0:00
Nick, welcome back to John I We are going to talk a lot today about you as a person.
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We spoke last week about the ideas, but I want to ask you about yourself.
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We ask every guest in this second episode to think about their life in just three photographs.
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If you could look back at your life, what would be the three photographs that would define it?
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Well, 2/3 of them would be family.
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I mean, I'm I'm like I'm sure most most of your guests will tell you this, but I'm I'm deeply shaped, steeped in, invested in, and in love with my fam- family in the wider sense and in the sort of nuclear sense.
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So, I I suppose the first photograph would be me.
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My mom's Dutch and and I spent pretty well me I got two brothers and a sister.
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We spent pretty well every minute of every holiday at my grandmother's quite a sort of large rambling house in in the Netherlands with a horde of cousins.
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cousins. My my mom comes from a sort of matriarchy of four sisters who all had kids and Yeah, so there's a sort of photograph of my grandmother and all my aunts and all my uncles and hordes of cousins and um I just had an I I think I would I just had a I did have a wonderful childhood,
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but the but the the the epitome of the sort of happiness that defined me as a kid was in a very large, loud, rowdy, quite yeah, quite sort of active, sporty, outward bound sort of um family and it very much focused around my my grandmother, my maternal grandmother. >> So, that would be the first photograph.
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>> So, that would be the first photograph.
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>> And and a very international family, which is fair to say is very important to who you are as a person. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely.
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Uh much to the chagrin of I remember I remember once there was a double page spread in the Daily Mail with a very un flat flattering or the jolly photograph of me with a huge banner headline saying, "Is there anything British about this man?"
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>> [laughter] >> Uh which I suppose biologically I suppose they had a point because my as I said, my mom uh is Dutch.
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Um she's now elderly, but I I still I I speak Dutch and I was raised bilingually. Pity it was Dutch.
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I mean Dutch is I mean it's a next to useless language to learn cuz they all speak English better than we do, but anyway.
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Um and my dad is uh half Russian by by birth.
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My paternal grandmother was Russian and was part of that uh what you call um sort of what they call White Russian diaspora that that that that left Russia at the time of the revolution and the Same as my wife's family. Oh, really? >> Yeah.
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Oh, well, I don't know what route have your wife's family took, but my grandmother through the Baltic states and then quite a lot of the quite a lot of that community of in effect dissidents of of the the revolutions and turbulence in the early part of the 20th century in in Russia settled in Paris and and London and then many [clears throat] of them congregated around the Orthodox churches.
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So, my grandmother used to take us to the I really sense filled Orthodox Russian Orthodox church in central London.
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And my Yeah, no, the war I mean like every every family like yours know that as well.
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The war of course looms large.
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My mother was born in Indonesia prior to the war and then spent the war unfortunately in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in in in in Indonesia before then going to going to the Netherlands.
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Anyway, yes, so very international.
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But first photograph would be Yeah, it would be just that I Yeah, just immensely happy memories of of a and oodles of cousins and I'm still very very close to. Okay.
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Tell us about your second.
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And the second one I think would be my sort of nuclear family.
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Family of Miriam and me and we got our three lovely boys, Antonio, Alberto, and Miguel.
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Of course, I could pick endless photos, but one that I probably would pick is uh I remember during the God, we were lucky.
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During the lockdown pandemic when we were living in the US.
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I don't know how we managed this, but we ended up in Christmas pretty well on our own in a remote um ranch in the wilds of Montana.
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I mean, how lucky are we?
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Um So, I'm not I'm acutely aware of how lucky we were to do that, but it was um And who knows?
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Maybe my memory's playing tricks.
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I keep saying to Miriam, I honestly, being locked up with Miriam and the three boys >> Yeah.
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in actually quite nice circumstances and being able to go to the beautiful wilderness of Montana is honestly one of the happiest times of my life. >> Was it really?
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Oh, I Well, she says, "Yeah, but you don't remember you were actually much more anxious about your parents."
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And so, maybe maybe maybe I'm maybe my sort of glass-half-full tendencies are uh but but I'm I'm my mem- I I really really And particularly for someone who obviously spent a lot of time in politics and constantly feeling guilty as a young dad that I wasn't spending enough time time with the kids were small.
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Maybe that was one of the reasons, but the the the sort of joy and relish which which I think back to the time we spent as a family of five together.
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It's certainly my memory I Yeah, it it fills me with just I was just sort of glowing with with with I just loved it. I actually loved it.
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Was was there an element for someone who is constantly having to be on, constantly performing out there, dinner after event after, you know, just Was there a way Was there an element of relief of just being able to you know that you're not allowed to?
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Yeah, well, I think everyone had that, didn't they?
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I mean, it it it it it it did have um And again, I I of course I'm very conscious that for many people it has much more tragic um a a and and agonizing and heartbreaking a connotations, but I think for for a family like us, yeah, it just had such it just had such a simplifying effect. Yeah.
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She says, "Everything was just suddenly totally slow down, made time, just simplifies everything."
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And and in and in our case, we were still our kid I mean, our our two oldest boys were out, you know, left home, and one one's about to leave university, the other one's working, and so on.
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But, you know, then our kids were still at home, so we were lucky enough that we were all under one roof.
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And so, and you know, as we were still in that adventure phase of the United States and anyone who's lived and traveled in the United States who's not American and and it particularly for a European, it's the great open spaces that of course is so so special about that country.
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And so so that that would be my second photo.
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>> Before you move on to your third one, I'll ask you about Miriam. Yeah.
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I want to some want to some Nick marriage guidance.
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>> [laughter] >> So you you you you are in a in a you are in a marriage with two extremely successful people who are right at the top of their game.
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Miriam is a fantastic lawyer and is helping to run UBS and you know, is tipped to be a a future star of Spanish politics.
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Um how have you figured out the kind of rhythm and the ebbs and flows with two really successful people of giving one person a go for a bit and then the next in terms of you know, one person's going to spend maybe more time at home with the kids and then the other one will take a bit of time.
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Have you planned that out or did it just happen? >> Totally unplanned. Okay. Totally unplanned. I don't know.
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I listen, the last thing I'm going to do with Miriam is going to do we're going to somehow pretend that we've got it all sorted. Of course not. We're like any couple.
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You go through your ups and downs and you go through the stresses and strains of life and gosh, having small kids when I was in this mad world of politics when I was a party leader trying to sustain a coalition, traveling up and down to Sheffield.
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It was and Miriam quite you know, rightly didn't want to give up her work and it did I I honestly when I look back on it, I don't quite quite know how we did it.
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Probably because we were just young and had a lot of physical energy.
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So I I I know this sounds trite.
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I actually think when couples and families are under a lot of pressure particularly with young kids and at the same time you're trying to build careers, physical resilience is actually an underestimated thing. Right.
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I think the other thing perhaps is um I think Miriam and I in different ways are not bad at just like leaving it outside the front door.
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Just kind of not bringing it too much home.
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I think um I Is that conscious?
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I certainly when I'm politics I was very, very conscious.
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I didn't want to constantly sort of pollute my home life with them.
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If you come to my home, you won't see a single cartoon or picture or anything like it.
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You know, I never I I admire it and I'm not criticizing them.
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I've never understood politicians who adorn their whole home with their politics. Why would you do that?
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I So, I think we always have a quite a separable thing.
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Probably a little bit more, particularly when the kids are small, a lot more antisocial than you might imagine. >> Yeah.
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We would We would just wouldn't So, I think if you you're trying to do the career that and the small kids and then you're trying to spend all the time at dinner parties, I'd Yeah.
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I You have to build time.
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So, I think a a little smidgen of antisocialness Okay. is not a bad thing.
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>> That's quite surprising uh to hear that.
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And what what about the physical endurance?
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How did you foster that resilience and physical endurance?
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Did Did you Did you have a moment where you said I'm going to try and I'm trying to get I'm going to get fitter or I'm going to >> boy. I certainly remember.
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So, this is in the spring of 2011.
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So, a year, roughly a year after the coalition is formed and so my political career went some you know, there was all the excitement of 2010 and the absolute hammer blows within about a year and you know, it sort of goes from being hero to villain sort of thing.
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>> Deputy Prime Minister, this is >> Prime Minister and then all the controversies around the fiscal decisions we had to take post-2008, the controversies around university tuition fees and I remember in the spring of 2011, I'd put on a little weight. I was smoking. I was exhausted.
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I would come home in the evening because um You see, I we didn't live in Downing Street.
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It's When When When When I became Deputy Prime Minister, the I remember some perfectly dutiful person from the Home Office said, "Well, can we show you the apartment that you will occupy for your own security in in Downing It was behind Downing Street in that complex of buildings.
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Off I trotted to see some vast cavernous slightly sort of soulless place.
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And I went back to Miriam [laughter] that evening and I said, "So, darling, you know, we we've been It's been suggested we move with the boys to" She just went, "No."
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I said, "Well, no, no, no, no, no, but surely" "No."
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And and so I went back the next day and I said, "I'm sorry, the answer" They said, "But surely" "No."
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"You probably" I said, "No, you don't understand. It's no."
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And then they retrofitted some security in our home and we had obviously a police presence outside our home.
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It turned out actually that that obduracy from Miriam was the best possible thing that could have happened to us as a family because it meant the kids who all went to the the local state school pretty well at the end of the primary school at the end of the road. Yeah.
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Could could could continue to do that.
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We had a We had a very nice community around us.
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They could do their, you know, their football, their swimming, and all those sort of middle-class things that little kids do in that certainly in in our neighborhood.
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Could all do that unmolested by politics and I was doing all the mad sort of Okay. crisscrossing London.
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But I've What was the question?
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Uh you [clears throat] had a moment of of realizing you needed to get fit. >> Oh, sorry, sorry. That's right. I I digress.
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>> [laughter] >> And then in the spring of of 2011, there was um there were local elections, I think.
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Maybe I'm mis- remembering this.
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But also this ill-starred referendum on changing the electoral system, which I I sort of insisted on.
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And I remember crisscrossing the country uh with pneumonia.
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I literally had pneumonia and I was just popping antibiotics and pills and I felt absolutely shockingly bad.
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Um And I remember that point, I mean, I'm being a little melodramatic for effect, but I do remember thinking, "Wow, I've got to be careful here.
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I'm in my kind of 40s and um you know, this kind of jobs this is going to just knock me down physically. Yeah.
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I might be getting very ill or worse."
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So, that I I literally installed or bought a rowing machine and put it in a sort of Whitehall cupboard and literally in the middle of the day would do that. >> office? Yeah, yeah.
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Well, like I in some cubbyhole upstairs.
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in in And then I So I just try and go and I remember that I'd go to some some kickboxing classes very early like 6:00 in the morning near near So I Yeah, I definitely remember I definitely remember in the spring of 2011 thinking you know, I've got another 4 years of this whatever it was.
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I mean this is either going to kill me or I'm going to get my Yeah. my my together.
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So I tried to get my together. >> Very good.
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Tell us about your third photo.
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Well, actually related to this might you but I actually think a photograph of my of the we can take your pick I either of the sort of huge loss of the election in 2015 um or if you want to you know, another version of the same thing which is you know, political failure um or loss uh the loss of my seat in 2017.
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And the reason I say that is I do I've certainly found and I'm sure this is a sure there's some Chinese proverb and it's it's perfectly trite and commonplace observation, but I've as a I personally found that I've learned a lot more from failure than success.
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Uh I just think it I just think it I it's taught me much more.
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If you just keep succeeding, you don't actually ask yourself a bunch of searching questions.
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Like you know, I was the I was the leader of the tribe and and I was extremely and remain exceptionally proud.
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I think it was I think modestly I think the government between 2010 and 15 was the best government this country's had in in in the last in decade and a half if not more in very difficult circumstances.
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We'll need to bring you back for a whole episode on that. Well, yeah, okay.
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I'm happy to >> [laughter] >> But but uh no, I really do.
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I I think it's just remarkable what we achieved in that 5-year period in that in in in the ruins of the 2008 financial I mean in a sense if you look back on it in history, you've had 2008 body blow to the British economy and 2016 this mad self-inflicted wound of Brexit which is still bleeding.
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And in sense [clears throat] that that that government which no one expected was going to last more than a few months.
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I think did a remarkable job to steady the ship and more.
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But my point is I think political certainly my case and if you're if you're a party leader and if you're in government and if you then lose election, it's there's no way to hide. I mean it's so public.
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It's absolutely it's an excoriatingly public form of Sure.
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Um and yeah, I it was interesting.
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I I I um I remember going to speak to John Major shortly after the election and I was slightly sort of days about because you literally go from one moment to that.
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I mean one moment every millisecond of your day Yeah.
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is taken up and is organized by other people and then suddenly you're sitting there thinking Well, you know, what's what's next? Yeah.
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And um I remember John saying, he's just a lovely guy and he was so thoughtful and he said Nick, it's going to take you it's going to take you up to 2 years for you to really rewire your system and I remember we were out nice drink together.
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I remember leaving and sort of thinking ah ah I'm sure I but it does take a while and part of the process of sort of dealing with something where you've feel you've done great things and then it sort of comes to a crashing halt um it I found at least was that I just I think it's really important if something goes wrong is you've got to you mustn't deny it. You've got to face it.
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You've got to almost weirdly embrace it and say no, I that it's you know, one I take the rap.
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I screwed up or whatever.
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Maybe it was your fault, not your fault.
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Maybe it was in your control, not in your control, but certainly in politics you'll find a lot of politicians since most political careers end famously in failure uh as Enoch Powell I think once said uh sort of almost denying >> Mhm.
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the end point and then constantly trying to re-litigate history and rewrite history and so on.
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So, I found that very useful and I think I think I developed much greater resilience out of it and much greater kind of yeah, probably a level of self-knowledge. >> Mhm.
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And and it led you to have this amazing new act in right at the top of Silicon Valley. Yeah, I'm lucky was I.
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Which is very unusual and and I think you are very unusual in having been right at the top of top of government and right at the top of Silicon Valley.
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What do you think, if you're a modest for a minute, what what what is what is it about you do you think that has allowed you to achieve that? Cuz it is unusual.
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>> It's a nice leading question.
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Um Well, I think partly, but only partly, um I think I was quite disciplined and not trying to sort of hanker after being a sort of bad smell in the sort of in the sort of, you know, the parameters of the penumbra of politics.
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I never was going to the House of Lords. Right.
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I'm going to try to abolish the place and replace it with an elected, [laughter] you know, unfashionable idea of a little democracy in the place.
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But anyway, um um still not happened, amazingly, after sort of what, 150 years of discussion.
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But um and I certainly didn't want to do that.
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I was too young to kind of just what hang out on what advisory boards and >> Yeah.
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I so so I thought and I think I was quite disciplined with myself.
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When I arrived in Silicon Valley, I literally remember making a mental note saying, "I'm never going to talk ever about what I've done before unless someone asked me."
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And I knew instantly I was only as good as what I was doing at that day.
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And by the way, I mean, much though much I admire about Mark Zuckerberg, these are very unsentimental places.
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They don't give a what you did before.
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You can be as fancy as you like.
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You you you >> You have to >> do the day job well.
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So, I immersed myself in the So, I think I had a willingness Yeah.
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not to stand on ceremony, not to be proud of myself, not to cling onto past glories.
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I think I was I think I was quite good at just like letting go. It's a new chapter.
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I've got to throw myself into the new chapter. >> Yeah.
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And anyway, I I mean, I that was the only way I could do that job.
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It was such an all immersive job.
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But I think I think I was I think maybe that's something I was able to do, just let go.
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Just like yeah, just roll with the punches. That's one thing.
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And then the only other thing I would say which I found striking when I went to Silicon Valley.
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It's an odd thing to say given how in a sense sort of ruthless and and efficient these organizations look like is if you've ever been in government and particularly as I was if you've been in a very senior role in government and as I was if you're senior in government at a very difficult time country was going through a financial fiscal crisis and so on. You learn very quickly.
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You just have to take decisions.
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You just have to take them.
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And they might not None of them might be good. Just take a decision.
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And I think that's one thing I've always been relatively unafraid of doing. Right.
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And I'll pay the consequences and if those decisions people don't like them then I'll get you know beaten around the head and neck and so on and boy did that happen.
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But but I've never ever shirked from just taking a decision.
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And I think that's always served me relatively well.
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Whether I took the right ones or the wrong ones you can debate but I've always never I've always accepted if you're in a senior position whether it's in the private sector take bloody decisions.
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That's what you're there for.
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You're there to make judgments and arrive at judgments and they the decisions come to you precisely because other people can't take them. Right. So take them. Okay.
18:29
And if you can compare the leaders that you came across in Silicon Valley tech versus the leaders in in government.
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Not just David Cameron but others around the world. You met all of them.
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What are the differences between what makes a really good Prime Minister and a really excellent CEO?
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I think they're more different than I might have a mansion. >> Brilliant. Yeah.
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I I mean as you know people in tech particularly Silicon Valley love to denigrate politicians and all politicians are venal and all politics is ridiculous and so on.
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I actually will stand up for the political class.
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I think taking political decisions and carrying the country and making the excruciating trade-offs you have to do is way way harder than running a business on the whole. Way harder.
19:08
Because there's just so much and your level you are subject to a level of scrutiny that people in business have no clue, no clue at all.
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I mean I'm amazed when you meet business with senior business people who are getting their knickers in a twist because there's a disobliging adjective about them on page six of the Financial Times. Quite thin-skinned. >> Oh, so thin-skinned.
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So that's the thing I I I uh um I've I've uh one of the things I really learned was it's like uh and ex- boy have I been subject to it.
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You know, endless people in Silicon Valley pontif- as if they would find it very easy to become President of the United States or Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
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I they have no clue, I don't think, quite how remorseless the pressure is, >> Yeah.
19:46
how unforgiving it is, how you can't hide anywhere.
19:48
Most CEOs are are honestly, they're cloistered in cotton wool compared to certainly British politics where you are exposed to a very, very aggressive newspaper industry, perhaps outside Australia the most aggressive political press on the planet.
20:05
You've also got this very leveling effect of being a constituency MP.
20:09
Whether you like it or not, you can be as senior as you want, you have to turn up on a Thursday evening and listen to Mrs.
20:14
Smith complain- complaining about the overgrown leylandii of their, you know, their neighbor's garden and stuff.
20:21
So I So I think I I actually I actually think senior politicians who get there and then make good decisions, I I think it's a it's a skill I think a lot of CEOs often um I think they often exaggerate their own Having said that, I certainly when I went to Silicon Valley, what I discovered was I moved from a world in Westminster which is all about cajoling and persu- it's about the language.
20:45
You're you're you're losing language often in a in a in a in a disingenuous way or in a poetic way or a lofty way or a brutal way, but you're constantly you're you're constantly communicating. You know, what?
20:55
Love or loathe Trump, he's an extraordinary communicator.
20:57
I mean, absolutely astonishing demotic communicator. Yeah.
21:02
Doesn't matter whether you're 12, a 12-year-old kid with no education or of 65-year-old but you the directness of his whereas in Silicon Valley of course I realized you're dealing with engineers who want systems and statistics and it's just a much more it's much more data-driven of an acronym-driven world compared to the world of language which politics is.
21:23
So I have come to the conclusion that the that the two skill sets and archetypes are more different than I had slightly anticipated.
21:34
I kind of thought running big complex organizations roughly the same No, they're quite different.
21:39
Last question for you is unusual that you have been right at the top of politics and right at the top of business.
21:44
I mean there probably not many people in the world probably five people or something who managed to do something like that.
21:48
Having done that though, your next act want to talk about the future.
21:52
Do you have a hankering now having been the deputy prime minister of the UK albeit a very unusually powerful one and the number two at Meta.
21:58
Do you now think right, I've got all the experience in the world.
22:02
I want to go be you know, the president of Europe or the CEO of Meta or whatever it might be.
22:06
Oh, those are up for those are on offer. Please.
22:10
>> [laughter] >> I certainly would on the former.
22:11
I care passionately about um our continent um and just ignoring Brexit for a minute. It is our continent.
22:18
We are whether whether you like it or not Britain is part of tectonically part of Europe and I do I I think my North Star now and I didn't know how it's going to manifest itself.
22:29
I think it'll obviously manifest itself in the private sector but I do passionately feel that we are we are we're at the sort of 59th second of before midnight where Europe as a whole could become like a sort of museum continent where we are basically subject to the predatory um designs of China and the US in particular.
22:49
And I think the weakness, the demographic problems, economic underperformance.
22:53
So I I I think my North Star really would be to do anything I can to try and foster greater scaled uh technological success in Europe.
23:05
We've got a lot but when I when David Cameron and I assembled the coalition government what was it, 16 years ago?
23:13
Well, you'll remember this.
23:13
There basically wasn't a tech startup scene in London. >> Nothing really.
23:17
And to be fair to the coalition, we did a lot of really good stuff.
23:19
It wasn't only us but actually we did a lot of good stuff.
23:21
Now you've got a genuinely vibrant you know, tech scene here.
23:25
You you know you know this better than I do.
23:27
You're you're you're you're a VC but you know, if you if you're a bright young founder here and you've got to raise six, eight, nine million quid, you can get relatively easy now.
23:36
The problem is it's the next rungs of the ladder that we don't have.
23:39
If you then need to raise 20, 30, 40, 50, you you know, the famous growth capital gap.
23:45
So that and other things like that would would be where I probably want to invest my resources.
23:48
I want I want I got two of my three kids are both in the US and I can't as a father begrudge them that they're just finding opportunities that they don't have here. Yeah.
23:56
I'd love to play a part that in 10, 15 years people like my kids feel that they can find, you know, fortune, success in in this old battered continent just as much as they can in the US.
24:09
So that that I think it will be very much my sort of guiding my guiding sort of yeah, North Star for the for the for the foreseeable future. Brilliant.
24:18
Can't wait to see what you do next.
24:19
Thanks so much for joining us on Journey Ideas. Thank you.