Musk made the statement in on twitter and linked to a Reuters article from 2 May, when Twitter made the estimate on the number of spam accounts on its site during the first quarter of 2022.

In its first quarter earnings report released last month, Twitter said it performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimated that the “average of false or spam accounts” during the first quarter represented fewer than 5pc of its 229m monetisable daily active users.

“In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated,” Twitter said on 28 April.

Musk said that the deal is on hold as he wants to see the company’s calculations that confirm this percentage.

Following the statement, Twitter shares fell by nearly 18pc in premarket trading, their lowest since Musk first shared his plans to takeover the company in early April, Reuters reported.

The share hit is another blow for Twitter, as it was recently revealed that the company has paused most hiring and is reviewing all existing job offers to determine whether any “should be pulled back”.

In a company-wide memo seen by Reuters, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal attributed the decision to pause hiring to Twitter not being able to meet previous growth targets.

Agrawal’s memo also told staff of the departure of two of the company’s senior staff members.

Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of the consumer product division, and Bruce Falck, revenue product lead, both tweeted that leaving Twitter was not their own decision.

Musk and Twitter

Since the start of April, a lot has ensued between Musk and Twitter. First, he became one of the company’s biggest stakeholders, and there were plans to have him installed on the company’s board.

Days after it was revealed that Musk would not become a Twitter board member after all, he offered to buy the company and take it off the stock market.

“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” he wrote in a letter at the time addressed to board chair Bret Taylor. He added that he believes in Twitter as a platform for “free speech” and said it “needs to be transformed as a private company”.

Musk has been critical of Twitter in recent months. At the end of March, he asked his more than 80m followers in a tweet whether the platform “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech.

“Given that Twitter serves as the de-facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he added in a follow-up tweet. “What should be done?”

He then asked followers whether a new social media platform was needed, and said he was giving “serious thought” to building one.

These tweets came after Musk had started building up a stake in Twitter – a move that has also come under the microscope. Last month, a Twitter shareholder sued Musk for failing to promptly disclose that he had bought a significant stake in the company.

Musk had been acquiring shares since January and acquired 5pc by 14 March, meaning he needed to notify the SEC by 24 March under the US agency’s rules. However, the lawsuit document stated that Musk continued to amass shares before notifying the SEC.

The deal includes a clause whereby if either party ends up terminating the agreement, they have to pay the other a $1bn fee. The filing also states that if the deal isn’t closed by 24 October, both sides could walk away without a takeover.

Elon Musk in 2018. Image: Daniel Oberhaus via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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Speaking about the future of business, Welch explained the paradoxical nature of the risks that businesses face from internationalisation. While it has become easier for a company to set up a website and go global, it is also riskier than ever to do so.

Welch noted that tech companies in particular have an added set of risks when it comes to expanding, not only because of the volatility that the world is currently facing, but also because “innovation is inherently risky”.

“You don’t know if your technology is actually going to end up doing what you want it to do,” she said. “And even if you solve that problem, you’ve got the next problem – which is, it may work but do customers actually want it? Often that’s something you only work out a little too late.”

In order to adapt, Welch said tech companies have to de-risk. Businesses still have to work towards going global as “we have global markets, technology is global”, but risks have to be taken into account.

How can this be achieved? Welch said “it depends”, drawing chuckles from the crowd when she added, “That’s the classic academic answer, isn’t it?” She explained that it depends on what type of technology a company is trying to bring to market and provided two contrasting examples.

SaaS-style companies

The first company example was represented in a Future Human fireside chat yesterday with Intercom co-founder Des Traynor. Welch said companies in SaaS and software development don’t usually work with groundbreaking technology, instead they offer “novel applications and recombinations of technology that’s already out there”.

She added that this allows companies to start out globally very quickly, with a very optimistic outlook initially, finding customers who are enthusiastic about the new product around the world.

But the problems begin when these companies try to move away from these early adopters, and try to develop an offline presence as well as an online presence.

“That’s when it starts to become very expensive,” Welch said. “Not only that, but you have to invest in this presence often ahead of getting a return. For some companies, this is not going to be a period that they survive, so it’s a real pressure point for companies and getting it right is very difficult.”

In order to de-risk, Welch said these companies need to plan “lean internationalisation”, which is finding cost-effective ways to deliver value when expanding.

Welch gave the example of Australian software company Atlassian, the maker of Jira and Trello, which was able to develop a global reputation without a large sales and marketing team but through the power of “word of mouth”.

“I’m not suggesting you go out and fire your sales and marketing team,” she said. “But what I am suggesting is you need to think very carefully about where you’re going to invest.”

Deep-tech companies

The second example Welch gave were deep-tech companies, which have a different set of risks and pressure points.

“These are companies that are trying to bring to market a product that is based on a scientific breakthrough,” she explained. “So these are companies that are new to the world and their product is new to the world.”

Welch said the biggest issue for these companies is that it can take decades to get something that is a breakthrough innovation to market. The example she gave were vaccine manufacturers.

“These companies, which are now household names, were pretty much on their knees at the time that Covid-19 first hit,” Welch said.

“The rest is history but it just is a reminder to us that this sort of technology, these sort of innovations, take a long time to get to market, if they ever do,” she added.

This often means that the first innovators “are not the ones to reap the rewards” of the new products they’re trying to launch. She added that these companies need investment, people to have faith in the vision and “patience, a lot of it”.

For these companies, the best way to handle these risks is “learn from those who have been there and done that before”.

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Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a company-wide memo, seen by Reuters, that the social media giant would pause most hiring and review all existing job offers to determine whether any “should be pulled back”.

Agrawal’s memo also told staff of the departure of two of the company’s senior staff members.

Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of the consumer product division, and Bruce Falck, revenue product lead, both tweeted that leaving Twitter was not their own decision.

Beykpour said yesterday (12 May) that he was leaving the company after seven years.

Interrupting my paternity leave to share some final @twitter-related news: I’m leaving the company after over 7 years.

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 12, 2022

Falck also thanked his former co-workers for their support during his five-year stint at the company, adding that “building and running these businesses is a team sport”.

He singled out the “unsung heroes” such as the “dedicated IC engineers who seldom see the spotlight or get the recognition they deserve”.

Jay Sullivan will now become head of Beykpour’s former division and will also lead the revenue team temporarily. He had been leading the consumer team while Beykpour was on paternity leave.

In the memo, Agrawal attributed the decision to pause hiring to Twitter not being able to meet previous growth targets. In its most recent earnings, Twitter reported revenue on the lower end of the prediction it made earlier in the year, a figure that fell short of analyst expectations.

“We need to continue to be intentional about our teams, hiring and costs,” Agrawal said in his memo.

The Financial Times reported that Agrawal faced criticism from two of Twitter’s biggest shareholders, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, for a “misalignment between CEO pay and company performance”.

Agrawal may have to defend his $30.4m pay package at the company’s annual meeting later this month, after shareholder advisers recommended voting against his remuneration plan.

The news comes as billionaire Elon Musk is looking to close a $44bn takeover deal. If the deal goes through later this year, Musk will take the social media platform private.

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In a tweet yesterday (12 May), Marcus said that the start-up will “explore, build and extend the capabilities and utility of Bitcoin”.

While there’s not much else known about Lightspark at this point, Marcus said that he is now assembling a team “to dive deeper into the Lightning Network”, which is essentially an additional layer of payment protocol over bitcoin that enables faster transactions.

I wanted to share that we are starting a new company called @lightspark to explore, build and extend the capabilities and utility of #Bitcoin. As a first step, we’re actively assembling a team to dive deeper into the Lightning Network. (1/3)

— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) May 12, 2022

Marcus, who was once at the helm of PayPal and most recently led Meta digital wallet Novi, is joined by some former colleagues from Novi in co-founding and leading Lightspark, such as former VP of brand and marketing, Christina Smedley, and former VP of engineering, James Everingham.

And leading the investment side of things is Silicon Valley-based VC firms Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, and Paradigm – who are both betting big on crypto. Other backers include Thrive Capital, Coatue, Felix Capital, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners and Zeev Ventures.

Bad timing?

Marcus’ return to the crypto scene has been anticipated since he left Meta last November, when he had first hinted at possibly starting his own venture.

“While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi – and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems – my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it,” Marcus tweeted at the time.

However, his timing of launching Lightspark isn’t ideal. Cryptocurrencies across the board have plummeted in value this week – with one of them, Luna, losing roughly 96pc of its value and collapsing to nearly $0. Bitcoin, being the most popular cryptocurrency, has taken a big bit too.

But Marcus defended the timing of his launch.

“Downturns are good moments to focus on building and creating value with mission-aligned people. We’re excited to dive into Lightning, learn more, and work alongside the community. We’ll share more about our work as we make progress!” he tweeted in the thread.

His investors are optimistic too. Andreesen Horowitz, in an announcement of their investment in Lightspark, hailed Marcus as “nothing short of a legend in the payments and crypto industry”.

“When David spoke to us about Lightspark and the early team he had assembled, several of whom we had tried to hire ourselves, we couldn’t have been more thrilled,” the VC firm said. “This is the sort of team and audacious mission that doesn’t come around often.”

David Marcus speaking at LeWeb Paris 2013. Image: Adam Tinworth/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

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The energy from the audience was palpable in the morning as long-time fans and first-time attendees were eager to participate in the conversation.

Future Human curator and Silicon Republic CEO Ann O’Dea opened the event with a whistle-stop tour of how the event came to be and the journey that brought it to 2022.

This was follwed by a quiet few moments of mindfulness with a gorgeous musical performance from Ukrainian pianist Yaroslav Bilous. Bilous then spoke to O’Dea briefly about his experience coming to Ireland given the current crisis.

Next, Aon’s chief innovation officer Jillian Slyfield came to the stage to discuss how businesses need to come up with new solutions to the challenges that are coming down the line. In particular, she said we should be reframing the great resignation as the great reassessment.

She kicked off her talk with some important advice for students. “You don’t need to know what you want to be when you grow up,” she said. “Think about who you are.”

She also brought the in-person audience into the conversation, fielding questions about the metaverse and allowing them to share their experiences.

Her talk was followed by a no-holds-barred fireside chat between O’Dea and Intercom co-founder Des Traynor.

His brutal honesty around what he really thinks about Web3 and the metaverse drew several chuckles from the audience, while his straight-talking nuggets of advice for start-ups and entrepreneurs were treated like gold dust.

Ann O’Dea and Des Traynor. Image: Conor McCabe

One great analogy Traynor highlighted was how solutions are a lot like Velcro in that they’re often seen as useless until a problem is there to make it stick.

“People won’t buy a solution until they’ve bought a problem,” he said.

Next, the first of several hybrid panels took place to discuss the future of Ukraine with Neill Dunwoody, co-founder of Tech Link Ukraine; Konstantin Vasyuk of the IT Ukraine Association; Yuliya Garycha, digital adviser to the Ukrainian Government; and Ukrainian-born Trinity College Dublin student Yura Kovalchuk.

The discussion highlighted a lot of important work being done in Ireland to help recently arrived Ukrainians. Dunwoody pointed to the Tech Link Ukraine website for any employers who might have roles available to offer.

Right before lunch, Future Human continued its tradition of including the arts in the discussions around science and tech by introducing the audience to writer Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, who shared her experience as an immigrant along with some gorgeous poetry and a premiere of her poetic installation about space weather research.

After lunch, the future of the climate was the main topic as anthropologist Prof Alice Roberts took us through the history of our relationship with the natural world, farming and the domestication of crops. This was followed by a fascinating fireside chat between SiliconRepublic.com editor Elaine Burke and Trinity Centre for Social Innovation’s Siobhan McQuaid.

“We need to bring economic policymakers together with environmental policymakers,” said McQuaid.

From left: Elaine Burke and Siobhan McQuaid. Image: Conor McCabe

We then moved into a new realm – figuratively speaking – with a host of expert speakers to breakdown the world of Web3, NFTs and crypto art. To begin, Time Digital president and TimePieces co-founder Bharat Krish dialled in to give an insight into his NFT art initiative. Concluding his talk, Krish shared a unique collection of artistic video NFTs – a collaboration between TimePieces, Timberland and 14 other artists.

Krish then joine an in-depth panel discussion chaired by Pete Townsend, who leads the Launchpool Web3 Techstars Accelerator. They were joined online by GamiFi CEO Laura Walsh and crypto artist Kevin Abosch for an upfront and honest discussion about the Web3 world.

Abosch’s sentiment that Web3 isn’t going to fix the systemic problems from the Web2 world was met with nods from the rest of the panel. He summed up the topic incredibly succinctly, saying: “The future can be bright, we just have to be vigilant.”

This was followed by a mainstay of Silicon Republic events: a panel on the future of work. This has never been timelier than in the last few years, when the pandemic led to remote working en masse.

O’Dea returned to chair the panel, which included Boundless co-founder Dee Coakley, Aon chief people officer Lisa Stevens and Hatch Analytics founder Monica Parker.

They talked about the ongoing battle for talent, the need to create a positive work culture instead of focusing on the box-ticking side of wellbeing, and the ongoing challenges around remote working.

As the day drew to a close, the conversation around the future of work continued with the final speaker of the day, Rand Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of audience research software start-up SparkToro.

His short but engaging talk examined the concept of ‘chill work’ and how it compares to the much more common hustle culture of doing as much work as possible and giving it your all.

He began by saying: “Life is about more than just work.” And after a brief explanation of how the chill work concept is applied in SparkToro, he closed the session by showing a wholesome collage of family and friends having fun and living their best lives.

“We have very full lives,” which, he said, is achieved by creating a work culture that allows for that. A strong sentiment with which to leave a buzzing audience – and it’s only day one.

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Speaking with Silicon Republic Editor Elaine Burke, McQuaid said the nature-based economy is a new concept that involves a “paradigm shift” in thinking about economic development, and the type of economy we want in the future.

Connecting Nature is an €11.4m five-year project funded by the EU, involving 30 partners across 16 European countries plus hubs in Brazil, China, Korea and The Caucasus.

This consortium is working with local authorities, communities, industry partners, NGOs and academics who are investing in large-scale implementation of nature–based projects in urban settings.

McQuaid said that central to this new concept are “nature-based solutions”, which involve looking at nature as a solution to problems that currently exist, such as heatwaves or flooding in cities.

“Nature has been used to mitigate against these problems and adapt to climate change for millions of years, so what we specifically look at is the potential for these nature-based solutions to create an alternative source of employment, source of innovation, source of skills and source of jobs,” McQuaid said.

The EU Commission defines nature-based solutions as “solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits, and help build resilience”.

A different scaling model for businesses

McQuaid stressed that the idea of having nature-based enterprises is not mutually exclusive to economic growth, but the scaling models are different as these enterprises put biodiversity issues first.

She explained that many nature-based enterprises the Connecting Nature project works with focus on franchise models for growth across Europe and scaling up local contractors.

“It’s a different model, but it’s one that presents many opportunities,” she said. “Its not incompatible, but it is a different priority.”

McQuaid said the Connecting Nature project identified 11 sectors where nature-based enterprises are currently active. This includes well-known sectors such as regenerative agriculture and sustainable tourism.

However, McQuaid added that there is still a large amount of greenwashing in the corporate world. One example she gave is of companies planting trees and calling it a nature-based solution. This can lead to monoculture plantations that destroy native vegetation which is rich in biodiversity.

“It just goes back to a fundamental change in attitude,” McQuaid said. “The prevailing attitude seems to be ‘do no harm.’ We need to switch that attitude. Instead of saying ‘do no harm’, how can we proactively support businesses that are trying to do good for nature and for people?”

Ireland is lagging behind

One of the main challenges McQuaid mentioned is the fact the nature-based economy is a new concept, which means there is a lack of data and market research to see the potential in each country and sector.

However, there are some countries that are taking the lead. McQuaid said Austria is a leader in Europe in terms of green infrastructure, with the government taking active measures to support this sector.

McQuaid caused laughter among the Future Human audience when asked how Ireland is comparing to other countries, as her initial response was simply, “Can we move on?”

She said that, to her knowledge, Ireland is not active in the nature-based economy as the Government is still focused on traditional economic parameters, such as how fast a business can scale and develop.

McQuaid said the benefits of a nature-based economy are already clear to environmental scientists, but in order to really change the way we think about the future economy, buy-in is needed from economists and policymakers. “We need both and we need them to start working together,” she said.

She concluded that it is possible to achieve economic growth and “those traditional parameters of success” by focusing on nature and people, but it requires a significant change “right across the board”.

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She was referring to her experience working with Aon client Uber in around 2015, when the company faced insurance regulation challenges in new markets it was trying to enter with its technology offering.

“During that time of transition, we had to innovate how to get this done. And it wasn’t a cookie-cutter solution because every time we went into a new geography, the new geography would say, ‘Well, actually this is highly regulated.’”

Slyfield joined Aon in 2015 and was its digital economy practice leader until she moved into her current role at the end of 2021.

In the digital economy practice, Slyfield helped companies address digital disruption in their industries, particularly in mobility-as-a-service, future of work and platform marketplaces.

Since then, Aon has built a practice around those challenges and made programmes to help facilitate business for Uber, Airbnb, Just Eat Takeaway and companies in the autonomous vehicle space.

Aon’s Jillian Slyfield speaking at Future Human 2022. Image: Conor McCabe Photography

Intangible assets

In the first talk delivered at Future Human 2022, Slyfield told the audience how different macroeconomic trends are changing the way leaders approach business and the risks associated with these.

“The world is becoming increasingly volatile, and the uncertainty that all our CEOs are facing – it’s in the news every single day. That provides us with an opportunity to think differently about how we serve them and the role that we play in the new world.”

Slyfield said that there is a disparity between what her clients think their biggest risks are, such as cyber insurance and property, and what their real risks are – such as the climate crisis, new mobility issues and intangible assets.

“We’ve had this historic rotation in value to intangible assets, where 90pc of the value of the S&P 500 list of companies is in intangible assets,” she told the audience, referring to the shift in value from companies that sold physical products to tech companies working with data.

Along with this shift came new ways in which businesses interact with their customers, such as through hyper-personalisation – or the curation of content based on how users have interacted with the internet. “This means that your Instagram and Facebook feeds – even what Google gives you – looks different from mine,” Slyfield explained.

New ways of making payments, new currencies and new places to spend are changing the face of business – creating many opportunities, but not without risks. Cybercrime damage, she noted, collectively costs businesses on average $16.4bn daily.

Metaverse and ESG

But it’s not all risks and damage when it comes to global trends that are changing business. Slyfield said that new innovations such as the metaverse potentially present many possibilities for business to evolve for the better.

“The metaverse is the baseline for intangible assets. What if you wanted to learn how to build a helicopter? Wouldn’t it be cool to go into the metaverse and learn it?” she asked the Future Human audience.

Practising real-world techniques in the metaverse could be beneficial for medical students, for example, and could prove to be a cost and time-effective way to do things. “We can even do this event in the metaverse!” she noted.

From a climate perspective, especially in the mobility space, Slyfield said things may be turning around for the better.

She said that people aren’t buying cars as much any more, there are more electric vehicles on the road than ever, and ride-sharing is taking off. In Slyfield’s hometown of San Francisco, autonomous cars are now taking people around – changing the face of urban transport.

“Even things like ESG [environment, social and governance] may not have been important to businesses five years ago. Today, every time I go to a client, if I do nothing else before I go in, I read their ESG report,” she told the audience. “You have to know how they’re thinking about this.”

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A version of this article was originally published by The Conversation (CC BY-ND 4.0)

Netflix’s recently released first-quarter earnings for 2022 reported a shocking loss of 200,000 subscribers – a worrying shift for a business that had previously only seen sustained growth since 2011.

The New York Times headline ‘Netflix loses subscribers for the first time in a decade’ was catchy – however, a little bit of nuance is required. The company’s withdrawal from Russia as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions saw a loss of 700,000 subscribers attributed to the quarter.

The net result, taking into account the Russian loss, was a growth of 500,000 subscribers – a number still short of the expected growth of 2.5m subscribers.

Far worse in the report was Netflix’s estimation of a further 2m subscribers to be lost by the second quarter.

As a result, Netflix signalled cutbacks in content expenditure, cancelling the Bright sequel and comic adaptation Bone, and flagged potential cuts to employee numbers and discretionary spending.

So what has caused this loss and where does Netflix go next?

Platform proliferation

Netflix is increasingly challenged by a streaming landscape populated with a growing number of platforms – a fact the company recognised in its letter to shareholders.

Referring to the robust competition from other players, the company noted: “Over the last three years, as traditional entertainment companies realised streaming is the future, many new streaming services have also launched.”

The launches of Disney+ in 2019, HBO Max in 2020 and Paramount+ in 2021 has seen these US-based entertainment companies step into streaming. There are a growing number of players in the market. Every major studio that launches a platform means less content Netflix can distribute – when the major studios launch they remove their content from Netflix.

The Netflix licence for Friends – once one of platform’s top watched shows – was not renewed by rights holder Warner Brothers Television in 2020. As a result, Friends is disappearing from Netflix markets around the world, instead streaming on Warner Brothers Discovery platform HBO Max.

Global streaming platforms have also made inroads with popular originals. Severance on Apple TV+, Halo on Paramount+, and Raised by Wolves on HBO Max have all been popular with audiences. This success is no doubt forcing a more savvy approach from consumers increasingly hit with the reality of high monthly bills when paying for all services.

Image: © Koshiro/Stock.adobe.com

Netflix and others are also competing for attention with local subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, like Stan in Australia and Blim in Mexico, and regional services like Viaplay in Northern Europe and VIU in Asia.

These services hold unique value propositions in their markets and often trade upon pre-existing relationships in local media ecosystems. Viaplay has a long history as a satellite television network in Sweden while Stan is a venture of local Australian free-to-air broadcaster Nine Network.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for global streaming companies like Netflix to compete against not just other global media companies, but also compete with local and regional services as well that have deeper ingrained relationships with audiences.

Why Netflix needs subscriptions

How can a drop of only 200,000 subscribers from a total of 220m subscribers crash a share price by 35pc and instil fear across the broader streaming sector?

Netflix is a pure play SVOD service and is relatively unique in the marketplace. It focuses on a single product and delivery method – subscription television. In its 2021 annual report, Netflix said 99.4pc of all revenues came from subscription fees (a paltry 0.6pc came from the dying DVD business).

Given the uniqueness in the market of this pure play focus, streaming scholar Amanda D Lotz termed Netflix “a zebra amongst horses” to describe the company’s relationship to other SVOD services.

Almost every competitor of Netflix has another aspect to their business. In her 2022 book Netflix and Streaming Video, Lotz refers to the SVOD component of Disney for example as a “corporate extension” of the underlying media business and of Apple TV+ as a “corporate complement” to its technology business.

For companies like Disney, the SVOD service can leverage and cross-subsidise the broader business. Apple TV+ itself is under little to no pressure to turn a profit, as Apple’s major growth driver is the iPhone.

But for Netflix, all of the eggs are in the same basket. Even small changes to subscriber numbers, and certainly a negative growth outlook, forces a conceptualisation of their future, without other business areas that can offset these losses.

Indeed, that is partly why Netflix has been making inroads into other businesses, through the acquisitions of Scanline VFX, a visual effects company in 2021, and Boss Fight Entertainment, a gaming company in 2022. We can expect some greater urgency across these acquisitions.

What’s next for Netflix?

Netflix is proposing two key measures to alter the negative subscriber trajectory – a lower-cost, ad-supported subscription tier and a crackdown on password sharing between households.

Neither of these suggestions does anything to offer a reason to stay subscribed. There is no promise enjoyable original series won’t be cancelled too soon, like Sense8, Altered Carbon or The OA for example. Rather than adding new features or content, the Netflix answer is removing key cornerstones of the service.

For Netflix, its recent subscriber loss could warn of a less promising future.

By Oliver Eklund

Oliver Eklund is a PhD candidate and research assistant in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. His interests are in the evolution of media and the impact of streaming platforms on industry, audiences and regulation.

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In connection with the acquisition, investment firm Clearlake Capital Group is making a new equity investment into AMCS. Fresh backing also came from existing investors Insight Partners, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Highland Europe.

Quentic helps companies to manage tasks related to environmental, health, safety and quality management (EHSQ) as well as environment, social and governance (ESG). The company’s platform features 10 individually combinable modules in areas such as health and safety, hazardous chemicals, environmental management and sustainability.

The Berlin-headquartered company, formerly known as EcoIntense, was founded in 2007. Today, it employs more than 250 people around Europe and serves more than 900 customers.

“We have built Quentic on the values of making a meaningful contribution to people, society and the environment,” Quentic CEO Markus Becker said. “Therefore, we are excited to have found a partner in AMCS who fully aligns with our mission to digitally empower companies across the globe to manage people, business and environmental processes sustainably at all levels.”

AMCS develops enterprise software for the waste, recycling and resources industries. The Limerick-based company aims to broaden its expertise in the global environmental services industry and expand its customer base through this acquisition.

“AMCS and Quentic are very aligned with the mission to drive an environmentally sustainable future,” AMCS CEO Jimmy Martin said. “A net-zero carbon future depends on a very connected and circular approach across the supply chain.

“We are thrilled to bring the technology from Quentic into the AMCS portfolio of solutions and can now move forward with a focus on influencing the entire supply chain, offering smarter outcomes from automating and digitising their businesses – reducing waste as much as possible.”

The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks, subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition will bring the AMCS headcount to more than 1,000 staff globally, supporting more than 4,000 customers.

The company expects to achieve run rate revenues of more than €180m by the end of the year.

AMCS has made a number of acquisitions over the last year. In January, the company acquired cloud utility billing platform Utilibill to tap into smart billing for water and energy usage. This time last year, it snapped up Dublin’s Dataset Solutions, another player in the recycling and waste management software sector, to expand its reach.

In September, AMCS also entered a two-year research collaboration with Confirm, the Science Foundation Ireland research centre for smart manufacturing based at the University of Limerick, to find new ways to use AI, machine learning and computer vision to improve waste management.

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Dooley has led the business for more than a decade, coming from a finance background. He is now responsible for directing Typetec from a strategic, financial and corporate perspective.

‘We believe our remote working and four-day week policies are helping Typetec to attract a more diverse team’
^{– PAUL DOOLEY}

What are the biggest challenges facing your sector and how are you tackling them?

Staff retention and recruitment is a huge problem for our industry at the moment. There is the classic supply and demand issue going on right now. How we are tackling it is by new initiatives like our recently launched four-day week pilot, investment in staff professional development, career plans and social incentives to harness company culture.

Having a supportive and positive culture is so important. Just recently the whole Typetec team met up in person for the first time since the pandemic. It was such a success and I really noticed the value of having us all together – there was such a buzz when we all got back to work on the Monday.

Seeing the difference that one in-person meet-up made reminded me of the inherent value of a good company culture. Even from a business perspective, it makes everything more efficient. When you have a happy team of employees, everything else falls into place.

What are the key sector opportunities you’re capitalising on?

Like many in our industry, cybersecurity is a major focus for us and our customers. As above, our customers are facing talent and recruitment barriers that see them increasingly depend on our managed services in this area.

The extension to this is growth in demand for managed disaster recovery and business continuity services. The upsurge in security incidents has sharpened focus and investment on these service offerings as a must-have from a business risk perspective.

What set you on the road to where you are now?

My parents played a big part in shaping where I am now. They were self-employed and took a huge risk in setting up their own paint and decoration business in the early ’80s when it was a difficult time for the Irish economy. It paid off as they still have their business, which is run by my sister today.

As a kid, I was always eager to explore my potential and I was privileged to have the support and motivation from my family. They are the ones who instilled that spirit of entrepreneurship in me. I get my drive to succeed and desire to always keep learning from them, and I’m very thankful for that.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

Taking on the role as CEO of Typetec at 30 years old. I was taking over from the founder of the business and he was stepping into a chairman role. It was challenging as he had been in charge for so long and I had to earn the trust and respect of the whole company and prove that I was capable of doing the role justice.

The easiest thing would have been to work on a succession plan for a few years and then take over, but I was thrown in at the deep end. But I have to say I loved it and still do.

When I was first starting out in the corporate world, I set many goals for myself and I used to think that these had to be time-bound targets. However, experience has taught me that I am always going to be a work in progress and I will never stop learning. Having that mindset really helped when I took on the role and has served my very well since.

How do you get the best out of your team?

Simply let them do their job. Once you have competent people you should let them off to run the business for you. My role is to be a support mechanism for them, a sounding board as such.

In terms of managing teams, I’ve discovered throughout my career that involvement and collaboration is imperative. Getting teams involved in the decision-making process always yields success. You have to give your people the opportunity to have their say and get involved, otherwise you can have incredible talent hidden away in the background.

I’d never criticise someone for making a decision, right or wrong, but I would encourage them to always make the decision in the first place. And it’s up to me or management to give them that space to make that decision.

One thing that I know doesn’t work when managing a team is micro-management. You should trust your staff to do their jobs and make sure they know they can reach out to you if they need to. Empowering people is the best thing you can do for them.

Have you noticed a diversity problem in your sector?

Yes I do see a diversity issue in our sector, although the gap is closing each year.

The IT industry has been historically male dominated. In order to make it more inclusive there has to be a clear pathway for females in our industry, including salary equality and more senior and leadership positions.

We believe a better work-life balance and flexibility are also key to enabling a more diverse and inclusive workforce. We believe our remote working and four-day week policies are helping Typetec to demonstrate leadership in this area and are helping us to attract a more diverse team.

What’s the best piece of career advice you have ever received?

I’ve worked with a life coach and mentor for the last 10 years. I remember early on in our engagement he gave me the following advice when I didn’t have an obvious answer to a particular problem: “When you don’t know the answer to something you have to make a judgement call, that’s what senior management get paid to do.”

It sounds so simple but it’s one that stuck with me and one I passed on to anyone I’ve worked with. Business is simple, we just like to make it complicated!

What books have you read that you would recommend?

I’ve read a lot of books recently, especially during the lockdown, but one that stood out for me was Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac.

It’s basically about how Uber was set up, and the rise and fall of its controversial co-founder Travis Kalanick. It’s a fascinating story of sheer scale and dominance of a traditional market. To see how they were so disruptive in the taxi industry was something special.

What are the essential tools and resources that get you through the working week?

Sleep is massively important, but having a four-year-old and a 13-month-old in the house is quite challenging on that front now!

As we are coming out of the end of a tough two years of hard lockdowns, I make it my business to have a few face-to-face meetings during the week. It has become too easy to not meet any more and communicate via video calls.

I believe that you can’t beat meeting people in person and really getting to know them. Relationships are so important in business. I don’t just want to work with customers, partners and colleagues, I want to know them and understand what they’re all about. Your business will never suffer from getting to know people.

I also feel it’s essential to give some time each week for myself to reflect on what’s going on. We seem to be busy the whole time and, especially with remote working, that ‘switch off’ button is not used as much. There’s always the temptation to finish something off if you didn’t get enough time in the work day to do it, but it’s important to create those boundaries and stick to them.

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