven for in the United Nations from the start. It is worth reminding ourself that while the war was still waging, the big format at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 to plan for a post war world. It's also quite important for the British to remember that it was the U.S. which insisted on a reference to a universal declaration of human rights against British objections and Soviet objections. On 25 April 1945 at San Francisco, the founding conference of the UN started and soon the U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinus made clear that the U.S. expected a Human Rights Commission to be established to promptly undertake to prepare an international bill of rights and the eventual full UN Commission on Human Rights met in January 1947 at Lake Success in New York State with Eleanor Roosevelt in the chair. Now it is because of that deep and underlying thing on human rights it's ensconced in the UN family. The extension of democracy is a welcome development for most of us, Member States of the UN, but we must not forget and that it's recent, you know. I mean when I was in the late 70s, China abstained on practically all discussions in the UN. China is becoming ever more involved in the UN and more active. But here they are with the largest population of any Member State. They don't accept democracy as an essential aspect of human rights, let alone a contributor to progress in the widest economic and cultural sense. And there are a considerable number of other countries in the UN that don't take this. So I don't think we can put democracy at the core of the center of the 21st century UN development. It can be there as part of our aspiration. And it is, I think, very interesting how, certainly almost all my active life in foreign affairs, the prevailing view within the British Foreign Office was that democracy would never come to the Arab States. And indeed the Arabists used to lecture us that there was something special, unique and almost peculiar in a virtuous way about Arab people not wanting democracy. Well that looks pretty different now and I think it was always nonsense. So it's a good moment to look again at this balance between human rights and democracy. I don't think you always have to choose. Of course all politicians always believe it's much better not to have to choose. But I think it is perfectly reasonable given human nature and the difference of circumstances and the Arab Spring is a very good demonstration of this that you pursue human rights and you pursue democracy. And as the situation evolves one or the other seems to strike a great accord with the country and you push that one and sometimes neither strikes a record or you can move on both fronts. At the moment for example I think that it's pretty inevitable that you're going to have to give human rights a much higher priority than we have given hitherto in Iran and I welcome that. Now I know I'm speaking Dublin. Bahrain is a live issue here. I followed it very carefully. I think the delegation which Erine O'Brien took to Bahrain and with politicians, a mixed delegation doctors, politicians, human rights workers was a very, very fine example of you if you like using the friendship that had been developed through the medical training in Dublin and the links into Bahrain. Erine is a friend of mine so I'm not objective. But I know that the report of their findings which occurred in the Lancet early in September is a model of that sort of report. And I think it's extremely important that that pressure on Bahrain comes from a country like Ireland with this unique link located into the whole heart of medicine. And I think it is outrageous some of the things that have been done and it's worth pursuing and persisting in pressure in this particular area. Now, UN Charter I think has withstood the passage of the years surprisingly well. There was a time when it was always in my hip pocket. That was in the Balkans. And I got quite a fond of it actually. And I think it is more flexible than people have thought. It's still in a funny way reflects the realities of the power structures of 1945, not completely by any means, but its capacity to switch from Shanghaishire to Communist China to accept the breakup of the Russian Federation and not to take the opportunity to ditch Russia, which I think owed a lot to Bush senior's diplomacy and very wise and very careful. And one has to go back to Anton Eden's quiet, persistent readiness to have serious rouse with both Roosevelt and with Churchill and his championship of France's continued positioning in international affairs after the war and never given very much credit for it. I believe one of the great achievements of Anton Eden as foreign secretary. Yet the UN cannot be static into the 21st century. We all know it. Reform has to take place. I'm not going to go into all the arguments. We all know them, but it is ridiculous that India, Japan, Brazil, Germany and a African country perhaps are on rotation is not reflected permanently into the UN and now that people have got used to the fact that there will be five countries still with the veto but the others will be permanent members but without the veto. I think we've already reached a stage where it will be almost impossible for Britain to exercise a veto on its own without having at least one other member and that's basically more likely than not to be France. And it is very interesting how despite and I'm a great believer in Anglo-French cooperation and I saw it in the Balkans working extremely well too. In the UN context, French-British cooperation with the exception of the Iraq war but then I think a lot of the fault there in London, not in Paris has been really very good and continues to be. I know some of you in this room because I know some of your positions of old over Europe will believing that there should be a European representation in the UN. Well I hope you won't go on with this absurd nonsense. I mean here we are, we just lived through Libya with Germany unable to support and Poland unable to support us and France and Britain left carrying largely the can over Libya. Don't go on telling us that the moment is ripe for UN representation to be by Catherine Ashton and the Ashton and that. This is absurd and really Europe makes itself absurd when it goes for pretension. Be realistic, maybe it'll happen. Who knows, I don't know the future. What my grandchildren are going to live up to, I don't know but I'm by training as you said kindly a doctor of medicine and medicine is about evolution of human conditions and that applies to politics and we are not allowing our people to catch up with our European pretensions. Just let them catch up and then we'll have some of these other ideas. Now I learnt to look at the future but you can't look at the future without just a very quick look back and I think that last 50 years I think the most dangerous for the world but in a funny way probably the most stable and so we may look forward and see a more stable 50 years than we've... Sorry a more dangerous in some respects less stable 50 years there was an element of stability in the Cold War but extreme danger and people do forget this and a lot of pretentious nonsense is talked about. I mean our cities were targeted there was minutes when we now learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis there was a missile with a nuclear warhead 15 miles outside the Guantanamo Bay that on one Friday night was capable of firing on an invasion from the United States without reference back to the Kremlin we don't get very much closer to World War than that so we have lived through very dangerous times but still we have a structured international world and I think we can learn a great deal from that world and now look forward I think the crucial moment was 1990 and the invasion of Kuwait and for a moment George Bush Sr bestrowed the world having assembled that multilateral coalition and it looked extremely promising and we talked a lot of us not only idealists about a new world order and having assembled a force which included Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia it did seem possible to believe in almost anything and there used to be a learned article suddenly produced about the reinstatement of the military staff committee the first casualty of the Cold War on the UN Charter something I'd love to see but anyhow that was a dream that lasted about 18 months nevertheless it is worth analysing I'm not going to do it at great depth but that 1991 period I'm not one of those who think it was a mistake not to go into Baghdad that was a decision taken after a good deal of thought and care both in London and in Washington and they made the correct judgement that if they did that it was outside the mandate which was conensgy with Kuwait it would have caused great feeling in the multilateral and almost certainly the other countries would have drawn they might have been successful who knows certainly they were in a position to be successful but I draw another conclusion from that I think where it all went wrong was on the ceasefire and I think we need to look very carefully at ceasefires again you may remember that ceasefire was imposed without a lot of forethought it was a hugely emotional moment the Iraqi forces were on the road back from Kuwait and it was called a turkey shoot and the pictures on television were horrendous really with no power at all US and Allied forces were coming in shooting out these convoys of escaping Iraqi forces my mother rang me up and told me that David you've got to do something about this I said well she was 88, 89 at the time I said I have an open power about this anyhow five minutes later Colin Powell announced there was a ceasefire and my mother rang up and said thank you very much indeed I lived off that until she died in 1992 but it was a horrendous moment but if you think of it it all comes back that you can't look at the 2003 war without realising that we failed to implement the ceasefires that were agreed the ceasefires were not brought through because the ceasefires were not through we had to go in with operation comfort and stop the Kurds being taken out I still think one of the best of the post war interventions owed a lot to both John Major as Prime Minister and President Mitron Bush Senior was very reluctant to do anything to delay bringing the troops back before the election which he looked almost certain to win but there we are and I think it's worth giving some thought to this I think unconditional surrender which got a bad name after 1945 is nevertheless at the end of a just war sometimes a necessary requirement and dealing with a person like Saddam Hussein I think it was probably a necessary requirement or if not unconditional surrender a very clearly agreed ceasefire demands and provisions should have been built in right from day one into the Kuwait operation it wasn't, we paid a huge price for it but if anybody thought and I who wrote a passionate letter which was front page on the evening standard to John Major to use a no fly zone in 1991 if you told me that that would have still been operating in 2003 I had said you're joking and I think there is far far too much glib talk about how Saddam Hussein was contained in my view he was not contained quite part of anything else he did actually develop weapons of mass destruction and that was proven by the inspectors in that earlier period now I'm not here to justify my support for the Iraq war which was clearly wrong anyhow so I think you make a judgement about going to war and you have to decide will you do more harm than good and you try and assess also the good that you do far far too much damage was done to civilians in Iraq for anybody to be able to stand up and say this is a just war or that it was justified and it was as we now know absolutely appallingly conducted predominantly from the president's office in number 10 Downing Street and in Washington and we must learn lessons and never allow this to happen again as far as the UK is concerned we had the complete absence of cabinet government virtually from 1997 until the coalition took place in Britain in 2011 it improved a bit under Gordon Brown but not a lot and we now have the restoration of cabinet government and long may it continue but there were many many things which are beginning to come out and hopefully will come out even more with the Iraq inquiry but already in virtue of the evidence about how not to conduct a war and it is interesting that those lessons seem to be learnt perhaps more in America than elsewhere I'm not going to touch on the involvement in Bosnia we can discuss this in letters and things like that but having established no fly zones effectiveness in 1991 I was passionately believer that we had to use air power to tilt the balance of war against the Serbs and within the limits of being told before I was appointed although I had advocated it before I was appointed by both John Major and President Metron that they would not consider it unless the United States were involved and since it became perfectly clear that the United States were not going to be involved there were limits to how much I could argue that case but I do think Libya and while I deal with Libya soon now is another demonstration that you can tilt the balance of forces of those who are fighting on the ground by an intervention from the air from other states without putting your forces in on the ground as an occupying force that is the lesson the lesson certainly of Libya and in part the lesson of operation comfort and protection of the Kurds but we were on the ground in the region at the time so it's got to be a bit careful about that we weren't by any standards an occupying force but I think that there are very serious lessons for Bosnia over this in 1991 as part of the belief that the world was changing and this butroscal was given a good deal of freedom by the security council to be a very activist secretary of state secretary general not quite a Hamershire type quite considerable there are a huge number of interventions at the time not just in Bosnia but they all went wrong when I think butros which given what happened to him and the Americans turned against him actually allowed the Americans far too great for control of the operation in Somalia I mean it was the ranger being towed behind this truck through the streets of Mogadishu that had a lasting effect on American public opinion meant that Clinton completely changed his commitment really internationally and it undoubtedly laid the seeds of Rwanda and it certainly laid the seeds for the failure for the US to engage in the Balkans until after the Severinica genocide so it's a hell of an expensive proposition and we need to look back at Somalia and actually my criticism of Butros and Ines is that he was too... he allowed the Americans to run the operation under UN flag but as soon as it went wrong it was the UN that had done the harm of course that is the role of the UN quite frequently to go when other nation states fear to go and then when things go wrong take the Bacchus the heads of state pour the shit on them but then that's life it's a very useful organization to have around and you must accept that and these international negotiations are disposable now let's deal with Kosovo which is a very interesting intervention first of all this undoubtedly stretched the UN charter the elastic of the UN charter I used to say to breaking point but my friend Robert Skedersky argued we actually broke it I think we were right to do it anyhow but we were in an unusual situation a very unstable situation with one of the permanent members Yltsin in effect said do it but don't come to the United Nations if you come to the United Nations I will be bound to veto it so just get on with it and I won't stop you I won't interfere that was broadly at the deal and Bill Clinton had great skills and one of his was that his stepfather was an alcoholic and when the history comes to be said of how he handled Yltsin it is an extraordinary good example helped I believe by strobe Talbot immensely anyhow with that reality I think the action we took was what we wanted now it has to be so the president of the United States was told by military and diplomatic people that a couple of two days two or three at the most and the service would fold well 85 days later the bombing was still going on and I wanted to develop this just a little bit because there is such a huge misunderstanding what happened in Kosovo a US Air Force review showed that only 14 Serb tanks were destroyed not 120 as initially reported 18 Serb armoured personnel carriers were destroyed not 220 and 20 mobile artillery eliminated not 450 the Serbs constructed fake artillery from logs and old truck axels and surfaced to our missiles made of paper and it is still in western capital after western capital and in universities studying foreign affairs up and down the world I keep getting shunted back at me this brilliant NATO military operation that brought the end of Milosevic now I was in favour of using force it was certainly a factor but this did not bring an end to the war the Serb military believed that they had held on in Kosovo and they were not defeated Milosevic lost power ultimately because he eventually was forced to order the Serbs out of Kosovo with extreme reluctance and that was why General Jackson very wisely did not follow the sackers' demands to go into Pristina airport because if he had done he would have broken the transition agreements and the Serbs would probably not have got out it would have been utterly chaotic arrangement but what is important to remember is that the famous meeting with Chernau Merdyn and Artishari at which Milosevic agreed to the terms was preceded by Chernau Merdyn to Belgrade now nobody knows what happened but remember these were the days when Soviet leaders didn't boast about Gazprom and they always said that Gazprom acted commercially which of course is nonsense and that Gazprom would not interfere with pipelines or do anything of this sort my own belief and nobody I've never yet spoken to anybody even stroked all but it doesn't come if he knows it doesn't come absolutely straight out with it and I believe that something was said by Chernau Merdyn to Milosevic it gave him no other option and I think Chernau Merdyn reminded him that he had been the chairman of Gazprom and he knew where the taps were on the pipelines and there would be no more gas if he didn't agree to this but extreme pressure was put on by Russia and that was if you like a payback for all that Clinton had done to help because Clinton did not want to put troops on the ground but Tony Blair to this day and you're going to go to read his autobiography and any other thing believes that it was all the threat to go in on force that made the difference all of these things are cumulative but this was predominantly I would say a diplomatic success ending this long and rather tortured battle now it's important to remember that because we must not exaggerate and we are certainly not post Libya exaggerate the use of air power and we were in many ways lucky in Libya now let me come to Libya I'm proud of the fact that for a few weeks I seem to be the only person arguing for a no-fly zone you may not have noticed me doing it because one of the reasons is the only place where I used to put myself forward to speak was Al Jazeera and I didn't bother about the BBC if the BBC wanted to do something I was fine but my hope was that we had to make people understand what a no-fly zone could do in the Arab world and it was not until they really did begin to understand and the French did a lot of education of what was the potential for it that we stood a chance of getting a resolution through the Security Council the first lesson then on constrained intervention is it has to be a future in the UN context unilateral action like in Iraq in 2003 and Iraq and Kosovo before I just don't think we'll be done whether it should or shouldn't we can leave that argument aside just don't think politicians will do it after those failures you have to well Iraq has definitely failed Kosovo is not a failure but there are lessons from Kosovo so we have to be very careful the Arab League's championing of this was crucially important and swung or put the Russians into a situation where they could really they had to choose and it was difficult to go against the Arab League I think there was also some very successful diplomacy by France and by Britain I think it's done a lot to restore confidence in the Foreign Office which was a hugely low ep that they took this resolution ran with it and did the necessary lobbying and we did get the right votes and it's extraordinary no country voted against abstain, abstentions but of course no veto now I look on that as again part of the constrained pattern of intervention it will be very rare if not never that interventions will take place in the opposition of the powers surrounding the area you're going to intervene I also think it will be pretty necessary to rule out occupying forces I don't say again it won't be possible to do it but it will be quite some time before you could ever get UN support for the sort of military operation that was conducted by President Bush in the spring of 1991 and that might mean standing by and doing nothing when only a occupying force could do what you wanted so again it's going to be constrained the sort of interventions were likely to be able to do over the next say decade and they're going to be constrained and I think that there are some other lessons to learn too from Libya that after Sebranica and after Rwanda let alone what Pol Pot did conveniently forgotten in Europe but by far the biggest post-war genocide it is right in my view in view of the genocide convention and in view of the horror that even to that day and the embarrassment and quite rightly embarrassment you should be rung round the necks of the French, British and American politicians I mean Sebranica was an avoidable accident and let it be put perfectly clear on record that that so-called action plan produced by the Americans and supported by the French and the British and the Spanish and the Russians was a disgraceful piece of UNry which was done in total defiance of all the professional advice of all the UN soldiers they said if you want five safe havens you've got to produce 33,000 troops and after a year they didn't produce 6,000 let alone quality troops so I think and to his credit David Cameron's come close pretty close to admitting that he just simply was not prepared to have a Sebranica on his watch and that was what was definitely going to happen in Benghazi you didn't have to do much more than just watch the news and listen to Gaddafi's sons to realise that this was going to be a rendence bloodbath and it then comes to the question is it right that that sort of thing should drive foreign policy? I think it's inevitable and I think it's right and I think there has to be a moral dimension ethical dimension which you like and I think that was one of the vital things and we were just in time and in fact if the French hadn't moved that afternoon early evening I think we could have found that Gaddafi forces could have got entrenched in the outskirts of Benghazi and it would have been hells difficult to get out so we were literally just in time in our intervention in Libya now what's most important human rights democracy there's nothing in the resolution I may say inevitably insisting that Libya post military activity has to be a democracy I hope profoundly it is but there's quite a lot about it needing to respect human rights we aren't out of the danger zone there are a lot of tensions in that country we haven't resolved some of the surrounding questions I mean we tried to intervene to prevent a genocide in Darfur in 2008 we did against the advice of the African Union use the international criminal court Bashir is the first operating head of state Milosevic was only tried after he lost the presidency in Serbia we did use the international criminal court in those resolutions over Libya quite a few people think unduly early certainly the African Union and some in the Arab League as well it looks as if we're going to get away with it and how Gaddafi will disappear but we're not sure the old old argument that has always bedevilled all these peace negotiations to what do we give the highest priority absolute justice or reconciliation but I've never made any secret in my view reconciliation comes before absolute justice when settling peace and war issues and I think we've got to be very careful how we use these references the international criminal court it is still building up its reputation it's important it succeeds but we must not put too much on to it and we must be very careful that the steps we take have the support of the countries surrounding it and that reference the international criminal court was a very dubious reference in my view it was premature in terms certainly of the African Union it strained the the Arab states and we should be careful about using this then on other things about Gaddafi well I have a history of course of this one of the reasons of course I wanted to get rid of Salim Assein was I was out of London I received an emergency message in 78 that a former Iraqi prime minister being gunned down on the streets of London I got back to the office and the Gaddafi muddling them up they were not any president of Iraq I didn't know much about him on my desk was a firstly pretty concrete evidence already that this chap Salim Assein was responsible for this gunning down and then a list of his attributes which were all short and the list of his criminal record was extremely long and from that moment on I don't openly admit I've had him in my sights and I've had Gaddafi in my sights for quite a long time 78 79 we were a haley we couldn't prove it we were a haley suspicious of his links into the IRA and he was support for terrorism around the world and I think the man is been a hugely destabilising influence now was it wrong for Bush and Blair and Clinton and Bush because it went in the Clinton period as well to try and persuade Gaddafi to give up nuclear weapons when we realise he's got a link with the Pakistani commercial peddler of nuclear weapons I think it was right to do that not easy to do I think Tony Blair made a great mistake of going there himself it's what a job you send your foreign secretary to go with this whole idea of this personal diplomacy ahead of government there are things that heads of government don't do and one of them is not kiss Gaddafi and I think that there are some serious errors of diplomacy were made during this period which are still repercussing but nevertheless I think it was right to make this attempt but Britain allowed its trading interest and its financial interests in Libya to run its foreign policy for the next four or five years with very serious and disadvantageous results but nevertheless once it was clear from us and Gaddafi's sons and others that we faced a challenge the British responded chiefs of staff somewhat unwillingly the politicians in my view and the coalition government admirably and Cameron with great clarity and Sarkozy I think can give if you have to award things certainly high up in making a decision to stake the reputation of his presidency which is a loeb on this very risky venture and I think Obama judged it absolutely right crucial to have those 200 cruise missiles coming in taking out the ground to air missiles absolutely saved all the lives we lost nobody could not have been done easily upon the air could have probably been done but not easily and I think he was right to start to make it clear that there are going to be interventions around the world which the United States are not going to automatically lead and that regional powers must be expected to take the largest hope I think it was a very good example of the strength and the value of NATO the fact that this was an operation which was fundamentally done by three countries another four European countries did play an important role but it was basically done by three two European and one American country but it used the infrastructure of the command and control procedures of NATO built up over many long painstaking years which helped us in Kosovo which helped us in Afghanistan which helped us hugely in Libya so even though it was an operation that did not command the support of all NATO members Turkey obviously an important absent Germany, Poland, two very important countries absent though it split the European Union as most foreign policy issues seem to be doing now for the last 20 years nevertheless Europe rallied afterwards as Europe rallied over the 2003 invasion over Iraq and we are and will be I think a major financial supporter in the rebuilding of Libya Italy I think played given its colonial role and its extreme vulnerability if something went wrong in Libya played us quite a strong hand actually and I think we should pay tribute to that and the making available there airfields was a good example of solidarity overall I think Libya is a very interesting development therefore for the future in terms of UN in terms of NATO regional activity and for the EU I suppose there are plusses and minuses but there are certainly lessons to be learnt


Alright, so here we are at the front of one of my favorite supermarkets in the UK, Sainsbury's. I'm going to show you how to eat vegan here. Alright, so obviously this is the fruits and vegetables section, and we know pretty well know that everything here is vegan. Berries, strawberries, apples. Let's go down here. Bananas, grapes, greens. If you don't know fruits and vegetables are vegan, I don't know what to tell you. You should know that. So like over here is the life where we just were, and just a few steps over here. This was hacked off of an animal that was gas chambered and stabbed in the neck. This is a whole bird. It's been hung up by their legs and electrocuted and slashed across the throat. This is a piece of an individual. The blood's still here. You know, people are completely disconnected from the animal here. Look, it's just a picture of some beef on a plate. A turkey. Turkeys are beautiful animals. This one here has been dismembered and hacked up into pieces. Same with salmon. This fish dragged out the ocean, suffocated, stabbed in the throat, hacked up into pieces, and RSPCA approved murder. This one actually has a picture of a pig on there. Taste the difference. British bacon. RSPCA assured. What are you assuring me of? That this is a murdered animal that wanted to live? Not assuring me of much. Sick. Okay, so I'm going to show you where the non-death section is. The vegan section. Let's go. Oh, they got all these as well. What's this? This has got cow's milk, so that's no good. But look at this. Love your veg lentil cottage pie vegan? Sweet potato katsu curry with sticky rice. That looks amazing. Good work, Sainsbury's. Check it out. Ooh. Fit kitchen. No thanks. We don't want a murdered bird with our food. All right, here we go. This is where it's out here right now. So you come to Sainsbury's, you find the vegan section. Nearly every supermarket has one now. These are like veggie burgers. I don't really do the veggie burgers. If you want a veggie burger, have a veggie burger. I'm not really keen on the veggie burgers, but these. Sainsbury's cumberland sausages. Absolutely amazing. They're mushroom. They're made of mushrooms. So pretty good. Pretty good. There's a bunch of other stuff, but I love the good old stock standard tofu myself. I love this type here. This tofu here. I love this one. I really, really enjoy it. You can flavour it with anything seasoning it up, crisp it up. Don't just eat raw tofu like I do. Make it taste good. Tofurky sausages. Here's one here. £2.50 for these. Pretty good price. The meatless farm. And look at these. You can always find specials. Look. Look, two quid for vegetarian meatballs. Two quid. What's this? Smoked hot dogs. Two quid. What are these? Vegetarian sausages. Two quid. Suitable for vegans. Boom. And instead of eating a hacked-off leg of an animal here, try some of the... this vivare bacon's really good. Or some of this corn vegan bacon. Be careful of corn. It's not always vegan. But you know, there's no reason to use gas chambers to murder baby pigs. How sick? Here's one for the meatless farm. Looking good. Bit of mince. Vivare also do steaks. They're really good as a burger. I've had these. I like them. Corn... you know, corn need to step their game up and stop putting eggs and milk in their products. It's ridiculous. Why? What's the point in that? Make your products vegan corn, and I'll promote the living hell out of them. But they do have some good vegan products, which is good. Alright. Let's keep going. Alright, so here we go. This is where the exploited mother's breast milk is kept. They're all murdered. Semi-skimmed.  They don't show the suffering of the slaughterhouse or the children being taken away from the mother. See, what's this? Fresher for longer. Fresher for longer. What do you mean, fresher for longer? See, are they in marketing? Milk is naturally packed full of goodness. You know, what about the exploitation, the murder and the blood in the past, so you don't put that on there? Organic. That must mean there's no... Organic must mean it's ethical. No, it doesn't. Organic cows are slaughtered. Organic cows have their children taken. Organic cows are raped. Organic just means there's no pesticide. There you go. Free range. Look at that green pasture. Oh, that must be ethical. Definitely feel good. Oh, look at Graham. Oh, there's a happy cow. Look how happy this cow is. Oh, thanks, Graham. Look, these, you know, where's her baby? Where's her baby? Has she gone to the slaughterhouse too? Absolute propaganda nonsense. And look at this. Look how they... Look how they market these products to children. They don't show the children the slaughterhouse or the children being taken away and bulked under the skull if they're born a male. Look at that. Disgusting... Disgusting cartoon. Marketing dairy to children. This is where it's at here. This is where it's at. We've got oat milk, soya milk, chocolate soya milk, more chocolate soya. Look at this, our pro. What's this? Soya hails and almond milk, what's your milk? Choose one. Which one do you like? Here's coconut milk. One step away.   Huge. Just one step away. Look. What's this soya drink? £1.15. £1.15 for this soya milk. You know what I mean? And what's this? This is 1.10. You know, it's competitive in price. It doesn't cost an animal a life of suffering and slavery and murdering little baby infants. Anyways, let's go find some other dairy products. Here we go, like... This is where the... Look at that. Big hunkered, coagulated cows' milk. They put all these, like, 1% natural Greek style. Like, Greek style, it must be better. It must be better, like, it's all marketing. All comes from the same place, exploitation and murder. But if you come over here... Look, so this is all the dairy exploitation stuff. If you just walk one step over here... What? Oh, look, I'm over here. Look, I'm over here. These are actually so affordable. These are £1.75. They've got fruit ones. They've even got ones for the kids here. Do you want to give them that for school? This here is disgraceful. I think this is full dairy. Peppa Pig. If that ain't marketing to children, I don't know what is, but... And these ones here... These are Greek-style ones. High protein. They're delicious. We have them every day, nearly. Love Alpro. Alpro's actually owned by a dairy company, but they've... They're dipping into the plant-based market, and they're realising that, you know, they can make money from plant foods because dairy's got to become obsolete, and we should support it. Now, if you want to make vegan meals, they're easy as. What do you want? Italian, Mexican, Asian. Let's do it. Come down here. Look. Italian. Bolognese. To make a bolognese, get a can of lentils, a pot of this, bit of onions, bit of seasoning. Cook some pasta. Put this in a pan with some lentils. Boom. You've got a bolognese. Get some vegan cheese to put on top. We'll go show you the vegan cheese in a minute. Look, there's no milk. Usually milk is highlighted. This here is sweet and sour. You can make sweet and sour tofu. You can cook up some rice. A lot of them are labelled as vegan. This has fish powder, so no. Poppedoms. I've got a V. I think these are fine. Poppedoms are usually okay. Here we go. Pataks. These are vegan in Australia. Yeah, they're vegan here, too. All it takes is five seconds to look at the back of something. You can make a curry with one of these. Boom. Curry and rice. Done. Pataks. Sweet chili. You can make Asian food. Coconut milk for your curry. Here. This is where we go. Burritos. Boom. Tortillas. Salsa. Beans. Avocado. Vegetables. Wrap it up in a burrito. Hella easy. A lot of these fajita cakes, if you just look on the back. Milk should pop out. Okay. There's a few things that are questionable. You might want to give them a buzz. But if you do a quick Google search, a lot of these El Do Paso kits are vegan. Quick and easy. Otherwise, tortillas. You just grab them. Tacos. Tacos are vegan. Boom. You can get some of that mince that we've seen in the vegan meat section. And you grab some of that. Boom. This is where it's at. The free-from range at Sainsbury's. Pretty good. Pretty good vegan stuff here. This is a vegan lasagna. So if you don't like cooking, boom. Right there. Not all free-from stuff is vegan. So just keep that in mind. This here, cheddar-style cheese. Amazing. But here. Alpro. You can always count on Alpro. Bang. Hey, look at this. I've never seen that before. Check that out. Smoking vegan. Boom. The Violife. They're bringing out a mature cheddar soon too. Violife. Pretty good cheese. Like, what do you think of this cheese? What do you think of Violife? It's pretty good. There's this one as well. Daya. And we've got this. Daya mozzarella. Really easy to find. Just have a little look around. It's a tiki. They also do cream cheese as well. There's your cheese done. Boom. If you don't like one, try another one. They're not all the same. Some of them don't taste very good. I like some. I don't like others. Have a little, have a little try. All right. Let's keep going. Beans leg. Here. Lentils. Beans. Really good source of protein and fiber if you're on the health kick. You know, if you don't like all that mock meat, I understand. Try to eat healthier. Fine. Over here. Oh my God. No, it's got eggs. Sometimes you're lucky and they don't put eggs in there, but they put eggs in that one. Here, chocolate. Pretty sure. Look at this one here. If you want to die of happiness, get this. But it's super expensive, but it's totally worth it. This is a normal stock standard chalk bar. What's this? Dairy, free from dairy, egg, gluten and nuts. That sounds vegan to me. Suitable for vegans. Just chocolate. So if you go in the free from section, we've got dairy free chocolate in that. Epic. And here's your little bars, naked bars, vegan, track bars, they're vegan friendly. Our pro's kicking goals again. Our pro's our friend. Mental chips. Haha. Our pro. Love our pro. If you just have a little quick look around, you know you can find heaps of stuff in the supermarket. I guarantee your supermarket's not much different from this. You know, you might be in a really tough situation with a really crappy supermarket, but you can always get oatmeal, fruit, soya milk, some maple syrup, rice, pasta, legumes. Where are you living? Are you living in Alaska, in the mountains of the snowy mountains and you can't get some lentils and pasta and rice and potatoes and beans? Where are you living? Super easy to be vegan in most places on Earth. That's the chip section. Don't even know if we want to go down there. Do we? Not really. I don't really go down there. Oh, except if you ever get any of this, we love the love corn. This stuff here, even though it's fried in oil. Good for a little treat. These are vegan too. Look, like, I can't actually eat too much granola because it's so tasty, but when it comes to buying cereal, just check for honey. We don't want to exploit bees. So these Jordan ones are pretty good. Jordan, Chris, and in here. These are vegan. I've only just seen these. They look pretty good. Amazing. But it takes five seconds. Let's grab this one. Look at this. It's got yogurt. We can't have that one. It took me five seconds to realize that. Let's have a look over here on the back of this. Sugar, rice flour, emulsifier wheat flakes, maple syrup flavoring. Look, they're made out of plants. So just took me one second to realize that as well. Healthy stuff. I eat lots of oats. I eat so much oatmeal. It's crazy. But if you want to be naughty, these are vegan friendly. All right. If you don't go to the freezer section at your local supermarket, I don't know what to tell you. You're missing out on everything. Come down here. Most breads vegan just check for milk and eggs, but pizza. As you can see here, this is made from the exploited milk from murdered mothers. So this isn't good. Exploiting dairy cows for ice cream isn't worth it. But over here, let's have a look here. What have we got? Oh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. They tried to trick us. There you go. Dairy-free halo top. Any 320 callows per tub? Magnums. Okay. Now, I don't know if in your country all of these are out yet, but we've got canettos here. Vegan. This plant-based. No problems there. Oh my God. Swedish glass. If you haven't tried these, try it. And you've got someone. You've got a bit of cake here. Look. Vegan cheesecake. Make it rain. And of course, like, if you're in the UK, our pro will always look out for you. There we go. Even Ben and Jerry's. Look, Ben and Jerry's. What's this? This is the best ice cream I've ever had in my entire life. Peanut butter and cookies done dairy from Ben and Jerry's. I've got other flavors there too, but if you want the best ice cream you've ever had in your entire life, this is the one. Frozen berries. Amazing, convenient and delicious. Look what they do to the chicken. I've got a, like, object. Nothing. Inanimate. Scrunched up little fried bit of nothing. Just, look at that. That was an animal. Good fellas actually do a vegan one, I reckon. Uh-huh. Here it is. Falafel pizza. This is pretty good actually. I've tried this one. It's good. Okay. There you go. Let's go in for another little walk. I think we're pretty much done here. So there you have it. It's very easy to avoid animal exploitation in the supermarket. Just take two steps down to the next section. You can get your dairy-free stuff.  The corpse section, stay away from that.  That should be your base. Add a few vegan treats here and there. Sort your milk out. Get your cereal sorted. Boom. Very, very easy. Most supermarkets are like this one, but I think we'll go visit a few more and show you how to do vegan in other supermarkets. Let me know down below if you like this video. We'll see you in the next one. Love the love corn. Oh, f**k. F**k it. Even this stuff here, even though it's fried in oil. Good for a little treat.


Good Thursday morning everybody I'm Tommy O'Brien coming to you live from TFNN 10 a.m. Eastern time Thursday morning with 30 minutes into the trading day and we got a risk on environment folks stocks higher across the board we got the S&P's up more than 1% right now trading at 45 70 Nasdaq 100 surging higher you're up more than 1.5% right now trading at 15,273 the Dow accelerating you're up nine tenths percent in the green up 318 points in the Russell up 9 tenths percent as well at 2077 Bitcoin look at that surge Bitcoin trading with the market higher this morning back above 43,000 at 43,080 crude holding up relatively well right near 86 bucks we're trading flat and crude at 85 70 gold catching a bid yet again we're up a few dollars at 1846 and we jumped to notes and bonds a little bit of a reprieve of the usual action lately we got higher price and lower yield we got 10 year yield approaching 1.83% and we jump over to the volatility index as expected as the market war is higher Vick still somewhat elevated at 2227 but you see the pullback as this market pushes to higher price on the open we jump over to the economic news in the morning US jobless claims trading to a three month high trading moving to a three month high 286,000 for the weekend in January 15th jumping by 55,000 those are adjusted when you talk about underjusted for seasonal variations jobless claims actually declined so adjustments having a lot to do with what's going on in the weekly jobless claims number that number not really too important for the market right now though as this thing just takes off in a big way we got rising prices across the board right now and we'll jump to some of the equities that are moving we got some earnings this morning you got American out with their numbers they're down 3.1% right now no not Delta United excuse me I'm not no not Delta United excuse me American and United out overnight United down about 1.3% and after the bell we get the first big tech company coming out we got Netflix after the bell check out the action to on the open on Netflix we put it on a one minute bar you've seen the market accelerate higher in the last 15 to 20 minutes folks you saw Netflix just trade from 526 back to 518 you're talking about a 36 dollar move priced into their earnings event tonight after the closing bell Netflix quite a pullback recently from 700 bucks to 518 they come out with their earnings after the bell tonight thanks so much for starting your day with me folks stay tuned Basil did his show live at eight in the morning that's coming up right now we got a fast market live at noon we have our man Steve Rhodes at one o'clock we got our man Dave White at two o'clock and we got my dad Tom O'Brien live from three till four this afternoon


My name is Anna. I work for myself. I've been working for myself for most of my life. I have my own little web company. I do everything, so I site-build Drupal websites for people, so I do everything. Because I love Drupal! It's an awesome event.  And all this possibility happens. And I keep meeting a few of the same people, a few new people and there's always something that will trigger something else. That's amazing. See, the thing with Drupal Camp London is that because I'm in the UK, I keep coming back to this one. So this one is special because it feels like I keep seeing the same people and they're kind of a bit more my community because they are local-ish to me, whereas the other camps are a bit more sporadic for me. In terms of size, how does it compare with other camps that you see? It's bigger. It's bigger? Yeah.  Oh no, I said that! Is it a bit bigger? Yes. Haha.