Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, the UK's second largest domestic energy provider, known for its innovative Kraken operating system.
On the island
Eight records
Yazz and the Plastic Population
When I was about 16, we'd just finished GCSEs and with three mates we went camping across North Yorkshire. We had very little money and tents on our backs and cans of beans in the bags. And we had a little radio, a little FM radio, that could pick up two radio stations. Almost all the time, at least one of them was playing Yaz in the Plastic Population, The Only Way Is Up. There are four 16-year-olds who don't really know what camping gear is, yomping across, I don't know, places like Osmotherly and Pickering, through very peaceful countryside with that blaring out of the tinniest radio you've ever seen.
This was one of the first records I ever bought. There was a small record shop in Halifax and we used to get the bus home from school so I could drop by and flick through. At the time I had a babysitter whose boyfriend had a motorbike and they were both into heavy metal and so I had this kind of early indoctrination. The song is Run to the Hills by Iod Maiden, laden with meaning and also with the most powerful, optimistic driving guitars.
We were a Radio 4 house. It was on all the time. Mum listened to it from the moment she woke up to long after she went to sleep and there's nothing more Radio 4 than the shipping forecast. I think when I was about fourteen, after she'd gone to bed on Christmas Eve, I started drilling holes and laying wires around the house and putting speakers in multiple rooms so that she could listen to Radio 4 everywhere in the house. And she woke up on Christmas Day and I think she liked it.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
While I was living in West Yorkshire doing the video games, U2 played a concert around Hay Park and I'd never been to a big music event before. U2 with this tiny dot in the resistance but the music was so powerful. U2 is something that is something I turn to when I've played too much heavy metal. And it's hard choosing the track but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Maybe it resonates a bit with me. It's that desire to keep on making things better.
Vic Reeves and the Wonder Stuff
When I was at university, we were organising these events. We had attractions like the Velcro suits, but also fantastic music that would get everyone up and dancing. And I remember time and again dancing to Dizzy by Vic Reeves and the Wonder stuff. It was just such a fun time. All of your mates sweating as we bounce around.
There's a beautiful song by um Kenny Rogers. It's The Gambler. There's a bit that says Never count your money when you're sitting at the table. There'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done. It's not really about money. It's really about while we're living our lives, we can't declare success or failure. That all comes at the end.
One Day Like ThisFavourite
I got this beautiful video of my two boys growing up. The soundtrack to it is One Day Like This by Elbow. And I can't watch it without welling up, and it's just all the fun times and happy times. Anyway.
It's Rockaway Beach by Motorhead, right? So this is covering Ramones. Yeah, it's covering Ramones and Lemmy's gravelly voice is so human. This is a song about enjoying yourself on the beach. And whilst I'm working on making the beach better and indeed perhaps finding ways to explore, I'm gonna have this banging.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:59Is [drive] a powerful motivator for you today as much as it ever was?
Yeah, it is. I don't necessarily think drive's a good thing, by the way. It enables you to do a lot. But I think it also means you're often very restless and sunny for me. It means I'm not very good at relaxing, not great at watching movies, but I wouldn't change a thing.
Presenter asks
2:21How and where do your best ideas come to you?
It's always when you're getting your hands dirty. So if I'm with some of our engineers, software engineers, and seeing what they're capable of and then realizing I can solve a problem elsewhere in the business. ... Last February, I was walking home, it's 10 o'clock, 10.30 at night, bitterly cold. And I knew that in the energy crisis, some of our customers will be scared to put their heating on. ... So I phoned up our chief product officer. It was 10 o'clock at night, 10.30. And I said, look, can we get 5,000 electric blankets? ... It came out on social media. After a few months, some of the customers were so happy. They posted on social media and I think we ended up giving away forty thousand electric blankets to help people.
Presenter asks
6:11Do you remember the moment your parents told you they were going to get a divorce?
Yeah, I do. I was I think I was I was seven-ish years old and uh they sat me on the washing machine which is kind of uh CRI level I guess with parents and and told me yeah that that dad had been leaving and I remember um it really hit me. I think it's about that age when a boy sometimes transfers his closest parental imprint from mother to father and I think it was around that time so for me personally it hit me hard. ... Not long afterwards, mum took me to a sort of child psychologist or therapist, I don't know what you call it these days, provided by a local council. And um it was transformative actually. One or two sessions made a world of difference and probably gave me the confidence and everything that has helped me be who I am and I'm really grateful for that.
The keepsakes
The book
The Apollo Guidance Computer Manual
It's been by the side of my bed on and off for years now and I turn to it and just randomly open pages. Now it's basically about the computers that formed the guidance system that took men to the moon in 1969. But the reality is it's a story of unbelievable human ingenuity.
The luxury
It's this combination of the physics and the electronics and actually pinball's got quite deep gameplay with a storyline. ... It's going to be solar powered and it's going to be on full volume because there's no one there to complain.
Presenter asks
12:04How did you reconnect with your father and what is your relationship like today?
I think he's incredibly smart and funny and he's he's a big fan of Rugby Lee of of Halifax. And and also by the way, um of Halifax Town Football Club. And and both of them end up coming to Wembley sometimes. And because I live in London, he always comes and stays and it's so nice to have him there and share his passion for blue and white. My dad and I look the same. Like if you look at a photo of my dad when he was young he looked like me. I therefore know what I'm gonna look like when I'm older. That's it kind of gets you by the heart.
Presenter asks
21:55Tell me about the night in the pub that clinched your decision to start an energy company.
I'd moved house and finally got around to opening an energy bill and it was eye-watering and I phoned up the energy company and they said, oh we'll cut that for you. I said, what? Is that easy? And they said, yeah, you weren't on a contract because you just moved in. And then sometime later, maybe a couple of years later, I remember looking at the bills again and going, hang on, this is eye water. And I phoned them up and they said, oh, we'll cut that for you. And I was like, no, no, you've already done that. And they said, no, no, the contract expired. So you went onto the default rate. And I was like, what? So I have to phone you up every year to get a decent price. And that felt so wrong. And I was complaining to my mates about that. And I said, I should set up an energy company. And they were like, you'll never do that. And I thought, well, maybe we will.
Presenter asks
26:05Is there a danger that Octopus Energy will get too big and customer service will suffer?
Actually, I think it gets easier to provide better services as we get bigger because if you take a problem that only one customer had when we were small, we might now have one hundred or one thousand or ten thousand with it. So we can create better solutions in the technology to remove those problems. We can learn more and we can reapply learnings across the world.
“I don't necessarily think drive's a good thing, by the way. It enables you to do a lot. But I think it also means you're often very restless and sunny for me. It means I'm not very good at relaxing, not great at watching movies, but I wouldn't change a thing.”
“I think it's about that age when a boy sometimes transfers his closest parental imprint from mother to father and I think it was around that time so for me personally it hit me hard.”
“I just remembered that cutting off moment and the phenomenal stress of final demands.”
“I don't like the term [disruptor], but really it's that challenge... It's an upgrade.”
“One day like this, because every time I listen to it, I'll be pitching the boys.”