CRA: Alistair, welcome to the Tech Burst Talks podcast. Alistair: Hi, nice to be here CRA: And welcome to Amsterdam. You've come out here this week for The Things Conference and meet up with some clients, and you got some nice sunny weather. Alistair: Indeed, I mean it's, I actually stunned that it's been so sunny this week. CRA: So are we. We are stunned, but we're very happy with that. So why don't we start out by you telling us a little bit about your background And what role you play in the IoT ecosystem. 'cause we are gonna go deep into IOT today, so you might as well establish some credibility upfront. Alistair: Well, I dunno about credibility. I've certainly been hanging around for a long time. Um, I've been in this space probably, well, in one way or other for the last 25 Um, and I kind of have done it in reverse. I started out building solutions, um, of consulting capacity systems integrated capacity. Um, then I went to the platform side. I joined Microsoft. And [00:01:00] incubated what, you know, eventually through many iterations and more smart people uh, turned into Azure iot. Um, from there to Hitachi, uh, to build the Hitachi LA MA Iphone edited sunday: platform with a, with a bunch of other crazy people. Alistair: Um, and then from there, um, went to a semiconductor business called ec. Iphone edited sunday: To build Laura, um, Alistair: to take Laura from, from being a, a, a, an idea and a and a first stage, um, silicon, um, offering to what it is today, which is an ecosystem component industrial enterprise IOT solutions in Uh, left Emec, Um, and then went to a company called Blues, um, which is also in the communication space. Um. Iphone edited sunday: Really Alistair: offering a platform that abstracts away from any wireless technology Iphone edited sunday: you can use anything you want. Alistair: Um, and then from there, I've spent the, the most of the last year running a, a startup in the machine, kind of human machine [00:02:00] interface space. So, so I kind of, I've kind of gone from, I guess the, full meal deal of building solutions, um, through to building enabling technologies. And I, I did that for, quite a simple reason actually, when I was building solutions in a consulting capacity. charging clients Iphone edited sunday: 10, $15 million, $20 million to build an end to solution. Alistair: And it became really apparent to me, Iphone edited sunday: and we're talking back in, where are we now? Nineties. Alistair: Um, even then was pretty easy to see that IO OT going to Iphone edited sunday: be a Alistair: fairly major to help us address, you emerging then as, as, Iphone edited sunday: as the climate crisis and is now fully. Um, Alistair: because IOT allows, um, us to really align the, kind of the, the commercial catalyst goals of, you know, making more money from their staff with actually doing that in a way that Iphone edited sunday: burn the planet to the ground. [00:03:00] Alistair: Um, and when I was working, building solutions, nice lucrative business, that it was, it was also obvious to me that if we stayed in that model, there were only a Iphone edited sunday: gonna be a few companies that, that would actually be able to afford Alistair: it. And, and ironically. Iphone edited sunday: The companies that could afford it were the Alistair: ones that actually Iphone edited sunday: causing so much the damage. Alistair: It was the dirty old industries that pre-industrial age in some respects, minerals, extraction, et cetera, Iphone edited sunday: that were really, really driving the Alistair: problem. And that if those, com, those businesses were adopt iot, Iphone edited sunday: it was gonna be by building Alistair: their own solution Iphone edited sunday: for which they needed the cloud platform. Alistair: So when I went into Microsoft, I Iphone edited sunday: into an incubation unit to help Alistair: run that. Iphone edited sunday: Um, with a rather innovative guy who built the Xbox business. Alistair: And, and I went Iphone edited sunday: there with the, with the mission of figuring out how Alistair: do we, how do we actually Iphone edited sunday: build a, a toolkit that, that enables developers Alistair: to build iot Azure was Iphone edited sunday: also, you know, being incubated at the same time. And the two things Alistair: together. Azure IOT is a, [00:04:00] as a platform we'll talk about more. Um, but it was a Swiss Army knife, which was great, but it didn't come with an opinion Iphone edited sunday: and it didn't come with value. Alistair: And so the LAMA platform that we built. at Hitachi Iphone edited sunday: was, was a kind of evolution from that. It was like, okay, you can Alistair: build a platform that allows you to do anything, but if you dunno what you it doesn't really help LAMA platform Iphone edited sunday: was built with the goal of taking Alistair: a hundred, years of r Iphone edited sunday: knowledge and turning into code so that you could actually Alistair: deliver something gave value. And I moved into communication space because every, every product years I've Iphone edited sunday: built with customers. Um. I, Alistair: I, I I think simplistically, Iphone edited sunday: if you build with a customer, then you've got less Alistair: chance of it up. I won't say that always worked, at least that was the and every single customer that we worked had the same problem in iot, and that was just being Iphone edited sunday: able Um, Alistair: and so hence forth. we'll talk CRA: so before we go too deep into the, iot side, [00:05:00] I do wanna come back to this about your background. Mm-hmm. Because You've been doing a lot. in technology and IOT for a very long time. But you're also an old telco guy, but you studied law and economics at university. I find this interesting because. I thought my career was pretty screwed up because I studied finance and economics. Mm-hmm. I was an investment banker. Went to consulting. You also went to consulting. I you by the way, for being investment bankers. Good. Oh, trust me. I'll tell you some horror stories. Asset back securities. We were doing them back in the early nineties. Um, skip that for now, but we both then ended out in telecoms and we were both at O2 at the same time in the early two thousands Yeah. and didn't even know each other. Yeah. Alistair: I know. That's miraculous. Um, I think you were and Hammersmith and I was in, in lovely Lau lau Come, come, lovely bombers. Four on slo in the words of the poet. Um, but yeah, O2, O2 was, uh, O2 was a fun space to be, it was a complete basket case of a company. Yeah, when I, joined, I joined in nine, 2000 BBC Sellner. uh, you, you helped drive the digital side of the business. Yeah. Which, you know, uh, turned out to be a, a, a major [00:06:00] reason why O2, uh, became successful. But yeah, I, I started out doing law degree in economics degree. Um, and realized pretty quick, uh, by virtue of two summer internships with, uh, Clifford Chance. Actually, that my old client, that was the last thing I wanted to be was working for a Magic Circle firm as well. Oh man. They, I, I, the first year I worked in the IP department and my job was, was driving around the London in a taxi cab buying all of Apple Records back catalog, Beatles, albums. Um, 'cause the, the, the case that I was working on litigation suit between Apple and Apple Records. And so it was the most inane thing. I mean, I was spending like, you know, a thousand pounds a day on buying, you know, LPs and like sticking them back with a cab black cab that I would have all day driving around London, Iphone edited sunday: at the bill. I, Alistair: I I mean, there was, there were, there was some interesting, you know, aspects to that. The next year I worked in the capital markets department working on financing this longest [00:07:00] bridge in the world in Norway. And I, you know. I'll say this, I, I found lawyers and, and, notable exceptions, several of who, have, I have very close friends with lawyers, Um, so I just didn't I really, I, the, the, there's a certain beauty in the law, in the intricacy of it, but the actual practice of the that practice it, just, they're probably like Yeah. Um, and I also, oh, I worked with a lot of proper wankers. Trust me, It's, uh, I. mean, I, I, I've always, uh, tried to avoid people who have the level of ego that I witnessed, you know, in, the law firm, because I think that, you know, the moment you think that, you know, precedes doom, you know, shortly thereafter. But I ended up in technology largely by accident, and I, and I'm not a a software engineer, um, you, I'm not a hardware engineer. I'm not a, um, and I think the, the gap that I saw, I guess, um, and you [00:08:00] know, it's easy to post-rationalise a career, isn't it? To look back and go, well, it was all planned 'cause it obviously it wasn't. Um, it was that, you in the space that you and I are in, in iot, the problem is not a technology one, it's never been a technology one it's actually been about understanding business and understanding how to build a business and understanding how to meet customer needs and how so, you know, most of what I've done through my career really has come down to shaping. what are brilliant technical ideas and brilliant engineers into businesses that actually solve real world problems it's very, very easy to get lost in the technology to to get down into the depth of it and become fascinated by it and the genius of it, and lose sight of the fact that mostly customers don't care They just want the Iphone edited sunday: problem solved. CRA: And I think the reason we get along is 'cause we both think along those lines. Yeah, the problem is. The rest of the industry doesn't always do that. And let's look at what's happened over the, let's just go like the last 10, 12 years mm-hmm. about how [00:09:00] iot, when it first became a buzzword and blew up, you know, and suddenly there was these massive market forecast for connections and market size, Mm-hmm. and then it got quiet. Mm-hmm. Um, so we really didn't understand that we pushed the tech. So what do you think, like in those early days, what did we get wrong as an industry? Because obviously people weren't thinking about the solutions. They were talking too much about tech. Alistair: I think the first thing that really set us on the wrong path was the massive forecasts of market potential Iphone edited sunday: that, that were, I Alistair: mean, going, yeah. I can't remember when it was that Hans Vestberg stood on-stage and said its 50B but he and, and Cisco and other, you know, the numbers were just astronomical. CRA: Wait, I will add IDC, who I used to work for. We had some, real proper number. No, we, we, we completely screwed the market because we came out in our first forecast and said it was gonna be valued at $7.1T Six months later, we revised it down to $1.7T and nobody picked it up. And that's what I knew the market was. screwed. I [00:10:00] thought we were gonna get hammered by everybody. No one picked up that we just knocked off 70% or say 80% of our forecast. And everyone was like, oh, great. Still big number, but I mean, we got too fixated on those numbers, so sorry. Please now back over to you. Alistair: Well, I mean, I think it, was not, it was partly just the scale of the number that was the problem, but it was also the imagine imagining that it was going to be new money because, I mean, you could debate, you know, what is the value of iot? Well, to a degree it's the value of industry, but it's not a different value. It it's the same number. And so the notion that there was going 50B new things generating $7 trillion of it, it was just a fallacy from the get go. And it was something that companies who knew better actually, um, used as a tool to bolster shareholder confidence to raise money to, and it attracted a flood of money into the market in the early days. And that was really the second mistake because I think. You know, there are many examples that I saw [00:11:00] in Microsoft of what a colleague of mine used to say, yeah, this is what happens when you put a, a bag of a million dollars in a room with 20 engineers shut the door and turn the lights off. You know, they, they, they make something, they make something with it. And so there was, there was a lot of money coming into the space. The influence of, of venture capital. I've always been somewhat ambivalent about, and, there are some, some VCs You know, and they've, they've certainly played a positive role But the influence of venture capital in the early days was big money looking for fast returns. And that carried a pressure on early market entrants to capture market share, to, you know, control customers, to lock them in, to build end-to-end solutions that their needs and, and dreams. Uh, and that principle. Set us on a path that it has taken until now, actually, and it is still continues to be an issue where we were, [00:12:00] misleading ourselves that somehow one technology or one company could, could solve the problem when, if we had looked at this as a, an industry, um, problem, not a a technology problem and we had looked at the industries and actually. Dare I say, talked to customers in those industries and asked them what the hell they were trying to do. Um, we would've realized that what we were doing was really just glueing together different islands of data and telemetry and need and insight, you know, with little piece part technologies. And that we had to work with the existing technologies and we had to work with each other to deliver solutions that those customers wanted But, so in those early days you had, a 50 person startups claiming to Claim have solved the world's problems Trying to sell those solutions into global companies and global companies. Looking them going, What are you kidding me? You expect me to, delegate my supply chain to you? Are you gonna be here next year [00:13:00] or are you gonna be, so I think that that kind of beginning set us on the wrong, uh, wrong path, and it took at least 10 years for us to recover from that. CRA: I think also during that period, like we, you talked about this, we, we didn't, we worked on our own. We didn't work collaboratively. And what people fail to understand is any iot solution involves multiple products from multiple vendors to create one solution. Mm-hmm. You know, you get an endpoint, connects the data, um, sends it out to a number of different types of platforms to an app. It's gotta be secured. You gotta have systems integration that's many players and we just always try to do it alone and it made no sense. Or someone's like, I can do the full stack. No, you can't. Yeah. But then we finally got to that point where we were gonna have the connectivity sort of sorted out a bit because we were gonna have LPWAN But then you had all the LPWAN wars and the divided factions between N-B-I-O-T, SIGFOX LoRa And you've gotten to work across a lot of those over the years. Mm-hmm. What do you think we really screwed up during those years? Alistair: I mean, again, I think it was the, it was the notion that, um. [00:14:00] One would, 1, 1 one would solve them all. You know, the, that, whether it was, Laura Sig, Fox, N-B-I-T-I, ot. You a plethora of different technologies and we were focused, I think, and this is, you know, again, as a, as a, kind of non-engineer, you know, I don't count myself as, as, as regard. I think we focused on the Iphone edited sunday: that we were building Alistair: and, you know, as two engineers became obsessed about the strength technology. And I think as part of human nature, that if is great, it Iphone edited sunday: means the other thing is bad. Alistair: And so that was an aspect. I think the, the money in the background was also an aspect of pressure to say, well, you, you, need to own the market. You gonna, capture all this huge share and justify gave you. You know, you're, you're going to be the one, aren't you? Um, when I think, and the other thing I would say is we focused on. Our customer and believed our customer to be like us, to be a [00:15:00] software engineer or a hardware when in actuality, most of Iphone edited sunday: the customers with big Alistair: problems to solve we're in old, dirty industries distribution industry, where people aren't software engineers And at least not in the context Iphone edited sunday: we thought of them as being. They are, you know, they're, Alistair: they're engineers, but they're used to, you know, managing operational systems. And so we designed products for people like us. Not for the actual customer that Iphone edited sunday: needed to use those technologies, Alistair: but the wars between LoRa and Sigfox in particularly in particular were deeply unproductive. one of the things I tried to do Iphone edited sunday: from the very beginning Alistair: with LoRa was to push the, the, the idea very strongly that LoRa solves some problems, but not all But when you saw LoRa implemented even in those early days. It was very often with a cellular backhaul. It was very often with, you know, hardwired back call. you know, the technologies were, were blended from the get go. Now, in the case of LoRa [00:16:00] obviously there was pressure from, my board and the shareholders to go grab the market, go, you know, drive the, and, and and I think, you know, to a degree successfully, to a degree unsuccessfully, you know, the idea that well, actually, yes, we work and we will grow very significantly But we'll grow in concert with other technologies. If we work with other technologies we'll grow faster. If we don't, we'll grow slower. And that was hard for people to get their heads around. CRA: It still is. it's still They're getting better. But I remember like when, when they came out with NB-Iot Mm-hmm. Um, I remember I got pulled in by the Singapore government because I made a statement that NB-IoT is dead before it launches. And they wanted a while saying that? And I said, well, basically because I think the technology's great. There's not a single solution you're gonna run on it. Like none of these telcos know what to do with it. Yeah. It's not like there's a readymade ecosystem and I just knew they were gonna shoot it up. There's only one country that did a really good job with it, but that was China. Because they had their five-year plan. They aligned supply, demand and investment. And they just said, let's go forward. And I remember I used to spend so [00:17:00] much time breaking down the Erickson mobility forecast because Erickson obviously is very strong in telcos. They compete against Noia and Huawe, but they're not really selling much in China. Yeah. Um, so they would always use it as Northeast Asia is doing very well. Well, Northeast Asia was China, Japan, Korea. Mm-hmm. I'm pretty sure the numbers aren't really coming from Japan and Korea on there, so I would find out ways to like back into it. But mm-hmm. I mean, what did you think about that? I mean, like they had, China was the perfect example. Why didn't we learn from that? Alistair: Well, there's a certain degree of resistance, I think, certainly in, in the US to learning anything from China, sadly Um, I, I think that, I mean, on your point, regarding telcos, you said, we, you and I were both Um. Telco's consummate, failed to build IOT businesses. And I remember, you know, back in the days of, of T-Mobile and John Horne building out a separate business unit for T-Mobile, you know, we tried everything. I mean, when I was iot, we, we were trying to use Iphone edited sunday: the, old paging network to run M Alistair: two M and we failed. because, you know, in the [00:18:00] same way that Tel Coast failed in the content space. Because we were conceited Iphone edited sunday: and ego driven and thought Alistair: that we somehow owned the market and it was our, you right to, to, to build massive iot businesses. And we failed to understand that we were purely utility providers of connectivity and it was for others to build the solutions would drive value. I agree. In China, the model is very different The prescriptive model of you will do it is, is is useful when you're trying to build complex ecosystems Because I think the other, the other, I'd say obvious aspect of the iot with hindsight you know, it, it was always going to be an ecosystem driven and building ecosystems as a horizontal technology provider, whether you're in the connectivity space, or the platform is not a natural Um, it is a very complex thing to do. Iphone edited sunday: We were, we were Alistair: very successful, with Laura. a whole bunch of we were lucky worked out, But figuring [00:19:00] out how to create an ecosystem of hardware an ecosystem of network operators, an ecosystem of solutions providers, systems integrated, you know how to get all of those people to arrive at the same party at the same time phenomenally China did it because they said you're going to the party. Yes, You will be at the party at five o'clock on Thursday, and everybody showed up. That said, I would still argue that NB-IoT Has not been the resounding success in China might have been either. Yep. I mean, it's been a, it is been rather a failure elsewhere. Um, and I think, you know, again, from the telcos perspective, the, the, the reason that telcos were unable to build M2M and then IoT businesses was that they applied the same mindset that they had in their consumer businesses to iot and the cost structure and the, and the overhead and the, and the way of operation. was just antithetical to what iot needed. IOT needed cheap [00:20:00] easy. I mean, if you look at the technologies in this space that have done well and, and more technologies that win have 3 characteristics. 1 They are good enough at the job They are fit for purpose. They're not the best. They don't have to be the best 2 2 They are simple to use and 3 They have lots of friends and it's actually the lots of friends bit that always makes the difference. The big ecosystem around LoRa I mean, you and I have just been at the Things conference, you know, seeing that conference over the last 10 years, actually it's been Iphone edited sunday: evolving, unfortunately. Alistair: Coincides with my wedding anniversary every year. So there's, there's, there's, that. Um, but that community has grown grown and grown and today it is a combination of and solution way through. It started out as a bit of a pity party It started out as lots of vendors looking around the room going, you've got any customers yet, I haven't got any customers either. You know, and it's evolved from that into A-A-A-A-A two day show where every single person I spoke [00:21:00] to who had a stand there told me that there Iphone edited sunday: were customers coming Alistair: by and they've got 10 meetings next week and they've got, so it's turned into a real thing, and that's the ecosystem. I'd love to say it was the beauty and the strength of but it wasn't. community CRA: and they're finally getting there because they have invited in a lot of competitive technologies. Mm-hmm. 'cause you've got the guys from wifi Halo in there. You got people, you know, looking at it. from, I Alistair: don't think they're competitive, that's the CRA: thing. I know, the think well, it's good for back actually. but I think it's all these different things have to fit together. And What I believe for, like what I told Vinca when he was on the podcast before is, you need to do this because you've got what are they, 250,000 developers, um, in part of their, um, association. Basically, those guys need to develop things and stay in business. They can't just do Laura and stay in business, they have to do what the customer wants. And I think everyone's understanding that. And I was much more pleased this year walking outta than I was last year. Last year I was getting nervous because it was very fragmented. There wasn't that many big vendors. They got a lot more anchor vendors coming into this time. And it seems like we're finally learning and I'm like, wow, it's only taken us 10 years and we're finally [00:22:00] ready to go with I OT a little bit at least. Yeah. And on that note, it's a good thing. Where do you think we are today with I ot? Alistair: I think we are still, um, Iphone edited sunday: victims of human nature. Alistair: And I, I mean, the, the notion of I, I, I mean, I genuinely don't Iphone edited sunday: believe and, and think of Alistair: these different technologies as I, think it's a natural you know, I built this thing, it's else's, you know, I'm in some, I'm in some, you know, I'm in a commercial battle with these other technologies, and obviously to a degree that's true. But it, it, it is the, it is the, the, the contradictory kind of reality. that, that in order to be successful as a business, you have to treat your competitors as, you know, collaborators. You have to actually, build technologies that work with each other. I mean, VRA and Johan, coined the phrase in the first, uh, the, the first conference, you know, let's build this thing together. And that was really the driving principle behind TTN and, and, TTN. and. and Vinca and Johan, very [00:23:00] deliberately were, uh, I always thought Iphone edited sunday: of them as being the, the Alistair: defacto developer ecosystem around Laura. It was very deliberately not something build as EmTech. because I knew that at Syntech, Iphone edited sunday: you know, Alistair: whether we said it or not, be that, well, you're just really just trying to push this technology, what we needed to do was, to, Iphone edited sunday: was delegate, you know, Alistair: responsibility for building a developer ecosystem. And those 250,000 developers, Iphone edited sunday: all of whom use other Alistair: technologies. Iphone edited sunday: To build a developer Alistair: ecosystem that spoke to those developers in terms that weren't about that weren't about, Iphone edited sunday: you know, one thing is better than the other. Alistair: So, in terms of where we are today, I'm naively, naively optimistic. It's What, what is, what gets me out bed every day over all these years. But I, you know, I, I think that there is a broader realization the reality that every iot solution is a jigsaw of And those technologies, summon new. And some are existing and some have been there in, you know, some of that equipment's [00:24:00] been there for 90 years. You know, when you walk into a hot rolling steel mill and see, you know, the Hitachi hot rolling steel mill in the middle of it, and they say, oh yeah, we, we bought this like 75 years ago and it's, it is still running today. Um, we are at the point where we realize that I think the, the thing that's helped us get there is that there is money flowing in the ecosystem, Like I said, I mean, the early days it was somewhat of a pity party, there wasn't money flowing and people were competing for a pot of nothing. And when the money started to appear, when enterprises and industries started to see solutions that they could buy, suddenly cooperation became, you know, a valuable thing. Because if there's a client that needs you and I to work together guess, guess what? You and I might hate each other, but we are actually gonna work together. if we've got any any degree of common sense. CRA: But isn't a lot of this because they now, like we're, we're starting to see, we know how we can deliver value. Yes. And people are learning. We don't talk about the tech. You better go in with a business case. This is how I'm gonna deliver value back to you. Customers technology. Alistair: Now. Agreed. That's the, that's the sad truth. And it really, it [00:25:00] really, it it's almost a, a tragedy when you know, in the, early, in the earlier days when you, you gonna go to see, a, I'd go to see customers, with, my, my engineering counterparts and, and, you would sit and listen to them and kind of leave somewhat crest fallen, but Iphone edited sunday: didn't like, they didn't like my technology. It's like, no, they didn't, Alistair: I don't, I don't, we didn't want, I don't want to know what they think about the technology. What I want to know is what business problem are they trying to solve and what do we need to give them in order to solve that business problem? As you said it, it once, if you don't understand the core business problem that your customer's trying to solve and build a solution to that problem, then you're going down the wrong path. Iphone edited sunday: That Alistair: said, if you look at the software industry in particular, the history of the software industry is not listening to It's building things that, well, I I, my TE does this thing and it's really cool, and customers go. Iphone edited sunday: Great. Alistair: Uh, what do I do That, And in the earlier days, we to CTOs. We were talking to the IT [00:26:00] side of the house very often. And, and we were in POC purgatory and building things that never got implemented in the last four to five years. Um, or so, that conversation shifted to conversations with the COO and the CFO and the And it's shifted to, I have a, I have a business problem that costs me x Make it go away. And so I think we're still at the beginning really. I mean, there's the, I think we have a very big risk at the moment of reversing back to the old um, driven by ai 'cause AI is now the Iphone edited sunday: big, shiny thing that's gonna be $7 trillion. And you know, Alistair: you know you know, I 7 trillion probably this month. Oh, absolutely. Another seven story next month. you, and I could build a unicorn company today and sell it tomorrow. Easy. A busier problem at all. Um, I think that there is a danger that those big numbers being thrown around drive the same set of behaviors and take IOT back 10 years. I, CRA: I think this is interesting because I don't blame just iot because [00:27:00] there was way too much marketing hype and no one knew what they were talking about. But then what you had, right after IOT was smart cities was PropTech, which are all leveraging IOT solutions and you had all this money and hype and nonsensical talk about you, what it's gonna, how it's gonna transform your buildings and. your cities. Mm-hmm. And it like finally, there was a few years there. Nobody was talking about prop tech. No one was talking about smart cities or I ot. And then the market started to move because we just started focusing on how to deliver it. And I mean from what I look at it, from my perspective, what I've seen across Asia, um, Australia and right now in the US as well, a lot of it's much more infrastructure projects. Yeah. It's things that, it's really easy to figure out. Like you don't, I might sell this sensor housing unit that's gonna go into a sewer system, and monitor the water levels, But if I could tell you I'm gonna reduce your truck rolls by X percent, you don't care how much that costs 'cause that'll save you so much money. We're learning just barely how to do that. But no, you're right. AI is coming in, to ruin it for us. Alistair: And if I, I, I, I, I do think they may be from a marketing the invention of these terms has, has [00:28:00] the notion Iphone edited sunday: of there being an internet of things Alistair: to this day, most customers that I Iphone edited sunday: talk to. Don't Alistair: understand means. Yeah. My kids don't understand well, is is the term still relevant? No, I don't think it ever was. Yeah. I think it was, it was deeply harmful to create this idea that there was somehow a separate new thing that could generate new money from enterprise customers. And I mean, we made this mistake of Microsoft, the notion that Azure iot was a separate thing from. Azure Was one of the reasons that it wasn't successful and it was driven by, you know, commercial and marketing dreams that, oh, there's gonna be this whole new money that's gonna come from somewhere and they're gonna spend it on iot and they're also gonna spend all the old money on the other Uh, uh, when it was always the same pool of money. I think when we evolved from talking about Internet of things to talking about PropTech and smart cities. That was a positive evolution 'cause at least we were starting to talk about a, a problem set and about a solution to that problem set. I think [00:29:00] AI suffers the same, you know, risk it's a, it's a new thing. It's not, it's just a new set of to drive more value more quickly from data that you It's not a separate thing. Engineers you know, again, I don't like to beat upon Iphone edited sunday: engineers. You know, I'm, I guess I'm a quasi Alistair: engineer at this point myself. Well, there's CRA: none in the room so we can hammer ' Alistair: em out. But it, you know, it, it's understandable that you want to draw, draw a box around the thing that you're building it as a new and separate the technology that you're building is a new and it exists in a world that's old and dirty. And, and the the same, you know, if you look across industries, they're all fundamentally doing the same Iphone edited sunday: thing that they 50 years ago, they're Alistair: just doing with different technologies. The industry underlying is is exactly the same. So I think the evolution to talking about smart cities and prop tech and logistics, et cetera, was good. But I also agree with you we've stopped talking about buzzwords and we've started talking about specific It's now accident that [00:30:00] IOT. Iphone edited sunday: and Alistair: I wish I could Iphone edited sunday: of another word that wasn't I ot, Alistair: but hey, um, IO OT had its, uh, largest early stage implementations in things like smart metering. Yeah. Because guess what? You cannot employ if you don't have to employ someone to walk house, to house, to read a meter, write it down on a piece of paper and then go enter the system, you save money. Uh, and there's also no accident that most every single, every single person I know in iot at some point or other is built a connected vending machine. Because that was the ultimate business case of Well, you don't have truck rolls. Yeah. You don't have to have a guy come around and fill the, fill up the vending machine only to find that the vending machine is already full. I mean, it was something that customers could under could understand. So the more that we talk about real world problems, the more I think the more likely we are to be successful. From a marketing point of view, it complicates things because you don't get to talk about one thing. You get to talk about 10,000 use cases. Yeah. The marketers are like. But how do I, how do I have a generic advert that tells people what's my technology does and [00:31:00] what my, and it's like, well maybe you can't CRA: do that. Alistair: Maybe it doesn't work. Yeah. I think CRA: we we're making progress, but I think the best example I heard, um, was from um, at the event the other day and he was talking about how the MP three from when it was created before you had an iPod was 10 years. And I asked him afterwards, I'm like, well, which generation of iPod are we talking about? The old one or was one of the fan, it was like the old first generation. So we're still at those baby steps. We have a lot of blockers we still need to overcome right now, but we also have things that are impacting us. I mean, global uncertainties a nightmare for everybody. We've still got technical challenges, interoperability, connectivity, if you want a global solution is still not very easy. Yeah. Um, and it can be very expensive. Expensive. So like what do you think of, what are the biggest problems we need to overcome today? Alistair: I think we have at the moment. Enough tech, we've got enough technologies, we've got enough tools in the toolbox. Um, some of the combinations are [00:32:00] missing. So things like being able to deploy AI at the edge, you know, to be able to analyse data in situ and take action, you know, in, in the moment that something is required. You know, there's, so there's some more combinations, et cetera. But the problem isn't technology and there's never been technology. I think the biggest blocker, in all honesty, I think the biggest blocker is an ability to understand what customers are trying to deliver and deliver and, and to be humble in that regard. And again, building new and brilliant things requires a certain level of ego and belief and, and all of those good things. But, but a measure of schizophrenia is required as well to be able to use that energy to build technologies. But then to be humble enough in, when you're out in, in the market talking to customers, to recognize that your role, your role as a technology provider is not to answer the problem, to answer the question, your role is to understand the problem and understand the question and deliver [00:33:00] technologies that solve part of it. You know, it, it, it, that I think really is what's holding us back and, and to the degree that is human nature. And so, I mean, I, you, we talked earlier about, you know, my background and what brought me into this space. You know, what I've always tried to instill in the businesses that I've built is that sense of humility, that sense of understanding your role and your role is providing the nuts and bolts. It's not providing some masterful solution. And, and, and the other thing is, you know, always assume that as a, as an engineer or a, you know, product developer, that whatever it is that you're planning to do, your plan is wrong. You just dunno how it's wrong. And your job is not to be right. Your job is to understand why you screwed it up and to talk to your customer and listen to what they say and figure out how to do better the next time. And I, and I think that that is, is, that's a difficult thing for, you know, when you hire brilliant engineers. And I've been lucky enough to do that over the years and work with some of the most, [00:34:00] you know, incredibly intelligent folks I've met, you know, to, to help those folks go from, you know, understanding their own brilliance, which they should to understanding that whilst they may know about technology when it comes to the real problem, they generally don't know anything at all. CRA: I think when I look at the companies, I think have actually done a good job of adjusting the iot market opportunities. Mm-hmm. It's the ones who didn't start with I ot, they started out there, looked at a specific vertical. Mm-hmm. Looked at the pain points within that vertical. And then built a portfolio to solve those pain points. Mm-hmm. And unfortunately what happens in telco is those people get burnt out from the bureaucracy and leave, and you got the skills gap again. So suddenly you've got this portfolio that's about value selling, and then you're like, to the guy who's been selling EIMS and data packages now go and sell a complex solution to this industry and good luck. So that's part of the problem we have. It's, Alistair: it is, and imagine, imagine that in a, in a, in a silicon scenario where, you know, and we went through [00:35:00] a, a, a great evolution, I would say in Semtech, didn't get all the way there, but, but evolving from what I'd always call chip slingers. You know, my job is to go and sell chips to an understanding that the only way that you sell chips is if everything else is in place. And, and, and that drive you, you, there is a need for the technology that you're providing. And everything else is people who make the hardware, people who build the solutions to end people who build the cloud. People, you know, the ecosystem. And, and there are some silicon companies that have been successful in building ecosystems. I would count EmTech and the law of business amongst those. Mm-hmm. And there are some, I won't name names, but there are some that have stayed in that model of, my job is to make pieces of silicon and sell as many units as possible to whomever's gonna buy them. That, that I think is, is some companies have got it, as you said, most of them that have forgot it and done well, have started from a position where they understand the [00:36:00] industry. A a friend of mine, actually, who I worked with in consulting a few years ago, um, bought a, a family run company called Braco in the water industry. And they're a fine example small company in the, in the west coast us. Um, they built water, you know, management solutions for, I don't know, 80 years or so. And he, he has built what you would term if you looked at it, you know, an end to end IOT solution. Nowhere upon his website and nowhere in his sales collateral will you find the words. Iot. He talks about water management systems and he sells 'em to water. Water. Companies that don't understand technologies like iot don't want to understand technologies like those sorts of businesses with that sort of perspective are the ones that are actually out there solving real world problems. The companies that talk about IOT and the brilliance of their own technology generally are, CRA: well, I think Gimme one second. I'm just gonna do a quick flip on this one. I was just about to comment about IOT and sort of like, it's kinda like the Prince thing. The combination of technology is falling known as iot.[00:37:00] That's what we need is a symbol. Do this the regulation. 30 Alistair: minutes. It's nuts. CRA: Well, actually I, I found this off because I used it last time and it's 29 minutes and 59 seconds. It shuts off. Alistair: Good old you. CRA: Yeah. Some of the rules, they think they do it just to fuck with people. Yeah, Alistair: I think that's CRA: probably, that's probably the case. Do one more of these. Okay. So now let's move on and start looking at some of the regions in how they're doing. So let's look at this globally and let's start out in the US because that's the one region I try to avoid as much as possible. Despite coming from there. I don't really get involved and don't do much business in the us. So what's going on with iot in the us? Are we seeing a lot more innovation implementation or is it Alistair: stagnant? That's a good question. Um, I think that, you know, the geographic spread of the [00:38:00] US has always presented problems in terms of the, the networking side of things, the connectivity side of things. And, and companies outside of the cellular companies have struggled to build contiguous coverage. Um, what I see in the US is industry-based solutions. That are packaged in ways that their customers can understand and use, you know, are successful, um, those that, that are not, that are not successful. And that, you know, I'd include in that, you know, if you look at the, the big cloud players, they've all spent, you know, Microsoft included, um, they've all spent very considerable amount of money building separate iot platforms. Now, I think the problem in that statement, the first problem is the word separate. They were positioned as being separate and new money, um, versus the other, the rest of the cloud platform that they were building. But you've seen companies and, and, and the large folks, and also some smaller folks, build out these full end-to-end platforms. All singing, all dancing, do everything you want, make you a cup of coffee in the morning. [00:39:00] Gradually step back from that position over the course of the last few years. I think Microsoft has probably been the most overt about doing that, but all of the cloud players are doing exactly the same thing. Google also very, very overtly stepped up, stepped back, disinvested, you know, so I think that, that, that, and, and I think that was, that was really for one very simple reason that, as I said earlier, what what was needed was a, was an end-to-end solution built from an industry perspective positioned in a way that customers could understand and use. And that was by definition not what the cloud platforms were providing. So I think, you know, in terms of where the US stands, I think there's a lot of activity, you know, under the radar. Like I said, not called iot not, you know, I'm just building a better solution for the industry that I'm in. Those things are getting adopted and I think there's a lot of technology. That has been built, but didn't ever go anywhere because it was positioned as being a separate thing called iot that no one really [00:40:00] understood. I think the attention has pivoted from iot to ai and that's partly why I say that. One of the biggest risks I think we face at the moment is that we go back through D Loop again, CRA: but AI needs more data. Alistair: So it does, it does, and that, you know, but if we position it as, you know, the next big thing and the new technology, it, it'll be exact, it'll be running to exactly the same risk that iot did, which is that customers look at it and go, I, I don't, I dunno what to do with this if it's packaged as well. I've just got a better way of doing x. You know, I sold you a solution five years ago that allowed you to optimise the way that this machine worked, you know, and gave your operators information that allowed them to, to switch it off, when it was gonna break down. You know, now I'm selling you a better version, which actually shuts it down for you. It does the net, it goes the next step, and it moves into the more, you know, moves from an augmentive you know, IoT/AI-driven model into a more agentive kind of, it will do things for you. I do think that the risk in that transition, aside from it being a new, big, shiny [00:41:00] thing, is that if we, and this is the same issue, I think that iot, um, face, if we don't design it from a human-driven perspective, if we don't design these systems with empathy, with the goal of actually enhancing how people work, rather than replacing people, then these technologies won't be adopted. That they might look great to A CEO or a CFO trying to cut cost. But just like, you know, a tool that's poorly designed, they'll be left on the shelf by the people responsible for actually doing the job if they're not designed in such a way that they do truly augment the way that people make us better as people, rather than just cut people outta the loop. CRA: What, what I'm fascinated with AI and particularly generative ai. Is that we as the consumers have driven the huge adoption of it and we're using it for work now. Mm-hmm. And inside of companies, we are not even addressing the fact that this is probably ruining productivity in the near term because people are learning how to do it. They don't understand the security, uh, risks. Mm-hmm. Um, that we're [00:42:00] gonna be exposed to. We're just sort of jumping on this path ever really thinking it through. And that's why you see all the stats from MIT. And there's another one that just came out from, um, at Harvard Business Review about AI slop, which I love. Um, you know, it's like now they're calling it workslop This is the new stuff, how there's so much AI slop, it's particularly for people in businesses. Mm-hmm. They're calling it AI work. So it's people creating presentations, reports and sending 'em to people. And I wanna get back to the point where, okay, I'll summarize this and then you'll summarize that and then eventually we'll get down to two words and that's all we need. But I just, it is fascinating how we're just jumping on this path and not thinking about what are the risks, what are the opportunities? Yeah. And I, when you're talking about we need some empathy and actually understanding the human outcomes that is gonna deliver and the impact on humans. Good luck with that. When there's a lot of money floating around right now, everyone's just gonna throw money. And when money comes into play, people don't care about ethics. Yeah. Ethics. We don't need a stinking ethics, you know, so it's a big one, weird one. Now let's flip over. So us, I'm relatively bullish on the US 'cause I know a lot of people who are doing business there. Braw sync Sun: It's moving a lot faster than we see [00:43:00] here in Europe. And I think this is one thing I've learned coming back from 15 years in Singapore is things move a lot slower here. Um, the innovation isn't here. There's not a VC ecosystem to support an innovative environment. So people wanna invest in things that are more fit for purpose and ready to go, and very stable with a, they don't need to see super high growth rates, but they wanna see consistent growth rates. CRA: Mm-hmm. So it hasn't moved as much, but that's my opinion. I'm looking at Europe, and you've been looking at it for a long time as well. What do you see in Europe right now? Braw sync Sun: I think Europe was quicker to adopt the notion of collaboration, you know, and, and that that may be, you know, rose into spectacles on my part. Alistair: But, you know, the very existent existence of organizations like, um, the things industry, TTN, um, bin K, Johan, you know, there's been a lot more push for collaboration. There is always the political dynamic in Europe, which, which, when I explain it to my American colleagues, you know, I always say that you gotta [00:44:00] realise that everybody's fought everybody else at some point, everybody's invaded, everybody else, everyone's murdered each, you know, there, there's, there's a, there's a rich backdrop of conflict in Europe from nation to nation and between different language groups. Um, but even with that, there, there is a degree of collaboration. I think Europe, um, has quietly adopted what, I guess we have to call iot solutions for things like, um, logistics for things like utility industries, you know, in the, in the background, CRA: um, industrial manufacturing I think as well. Yeah, Alistair: yeah. Yeah. And I think that those, so, so those, you know, they're almost kind of on, on the, under the radar on the download or don't tell anyone about on an IOT solution. Um, I think in Europe there has been a very positive influence from private equity. Mm-hmm. Um, and I distinguish between private and I, to be clear, I don't, I think VCs do play a useful role. I think, I think money is the problem. Mm-hmm. Lots and lots of money when you're, if you're a, again, not to be ageist, but if you're a young 20 something with a great idea [00:45:00] and you can go to a VC and raise $50 million on the basis of a PowerPoint deck. There's a problem with that model, and you're probably not going to spend that money wisely. Hmm. Um, and that, that actually has nothing to do with age. If you can go walk into a VC and walk out with a bag of $50M without actually having ever built a product or served a customer, or even more than $50M if you've got ai, you know, in, in your name, um, that's a deeply, um, damaging thing. But private equity operators in the main, and I work with several, um, come coming from a more industry driven background with a more long-term view, I think play a positive role in Europe, in, in a way that they are not quite so visible in the us. I think, um, I think the fact that, that the complexity of logistics systems in Europe and the fact that Europe is hell of a lot smaller, you know, lends itself to the adoption of some technologies. But I think, um, the complexity of Europe at a political level, the language level and everything else, level added to the complexity that is inherent in [00:46:00] iot has held things. Um, in the US I think it's the, the complexity of too much money that has caused people to build things that no one ever wanted and technologies that no one ever needed. Um, I think the more managed economies like China, you've seen, as you said earlier, you've seen some major strides, other managed economies like Russia. You haven't mm-hmm. You haven't seen that sort of advance. So, you know, again, I'm, I'm naively optimistic about things and, and you, I, I see the green shoots happening as you do. Um, and I'm hopeful that, that the pace of, of adoption i don't care about innovation, the pace of adoption is, is picking up now and we'll continue to escalate. CRA: I, I think there's, the one reason I'm more bullish about Europe, even though there's a lot of things that move slow, is they do have a lot of the very large. Companies that service the industrial manufacturing sector. Yeah. So you have your Siemens, you have Bosch. Bosch was at the Things conference this week. The fact that they're getting back into this game, even in Laura and getting out there, they've always been excellent at building an ecosystem. Yeah, [00:47:00] they always had Bosch connected world. Um, so they get that. They've got, they already have the client base. It's a matter of almost probably navigating Bosch to get through to the right people in your client, because the industries they cover are the ones that benefit the most in the near term on this. So I'm, I'm bullish on that. Now let's move on to the nice simple one called Asia Pacific. So it's at about 4 billion people properly. I think it's 4.6 billion people across there. We've already talked about China. What about some of the other markets there? Anything interesting for you? Alistair: Well, I think, yeah, we tend not to think about those markets, don't we? We tend not to think about countries like Indonesia, which has a massive slice of the world's population. Um, and the, the, the underdeveloped economies versus the, the more developed economies where, you know, wireless first, you know, the, the, the, the look at, look at Sub-Saharan Africa as well. India, you know, these, these countries where they have, they are essentially skipping, you know, what the rest of the world went through in the last [00:48:00] 20 years and going straight into a wireless driven world, wireless broadband and the adoption of new technologies. I think they are very fertile areas for the solutions that iot can enable. I think the challenge is in some instances, the ability to fund. Um, obviously I think in some instances the challenge is a political nature. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you, if you look at Indonesia as a country, there are, there are major initiatives underway in Indonesia to deliver connected, metering, um, products, to deliver logistics, products, deliver those sorts of solutions. But it's a complex political environment to navigate and, you know, it, it's kind of China without the central control, you know? Yeah. There's, there's a, there's a central authority to that makes decisions, but they don't have the same degree of control and influence over what actually happens. So I think there is an enormous opportunity if we can also use these technologies to help these countries as they go through the, the process of industrialising We have an opportunity [00:49:00] to avoid the mistakes of the past. We have an opportunity to help these countries generate and use energy in a more efficient and less harmful way. And then if we don't do that, if we are not successful, then we are going to see another, you know, another phase of, of, of deep damage to to, to the global climate. Um, so there is a, an opportunity, there is an absolute necessity, there is complexity, but what's needed to, to kind of break through all of that is, is a packaged set of solutions that companies that are not, you know, software engineer and hardware engineer driven that are, they're able to adopt. I mean, there, and there's a lesson from the past that we can learn from here. You know, when you look back at enterprise software back in, you know, 20 odd 30 years ago, companies used to build their own ERP systems. They spend millions of dollars with consulting companies and build their ERP solutions. How did we end up in a world where most companies have ERP solutions running? Well, it was called [00:50:00] customisable off the shelf solutions package end-to-end solutions that could be customized. And, and that model is one that needs to be replicated in iot I want to be able to buy a logistics solution that is 95% baked and I want to be able to customise the 5%. So it fits with my, my model, my company, um, and the problem I'm trying to solve and I want to get on with it, and I want it to be cheap. Mm-hmm. And I want it to be, you know, easily used by people who are not an expert. Uh, if we can deliver those sorts of solutions into. The, the, I'll say gen, the bucket of the developing world countries, then we have a chance of avoiding more self-harm as humans if we fail, which that's every possibility that we might, we might, CRA: yeah, it's really hard in a lot of the lower income countries across Southeast Asia, because you might have a solution that works in Singapore, but that price point won't work across the rest of the region. Mm-hmm. The other thing is, a lot of times the value you're gonna deliver is by reducing headcount. Um, because you can do something automatically in some of those countries. The cost of a headcount [00:51:00] or a person's time isn't that much. Um, I remember there was somebody, this is years ago when we were looking at IOT. They were talking about how you could automate some of the highways and motorways in India. Mm-hmm. But the thing is, the people that they have there, you might have to, there might be 10 guys sitting there in front of these things like collecting money from you and passing you through. Mm-hmm. Those guys don't cost anything. Mm-hmm. So anything you're doing is still an additional cost to what they do today. Mm-hmm. So I think it's, it's a challenging one. There's a lot of opportunity. One of the other problems we have in Southeast Asia is the VC industry is basically tanked completely. Yeah. Um, so they're gonna be struggling for a while, but let's move on to the next one because we haven't hit the Middle East, which is the one I'm most excited by because it's got the combination of, it's got the money. Mm-hmm. Um, all the tech brands moved from Singapore when that was the English or innovation hub, and they moved over to Dubai or Riyadh. You also have all the top tech talent was moving over there from Southeast Asia. So all the expats are now thinking, why am I gonna pay 15% tax when I can pay zero? Mm-hmm. So you've got it all there and you've got major initiatives and you've got a [00:52:00] culture. That if you get to the right person, deals go quick. Yeah. So I'm bullish on it. Yeah. I wanna see if they can deliver it, but I What are your other thoughts about the Middle East? Alistair: I agree with you. I think there is, there is a, there is a combination of, of characteristics that, that will help the rapid adoption of, of solutions. I think you're right in saying that, that most iot solutions in some way or other, you know, are viewed through the lens of reducing human capital as we call it now, which is horrible work because it implies that, you know, the, the, these units are not, not, you know, human beings. I, I think the, that as said earlier, the need is to, you know, you need a hefty dose of empathy to, as you think about these solutions, because it shouldn't be about replacing, this is technology. There's no room for empathy, haven't you? You seen Facebook? I mean, come on. Well, let's not go there, but, but, um, there is that, that's the thing. I mean. You have to, a solution has to be something that is [00:53:00] understood, is explainable to the individual who's using it, and it should enhance the process, whatever that process may be, in such a way that it, it, it delivers more economic benefit to think about that economic benefit purely through the lens of will I need 10 less people if I have this, you know, it, it's those people at the end of the day who will choose whether or not to adopt and use these technologies or not. And if you design something that explicitly is going to put 'em out of a job, guess what? They won't, they won't use it. Um, I think as you said, when you look at the, the Middle East, there is a combination of factors there that, you know, predispose the Middle East to being able to move quite quickly in iot. It, it, what's needed again is that, you know, we in the technology space do our freaking jobs. That we actually understand what people are trying to do and design solutions that work around them and with them and enhance the processes that they're responsible for, because then they'll be adopted and then they'll deliver the [00:54:00] value. If we, if we carry on with the same old approach of, you know, my technology's great and better and, you know, screw you, if you can't understand it, then, then, you know, we will fail. And, and there is really no higher purpose to me than trying to help all of this continue to exist for, you know, another 10,000 years. Um, for, for us you mean Sunshine and Amsterdam? I'm just hoping it exists until tomorrow, at least one day at a time. You never know. There might be a lot more of it seen, um, you know, not necessarily in a good way, but it, you know, it, it, I'm not sure what our goal is as technologists is. If it's not to enhance, you know, the human experience. Mm-hmm. And I can't think of anything more important in enhancing the human experience than preventing what we have collectively done in the pursuit of profit, destroying this planet for future generations. And so, you know, it is incumbent upon us Yep. As technology providers to [00:55:00] be very, very conscious of that. And, and yes, we'll, will we make money along the way? And yes, we will. But if we just, if we focus on the outcome rather than the purpose, then we do the wrong thing. If we focus on the purpose, then the outcomes will flow. There'll be money, there'll be, you know, there'll be profit, there'll be everything else. Um, but, but it really, it does, does come down to the folks of us, you know, all of us in this industry. You know, understanding that very simple truth. Our job is to solve significant, you know, the world, the world's problems in some respects. CRA: And I think as an industry, we keep rolling out technology for technology's sake. And we forget that technology exists to deliver human outcomes. Mm-hmm. And if you start with that as your premise and you make it human-centric mm-hmm. Probably a better chance of adoption. But I've been ranting about this stuff for so many years now. Um, I think maybe it's just my way of mentioning it isn't working. I need to find a better way to get it to my gut. I feel the same. Alistair: I feel the same. And it seems safe screamingly obvious, but, but you know, I think the. We, we are, I think it's incumbent upon us. Yep. You and I [00:56:00] and, and others who, who speak about this space to, to, to apply the same principle. You know, it's, it's our job to figure out how to explain this in a way that can be absorbed. And, you know, the adage with technology is always just 'cause you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. Exactly. You know, if there's, if it is technology for technology's sake, then don't do it. I mean, just go and talk to your customer and ask them what they want CRA: and Alistair: then do that instead. CRA: Well, I guess that kicks off of what we need to do to improve it in the future. But, uh, okay. So we've now taken a look at these different regions. Mm-hmm. But now let's take a little bit of a look into the future. Let's go five years out and let's say that it iot or the technology group solutions that come together, formerly known as iot, whatever we call the next buzzword. Comes together and the market's really taken off. Mm-hmm. You're seeing a lot more adoption across all different types of, um, industries, different verticals. Mm-hmm. Different skill sets. So like what would've happened, what are those critical success factors going to be for [00:57:00] us to make this into a success in the next five years? Alistair: I think it's, it come it's end-to-end solutions that integrate multiple technologies and work, you know, with other existing solutions and, and, you know, easy to say, hard to do. You know, I, if you're building the difficulty, I think from an, from an engineering and a product perspective in building an end-to-end solution. Is understanding, you know, where what you draw the box around and understanding what happens at the edges of that box. So what is this plugging into, you know, if I build an end-to-end solution, how do I avoid trying to solve the entire problem? Mm-hmm. As a single vendor and, you know, working together. I've done numerous joint venture type things over the years. I'm sure you have too. It, it's really hard. Mm-hmm. It's very difficult bringing together diff two different commercial entities around a, a collaborative business [00:58:00] model that rewards rather than punishes collaboration. Mm-hmm. And, and it is fighting human nature. It's fighting human nature where, you know, so if this, if this client's gonna pay $10 million for this thing, how do I accept and explain to my shareholders that I'm only ever gonna get 1 million of the 10? That, that actually the other 9 million is gonna go somewhere else. In some respects, the role of pure technology providers, like, like EC with Laura is actually easier. 'cause if you start with the principle of, well, for every, and this is the, the, the, the thing that drove the early days of Microsoft Bill Gates is, you know, principle that, you know, for every dollar that we make, you know, everybody else makes 10 or 20 or $30. You know, getting your head around that, explaining that to profit hungry investors in the street on a quarterly basis, when you have to go and, you know, show the upper curve and all the rest of it. It is complicated, but, but necessary if we're going to be successful, um, it, it is making a simpler set [00:59:00] of, of solutions that customers can use. CRA: I think on that, what I'm looking for is simpler connectivity where it's just, it it, because right now there's still too much discussion about what type of connectivity and then if I want to use satellite as well, what does that cost? It's still too complex. So I'd like to see that. Simplified. Yeah. And making it easier for customers to adopt it. 'cause we're creating the barriers right now because of the way we behave. Alistair: And there are some provider, I mean Blues, a company I was with, um, for a while, a COO started by sie is one of a number of companies that are trying to do that. They're trying, they've created a hardware based abstraction layer, essentially single, single hardware form factor, pull one chip one, one modular out sticker one another one in, and you've got different wireless technology behind the same API, you know, to, to your point, these tech, these technologies need to be simple in and of themselves, but more importantly, they need to be simple to change between, you know, to, to, to swap one out, change the other, to have a device that can operate on cellular when it's out in the field and lo and when it's in the, in the, in the, you know, in the [01:00:00] factory. You know, tho those by nature, those technologies. You are typically built by different companies, but you by definition, therefore, those companies need to figure out a way of working together when actual fact they are, they're competitors, they're, they're, you know, they're blood enemies. Mm-hmm. And again, it's human nature. You've got to figure out a way of building a collaborative business model that awards collaboration, um, rather than rewarding competition because we can fight all day long over a bucket, but if that bucket doesn't have anything in it, yeah, there's no money there. We're fighting over nothing. Once there's money in the bucket, it gets a lot easier to collaborate because we can kind of see what we're gonna get. Um, but it does require people to think differently about the nature of competition and the nature of innovation and the nature of what they're doing to, to advance their own revenue and profitability and that of their quote unquote competitor. CRA: So now you've spent quite a bit of time in this space in iot. What if you could go back to the beginning and [01:01:00] give yourself one piece of advice of that you like, something you should know back then That would've made this easier on you and maybe driven the market a little bit. I know it's hard for one individual to drive the whole market, but that you would've understood sooner and made it better. I, Alistair: I think I would would say go and work with the companies that are already in these spaces, solving problems for their customers in utilities, their customers in logistics that, and work within those companies to. Build these technologies and integrate them into the existing solution because they understand the needs of their customers. They may be selling a, a solution that's utterly devoid of software, but they understand what their customers are trying to do. They have a channel to those customers. They are trusted by those customers and what they serve up enhances what they're already offering, rather than this brand new shiny thing that comes from this software company. You know, be it in Seattle or Silicon Valley or [01:02:00] wherever. You know, that hasn't, that has no name recognition in many cases with that customer that isn't trusted by that customer. You know, work from within the system to improve the system rather than, you know, coming over the top with a new set of technologies. I think had we done that more, and you know this in some respects was the purpose behind the Lamar platform, Hitachi. It was to, and Lamar's go to market was and is, well you just bought a backhoe to use the American term. You bought a backhoe that, that. Comes with intelligence. You know, those, those, that model has been more successful in driving more rapid adoption. That's what I would say to myself. Don't, don't, don't work in this environment where, you know, you're surrounded by people who understand the technology and go work in that environment where it's harder because no one understands what the hell you're talking about. But make, make yourself, you know, understand what they're doing. Make yourself, you know, understand the nature of the technology that you need to deliver and help them be more successful. 'cause they're [01:03:00] gonna get past the finish line quicker than you will. CRA: Okay. And now the final question. This is an easy one. Oh, actually, maybe it's the hardest one. I'm not sure. You've had a very unique career path, and I really do respect that. And I mean that because I think mine, mine makes no sense. I have a hard time explaining it. Like, how the hell did I actually get where I am? Not only like technology wise, but like regions. I mean, you know, I'm from Chicago, you're from the UK now. You've, we've, you've flipped country over there. I've lived in the UK for a while now. I'm over here. I've lived in Singapore. It's just, it's been a bizarre ride. Mm-hmm. Looking back on your ride and you could do it all over again, would you change anything? Would you go somewhere sooner? Would you try something different going back through this path? Alistair: I don't think I would, and I say that mostly because, you know, as, as a hypothetical, you know, better to accept where you are and accept reality. And I, you know, thank you for saying that about my career. My career largely came that by accident, I've got to say. Agreed. Same here. It's easy. You kinda, you kinda look back and I can, I can string together, you know, the, the, the, the red thread of like, you know, why the hell did I do this and this and this. When the reality is I was lucky enough [01:04:00] to have interesting things come along, you know, successively, you know, over the years that I was like, wow, that's really cool. I'm gonna go do that for a while. And all of those things kind of played into, you know, a central narrative that with hindsight actually makes sense, which is kind of bizarre. Um, so I dunno that I would've, I don't know that I would've changed anything. Um, if I could, I would go back to myself 25 years ago and say, just be a bit smarter about this. You know, don't, don't, you know, even as a non-engineer, don't get focused on the technology. This is not, this is not a technical problem. This is not a technology. Technology will not solve this problem. The root and this problem being, we do shit that destroys the world. Um, this problem is a human problem. It's not a technology problem. Technology is a means to an end. It's not the end. It's just a way of making stuff happen more quickly. Um, that's the only thing that I would really change. But other than that, I mean, I've been extraordinarily [01:05:00] fortunate to work with for and around people who are a hell of a lot smarter than I am, who understand technologies in ways that I never will. And I've been lucky enough to add a little bit of, of thought around, well, I get this technology's great, but how do we actually, how does, how does this solve a problem? Yeah. Um, but I'm, you know, I, I think that the, the, the, the, the root of building businesses that are humbled by nature is by realizing yourself in the vast array of things that you're terrible at. What are the one or two things that you're actually are passing the okay at? You know, and, and I've been lucky enough I think, to figure that out over the years. I'm still working on it. You know, I think I've made most of the mistakes you can make in, in this IOT space. Was it, I think I can go through my CRA: whole career. I made most of the mistakes you can make. No, it's, I mean, come on. I quit a job. Actually, no. I negotiated a package to leave a company because my mate and I thought, you know what? World Cups in Japan and Korea, let's see if we can watch [01:06:00] every single match. Which means we were literally, he would show up at six o'clock at my house. We'd have breakfast and we'd get to the pub by seven in the morning. I was in my thirties. That's a great, this was, this was not a wise career choice though. It was just like, do you think we could do that? When are we gonna have the opportunity to try again? Let's see what happens. But I think I've gotten lucky as well because I've sort of, I've run into the right people. I've had some interesting opportunities fall into my lap, but I've had some, a lot of really rough patches as well, but I think that's what makes it exciting. Yeah. So, well anyway, Alistair, thank you so much for coming out to enjoy this beautiful sunny day in Amsterdam. And I wish you all the best in the rest of your time here and your travels, and hopefully you'll come back on next year and let us know what else is going on in IOT in the US and how everything has been solved with that group of technology solutions that were ly known as. I, oh, it's all gonna Alistair: be, it's all gonna be be, we'll have to be talking about ai. I think next time. Definitely. That's gonna be the next thing. It's been an absolute pleasure. Excellent. I've really enjoyed it. CRA: Great. Thank you very much. Stuff. That was fun. Nice. Yeah. My wife is still, I [01:07:00] mean.