Martha Lane Fox

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is an entrepreneur. Her lineage is old and aristocratic, her attitude modern and dynamic. In the mid-90s, she joined forces with a business partner who had the idea of selling last-minute holidays on the internet. The rest is dot-com history. After only 18 months of trading, lastminute.com floated on the stock market, raising £100 million. Immediately afterwards, the internet wave receded and people predicted the whole thing would go bust, but it didn't. Last Minute turned out to be long term. And at the end of last year, its co-founder, having seen it into profit, decided to leave for Pastures New. The whole idea, she freely admits, had been someone else's, but she has been its public face, the perfect image for the internet generation. My parents, she says, gave me the luxury of thinking I can do anything. So I did. She's Martha Lane Fox. How do parents do that, Martha? How do they instill that kind of self-confidence in you? I think it's a combination of things. Firstly, just a huge amount of love and laughter at home. Always very, very lucky. And I think also the privilege of a great education and their own slight zaniness. It's probably the best way to describe it. Is that what it is? I think so. I can honestly say, I think my father would have fallen off his chair with horror if I'd said I was going to go and be a banker, rather than I was going to go and work in television or start a business or something. So I've always been encouraged to think about things in a different way, I guess that's. But there has to be a kind of raw material. There has to be a fundamental self-confidence in you, you know, in your genes, I suppose. But were you always like that as a kid? Apparently. Didn't sleep very much from the age of zero. Typical first child syndrome, I think. Rather noisy, slightly bolshy, so I think there's probably a bit innate in there, but it definitely was encouraged rather than discouraged. And it went on through. Apparently at school you were called, is this right fast lane foxy? I think this is a myth that my brother very helpfully started. I mean it's now become fact as my friends wind me up and call me it. Let me throw another quote that lurks in the cuttings about you at you and ask you if it's true.

Martha Lane Fox1:24

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox1:26

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox1:42

Is that what it is?

Speaker 22:05

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox2:22

Yeah.

Presenter2:35

Someone said she, or did you say it yourself, always had a driving ambition to be famous and widely adored. True or false?

Presenter2:44

I like that. I'd love to know who quoted it. It definitely could have been me, but I don't think so. I think everyone wants to be widely adored, don't they? Be famous, I'm not sure. Perhaps in the abstract, but certainly not through Lastminute.com. That was a complete surprise as anyone that was around and witnessed the sort of period when it all went crazy. I never anticipated that it would become such an enormous thing. But the being famous you've sort of enjoyed, except there has been a downside, and I'll ask you later about exactly why and how. But it got pretty nasty. How hurt did you get? You were being vilified in the press and in interviews, weren't you, everywhere? I think despite maybe having said I would like to be famous, I never took it that seriously. You're growing a business, not worrying about what's being written in the papers, to be honest. But the reality is it hurts, doesn't it?

Martha Lane Fox3:26

Ben

Presenter3:30

Well, I know it does. No, it it does hurt, but it's it also did still feel quite surreal and quite abstract. And I'd look at the stuff and it didn't often seem to be really about me. It was more about a sort of context and so on. So, of course, it does hurt, but I think it's just about keeping it in perspective. Your true role model, I read, is collected from your classical studies. She's the Roman Empress Theodora. Now, what was special about her? She always struck me as particularly hilarious, because well, her husband

Martha Lane Fox3:30

Well, I know it does.

Presenter3:54

Justinian was storming around holding the Roman Empire together. He would learn about her antics from afar when he was off on the battlefield. But she struck me as having some character to her. I thought she was licked by swans. Yes, she was. She covered herself in honey and was licked by geese in the forum. And I just love the thought of Justinian somewhere on a battlefield reading a letter, thinking, oh my goodness, what's she doing now? She was a clever operator, absolutely. Kept it lively. Okay, record number one.

Martha Lane Fox4:07

Yes, it's cut.

Martha Lane Fox4:16

She lived.

Presenter4:20

Well, I love 1950s show tunes. I think I know all the words to most of the MGM musicals off by heart. I would watch them whenever I was sick or just skiving school. And my particular favourite was a not very good movie called Summer Stock with Judy Garland in it, one of her last ones, which she looks amazing. She's 45 and she's dancing around in hot pants. And the number get happy. Well, I defy anyone not to make themselves feel happy after listening to this.

Speaker 44:45

It's quiet and peaceful on the other side. Forget your troubles, get happy, your cares fly away. Shout Alleluia, get happy, get ready for your judgment day. Come on, get happy. Chase your cares away. Shout hallelujah. Come on, get happy. Get ready for the judgment day.

Presenter5:13

Judy Garland singing Get Happy from the 1950s show Summer Stock. As I said in the introduction, Martha Lane Fox, LastMinute.com wasn't your idea, it was the brainchild of your business partner, Brent Hoberman. Am I right in thinking that when he first suggested it to you, you rubbished it? I did, much to my shame, but I think it probably reflects quite well on both of us that he forgave me and I changed my mind. But this was what, in 1996, he first thought of it when you were working together somewhere else. Exactly, it was my first job, and I met Brent and we worked together on a lot of projects. And he said that he had come up with this idea of the perfect application for the internet. And the internet at that time was non-existent in the UK, a bit more existent in the US. But why didn't you see it as an idea? What did you think was wrong with it?

Martha Lane Fox5:33

But this was what

Martha Lane Fox5:52

But why do

Presenter5:55

I think I just didn't quite understand how technology would make it a lot simpler because the idea of it is very complicated. It's a big ambitious vision to be able to sort out your leisure non-working time all in one place, all on one site. So it involves so many deals with hotels and airlines and theatre producers and all kinds of different businesses. And I just didn't see how technology made that simpler. Did he call it then lastminute.com? Had he thought of the name it was? The name would be Last Minute, yeah, really. And he had written a sort of one-page document that then we filed in a drawer until it was going to be a time where people would give us some money, which they clearly wouldn't have done at that time, I think. But just in case people don't know what it is, I mean, it is a kind of, is this a pejorative term, it's a kind of online bucket shop in the beginning. It's sort of a bucket shop, but not just a bucket shop. It really is more about helping you organise the time you're not working better. And it's quite daily. It is about selling things cheaper, but sometimes it's expensive because if it's the last two tickets to see, you know, Judy Garland's last ever show Risen from the Dead, then it's going to be pretty bloody expensive. But if it's something where go this weekend to Egypt, then it might be cheaper. And obviously, yes, but the business thing is that you've rung up airlines and they've got some tickets left they can't sell anywhere else or a hotel or whatever and you bung them on the line. Okay. How much persuading did you take eventually? I think I mean you kind of joined last minute didn't you? Yes. Last minute, last minute. Last minute, last minute, exactly. It was a couple of years later, it was 1998 and we both left the business spectrum we were working for and I'd gone into other businesses. But I wasn't particularly happy. I was working at a T V company Carlton and I had my own office and I sat there miserable because I don't like working by myself in a small space. And so Brent said I'm going to do it now and we had dinner and it just seemed blindingly obvious and I understood a lot more about technology at that point. And you sat together in a broom cupboard? We sat together in his flat.

Martha Lane Fox6:17

Did he call

Martha Lane Fox6:19

He thought of the name as the name would be

Martha Lane Fox6:21

Very

Martha Lane Fox6:31

Excellent.

Martha Lane Fox6:32

I'm a link.

Martha Lane Fox6:46

And it's quite

Martha Lane Fox7:01

And obviously that's a good idea.

Presenter7:44

Piles of paper, masses of research notes, this whirring printer that was printing off our business plan, which I will never forget the noise of. It just went da da da da da da da da for hours and hours and hours. And you were cold calling people? Yes, we did a lot of cold calling. Explain that to me. Well, we'd have to call up, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hotels, hundreds and hundreds of airlines, hundreds and hundreds of um tour oper small tour operators and also tick producers of any kind, so sports tickets or music tickets. Um we did used to sit with just sheets and sheets of people to call and and the same spiel of, you know, you haven't heard of us, but we're starting an internet site and what's the internet and all that. Soul destroying stuff. There were two of you then. How many people are there at it today?

Martha Lane Fox7:57

Like explain that.

Martha Lane Fox8:22

So they were

Presenter8:25

Thirteen hundred, which is a reflection also of the fact we've bought a few companies along the way. And you were worth nothing then, and on paper today you're worth

Speaker 48:30

Uh

Martha Lane Fox8:30

Yeah.

Presenter8:35

The business is worth around £800 million now. And you're worth £25 million. A bit of that. A bit of that. It varies quite a lot. Anyway, it's all on paper anyway. It's all on paper anyway. Record number two. Record number two is harking back to being very small. It's my mum's, one of my mum's favourite records, James Taylor, You've Got a Friend, and I can hear her singing it and doing the ironing or chopping things up or putting on makeup and it makes me quite teary even to think about it.

Martha Lane Fox8:41

Is that a bit of that?

Martha Lane Fox8:44

Anyway, it's all on paper anyway. It's all on paper anyway.

Speaker 49:03

When you're down.

Speaker 49:06

And trouble.

Speaker 49:09

And you need a helping hand.

Speaker 49:14

And a thing

Speaker 49:16

All nothing's going right.

Speaker 49:25

Close your eyes and think of me.

Speaker 49:29

And soon I will be late.

Presenter9:32

Yeah.

Speaker 49:33

Uh

Presenter9:33

James Taylor, and you've got a friend. Great stuff. Tell me, Martha, about these inspiring parents of yours. Let's do your dad first, Robin. What what did he or does he do? It's a very good question.

Martha Lane Fox9:40

Open

Presenter9:44

He is a real Renaissance man. He's fundamentally an academic. He's a classical historian and he teaches at Oxford, but he's also a gardening correspondent for the Financial Times. And at the moment he is consulting on the latest Oliver Stone movie Alexander the Great because he is a special subject at Alexander the Great. That's his period. And he likes, according to his who's who entry, rough travel.

Martha Lane Fox10:03

And he loves

Presenter10:07

Yes, very rough it should say, V rough travel. Holidays with my dad were basically fine art tours from the age of about three and a half and would normally start with either a very long drive across Europe which my mum would bypass by flying directly to the destination or a very very very late flight and a night on the airport floor to begin with but um stood us in good stead I think in order to get where and do what? Well normally Italy or Greece because they were the only two countries that had anything interesting in them and we would go around all the places of interest in a given area and quite frequently we'd be in museums. I remember being in the academia in Venice and Pa being mistaken for the tour guide. We were standing around a Giorgione painting and he was pontificating about it and it was fantastic stuff. It's never dry or boring.

Martha Lane Fox10:29

Get new

Presenter10:54

So good, in fact, that it attracted quite a crowd, and I think he could have charged and actually made back the cost of the holiday, probably. So you were the sort of Anorak family one saw on holidays? Not so many Anoraks, grey flannel trousers. My mum always looks very glamorous, but deep-rooted history was pretty important on holidays. And you didn't mind as kids? I mean, were you were you tested on it? Were you? Yes, we had over dinner we'd have we'd write down timelines of who came before who. So, you know, was Carpaccio before after Botticelli? Where did Dellini fit in with Giotto? Which sounds monstrous, but actually we thought it was completely normal.

Martha Lane Fox10:59

Do you deserve it?

Martha Lane Fox11:01

But in my

Presenter11:26

But you still don't know the answer.

Martha Lane Fox11:26

But it was a

Presenter11:29

But did he also teach you a kind of pioneering spirit? I mean, I'm trying to find links yesterday. No, absolutely. I think that he is more than anybody I know practically somebody that just embraces every opportunity. And I think that he would only ever be disappointed if I didn't do things rather than the things I've suggested to him. And what about your mother? She's the sort of blue blood I mentioned in all of this. She was sort of related to the Marquis of Anglesey or whatever. But was she the complete mother? I mean, was she domestic and always there and cooking wonderful food for you?

Martha Lane Fox11:32

Yeah.

Speaker 411:43

Um

Martha Lane Fox11:43

Uh

Martha Lane Fox11:45

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox11:46

M

Martha Lane Fox11:51

Marcus of Angus.

Presenter11:59

No, not cooking so much. There's a joke that I think has maybe been recorded before that when my friends came around to my house they would not find food in the fridge but money. This is for you to the money for you to nip out, I think. She is quite fantastic, much more quiet and private than than me and my dad, a bit more like my brother, I think. But a businesswoman.

Speaker 212:08

This is for you.

Martha Lane Fox12:08

You to the money for you to hit up.

Presenter12:20

Yes, she and her best friend have always run their own small businesses and she has never been somebody who just wants to sit around and do nothing and they run a lecture business that gets people to come and talk. You wouldn't normally hear talk, so not people that are on the lecture. So there's a sort of entrepreneurial spirit, exactly. And a younger brother, Henry, whom you said suffered a terrible amount of torment. A terrible amount of torment. Poor Henry. Quite miraculous that he still speaks to me, let alone is such a fantastic brother. I mean just the two things that always stick in my head, which he frequently reminds me of, are the fact that I used to get my whole class of teddy bears together and Henry and give them tests and always mark my teddy bears far above Henry's ability to answer questions. And then the other thing I used to do is we used to do plays and I would basically play ten parts and Henry would be allowed to be serving girl.

Martha Lane Fox12:34

Two

Martha Lane Fox12:41

Okay.

Presenter13:10

But he's very well balanced and fantastic young man.

Martha Lane Fox13:10

But he's very

Presenter13:13

Record number three. This is really kind of a teenage years song, Check a Khan Ain't No Body. I'm not going to even attempt to sing it as I tried to when I was 14, but she really belts it out and I think this is a great number.

Speaker 413:24

Parent took each other

Speaker 413:29

Public secret is no so

Speaker 413:34

A feeling lost with treasure.

Speaker 413:38

And I love so deep we cannot measure

Speaker 413:41

Nobody's too much.

Speaker 413:43

Come in back up, can make me happy this way. Ain't nobody, ain't nobody.

Presenter13:53

Shaka Khan and Ain't Nobody Loves Me Better. So Martha Lane Fox, you switched from the Sixth Form at Oxford High to go to Westminster School in London, therefore with boys, because it had been all girls beforehand. Hooray! Just because of the boys or because it was a completely different atmosphere? I was always going to move schools in the sixth form, as I remember, and so it was part of the plan, and it was a question whether I was going to go to Westminster or other schools we looked at as well. But I loved Westminster and I was a classicist like my dad and it was brilliant classics faculty and so on. But you've also said that there was a lot about it that stood you in good stead and helped with your success. What what is it? What did it give you? I think that lots of people I think go through a big transition when they go from school to university perhaps. I think that I definitely changed most when I swapped schools and came to London and was in the middle of the capital and fending for myself and That was certainly a time where I feel like I changed quite a lot. So I think that that kind of confidence building and making and being able to survive in a boys' school in a very different environment and in quite a tough academic environment where you did really have to fight for your own opinion to be heard and it was it was good training and I think it made good training for sort of tenacity and confidence and clear expression and things like that. So you went to Oxford and you did modern and ancient history, didn't you? What's the pressure on you therefore to get a first?

Martha Lane Fox15:01

Good training for

Speaker 415:10

Continue.

Martha Lane Fox15:10

Yeah.

Presenter15:14

Whatever, you know, high, you know, academic family, high achiever. Maybe. I don't think I've felt a pressure to get a particular result. I think I've just felt a pressure not to.

Speaker 415:14

I mean, hi, you know. McFamily Hunt

Martha Lane Fox15:16

Uh

Presenter15:22

Not to waste away. I didn't enjoy Oxford from an academic point of view particularly. I had really loved the change I made at into Westminster, and that was where I really felt like my brain was on firing on all cylinders. I think I got a bit lazy at Oxford. I think Oxford can let you get a bit lazy, and that's probably not a good reflection on me at all. And also, because I did this funny subject, I fell between two faculties. So I didn't have a very coherent teaching. And I remember going to complain to the head of my college about my teaching typically. And he said that didn't he spent the money for my faculty on

Martha Lane Fox15:38

Could you play?

Presenter15:54

Recarpeting the graduate block.

Presenter15:56

So that went down well. I was going to get into big trouble to say that. Well, I don't know. That's what he said. That's what he said. And the result, you would argue, is that you didn't get such a good degree, good at 2-2.

Speaker 416:06

Done.

Presenter16:07

Were you hugely disappointed? Was the family disappointed? I must have been really disappointed. I can't really remember it being the end of the world, but I'm sure it probably was. I just pretended it wasn't. I never felt as though anybody in my family was cross with me or disappointed. I think they just felt for me because they knew that I would have been upset. But, you know, other things were important, you know, leaving university. Sure, but it's how you might have felt at the time. No, absolutely. I mean, I just wonder if that kind of disappointment fuelled you in any way where you thought, oh, right, you know, and now I've really got to do something because I haven't done this. I think that.

Speaker 416:27

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox16:27

Uh

Martha Lane Fox16:32

Sure, but it's how you might have felt at the task.

Presenter16:44

I'm not sure if it was as categorical as that, but I'm sure it just galvanized me into thinking I know I can do better than that.

Presenter16:52

Record number four. Record number four is definitely Oxford. A couple of guys formed a band there called Groove Armada and then went on to be very successful. And this really makes me think about all the times we should have been studying ancient modern history, but we're running around the fields dancing with our hands in the air. So this is partly responsible for this tutor.

Martha Lane Fox17:20

You know what I'm saying?

Martha Lane Fox17:27

Come on.

Presenter17:39

If everybody looked the same, groove armada. So Martha, let's get back to the launch of lastminute dot com. It was nineteen ninety eight. You were twenty five years old. You'd bought this name for the domain, for the website.

Martha Lane Fox17:47

Yeah.

Presenter17:51

Just we did. We actually um set up the whole business on a different URL, but that's just the the name you have to buy, which was lastminute network.com, which would have been disastrous. We didn't actually own the name lastminute.com. We actually bought it about eight days before we turned on the site. Five thousand quid it costs. Yes, exactly. And I remember Brent saying to me

Martha Lane Fox18:06

Five thousand query costs.

Presenter18:10

Money, isn't it? I'm thinking, well, we just have to go for it. You've got to have the right to imagine. I don't think last network.com would have got quite as far.

Martha Lane Fox18:12

You've got to have the right tools.

Presenter18:18

And then you had to raise this money, as you say, or you were raising it, £600,000. Now, you were very active in that, I think. I read that you kind of.

Presenter18:26

Taunted venture capitalists, you know, who accused me of difficulty. Isn't that frankly? It went from bad to better, I think, raising the money. The very first question we got asked in our very first venture capital meeting, where we were pretty nervous, and we presented to a guy who must have been about 150. And he said to me, he looked at me, aged 25, and said, What happens if you get pregnant? And I was completely gobsmacked. Fred could feel me clasping the table and about to explode, I think. I said, I'm not going to, and it wouldn't make a difference if I did, probably. But it takes some guts to stand in front of these guys. I mean, I get the impression that you were sort of accusing them of being ridiculously cautious.

Martha Lane Fox18:28

It's very difficult to do.

Martha Lane Fox18:47

Would you say

Presenter19:02

Hopefully not too much ridiculousness, but I think that actually when we raised the core of our early investment, which is the most critical bit, it wasn't fashionable at all to be investing in internet companies. I think fundamentally because it's a good idea. And because when you describe it to people, they go, oh yeah, that sounds useful.

Martha Lane Fox19:13

Per w

Martha Lane Fox19:16

Fundamental.

Presenter19:22

And that really helps. That's got to be crucial to it. And then I hope that it was because Brent and I were so passionate about it.

Martha Lane Fox19:22

Hmm.

Presenter19:27

So enthusiasm, passion was driving you. How many hours a day were you working? Yes, twenty-three I think. It was tough and it is tough in those early days. You know, this constant cycle of getting money in and managing the cash and so on. So it was tough, but it was also incredibly exciting. And as time went on you were taking on people and you were doing the hiring and firing. That was very much your role, wasn't it? There has to be a kind of ruthless streaking.

Martha Lane Fox19:47

It has

Presenter19:50

Well, I hope not. I don't think it's about being ruthless. Brent again is always very good at putting things back in context for me if I'm getting over emotional and

Speaker 419:58

Do you get

Presenter20:00

I don't think I get over emotional, so it clouds my judgment, but I think that's a good question. Do you use that terrible phrase, you know, as they as they use in the office, which is so I'm afraid we have to let you go. No, I haven't said that, although the first time I had to fire anybody, which is about our fourth hirer,

Martha Lane Fox20:03

You still sack a hundred people if you have to.

Martha Lane Fox20:10

Yeah.

Presenter20:14

A lovely young lady who just wasn't right. I think I made it sound as though we were breaking up. So I kept saying things like, It's not you, it's me, it's nothing you've done, it's the way we are. And I just thought, this is terrible. I'm not leaving a relationship, I'm trying to fire somebody. I think I've got better attitudes. But it also changed your life because you became the public face of the thing. I mean, it was you who did the newspaper interviews, it was you who went on news night, it was you. Yes, and no, in the early days, it was me and Brent, and he just got cut out of the pictures. Why? Because you were female. Yes, I think partly. Because you're good to look at. Better than him, not necessarily perfect. Because you're posh, to use your word about yourself. I mean, these were all the things. I think it's because I was more different than he was at that point. It was also, though, a crest of the wave that was happening in the country, which was a feeling that maybe we're going to create all these entrepreneurs and we're going to have all these new businesses, and it's really exciting, all these young people doing their own thing, and in a way it was kind of.

Martha Lane Fox20:36

Yes or no?

Martha Lane Fox20:43

It's a good

Martha Lane Fox20:47

Because you

Martha Lane Fox20:50

I mean these were all the things

Presenter21:05

It all sort of fitted together to create this image of something which probably wasn't worth it. Yeah, and I mean why knock it? It worked for you. I mean they are sort of superficial judgments, that's all. And I wondered if it if it worried you at all, because there was a bit of portraying you as the fluffy PR. Oh, absolutely. And that's you kind of just have to kind of grit your teeth and get on with it because 1% of my job was doing PR. 99% was growing a business and managing the people and doing the operations, the marketing and not the glamorous stuff. But it did build the business in the most spectacular way and nearly for free. So it would be churlish just to be kind of cynical about it, I think. Number five.

Speaker 421:08

Yeah, no, I

Martha Lane Fox21:10

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox21:16

The fluffy P R O M A.

Martha Lane Fox21:28

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox21:34

The f

Presenter21:44

Number five is particularly important because my boyfriend at the time had been in Jamaica for a month and I hadn't seen him and it had been quite tough. But when he came back, he came back in spectacular style, having been to a lot of Jamaican carnivals and we played a lot of ska music and this is one of those tunes.

Speaker 422:03

Fucking dick die. Who you gonna do?

Speaker 422:07

Oh yeah.

Speaker 422:18

Your regular.

Speaker 422:20

I do, I think, happy, happy, honey, oh, here you are, I think.

Speaker 422:26

Leave it to me.

Presenter22:32

Toots in the May Owls with Funky Kingston. So March 2000, Martha, you floated the company. You raised more than $100 million. Perfect timing. Yes, the most last-minute thing we've ever did. Absolutely. Peak of the market. Peak of the market, yeah. And then the dot-com bubble burst. And your shares that had touched, what, 550p, I think, at some point became 20p later on. Brent said he'd dance on the desk if they ever became 15p, which they never quite did. So that was a bit disappointing.

Martha Lane Fox22:42

Yes, okay.

Martha Lane Fox22:44

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox22:46

Okay, it's not

Martha Lane Fox22:47

Uh

Martha Lane Fox22:53

Yeah.

Presenter23:02

But you you got a lot of the blame you personally because you you were the public face of it you caught the flag exactly it was private investors who somehow thought you were going to make them a million overnight and then all of a sudden guess what you hadn't yeah and it was it was an enormous institutional investor shift and the dangerous thing that had happened I think was that every single idea had been valued as a winner so people were being given a hundred million pounds regardless of really what the fundamentals of their business were and you know I hope we'd always been completely consistent in saying these are very high risk businesses but there's a big risk big reward and so you bet on a hundred ten might come through in a big spectacular way. So why did you come through? Why did you survive when all around you were going bust? And I mean let's mention boo.boo.com was I think one was yes I haven't met the boo.com guys but why did we survive? I think you know lots and lots of reasons. Fundamentally it comes back to the same

Martha Lane Fox23:37

Super.

Martha Lane Fox23:43

I've never met the boot up

Presenter23:50

Try answer, but because the product was working, you know, though the investor confidence had gone out of the business, people were still buying stuff on the site, and our product was getting better and better. So, you know, lastminute.com was proving useful to people, and so therefore, the customer base was building and all those good things. And you were buying other companies. I mean, as they went down, that's the interesting thing, you could actually buy some of them. Exactly. I mean, obviously, our share price was going down as well, but it all became more relative. But you were swallowing up the competition. But essentially, it seems to me it was more than that. You'd become really a proper retailer. You did have a product to sell. You weren't just a kind of techie idea by then. No, you crossed the line. Absolutely, and I think that our timing had been very lucky. We had started very early. Our flotation had put us in good stead, and then obviously all the PR that we got for free had helped keep the brand in the front of people's minds. All of a sudden, you were respectable. Yeah, nearly.

Martha Lane Fox24:04

And you

Martha Lane Fox24:05

That's the

Martha Lane Fox24:07

You could actually buy some of them here, couldn't you?

Martha Lane Fox24:20

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox24:24

No, you've crossed the line.

Presenter24:38

Getting never that way, never there. And this year you moved into profit. Yes. Little tiny profit. £200,000. And you said that last minute will be a FTSE 100 company within two years. Deeply respectable, or is that just hype? That's not hype. I absolutely believe that. I said we turn over a billion dollars this year, which we will do. I reckon, yes. Two to three years, let's give it. There's absolutely no reason why not. It's so well placed, the business, and lots of the trends that are just happening extraneously are in its favour, whether it's just technology getting better, faster, speeding up, but also just all the sort of leisure trends, people going away more, going out more, people getting married later, different disposable incomes and so on.

Speaker 224:38

Never that.

Martha Lane Fox24:44

Profit to the class.

Presenter25:14

Um without me there to cock it up, there's really no no chance it will fail.

Presenter25:19

I'm going to ask you about this a minute. Number six. Number six is Simon Garfunkel the Boxer, which I definitely associate with long car journeys when I was little. I think it would normally get to the first Lila Lai if we were driving to Wales from Oxford and I'd be asking if we were there yet, much to my parents' absolute terror. But I really associate it with again sort of happy times when I was little.

Speaker 425:42

Asking only workmen's wages, I come looking for a job, but I get no offers.

Speaker 425:50

Just to come on from boards on Seventh Avenue

Speaker 425:56

I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there La la la la la la la

Presenter26:08

Simon Garfunkel and the boxer. So if it's going to get so exciting, Martha, why do you want to leave? Well I think it's better to go um when they might miss you as opposed to when they're kicking pushing you out the door. But also because it's always been part of the plan. I still feel as though I got to prove some things to myself and I'd like to feel as though if it was just my neck on the line um what would I do and how would I behave? Do you think you'll do something similar or something completely different?

Martha Lane Fox26:29

Do you think

Presenter26:31

Just don't know. I I think I'd probably like to do something commercial again before I do something completely different, again, just to build credibility and that I can operate maybe in a business that I didn't start with. You're thirty years old.

Martha Lane Fox26:41

Because it's easy.

Presenter26:46

Don't say it like that. Like I'm 19 or 30, 90 years old. It has, except it has changed a lot over the last year, 18 months. I think I wanted obviously to paint a picture of a furiously hard-working and quite miserable and extremely geeky person, but it hasn't been quite that bad, especially as we've brought on more and more senior people over the last year. You can't work at that pace forever, I think. No, quite things. And you want I read again a football team of babies, is that right? Yes, possibly.

Martha Lane Fox27:04

But you can't.

Martha Lane Fox27:06

Running.

Martha Lane Fox27:07

And you will

Presenter27:13

Again, I think that it's quite easy to think, oh you know, there's a younger woman leaving her high-profile job, must be because she wants to settle down. It's not so much that, actually. It's I would maybe arrogantly still like to try and combine two things, you know, work very s still hopefully successful working life with a slightly more settled personal life. And having children in it would be fundamental, but, you know, you never know how things turn out. You must have had a lot of offers.

Martha Lane Fox27:13

Um

Presenter27:39

No, no, not from the husband. From the work. Well, both, I don't know. Yes, yes, from the husband. Oh dear, I'm laughing on both cats. Um yes, some interesting things have come out of the woodwork. Um not as many as I'd hoped, on either front.

Presenter27:53

Anything interesting on either front? Well, I think the thing that made me laugh the most was two calls I had. One with somebody trying to convince me I should front up the campaign to get a lot more people in the armed services. Anybody that knows me well will know that my desk is surrounded by no-to-wall posters, so their research was sadly mistaken. Another, I'm extremely unsporty person and very, very uninterested in sport. And I was also offered the chance to run bowling in this country, so lawn bowls, to make it the the sport it deserves to be. But I think again they picked the wrong person. But good luck to both of them. No personal offers then. My personal offers are doing fine.

Speaker 428:23

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox28:23

Looked at

Martha Lane Fox28:24

Yeah.

Presenter28:29

Under consideration. In the plural. No, not in the plural, in the singular. Yes, I'm not going into that. He'll kill me.

Presenter28:38

Alright, record number seven. Actually, on that vein, he will kill me because he definitely thinks opera is a dying art. I don't. And I love La Traviata. And I listened to it with my mum on the sofa when I was probably about seven and a half, and we read the words and listened to the music, and it blew me away. I think I can safely say this is the ending, which is particularly fabulous, because I thought she was going to survive when she has her coming second wind, having never heard opera before and not realizing they could be so incredibly mean. But as she doesn't, but it's pretty good anyway.

Martha Lane Fox29:01

She has

Speaker 429:18

Bury the gosh!

Speaker 429:20

Margita

Speaker 429:23

Inside of the wall.

Speaker 429:27

Yeah.

Speaker 429:29

Yeah.

Presenter30:11

Ugh, the shuddering moment. The end of Verdi's La Traviata is due to Verde.

Martha Lane Fox30:15

She tried again.

Presenter30:17

She does it every time. Joan Sutherland there as Violetta, Luciano Pavarotti as Alfredo, and Matteo Manughera as Gemon. That was the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonning. Um being cast away on a desert island suits your kind of rough travelling experience, really, doesn't it, Martha? You're all right.

Martha Lane Fox30:33

Did it and Mafia?

Presenter30:34

But I think I'd go completely insane by myself. As I as I mentioned, being even just six months in my own office, I think I lost the plot slightly, so I'm not sure I'd be very good.

Martha Lane Fox30:46

Like right

Presenter30:47

I would miss some, you know, small comforts, pillows and moisturizing cream and stuff, but I definitely people I just I uh, I think that's a good idea.

Martha Lane Fox30:55

And I'm terrible at being on one of the

Martha Lane Fox30:57

Well that's just a screw

Presenter31:02

Yeah, but none of those. I mean, whatever you've got is going to run out of power. You're on your own. Can you build a boat?

Martha Lane Fox31:02

Yeah.

Martha Lane Fox31:05

Yeah.

Presenter31:09

I try because I'm quite determined. I'd probably you know

Martha Lane Fox31:09

Knock up a sheltered.

Presenter31:14

My body to threads in the process, but I'm absolutely useless at anything quite practical. So I'm sure I'd build something and it would collapse instantly. Or I'd think I could probably swim away from it and then start to get a terrible cramp or something. But you've got the drive to survive, that's like you'd get off the desert island, wouldn't you? Sure as eggs. Absolutely. No, I have to leave that, yes. Last record.

Speaker 231:27

But you

Martha Lane Fox31:27

If the

Martha Lane Fox31:32

You should

Martha Lane Fox31:34

No holder leave.

Presenter31:37

My last record would keep me company on my desert island. It's Michael Jackson's Billie Jean and most uh nights out end up back in my flat with me being very bossy about what music we can listen to and it normally starts with Billie Jean because it's just so great to dance to.

Speaker 431:52

She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene. I said don't mind, but what do you mean? I am the

Speaker 432:07

Then I am

Speaker 432:10

On the dance, on the blow, in the round

Speaker 432:17

Told me her name was Billy Jean and she calls her soon. Then the heavy air turned with the ice

Presenter32:23

Michael Jackson and Billie Jean and visions of you, Martha, dancing the night upon the beach.

Speaker 432:26

Dancing the night upon the beach.

Presenter32:29

Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take? That is a very good question, and I think I'd have to take Get Happy.

Presenter32:37

Get happy. No, that would I'm not sure that would give me the will to get off the island, but get happy I think would. And I could practice my Judy Garland dance routines.

Martha Lane Fox32:37

And

Martha Lane Fox32:44

And I could

Presenter32:46

And your book. You've got my Bible, would be War and Peace. Again, very influenced by my parents in this one, but I remember my dad reading me chunks of it when I was little and crying, and it's not often you see a parent crying when they read to you, so that's pretty powerful. Oh, he was crying, not you were crying. No, he was crying. And I just find it amazing. You can pick it up at any point and in any bit and read it and just feel gobsmacked and think I don't understand know or understand anything, so that would keep me busy. And your luxury? My luxury would be a karaoke machine, because I've recently started to love karaoke, even though I'm a terrible singer. And I figure it would have double benefits, because not only would my appalling singing maybe attract attention, but also I could practise and improve and have a lot of fun and, you know, do the aforementioned Judy Garland singing routines with some backing vocals.

Martha Lane Fox32:47

Come on, I will do it.

Martha Lane Fox33:01

Cry not you were current.

Presenter33:34

Martha Lane Fox, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 233:46

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.