I started by asking James about how current difficulties with youth employment compared with past financial crises.

I would chalk it up as one of the toughest periods in my 30-year time as chief executive.

Um, I'd chalk it up as tough like the financial crisis of 2008 and tough like the early days of the pandemic in 2020.

The difference here, though, that worries me particularly is both in 2008 and 2020 there was a sense in the country and in the world more widely that we need to sort this out and do something about it.

I don't see that at the moment.

We're sort of like rabbits, in a way, looking into the headlights of these changes, not sure what to do.

And my, my sort of mantra on this is that I believe we should back humans and tax robots, but that's, that, that's gonna take some designing, Sean, and it's gonna take some careful thought.

Mm.

They're not taxing robots in the US, though, are they?

No.

No, they're getting behind them because they're manufacturing them.

[laughs] Sort of, you know, that's the, uh...

It's their, it's their great export.

And it's interesting, you know, running a business, you know, we, we embrace technology, and a lot of the technology we buy as a business is, is from the US, you know, from very well-established US firms, and it's very potent, strong, useful technology.

But we have become dependent on it.

Uh, do you think there needs to be some, uh, you know, hard truths spoken about whether it's by British businesses, by the next prime minister to the nation about what the consequences of the AI revolution is, is going to be?

Yeah.

Governments find it difficult to get things...

That's almost everyone in the room.

Um, my second hypothesis is, do you think too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few people in the world at the moment? If you agree, raise your hands.

Not as popular as the first one.

[audience laughing] But, um, I would say edging towards a majority.

And then my last question, just because it's interesting to me because of, of the story that follows in the book is, have ever-- any of you ever sat and listened to a mountaineer tell you a tale, perhaps with pictures and slides, about how they cr- climbed a great peak and summited against the odds? Put your hand up if you've heard.

[laughing]

both of which you could have died on.

So a lot of normal, you know, right-thinking people think, what the hell were you doing carrying on? Which is what we did.

I, I sort of bullheadedly wanted to get to the top of the Matterhorn, um, so we carried on.

And then we didn't get to the top 'cause the weather got worse and worse.

There was icy winds, and we could see the top, but we decided to head back.

And it was later after, the next morning on the way down, we were abseiling, or I was abseiling, and I was at the end of a long rope, went off at an angle to join Stefan, slipped, and then I found myself at the end of what's called a pendulum fall.

So if you put 100 kilos at the end of a long rope and swing it, it swings from side...

And Reed, it's what, 18% at the moment?