In the BWB Extra hot seat this week is Darren Webber UK & Europe CEO of TTC who talks about everything from why he thinks data centres are a huge factor in climate change, his passion for classic Minis and why his advice to his younger self would be to "spend less time with dickheads" .. which Andy heard as "spend less time with the kids" .. it'll all make sense when you hear it. Major LOLs.

Darren's recommendation:

Leadership Decanted podcast - Paul Garcia & KG Butler

BWB Extra where we take it down a notch and get to know our guests a little better both personally and professionally by asking them our staple list of BWB questions.

BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

Welcome to Bwb Extra, where we take it down a notch, get comfortable and get to know our guests a little better by asking them our staple list of personal questions, which you can find in the episode.

Description in the hot seat this week is Darren Webber, uk and Europe, c e o of ttc, a global IT services and consulting firm based in New Zealand.

In a nutshell, they test software and do it very well.

Here's what makes him tick.

Okay.

Interview questions.

So we, we are turning back the clock and we're gonna start by asking you, how did you end up doing what you're doing today?

I, I flippantly say I wasn't paying attention at the time, but.

I, I, I mean, ultimately I think I've, I've probably trained for this role for 20 years.

So I've worked in this without realizing that you're actually training for it.

That's right.

And you, and you get to this chance, this opportunity that I've been given.

And then you realize that all the things you've done, all the roles you've done, all the companies you've worked in, all the different countries you've worked in, all the challenges you've faced, have prepared you for this day.

So if you look at it that way, that's.

Um, I, I guess how it all just sort of came together, so when I was off the role, it felt, yeah, this is really natural.

I want to be back in London.

I wanna be doing this stuff.

I've trained for it.

I know it inside out.

So it's kind of really an organic kind of route to where you are as opposed to a very determined route that like, in 20 years time, this is where I want to be.

No, I think, I think I, I've been been on this trajectory for a while.

And this is the logical kind of last step for me.

So there was a time when I was working at pwc I thought, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll go through the process.

And I was, you know, at the director level.

So partner partnering was, being a part was the next sort of step.

But that organization didn't really quite fit with how I like to Culturally Yeah.

Operate.

So smaller companies where you can be more impactful, have more of a voice.

And, and, and quite frankly, just get stuff done.

Your team.

You got you.

I mean, and have a laugh.

I mean, you guys, you've got a great team.

Yeah.

You know, you are de ripping the shit out of each other.

I love you as clients that we can write emails to each other and we don't have to say, oh, hi Darren, how are you?

I do hope you are.

Well, I've been working on the accounts.

It's literally like, where the fuck happened on Tuesday, man, you know, and you guys all just ripping into each other and I get to join in and I'm like, yeah, I love this.

What's your long-term goal?

S drugs and rock and roll.

Yeah.

Um, no, that was, that's, that's been done.

Um, the, oh, Darren, you disappoint me.

It's like ticked all those boxes.

Um, it's still alive.

I, I think ultimately, you know, it's, it's the story about trying to be impactful and, and leaving things better than I found it, you know?

Um, I, hopefully I've made it a, an impression on my profess.

What's most misunderstood about your job?

Well, I kind of got two jobs, so obviously running the company here and, and one of the, the parts of that is, is as a startup in an existing company, so a 20 year old company that's doing a startup in different regions, so you're kind of that chief every single officer when you start.

So you're doing everything.

So I think that's pretty tricky.

Certainly with hard work last year, so, um, but, but obviously, you know, as, as, as we're starting to settle into business in this part of the world, it's, it's getting easier.

I think the other part of the role I do, which is consulting, so going into firms and, and talking to them about some of their challenges and offering solutions and working through that and delivering it and proposals and, and, and, and all that sort of stuff.

I think, I think balancing those two sort of hands on, Day-to-day tactical stuff that I have to do to bring money in the door and win clients and, and attract brands and all that sort of stuff.

Plus trying to step back on the business, look at the strategy, where are we heading?

Making sure that that all the levers around pipeline and resourcing.

And isn't that what's most difficult for you?

Is that what's misunderstood?

What people don't realize that's what you are doing?

Or what do people think you do?

Darren?

They often ask me that.

And what, what's the biggest problem facing your business?

Uh, it's a tricky one.

I think.

Um, it's, it's just that balance of, of attracting the right talent, keeping the right talent excited and interesting in, in what they're doing.

Finding the right sort of clients that will build on the knowledge and, and expertise that we have.

Um, yeah, making sure that that, you know, we, we we're profitable in, in getting all that sort of stuff right.

Every day.

It's sort of that, that, uh, algorithm that you're trying to constantly work through to get that balance right and, and make sure that, that you kind of keep everything on track, really.

Are you doing anything about climate change?

Climate change is an interesting one.

I mean, You know, it's, it's, it's using public transport, paperless office, remote work, and kind of ticking those boxes, which are, I guess, ticket to the ball stuff these days.

The other thing that I'm starting to look at now, which is, um, if you think about when you are running software, it's running on a CPU and in CPU's consuming power.

So if you are running inefficient software, it's gonna consume more comput.

Therefore it's gonna consume more power.

So if there are ways of factoring in how we can not only test it, the software functionally works or performs as expected, oh, but review its energy use.

But look at how it, how it's doing, maybe, maybe database queries.

Where are they efficient?

And uh, or are they spinning up a lot more compute than they should, which server server getting too.

Well that's, that's right.

So thinking about those sort of consumption issues, I bet underneath that, that's the kind of thing that if you analyze the server room and you did it properly, you'd find out that you could chop their energy used by like, 50, 60% I think like some huge margin you would find if you could work out how to, it'd be highly complex to do, but share processing power better and and reduce like bad code.

Cuz half of it's bad code isn't it?

Well, there's a few things.

So, you know, one of the things, I think 1% of the world's energy consumption is data centers.

Then when you are testing, you are spinning up environments that kind of look like production.

The end user environ.

They consume, compute.

Now, if they are up, the server's running all day, 24 hours, seven days a week, whatever.

That's consuming.

Even when it's idling, it's still consuming compute.

Well, you kind of wanna move to environments on demand, so only when you need to test something do you fire the environment up, run your test, and shut it down.

And then it's dormant, not consuming any compute.

So it's that kind of smart thinking that that, I think if everyone starts to chip away at that, it'll make a bit of a difference.

You ever fucked anything up, Darren?

Yeah, it's an interesting question.

I, I've worked with someone that didn't share my values and that was a disaster.

Worked closely in Norma.

Yeah.

Very, very closely.

Well, what are, what are your values and what were their values?

Well, um, didn't treat people particularly well.

That's one of yours.

Yeah, no, that was him.

Um, so I spent all this time attracting people and couldn't quite work out why they were leaving.

And once I worked it out, I realized that not a people person, he was not a people person train wreck.

You need full-time HR people just trying to stop and come out the door.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's kind of where it ended.

So yeah.

That, that was a massive learning.

Do you think he was autistic or sort of, you know, just uh, highly capable.

Um, very smart.

How was he when you hung out with him personally?

Socially, as in the.

You ever do that?

Yeah.

Um, not a laugh a minute, I must admit.

Yeah.

So yeah, probably not picking up the social cues.

Yeah.

Watch your passion outside of business.

Uh, well, I like classic cars.

Do you own any?

Uh, I have a mini 1980 mark, four mini that's completely restored.

Absolutely beautiful.

The only thing is a little bit small.

They're incredible cars.

Yeah.

This thing is mean this's so small and five people get in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like, um, a tardes.

Yeah, it is.

It's a, I love it.

You could fit the mini Do you drive it or just I don't Yeah.

It's your day to day car or just No, no.

If you set the sea salad of a land rover, you could fit them mini inside.

You probably could.

It's that tiny.

And yet five people get in.

The thing about a mini though, is everyone smiles and likes.

Does, you do not have someone going, you are driving, you know, and I love the fact for like all good British inventions who is invented by German, I think in the UK running away from, everyone's always running away from something and they're like, oh, let's go to that weird, boring island over there.

Next question is, what's the worst advice you've ever been given?

Build it and they will come.

That's You think that's bullshit?

Yeah.

I, I, I fell for it and I, I built a sort of a center of excellence and, and put all this effort into it and um, I fucking agree cuz I've done it in music, but it's the same as make an incredible album.

Yeah.

And, and people would sell it a few times and they get five out of five in the magazines.

Nothing happened.

Yeah.

That, that was, that was the, was the one thing.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever given?

Tell them you've built it.

So true.

That's great.

Yeah, that's great.

Brilliant.

Because then they come, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Otherwise, they just walk past and looked in and wonder what was going on.

Tell them you built it, and then when they come build it.

What's the advice you'll give to your younger self?

Oh, that's an interesting one.

I, I mean, Spend less time with dickheads.

I think that's really I important.

Spend less, less, less time.

With dickhead, they just waste your time.

The kids, I can't believe a father would say, spend less time with your kids.

No dickheads, dickheads, dickhead.

My kiwi is really shit.

Really.

Thank you, Simon, for your interpretation.

Think Andy, what don't you understand about why he's just less Simon dickhead.

I was absolutely blowing away.

I thought he's.

With big kids, you blow me away.

I thought maybe it was gonna be really honest, like, don't believe the bullshit, and you know what the next sentence May said?

They waste a lot of your time.

My kids waste all my fucking time.

They're like, my kid wouldn't let me down the stairs this morning.

I was fucking late.

I needed to go now, don't you?

I have to go first, he said, and I said, I fucking gotta go.

Then he had this tantrum on me.

I was like, I'm gonna drag you fucking down the stairs then.

Screaming more anyway.

Sorry.

Do care.

So I don't have any of those problems.

No, no.

I, yeah, don't.

So I, I think it's about people that, um, kind of have hidden, hidden shallows, you know, painted on.

Not really authentic, don't have an original opinion.

I, I don't have time for those, and I, if I, I, and I have wasted time on those sort of people, the recommendations on what to read, watch, or listen to.

There's a podcast I've been listening to, which is called Leader.

Decanted or decanted leadership by a guy.

Leadership dickhead.

Yeah.

There's plenty of lights.

Your lights.

Yeah.

So essentially a couple of guys in Australia, um, uh, who have this podcast and they talk about leadership and they do it over a glass of wine.

Very nice.

And they talk about the wine too.

They do talk about the wine.

So, so that, that's really good.

So Guy Kerry Butler and Paul Gas, and when they have bad wine, does the conversation not go as, It's not obvious.

Business Without Bullshit is brought to you by Ari Clark, straight Talking Financial and legal advice since 1935.

You can find us@ariclark.com.

So that brings us to the favorite part of the show.

Uh, very good.

Darren, this is the Business versus Bullshit.

Quick, far Round.

Are you ready?

I am.

Dee.

Cue the music.

This is where we're gonna reel off some key terms, and all you have to do is tell us where you think it is business or.

Okay, so first one, business plans.

Business.

Mm.

Uh, working hours business.

I have to, I have to agree with that one.

MBAs.

It is, it is.

You're gonna have to go.

Bullshit.

Is anyone in your phone with an mba?

Oh, probably.

Sorry, sorry.

Uh, breakfast meetings.

I'm gonna say bullshit cuz it's just an opportunity to eat.

NFTs.

Actually, do you think?

Yeah, explain.

I'm not sure.

You just dunno enough about that.

No, no.

Yeah, fair enough.

Hot desking.

I found that it's been an absolute nightmare.

Yeah.

One of the interesting things is if you are coming into the office late and maybe working late, you are probably not gonna get a decent desk.

And what I've observed in some of the places I've worked is parents dropping off children who are getting to work a little bit later than the people that don't have to drop children off to school, get the shitty desks.

Aren't they all the same?

They're just a laptop these days, aren't they?

And wifi.

No, but sometimes you don't have enough desks.

Oh, that's lack of desks rather than typing.

You just get a bigger office.

That's just how they do it these days.

They, they, they, they work on it all.

You go through a lot of large companies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you book a desk or you can't book a dis so is what, what the large companies are doing.

And then they've shut their offices with Covid.

Of course they have.

This is wonderful.

Yeah.

And they're saving money.

But then ultimately it's interesting, you know, in ICE and they do this stuff.

They'll have a room for a band music, they'll, a room to have a lie down room for yoga.

They have room often for the kids.

A crash, you know, and the hard person, it's basic.

It's nothing fucking, it's more for emergencies.

It's like they have three or four kids there a day.

If you don't have another option, you, not a lot of businesses would have all of that, but, you know, doing I fucking, they just have these buildings and they gotta do it.

It's freezing outer man team outings.

Sorry with it nice set up.

But you can, uh, you can have a team outing at the bus.

Why is the pub okay?

And all the rest isn't?

I just think it's a confined thing.

Most people want to have a.

The pub that the, it's the magic of the pub.

Completely agree.

If you ever give, if you're ever trying to meet someone in this country, if you choose a venue that isn't a pub, you're an idiot because that is the only place open all day.

It's easy to find.

It's comfortable.

You can have something to eat, you can have something to drink, but you don't have to drink alcohol.

You can leave when you want.

You can tune up when you want.

It's the leaving when you want point.

I think that's really important.

So people kind of don't, if you go on a team outing, people feel kind of like they're trapped.

Whereas if.

This is gonna have a drink at the pub.

It's like, okay, fine.

I'll have one.

I'll go.

Yeah.

Stuck in the bush playing paintball.

Yeah.

You can't, can't.

How do you get out of that?

Okay.

Going viral.

Do you need know even I hate that shit.

Yeah.

And why'd you hate that?

Oh, it's just, uh, I think it's an overused term.

It's just one of those things, I mean, Isn't it just you're a bit popular for a bit.

Yeah.

And then you're not everyone's popular so you going unal.

So most of the time you like Covid.

Most Covid became very popular.

No, it's not so popular.

Mostly Unal.

Mostly.

So most people who get viral don't really want to.

Here's an interesting one, microdosing.

You do know what Elaine's small doses of hallucinogen.

Ls D for therapy and other reasons.

Well, Lord, they're doing it.

Hardwood.

It's one take anyway.

Uh, it's definitely not business, but it sounds like fun.

That's bullshit.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Flexible working.

Yeah, I think that's good.

That's where we are these days.

Nice.

Asking favors.

I think that's business.

It's just the reality of business.

Yeah.

Asking favors.

I agree.

I gotta ask the one that you threw away, which is Bitcoin.

I think it's bullshit.

Yeah.

You don't got any?

No.

That's why you think it's bullshit.

Yeah.

Universal income, probably bullshit.

Yeah.

Um, the reality is I think that sort of grant or benefit should go to the needy.

Not necessarily everyone.

Certain people won't grant a month, won't make any difference to their standard of living other people.

It's a game.

Given where we are with tax systems and Norwegians are good at this and proportional finding and fins do this and stuff is, it can't be fucking beyond the wit of man, they, we all got a national insurance number.

We all have a tax amount.

Just take that as a simple market to say you pay fucking nothing.

Or you pay for it?

I mean, just simple, have like three levels or whatever, you know.

Well, what I think is really interesting, I dunno what happened in New Zealand, but in Australia, effectively for the first part of Covid, they had universal income.

Because if you had a job, and it didn't matter whether you were doing two hours a week at the local bottle shop or you were the C of a company, you got exactly the same amount of money from the government.

For a period of time.

Wow.

And the amount, do you think it was helpful?

No, not at all, because kind of all of the CEOs were going, hang on.

Well, why is that student who's doing two hours a week in the bottle shop getting the same amount of money as me?

Because I'm much more important.

Cause I'm running a, that's what, but, but I'd be brought up in that very like, you know, work hard and it, you know, again, it's, it's a controversial opinion probably to say I'm public, but I don't care.

I'm saying it, you know, it, it, my anecdotal experience is that working hard.

Solve the problem, but you don't get to fucking complain about shit if you're not trying hard.

It's like, it's like, it's, it's hard to equate and, and obviously there's exceptions to those circumstances due to whatever reasons of an inability to work.

But it, you know, as a starting place, you know, you've gotta be trying hard.

If you're trying hard.

And it's not, and it's shit and it's not fair.

Do you know what I'm trying to express?

Maybe don't whinge if you're not putting the effort in there.

Yeah, that's what I'm just saying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I find that really diff I, and I've, my anecdote experiences, my friends and a lot of them are not my friends anymore.

Who most more, you know, and always have the government's fault, you know, and then they fucking work.

Two, three days a week.

And they didn't work hard when they did it.

And he's just like, oh, no one, no, you know, no one cares.

But, you know, it's just like, not fair.

It's a fucking fucking word, fucking hard, you know?

I think it's all relatives though.

Certain people think they're working hard, but, but they're not really, and other people not working hard, work hard.

And when I was little I said, well, you know, he, I remember him bursting out laughing.

I must have been 10.

I was like, daddy, you been saying this to me my whole life.

What do you mean?

He's like, I, I.

School, they tell me to do stuff, I do stuff.

I do it.

What more do you want me to do?

I, and yeah.

And he, he burst out laughing because I could see he was like, as a fair point and he was like, well, you know, yeah.

You know, you like, you know, you've gotta, you know, give it your all As.

Stuff like that.

And I'm like, I'm tired.

You know, I sometimes I give him my all if I'm interested.

Sometimes I couldn't give a fuck.

But, and then I say he can't say sport.

And I was like, you know, I, I can't give him my all of sport.

And he is like, nah, me neither.

And it's like, it's such a, like what does work hard mean?

But I think work hard really means get on with it.

You know, just get on with it.

Don't, don't get up early.

You know, one of the best, if someone's telling you in their life they can't get anywhere, ask them what time they're going up.

Often it's like, oh nine, not 10, and then, but start getting up at six.

You're fine.

Shit happens.

So that was this week's episode of Bwb Extra and we'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday.