In this episode Paul shares his experiences of the AI and tech industry and discusses the trials and tribulations of building culture and founding a business.

Before founding Thought Machine, Paul successfully launched two companies, the second of which was acquired by Google in 2010. At Google, he led the text-to-speech team, which developed the cutting-edge technology that is now found in all of Google's navigation and voice search products. Paul holds a PhD in AI and has held teaching positions at Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities.

Paul highlights how explicit and intentional the team at Thought Machine are when it comes to culture, and as such they have a set of core principles which guide it, inspired by Google.

He touches on the importance of work ethic, and the encouragement of certain behaviours in building a productive and inspiring culture, as Thought Machine encourage all employees to facilitate debates and be “do-ers”.

This episode is packed with insight, anecdotes and advice for all listeners looking to learn more about culture, AI and business.

Chapters

00:00:00-Introduction to Paul Taylor

00:01:45-About Thought Machine

00:03:31-Modernising banking infrastructure

00:07:47-Thought Machine bridging the gap between challenger and legacy banks

00:10:58-Shaping culture at Thought Machine

00:17:03-"The problem with company values"

00:19:18-Maintaining culture in a growing organisation

00:20:39-"Good cultures get owned by people, who replicate it and buy into it"

00:25:28-Lessons from Google and other ventures

00:36:16-Deep dive into AI

00:42:11: "You can do simple things very well, and build a great buisness"

00:43:11-Reflections on leadership & Entrepreneurship

00:49:30-Closing questions

00:52:03-Pauls career journey as a song