Lord Alan Sugar | Full Q&A at The Oxford Union

foreign [Music] so before coming in earlier on um we had a little chat and I asked um a couple years ago I applied for Young Apprentice why didn't I get picked you I looked at your CV and it was just not good enough no I don't know what I might get picked I'm not sure I mean so many people applied for it thousands and thousands and thousands of people applied for it I don't know it didn't it didn't call you for any of the auditions I got to the third run the one before the final one oh really quite make it well you could try again maybe as a junior you still look you still look quite Young true I'm talking about The Apprentice we just highlighted how lots of people apply for it why do you think so many people are are driving on to want to show and their business Acumen why this um TV TV show so popular from your perspective well the thing is first of all there's a I think a lot of people ignore the fact that the original um format was that they would get a job working for me as a six-figure sum that frankly never worked out too well because if you can imagine that the winner who deservedly won uh had to come and work in one of my companies where people were earning far less than that and so you can imagine they weren't very welcome when they turned up um and so I changed the format to um the winner is going to end up in a business with me 50 50 business right and they get and I inject 250 000 pounds from day one uh and um they get on running the business and I help I Mentor them along on my team help some mentors them along also so they've been it's been very successful since we uh started that I think that that started from around about series seven and we're now on series um 17 or 18. I can't remember minus the junior Apprentice Center that you didn't get in I don't I don't want to rub it in but the one the ones that you never got into yeah that's okay I I I hope I get away you've got over it right uh so obviously you partnered up with a lot of business people through the show uh it might be difficult to choose your favorite one but which Journey um were the businessman that has come out The Apprentice do you find the most inspiring or do you do you remember the most fondly sorry I'm not understanding the questions so from the show there's been many businessmen who've um and women who've partnered with you and we're wondering what story or Which business you'd like remember the most iconic little one which you feel like the journey was quite inspiring to you well I think when I change the format from a job to a Business Partnership the first winner of a Business Partnership was Tom pellero uh who's kind of like I suppose the only way you can describe him is a bit of a Nutty Professor really um and watching him actually become a businessman has been a tremendous Journey because he's really a kind of a an inventor so to speak um and um some of his inventions weren't that good I've got to tell you but um the uh he he's now turned into a businessman he understands profits and loss and things like that so he's kind of like I suppose the transition of 50 50 partnership he was the the baby of of that of of that of that invention if you like so he kind of he's done very well he's done very very well wow that's amazing in the audience today are probably some people who have aspirations to go into business and are thinking of what qualities make a good business partner and obviously for different partners different ingredients make them work together if you were to match together the hypothetical traits of the best business partner partner what well you know that is a question which has been asked for me 20 000 times and I can tell you one thing you cannot go into boots and buy a bottle of entrepreneur juice right neither can you go into wh Smith and buy a book that tells you how I'm going to be an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is in built in their in in their in their DNA if you like now the next analogy I will give you is if you locked me in a room for two years with a piano teacher uh I guess after a couple of years I might be able to render a version of roll out the barrel would I ever be a concert pianist never in a million years and it goes the same for certain people there are people in this audience today that are going to be doctors scientists accountants and lawyers God forbid and uh they they just don't have the Acumen for business so you have have to have it and it has to be in you and you can bring it out of people that's amazing um one last question connected to The Apprentice uh when you started the show you had an Envision a vision in mind of where you wanted it to go what future do you think there is for the apprentice and I do think you're meeting the vision you're set out in the beginning uh well I had no vision for it I mean the original Apprentice was formed in um America where Donald Trump was the the equivalent of what I do or I was the equivalent of what he what he did he he was useless to be honest with you and completely useless um and they BBC bought the format and they wanted to find a businessman to replicate what occurred in America um and they came along and asked me and I thought it's rather exciting and I took it on in 2003 or 2004 I can't remember exactly when it was with no vision that it would go on for 18 years but it has just gone on and on and on you know and uh I'll carry on doing it uh you know until um you know I I feel that I've had enough that's amazing and in terms of you as a profile you're someone who is as you highlighted has gone involved in many things from running your own company to working and in in in media and also being a member of the heart of Lords you're worth over a billion um pounds yeah at this present time it's kind of obvious that you probably don't need to work for money what motivates you to have the energy to get involved in all the things that you well who told you it's not a motivation to work for money because that is it you know that is it it is always making a profit is is built in me yeah and that will never go away a deal I'm always I'm a deal maker you know we're going to open it up to the floor yet absolutely I'm not going to hog all the questions we spoke about this before you said 15 minutes of q a then go into the questions um before I open up to the floor do you want to remind um the audience members that low sugar would like you to get straight to the point make your questions as brief as possible and uh yeah I like to look to the floor for the first speaker superb I recognize maybe you're closer that person with a picture thank you Lord for coming to the union um for the fifth time my question generally deals with the inequality between the society we live in over the covet year you saw that the wealthy people accumulated massive amount of wealth uh with a lot of power in there do you think what responsibility do billionaires like you have to the society live you live in in terms of contributing well I'm not following your question who who amassed a lot of wealth sorry uh it's a general question about the obligation and what's it got to do with covid sorry are you suggesting that when kovid came some people capitalized on it uh in favor of ordinary people or what no I'm not suggesting that they capitalize clarify your questions so the question in their regard is basically that in covid-19 a lot of big corporations because as a result of covid-19 did make a lot of money data suggests that in the last 24 months alone of covid-19 some billionaires made more money that they would not have made in 23 years alone uh in in the period whenever you get your statistics from I'm sorry because I didn't make any more money during covid-19 I can assure you I mean maybe some drug companies or someone like that made some extra money but I don't know I can't imagine who else uh I mean most of the High Street was shut down businesses were shut down um you know and it's had a terrible effect on business in general um so I'm not quite sure where you're getting your information from but those anyway how about someone else now thank you very much I live for another speaker uh alkaline's audience member with the black shirt down there it's there could you get up yeah thank you no thanks Michael thanks Alan as well it's been very good so far I hope this question is clear so I just want to ask no I just want to ask a question about entrepreneurship so there's quite a few I would say obstacles to become an entrepreneur in in Britain today there's there's quite a lot of Regulation there's quite High corporate taxes so Alan if you if you were to look at certain certain regulatory or tax impediments so we come in a businessman or a businesswoman which ones would you think about removing how do you think we should make it easier for people to become entrepreneurs can I just answer that simply yeah go on One More Dance if you're a businessman don't worry about tax start worrying about making some money first of all right and then that's that's that's a a you know a high class problem paying your tax afterwards yeah yeah is there anything else no not really I mean yeah Fair answer yeah thank you um I look for another member for a question gentleman over there has been very patient with his hand up laughs thank you and thank you for coming I have two questions both very short firstly um who's your favorite dragon on Dragon's Den and I think you've been on Dragon's Den so the answer can be you I've never been on Dragon today no no God I'm a Fool the second question um I like Peter Jones really he's uh kind of stuck it out hasn't he from the very beginning and then there's been quite a few people that have changed it's quite a quite a shrewd guy and I've got a lot of respect for him yeah thank you um the second question reiterating the sentiment of Israel what um the first speaker um I I think it's fair to say that we're currently going through financially turbulent times regardless of covert or anything else cost of living crisis rise of inflation do you think there should be a greater financial burden taken by businesses by people who are wealthy to perhaps alleviate the pretty bad times that a lot of the people in this country you can't put it down to an individuals I think when you say people that are wealthy um no I mean corporations like for example British Petroleum at the moment for some reason rather start the price of petrol up to some astronomical level and a a rolling in loads and loads of profits and all that there the government should step in and say you know this is kind of like um restrictive practices if you like there's no reason for you to whack the price up as it is and the government needs to come in and to control uh people exploiting things right but you you can't hold back businesses and entrepreneurs you can't hold them back because they are the backbone of the economy of this country they are they're the people that pay their taxes and support the National Health Service the schools and indeed maybe this University I don't know um so do you think then in specific circumstances like a windfall tax on profit smoil and gas you would be in favor of that uh I think specific Industries for example should be audited by the government and one of them should be um British Petroleum and shell and people like that um where the government can have mandatory audit as to them exploiting uh things because it's no good sticking up the duty on petrol because all that does is punish you it doesn't punish them and even if you do increase the duty on petrol the likes of you I'm not going to see the benefit of it because it will get eaten up paying off debt somewhere else that the government is incurred so you need to nip it in the bud at the companies that are taking disadvantage of us at the moment yeah thank you thank you another question I recognize the member at the Press bench right here hi little sugar thank you so much um as we mentioned earlier there was the junior Apprentice for a few seasons and there's been a lot of age range between The Apprentice candidates um but most of the winners have been you know slightly older although you yourself started your business quite young and I was just wondering um how you thought that young people could be taken more seriously in the entrepreneurial ventures of what it would take for one of them so when I mean we've had young people in the in in the um starting in the starting line of the uh of The Apprentice there's no kind of age restriction if you like um and to be perfectly Frank with you I can't recall the youngest one that has won they were both 18 19. two seasons ago they were 18 or 19 when they in the start no I'm talking about the winners you're talking about oh okay yes um I can't recall but we did have some 18 year olds yeah um there's no there's no holding them back really I was 17 and 16 uh I think 16 or 17 when I started my business if The Apprentice was around then I would have won it there's no question of it um what mistakes do you think they made that you didn't I don't think they've made any mistakes they're young people and um you know I can't tell you specifically and I can't remember exactly the individuals but it wasn't to do with their age it was to do with their lack of business Acumen or dare I say common sense thank you I recognize the speaker just with a card up there thanks a lot for coming and thanks for answering the question so eloquently um what uh if anything makes you laugh uh some of my apprentices actually yeah um Boris Johnson is one yeah um yeah he's uh unintentional clown but he makes me laugh now I I don't know what makes me laugh ask my wife should tell you um we we watch a lot of garbage television occasionally so it's just to relax that's the way I relax watching junk TV and that can make you laugh a bit I've been watching recently the um court case of Johnny Depp and uh and and his wife that's hysterical really we we saw I mean that is entertainment I mean um and we saw yesterday a psychiatrist who was very funny uh on there I mean it was a Nutter a complete nut if anybody needed a psychiatrist which is even yeah um so that's kind of stuff that makes me laugh I suppose thank you uh just like this young lady here has been patient she wants to ask a question I just wanted to get everyone down and then get here because the the the but yeah we can go for her definitely I'm gonna have people spitting up and down definitely go for it Less Fun question I'm afraid but with so much experience what do you think businesses could do to reduce gender inequality in business whether that's like pay or promotion uh we don't have uh agenda I've never had gender inequality in any of my businesses really um I agree with you if that's what you're alluding to that that male female or whatever they want to call themselves um are entitled to be paid the same amount of money as everyone else I mean it's been old old-fashioned uh that the women would take a back seat and shouldn't be paid as much as males but that but those times have gone now I really have gone um again it's industry specific for example I mean in my day in in amstrad it was very rare for us to have a female Hardware engineer I don't know why but it just was not it was not thought of that you'd be a hardware engineer you know but of course nowadays we have more female software uh code writers than the mouse or about an equal balance really and they get paid thanks to people like Google they get paid for an absolute bloody Fortune yeah for lounging around on beanbags and uh and all that stuff um so yeah I'm with you on that and as you can see the last winners of The Apprentice have all been win all been women women thank you uh the speaker here after the first few question kind of scared to answer a task question now um I was just wondering what your opinions were in general like uh hustle culture or at least like really extreme hustle cultures like in like YouTube and stuff if you search anything about like entrepreneurship you'll hear things like oh you need to have like a 20-hour work day or like a 19-hour work day like kind of what are your thoughts of these like extreme like hustle culture gurus you know what culture hustle culture what is that yeah so it's kind of it's kind of like the idea that like um in order to succeed you need to work like 19 hours you have to like cut out your friends and like your family and like you have to work purely on like you know you have to think about things you've got to work hard right and nothing comes without working hard uh and um so I I'm I'm switched on 24 7. right all the time um and that's because maybe I'm a bit unique I know that my two sons are basically the same and you know and my some of my grandkids are exactly the same it's it's a culture right but I'm glad you asked that question because I tell you what has annoying me tremendously now getting back to our friend there with his covid thing the people that have benefited most in covert have become a bunch of lazy layabouts right the ones that want to come and ask for a job in one of my companies and the first question they ask is can I work from home and that sickens me quite frankly and I would like to say to you as a young audience here thinking about coming out you can sit down now if you want to uh thinking thinking of coming out of University into a job you may have some of your mates that are telling you it's quite good I work for someone so actually I lay in bed with my Apple uh thing and that's how I get paid it's sickening and I've got to tell you you will learn nothing you will learn nothing at working that way and um I say to those people what did your mum and dad do did they work from home no the biggest problem I have is with the government itself the civil servants who have exploited what has been brought about by covid of this kind of working from home which was necessary in the very early days no question of it that was absolutely necessary to isolate and keep away from each other but we're well past that now but yet they're still working from home because they've got used to it so you can't get a passport now not unless you're prepared to wait for God knows how long you can't get a new driving license because you can't whatever the only thing that makes me laugh and that gentleman asked me what makes you laugh is that hmrc the people that collect your taxes even though are slow which is not too bad but um it's sickening I can't stand this working from home culture and I was told the other day you know grow up you're you're living in the older in the in in the in the in the old days you know um you know you've done it you're out of touch I'm not out of touch believe me to answer your question if you wherever you're going to go to work if you think you're qualified when you leave here I'm sorry to say you are not you're qualified maybe academically with the subject that you have learned but as far as the world is concerned as far as business is concerned and I'm not saying in a detrimental and nasty way you know nothing I'm telling you right you do know nothing right until you get in that workplace and then you're bouncing off of each other you're bouncing off of people who are older than you that are and you're asking questions and that banter that goes on in offices and workplaces is where you learn um and it doesn't matter what you know what Walk of Life you're in thank you um should we get someone from down there that pass on the blue top just right here on the second row hi Lord sugar nice to meet you um to my understanding you achieved Success Through amstrada under setting personal computers and then you just decided to diversify into other electronics such as games consoles and um creating Sky boxes and then you decided to leave the industry all together my question is do you regret diversifying and focusing on real estate it's a good question um basically um electron I love electronics and I've been in the electronics business since I was 18 years old when I first started and we've seen it from I mean look at this what I've seen in my lifetime and you might not you might find it difficult to understand we've seen something called um mobile phones for example which you which for you is like well what's the big deal but it was a big deal to actually have a phone that works in the street we've seen something called the internet we've seen the speed of the internet now how we can shove things through uh so quickly with um video and all that stuff the actual lifetime that I've lived through Electronics it's I don't know whether we're ever gonna whether we can ever experience again that a rapid increase in technology yeah and I I hope that the health industry or medical industry and I'm not I'm not familiar with that too much but I hope they can that they can progress in the same way as the electronics Industry as progress because it's fascinating it's been fascinating why did I let go of the computer company well it let go of me to be honest with you uh I made a fatal error um when was on the way up uh we made a bad batch of stuff a new design a new range of computers that didn't work too well and consequently we lost the market as simple as that and it just goes to show you that investment in engineers and in some clever people and not being so focused on the bottom line profit all the time and just invest more in staff and people and technologists that maybe could have avoided that and I look back in hindsight you know I kicked myself from that Sky boxes uh well that's another story and that Murdoch when he phoned me up one day and said to me I'm going to set up send a satellite up can you make these boxes I I said yes we'll ever go didn't have a clue what we were doing um I was honestly I swear to you we didn't have a clue how to make a Sky Box in those days but um I just said yes and uh he said well if you make the boxes I'll put the satellite up and that's what happened uh and two days ago I set the task in uh some Paul's Cathedral um for The Apprentice and on the inside there was um a memorial where I allegedly is where Christopher Wren is buried and I remember saying to Karen Christopher Wren will be remembered for this building Alan sugar remembered for their ugly dishes on all the houses and because they are just millions of them out there now thank you I recognize the speaker at the far end uh the lady hiya um I was wondering what's the best piece of feedback that you've ever received um in what respect sorry um maybe in times of personal development or business something that you thought that's good advice and I'll remember this hmm um yeah it's a good question I don't know is the answer I don't have an answer for you on that one at the moment um we'll get another question but I'll be thinking about it because it's a very good question actually the best bit of feedback best bit of an advice you were saying yeah yeah so let me think about it I'll make something up as we go along uh looking for someone on this side probably go with the blue and then we go to you uh could you leave your leave your hand up so the light blue uh hello um a slightly related Point um I was wondering who you'd consider to be in your mentors um and how they've kind of helped you over the course of your career well I didn't have many mentors there was um I came from I was born in Hackney in London and brought up in uh in a council Flats my father was a tailor that worked in a factory um and I guess that one looked up to I guess the the businessman in the family which at the time was my uncle uh that had a shop in Victoria so I looked at him and as time went by uh there was as I went into business on my own you would look at other people that and you would admire what they've done and achieved and step by step I kind of overtook them if you understand what I mean yeah so there's been lots of different ones along the way um I could throw some names that you wouldn't know who they are um but you know there were people that were in the electronics business that you thought oh they are the they're the bee's knees you know I wish I was like him and then three four years later he was wishing he was like me if you know what I mean yeah well the edge of this third row right here at the edge on the side so across your career in business do you have any regrets and are there any moments when you wish you'd have played your hand differently or done something a bit differently yeah I think I alluded to just now the the um the disaster of the what we call the 2000 series computers um and you know it's all great in hindsight really I know exactly the mistake that I made and it was lack of investment in in in in engineers and and and costs and infrastructure and so there's lots of mistakes but you know what I've made loads and of course I've made loads of mistakes everybody makes mistakes in business in the real estate market we've made mistakes in uh in The Apprentice for example there's been a couple of candidates that won that didn't last uh very long so there's a mistake in choosing the wrong person um yeah you make mistakes but you just hope to make more correct moves than than wrong ones you know and I guess that's what I've done made a few more correct moves than wrong ones thank you right I recognize the speaker just on the second row here with the blue and black top good evening Lord sugar um thanks for coming my question is more of a fun question I'd say what was your most interesting or memorable product or business venture that you took part in What do you spearheaded yeah um well it could be the uh the Pudsey as well apologies I'm spare that's my favorite anyway Ms what am's bear the um the party spin-off it's all right don't worry about it anyway yeah what's been your what's been your favorite business venture uh well amstrad obviously but I think what you're asking is what my pet product was um that that that really made me take off and that was the um the audio units you know the uh Hi-Fi stereo units now you you lot here wouldn't know what they were because you wouldn't you wouldn't go near one you wouldn't touch one with a barge Pole now because you've got your I iPhones that you plug into something or other or whatever and but there was a time when people had amplifiers and Tuners and cassette players and the big giant companies like Sony and Toshiba and Hitachi and all that used to make these very beautiful looking pieces of equipment in metal uh and aluminum and they would put them in a wooden rack with a record player on the top and they would sell for hundreds and hundreds of pounds and one day I decided what I'm gonna do I realized that these these guys the consumers we're buying a separate amplifier a separate tuner a separate cassette deck and putting them in a wooden rack each of them had a separate cable you plugged into the power you had to interconnect them all to make them work and it suddenly dawned upon me what a waste of time these things sit in a rack uh why do you need three electric cables why do you need three power supplies why do you need InterContinental what you do is fake a front panel like that to make it look like you've got three separate units and stick the electronics behind with one cable and wire it all up internally so that I I reckon was one of my greatest ideas is to come up with this Tower unit which and I'm trying to fill things in context for you now the the pioneers and the uh the um son is and all that at that time to have a rack like that would have cost you six or seven hundred pounds I brought this thing out for 199 pounds with the record player on the top a glass door opening up it really looked at what we used to call a Mug's Eiffel um and it took off like a rocket and actually gave me the biggest entry into the traditional retail markets into the retailers which were hard to get into and that's where I really started to make big loads and loads of money with that Tower unit so that's I would guess that would go down as one of my uh and then of course you've got the first computer that we made that's what's my favorite I don't know that people were telling me to make computers and I had a different approach to it um being a consumer electronics man we would build stuff and basically focus on what we call the bill of material right down to the resistors and the capacitors and all that stuff and we would negotiate very hard to get the bill of material down so that we could sell the product rather cheaply the computer industry was one which was kind of had this kind of Fascination about it where oh it's a computer and it must be expensive but actually when you unscrewed the box and opened it up inside was a printed circuit board with a load of resistors capacitors and chips and that was my view well this don't look like a thousand quids worth of stuff here this is more like 50 quids worth of stuff inside you if you understand what I mean so we brought out a word processor once for 399 pounds when the nearest word processor that was on the market was two thousand pounds and I I never forget the cues in Tottenham Court Road outside um Dixons and all that stuff to buy this thing I couldn't believe they couldn't believe it we sold millions of the bloody things yeah and um yeah so that was it it's taken a different approach to it and it kind of turned the computer industry we were the largest computers supplier in Europe we had 33 of the European market um within two or three years so that yeah the tower unit was the was the thing I remember the most um and um followed on by by a computer I'm still thinking about your question young lady at the background thank you uh can we have the speaker just behind with the uh cream jumper uh hello um do you think you deserve your lordship yes why did you ask well I don't I don't really know what you got it for so uh right so sit down then foreign speaker just on that second row on with the brown top like is this broken before what drives you now and how has it changed what drives you now I just I like to do a deal you know anything to do with a deal closing the deal um keeping me occupied as far as that concerned a bit of aggravation um and doing a deal that's that's that's what I am yeah that's it thank you uh the gentleman at the far edge of that seat good evening thank you for attending I began my career as an apprentice engineer what key lessons must Engineers be to be successful entrepreneurs well an engineer's mentality is different to a a commercial person as you know they're very focused on their specialty and I suppose that if you look at the likes of um Bill Gates and Steve Jobs they were engineers initially of some kind and then recognized that there's money to be made here yeah and I suppose it's that entrepreneurial spark again it's suddenly something clicks that you've been sitting there you've been told that this chip that Texas Instruments makes costs 500 pounds and you know that it all is a little bit of plastic with a bit of silicon inside and that can't be right so you might decide that you want to make one yourself or go off and start making chips yourself uh it's and and you'd be in a better position than anyone else to realize that because you can see that these expensive components that you may have been involved in uh really are not worth what we're paying for them yeah thank you I recognize the speaker at the front press bench there with the blue top um do you ever still go back to hacking if you do like does it feel like home a big pun do you ever go back to Hackney no I don't uh to be honest with you no and it's a good question I should do I was dreaming the other day about Springfield Park which is in Hackney where I used to live and play football and and all that stuff it's a good idea I will do I find the time to go and walk through those streets again yeah one thing I will tell you is that um being in the on the apprentice and then and and this you you may you may recognize this phenomena also as a child you might have seen the playground at school or the road that you lived in and you think oh it's very very big massive and and in the the flats that I lived in to us the Four Courts of the flats seemed massive to me I went back there to do some filming in The Apprentice and that caused them it's so small you don't realize how small it was but in a young person's mind it was uh was larger so um yeah now I'll I will go back and have a look down there yeah walk the streets there see if I um yeah I hacked the Empire of course is the the the theater that I rebuilt um which is now a buzzing area around that area you know and in the real estate market for example there was streets in Hackney that 25 years ago you could have bought a massive big Georgian house for a a thousand pounds two thousand pounds they're now selling for a million pounds because it's become very fashionable yeah thank you uh just the speaker with a black top right behind you there could you keep your hands up no no just behind you on on the third row um going back to something you said earlier do you think that a desire to work from home like post-covered comes from laziness or do you think there's other concerns like child care and the environmental impacts of commuting and being in an office let me qualify this shall I let me qualify this there's always been a good reason for people to work from home child care or people who are not very well disabled or whatever and they work from home diligently okay covid had brought about an environment where people were sent to work at home um quite rightly so at the time the internet as we talked about just now has made it possible for them to do the work that they would normally do sitting at a desk and the penny finally dropped with them that I like this actually uh Boris says get back to work now not really I don't think so I don't want to get back to work I'm liking being at home here and those are the ones that are annoying me right they really are annoying me I'm not talking about those people that genuinely have to work from home and all that stuff obviously that's been going on for years people that did work from home I've had people work for me that have had to work from home uh prior to covid there's no problem at all as far as I'm concerned because it was a genuine a genuine reason for them to work from home but there's a lot there's no genuine reason for most of the people now other than complete laziness and a complete exploitation of employees and some of them are idiots I mean some of the giant City firms are encouraging it you know um who was it PWC I think the other day I wrote an article for the Daily Mail that got got a lot of response um and they said oh if you if you're good boys you can all take Friday off now I mean where are they coming from these guys I don't get it why um and I go back to your mum and Dad's you know go out go home and ask them whether their bosses said tomorrow yeah you work from home no problem what day how many days a week do you want to come into the office one two up to you you know um no I don't like it call me old-fashioned call me behind the times you can call me what you want but I will never condone that unless it's for a genuine reason that you've outlined can I follow up um if if you can genuinely do your job to the same quality yeah yeah that is debatable you see because you know I who says it's the same quality you right it's your employer that is the one that decides whether it's the same quality or not no you say it's the same quality right uh and and and and that's the problem the problem is is that how many times when you worked in an office that this girl comes over to you and says oh by the way where's the invoice for Fred oh it's over there oh and uh have you sent an email to John have you uh sent the order through to Bill have you done this all of those casual conversations are what work's all about okay and when you're sitting at home it doesn't happen so the invoice to John didn't go the order to Fred didn't go and the order to build didn't go yeah they all fall on there flat in their face and it slows everything down because suddenly the invoice to John someone said I haven't had my invoice yet and that's because oh I forgot to do it or I didn't do it or you or this person didn't tell me to do it I'm sick of it to be quite Frank I'm sick of I'm sick of I'm sick of what's going on at the moment and I just hope that you young people don't fall for it but I've told you already you won't learn anything uh in in in in these jobs that you go to unless you um get stuck in with the rest of your colleagues thank you uh look for another member I recognize the member on the side of the house just with the glasses uh good evening um have you ever been screwed over in a business sense and did you manage to get any Revenge no uh screwed over yes all the time I mean of course you do yeah I mean you know especially when you're younger you get screwed over if you call it um and it's part of learning you know you can't get screwed over working from home mind you you know but it's part of learning it makes you tougher and understand you know if you get you get taken for a ride by somebody and it won't happen the second time if you know what I mean all part of learning yeah that lady down the back there who gave me that question yes is that you yeah old question the the old question there's one next to her no no she she asked me a question about a serious bit of a serious bit of advice was given to me is that right where are you stand up I can't see yes well I'll tell you what it was I'll tell you what it was now um I've had time to think about it um going back when I was um 11. or um 12 or whatever um the primary school that I was at used to put on an end of term display of all the children's work and the parents would come around and they needed somebody to guide the parents around so this is class four and this is class five and this is that and this is the work from so blah blah blah and that the Headmaster of that School Mr Kershaw I'll never forget uh said sugar you get out there and you're going to do this right and then they had the mayor of Hackney was standing around and the people I could see these adults smiling at me but there's a kind of a smile of of admiration I think it was now because I was talking my heart out about this thing right and then I I finally went to the secondary school where um I chose the science um curriculum rather than economics and that Headmaster there Mr Harris said to me used to see me walking down the um corridors and it's a sugar your economics I said no no so I'm science and engineering no he said no no no no no your economics like that and that's what you know I never forget that he he saw something in me uh which he was he was quite right about I was right also because I I'm most of my products were scientific anyway but but he saw the commercial side so yeah it was Mr Mr Harris and Mr Kershaw to answer your question yeah thank you we've got a chance for just a couple more questions I'll take one more from that side I see the member with a blue top with the hand Raiser could you have your hand up so that that might come to you hi um nice to meet you I'm American and you mentioned in the past that while your children were growing up you used to take the weekend off I was just wondering if now as the adults and you have grandchildren do you still have time that you've blocked out to just relax and have lunch I've actually been a five day a week bloke really to be honest with you uh really intense work Monday to Friday and I've never really worked on the weekends as a unless of course it was uh something special like an exhibition or or I was abroad uh doing something like that but Monday to Friday uh was my work you know that's when I used to work um hard very hard in fact my wife reminds me that in the early days I would leave home at six o'clock in the morning and get back a seven o'clock at night by which time the I hadn't seen the children at all because they hadn't woken up yet and they were in bed by the time I got back yeah um some people might say that was a blessing but no but um the um yeah five days a week and that's how it is still now really do you see yourself slowing down from the five-day week or just sorry do you see yourself every reducing the five-day weekend not really but I mean look when I talk about uh I mean I'm going to be a little bit contradictory here now because I can do a lot of that work from home um but um or from wherever I am in the world um I've got you know I've got places in America and and in Europe and uh and I'm on the ball from there uh working from there um but no it is I mean it is kind of like a kind of a guilt if you like and you might not understand this but five o'clock if I go home early I feel a bit guilty um that I shouldn't be home I should be working so I will go into my study and sit down and twiddle my thumbs until it is you know six o'clock and then okay fair enough um it works over yeah Christians and one from this side I recognize the member with the spotty top there oh the spotty top the ones in the middle here thank you for coming today on The Apprentice you occasionally do tasks uh working with the Art Market so I was wondering what you think the position of the Art Market is in the business world and do you have any advice for an artist trying to enter make a business well it's a very good question in Mayfair in Mayfair in London what fascinates me and I'm we're in the real estate business okay some of the art galleries there occupy premises which must cost them an absolute Fortune an absolute fortune and I often wonder I've said to my wife sometimes walk past these places and you see three or four paintings then how the bloody hell do they make any money how do they pay their rent and I tell you how it's because it's in the eye of the beholder someone slapped a bit of paint on on a canvas somewhere and told a story about how this person is so inspirational it's wonderful to look at the picture and you can visually visualize you're there and by the way it's 700 Grand but actually it actually cost Seven Pounds to produce so yes there's a market in art but I think what it need it needs to be associated with gaining a reputation uh for for in other words a famous artist will will will get we'll get um the work you know if you understand what I mean and how do you become a famous artist I don't know um Banks is done well hasn't it really yeah yeah um but yes we did have some art things that uh and I remember going to a couple of these things and looking at some of this stuff and in fact we set the task once in um right in the center of Mayfair it was in Christie's the auction house and while they were while the camera Crews and all those people were mustering around getting themselves ready I was having a little walk around and I saw a blank canvas on the wall white canvas just a blank white canvas on the wall a chair a small wooden chair and a cello next to it I thought what's that doing there and then there was a label out there 750 000 pounds for these three pieces of Tut unbelievable I I couldn't believe what I was saying and then I said to the curator whoever he was walking around was telling me not to touch anything God forbid uh and I said what is what is this what is this they get so this is uh Fred blogs whatever his name was oh this is a famous artist that's just a bloody chair a bloody chair and a cello and a a and a piece of white canvas what's the big deal uh well I'm you know wasting my time talking to you so to speak so that's it uh that's what Art's all about did you you realize I I went I went once to the Louvre we went to Paris once in the Louvre and um I was with some friends who believe they're very cultural and understand art and all that stuff I just went there because it was raining outside uh and uh we saw uh some pictures of Monet okay and the way you view a Monet painting is to half close your eyes because it transpires that he was blind or he was had cataracts and if you look at a lot of his paintings they're blurred and that's the way he saw things um so perhaps close your eyes I don't know one last Quick fire question who's got a quick fire question um okay the member right here with the yellow top thank you for your time my question concerns ESG so sorry ESG sort of corporate social responsibility do you believe that companies have a duty to make sure the supply chains are ethical or fight climate change or should the focus always be on sorry sorry slow down a minute you're like you're not like fast forward do you believe that companies have a should focus on making sure their supply chains are ethical and fighting climate change so like the Practical impacts or should business always really be about making profit and doing deals there's a balance between being a tree hugger and making money obviously we have a environmental responsibility that we have to comply with okay a green responsibility we have to comply with as far as packaging and all that stuff is concerned and yes it's important for climate change and all that stuff there's no question of it but some people take it a little bit too far you know uh and um so you have to draw the line somewhere but one of the companies that I own is that is a um a cosmetic company called Tropic skin care and we pride ourselves uh with all of the materials that we produce uh or not organic but they're natural are produced from natural chemicals and things like that and we're just about to bring out an organic range um also so I won't say other than the driver behind that that's my partner in the business is the is the one that's really into all this stuff but it's it's important it is important Recycling and all that type of thing um very very important yeah brilliant thank you very much to watch you guys been indeed a very uh mesmerizing and insightful evening and would you all join me as I thank God for visiting us today [Applause] [Music]

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 16,330

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Id: f5nbRjL82FI

Length: 59min 40sec (3580 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2022