Busy week! - I'm very pleased to be working with one of Europe's few solo female General Partners, @annelieajami, in her mission to back the future of B2B tech. Congrats, Annelie, on closing the round! 👏

x.com/SiliconCanals/…

Translucent - The CFO super-app for multi-entity finance teams Translucent is the CFO super-app that solves the everyday problems of finance teams. Connect to your existing accounting solutions to create a single system of record.

I am delighted to be supporting the excellent @michaelcwood both as an investor and board member, along with @storminwalker in his new venture, @translucent_io - the CFO super-app

tech.eu/2023/03/30/tra… translucent.io

I know nothing about Wandisco, but the fact an 18-year-old business put out a press release last month celebrating 967% YoY sales growth ($11.9M - $127M) ought to have warranted at least a double-click.

wandisco.com/news-events/pr…

The British tech start-up whose success story seemed too good to be true – because it was David Richards was on top of the world. As the British entrepreneur flew from Manchester to New York last month, his software company Wandisco was making plans for the same journey.

Yikes.

uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/british-t…

The speed of the #SVB collapse reminds me of that Adam Osborne line (He launched the world's first commercially successful portable computer, the Osborne-1).

"People think computers will keep them from making mistakes. They're wrong. With computers, you make mistakes faster.

Sorry to hear about the job cuts at Xero announced today, and I’d be happy to jump on a call and give anyone affected any advice and encouragement I can. But you can be sure that having Xero experience on your CV is a gold standard qualification, so don’t despair!

Everscale: 22. First to take the blame, last to take credit

newsletter.everscale.uk/p/22-first-to-…

Beautiful spring day in London.

I love this. The term ‘Lifestyle business’ has long been a pejorative one, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with building a honking big lifestyle business.

x.com/dhh/status/163…

Everscale -- 21. Entering global markets : Who lands first, GTM or Product?

newsletter.everscale.uk/p/21-entering-…

....aaaand I've just finally restored 5 years of emails from 2000-2005 to my Mac.

Disposing of old computer kit, the digital archeology of firing up 20 year old hard disks is always a lot of fun.

No Accounting for Tech ep9: Gary Turner on software trends, AI, and crypto bros by AccountingWEBUK Cloud accounting royalty joined the podcast this week in the form of Xero’s first UK managing director Gary Turner. In 2021, Turner took the decision to step back from Xero after nearly 13 years at the helm. During his time with the Kiwi cloud company, Turner took them from three employees and a turnover of £56,000 to an annual income of £150m from around 850,000 customers. Since his decision to leave Xero, he has taken on a range of responsibilities including mentoring, investing and starting a newsletter about running a fast-growing business and the leadership lessons he learned along the way. Speaking to technology editor Tom Herbert at AccountingWEB HQ, Turner outlined his views on the current state of the software market, which he feels is in a state of flux as the pendulum swings from a range of interconnected best-of-breed solutions back to a more consolidated approach. “If you look at pretty much any market, product category and industry at any time, it’s likely to be in the process of either being bundled or unbundled,” he said. “The last ten to 15 years has been the pendulum swinging away from a bundled, suite approach in the world of software into a huge explosion of innovation, new products and services. “My sense is the pendulum might start to swing back towards bundling of the thousands of apps that are out there”. Turner also discussed how artificial intelligence could shake up the world of technology. “It’s a great tech demo at the moment,” he said. “But like any new technology there will be a lot of hype that will die down and then people will get to work building some really practical applications for it.” “And what does AI mean for the future of accounting advisory?” he added. “Will it ride shotgun on calls with clients telling them how to optimise their cashfllow?” To listen to the full interview click on the play button at the top of the page or search for ‘AccountingWEB’ on your podcast player of choice. Podcast written and hosted by Tom Herbert and produced by Will Cole.

What I've been doing lately.

soundcloud.com/accountingwebu…

The parallel here with the arrival of Napster and the ultimate death of the music industry's old business model feels bang on here for AI and, possibly, many many more old business models.

x.com/tomscott/statu…

At Google, London. I’d forgotten how fun tech company offices are.

In a meeting overlooking the back of Xero’s old office in Kings Cross, and feeling huge Xero 2016 era vibes. 💙

Today I attended the funeral of the person who gave a 19-year-old version of me his first job in tech, and who then became a lifelong friend. Never forget the people who lit the path.

I thought everyone worked from home now?

17. The power of positive reinforcement

newsletter.everscale.uk/p/17-the-power…

I had the opportunity to meet her a few years ago and was always impressed. From my own experience, knowing when it's time to step back requires a degree of mindfulness and emotional maturity that too few leaders exercise before it's too late.

x.com/PippaCrerar/st…

Microsoft grabbing OpenAI and putting it inside Azure, beating Amazon and Google to the punch, is historically significant since it shows it's learned from mistakes of the past that resulted in Gates scrabbling to course correct in his famous 'Internet Tidal Wave' memo of '95.

If AI breaking out into the mainstream follows the same path as Web 1.0 (which it might), then within 3-5 years, we'll be inside an AI bubble which will burst, and then AI 2.0 will emerge, and we'll get to do it properly. I suspect the timelines might be more compressed.

Gary Turner on taking Xero from £56K to £150M DRIVE - The business podcast by Richard Osborne · Episode

I loved chatting with @RichardOsborne for @ukbizforums about the path my career has taken and about my passion for small business and tech. And the current mainstreamification of AI feels a lot like the early days of the web in the mid 90s.

open.spotify.com/episode/08AI36…

In a sign that I may have nothing better to do, I contacted a retailer that had been incorrectly given my email address at a checkout to ask them to remove it from their marketing database. They'll do it only if I send a copy of my photo ID. The data equivalent of quicksand.

Guess where I am.

My first newsletter of 2023 just published, about the importance of anchoring everything on meeting customer needs. Link in bio.

How long before Google adds a full ChatGPT like capability to GMail? It auto-suggested the underlined part for me because the sender wished me Happy New Year.

Sad. #KenBlock

#ChatGPT could factor in how soon the agent will pick up your call, and then wrap it up to sync.

After 8 mins of riveting storyline, "...then they suddenly got sick and everyone died. The end."

Agent : "Hello, how can I help you today?"