War, hidden gems and chip-heated pools

Dan Ilett

Apr 9, 2024 — 3 min read

And how to cut costs from useless tech apps

Hi guys

I’m late with the Executive Summary because I’ve been out meeting people at events. So here’s what I learned this week:

1 – Is war coming?

I went to the Cavalry and Guards Club for a Firstlight Trust charity event hosted by Dorinda Wolfe-Murray (hello Dorinda) on Tuesday.

Our speaker was General Sir Richard Barrons who was Commander Joint Forces Command until April 2016 and one of the six ‘Chiefs of Staff’ leading the UK Armed Forces, where he was responsible for 23,000 people worldwide and a budget of £4.3Bn.

_{(Photo courtesy of former MP Victoria Borwick who is Chair of VisitEngland’s Advisory Board.)}

He argued:

With global unrest, rising demand for dwindling resources, rising population and trade breaking down with weakened Western influence, we now live in a less secure world than the one we grew up in.
He pointed out that in Ukraine, it was mostly the dads (over 40s) who first picked up arms to fight the Russian army and they are now very tired. Many younger folk have avoided fighting and conscription now looks inevitable, he said.
The UK is in weak position to defend itself against potential attacks, he said. Given the number of UK troops is at 200-year low, the UK should prepare itself for conscription if Russia hits Nato.

Question 1: do you think he’s right and what is the response?

I felt sad after his talk. I have two sons and I hate the idea they would be forced to go to war. My own father served in WW2. He never talked about it but I know it damaged him.

Some people (many) in the room agreed he was realistic the UK had softened. I admired the way he did not avoid difficult subjects or his conclusions, but the idea we could be at war soon is not pleasant.

2 – Hidden gems

The UK has a proper business growth story barely anyone is writing about. It’s called PE (rebranded from Pozitive Energy just this week). On Wednesday, they had their annual party and yours truly was kindly invited.

In just a few years, PE is driving incredible growth by using technology to transform old, boring industries to bring price efficiency to businesses. Their remit includes energy, telecoms, electric vehicle charging, smart metering, bill management and offsetting.

They’re a sponsor of England Rugby. You could not meet a more family-orientated bunch of guys. The CEO, Steve Daniel (hello Steve) is the brother of Kevin (hello Kevin), who is my great friend.

You guys rock.

(Photo of my mates at said party: Kev Daniels, Rachel Vetch and Rav Hayer.)

Cost-saving and efficiency at scale is always going to be a winner.

Question 2 – What are the UK’s best growth stories right now? What can we learn from them?

3 – Swimming pools heated by data centres.

I went to the launch of Deep Green yesterday (see photo). Here the CMO Matt Bagwell is explaining the concept with CEO Mark Bjornsgaard sitting down.

Hats off to them for trying something different. And here’s why they’re lifeguards. (I don’t know about Hong Kong Phooey….)

Octopus Investments has put £200m into this data centre company that promises to heat swimming pools around the UK with the heat waste from compute. On its website, a FTSE 250 CTO says: “Secure, infinitely scalable, carbon neutral edge compute – for half of the price of AWS with automated ESG reporting? Deep Green really is a no-brainer.”

I had written an entire post for you this week on how major data centre brands are about to struggle on their ESG promises. Then this came along. So you’ll have to wait until next time for that.

Data centres are the most visible part of the digital value chain and will inevitably come under heavier public scrutiny as demand for compute skyrockets.

Question 3 – Can swimming pools ~~mask~~ solve the issue? Data centre people in this community – what do you think?

I hope you have a great weekend.

For help with research, check out our new Executive Summary website. For help driving growth, messaging and results on the top line, look at Tollejo.

Let’s work together, win some business (and cut some crap apps).

Dan