Giant Ideas

Thomas Heatherwick, a world-leading designer known for iconic projects like New York's Vessel, shares his vision for more human-centric cities. He discusses the urgent need to rethink urban architecture, highlighting architectural joy and its mental health implications. The introduction of the Boringometer showcases how even seemingly bland designs can enhance urban enjoyment. Heatherwick emphasizes the power of creativity in architecture as a community service, aiming to restore soul to buildings and reshape our urban landscapes for a better future.

Today on the podcast we are joined by Alistair Brownlee, Double Olympic Triathlon Champion - to talk about his incredible career and the extreme mental discipline that got him to the very top of athletics. It’s his first in depth interview since he announced his retirement.Alistair Brownlee is the only athlete in history to hold two Olympic titles in the individual triathlon event, having won gold medals in both the 2012 and the 2016 Olympic Games. He is also a four-time World Champion in triathlon.Famously, his younger brother Jonny Brownlee is also a decorated triathlete. The Brownlee brothers were considered the dominant male Olympic distance triathletes of the 2010s - often competing together. In 2016, Alistair famously spotted his brother suffering from exhaustion and pushed him across the line in the final stretch of the race that he had been leading. Alistair Brownlee is widely regarded as one of the greatest male athletes ever to have lived. Today Alistair is building a new chapter to his career focused on a range of new ventures, building on his on decades of experience working in sports. We are also very lucky to count Alistair as an investor in Giant’s funds.In this conversation, we talk about why relying on willpower is a recipe for failure, what you can learn from elite athletes, nature vs nurture for excellence, and the characteristics that define Olympic champions and top founders.Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we have Ali Parsa - founder of two unicorn health businesses - Babylon Health and Circle Health.Ali was born in Iran, but left when he was 16, in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution.  Amazingly, he taught himself UK high school, and went on to study civil and environmental engineering at University College London.He sold a media company he started during university, and then joined the investment banking world. 20 years ago, he set up Circle Health - the first private company to run a UK NHS hospital, which became Europe's largest partnership of clinicians with around £200 million of annual revenue and about 3,000 employees. Circle Health was taken public in 2012, when Ali stepped down as CEO.Then, in 2014 - Ali formed Babylon Health, a health service provider that enabled users to have virtual consultations with doctors via text and video on its app. At its height, Babylon was a unicorn - and Ali led Babylon’s listing on the NYSE. But share prices dropped at flotation to below $1, with Ali calling the decision to go public through a SPAC an "unbelievable, unmitigated disaster".And now he’s bringing a lifetime of lessons from right at the top of American and British healthcare to his next company: Quadrivia - an all-in-one AI health assistant.In this episode we talk about how AI can transform healthcare, what Ali learnt from Babylon Health, and what the perfect age is to build a startup.Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on Giant Ideas we bring you a conversation with a titan of American business and society, Arianna Huffington. Arianna is the co-founder of The Huffington Post, which built an audience of 200 million, and the founder and CEO of Thrive Global. She also sat on the board of Uber during its succession drama. Arianna is also the author of an astonishing fifteen books - on everything from Sleep to Becoming Fearless. She has been named on Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people, and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list.Her latest company, Thrive Global, is on a mission to improve the world's health, and productivity, through science-based behaviour change. Thrive Global recently launched Thrive AI Health, in collaboration with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, to find solutions for the 130 million Americans diagnosed with a chronic condition. In this conversation we discuss Arianna’s predictions for the future of health, why she thinks joy is more important than productivity and why AI can supercharge your wellbeing, and how she uses gratitude to create her own reset. You can also watch Arianna Huffington's reset here. Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and author of 'Principles', shares his journey from a small NYC apartment to leading the world’s largest hedge fund. He discusses the transformative power of radical transparency and the importance of self-reflection in decision-making. Dalio emphasizes the need to adapt principles through meditation and journaling for personal growth. He also addresses interdependence in the face of global economic shifts and highlights urgent investment opportunities to combat climate change while tackling wealth inequality.

Today on the podcast we have Michael Lynton, one of America’s leading CEOs. Michael led Sony Entertainment as CEO, overseeing Sony’s global entertainment businesses during a period of great success. But it also had its challenges - notably when North Korean hackers released private emails and unreleased films. Michael had previously worked for Time Warner as CEO of AOL Europe, and was  Chairman and CEO of Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group.But today our focus is on Michael’s role as a mentor. He has been arguably one of the most successful startup mentors of all time, discovering and nurturing a young Evan Spiegel - the founder of Snapchat, now Snap. Michael spotted Evan after Michael’s wife contacted Snapchat customer support in a moment of serendipity. From that chance encounter, Michael went on to become chairman of Snap, now one of the world’s largest social media platforms. On this episode, you find out from Michael what truly great mentorship looks like, what you should look for in a mentor and how this changes as you scale, and what matters most when becoming a great leader.Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

This talk was recorded live at our Giant Ideas event at the Tate Modern earlier this year.Jim McKelvey, best known for co-founding multi-billion dollar company Square, joined the stage at Giant Ideas to talk about moving the needle of drug discovery.McKelvey co-founded Square with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2009, and it became a revolutionary payment processing company, allowing small businesses to accept credit card payments via a simple mobile device. The company is now worth a multi-billion dollar valuation, with the card payment design even featured in the Museum of Modern Art.Jim is a true renaissance man. He’s a philanthropist, donating $15 million to the Washington University to build a new computer science and engineering building named after his father. He’s also an accomplished glassblower. He has his own glass art studio and gallery. Since founding Square he has built Invisibly - a company seeking to allow consumers to profit from their online data - and is now exploring how to transform drug discovery.Losing his mother in his twenties created a drive for Jim to act. It also made him want to tackle the issue of Eroom's law: the observation that drug discovery is becoming slower and more expensive over time. In this talk he talks about the issues with drug discovery, why smart people are getting bad answers, and how he wants to solve this issue.Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we have June Sarpong - internationally renowned broadcaster, writer and diversity expert. June started her career presenting for shows on MTV and Channel 4's T4.It would be fair to say that June is considered a ‘British Icon’ and has broad cultural influence. Not everyone can claim that Elton John has performed a special edition of the hit "Your Song" with the amended lyrics "You can tell everybody, You're June Sarpong'"!June is also an author of the multiple award-winning books; “Diversify: Six Degrees of integration”, “The Power of Women” and “The Power of Privilege”. She was appointed as the BBC's first Global Director of Creative Diversity, and has built a reputation as one the world’s top diversity executives. We love that she’s all about results, not just wise words. She joined us live at Giant Ideas to share this powerful solo talk on ‘winning through diversity’. Enjoy!Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today joining the podcast is Susanna Campbell - co-founder of Syre, and a board member of Northvolt and H2 Green Steel - all companies incubated by Vargas. Based in Sweden, Vargas has systematically created a succession of climate juggernauts from scratch. Their portfolio includes unicorns like Polarium and H2 Green Steel, and Northvolt, a climate decacorn - so worth over 10 billion dollars - which is Europe’s largest gigafactory for electric vehicle batteries. At Giant we have backed the latest Vargas incubation, Syre, which aims to decarbonize the textile industry. They’ve launched in partnership with H&M - who have already signed a $600M offtake agreement to buy green polyester. We think Vargas is the most significant climate organisation in the world - but it’s a story that has not been widely told. Today we take you behind the scenes to reveal the Vargas playbook. This episode was recorded live at our annual summit, Giant Ideas. Susanna Campbell is interviewed by Financial Times Gillian Tett.Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we bring you a conversation with Toni Petersson, former CEO of Oatly. This was recorded live at our Giant Ideas summit in June of this year.Toni Petersson was the CEO of oat milk giant, Oatly, for a decade. He transformed an unknown Swedish eco food company into a global consumer giant, with just shy of $1BN in sales. On its first day on the NASDAQ in 2021 it traded at $13 billion valuation. Toni famously used quirky marketing to consumers to build one of the most loved green brands of all time. Building the brand came with bold decisions. For one, he was the star of what has been described as both the worst and the best Superbowl commercial of all time. He was filmed in a field of oats singing a painfully catchy song about oat milk. So how did Tony turn a sleepy Swedish innovation - creating milk from oats - into a must-have climate product? And how did he make oat sludge aspirational? In this conversation with Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett, we cover why he thinks purpose matters, and how to move climate products from the fringe to the aspirational. Enjoy!Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING. Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.