In this week’s UKTN Podcast episode, Baroness Martha Lane Fox reflects on a challenging year for tech businesses, explains why we should be more concerned about a “profound shift in information flows” than destruction by robots, and unpacks why we shouldn’t be too pessimistic about startup funding.
Lane Fox is a British businesswoman, philanthropist and public servant. She co-founded Lastminute.com during the dotcom boom in 1998 with Brent Hoberman, taking it to a public listing two years later. She entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher in 2013, becoming Baroness Martha Lane Fox of Soho and the youngest female life peer.
In 2014, she was appointed chancellor of the Open University, a role that she continues to hold. Since October 2022 the entrepreneur has been president of the British Chambers of Commerce, a business network spanning companies of different sizes across all sectors.
Elsewhere on the show, Lane Fox looks ahead to a year of political uncertainty and explains why the first trillionaire in the world will “probably” come from the green transition.
Listen to the full episode here, along with all previous episodes of the UKTN Podcast.
The UKTN Podcast is sponsored by HSBC Innovation Banking, which offers flexible banking solutions for startups, scaleups, growth businesses, investors and those working towards IPO.
Throughout the series, the UKTN Podcast will be speaking to some of the key movers and shakers from UK tech. We’ll learn growth strategies from both seasoned and up-and-coming founders, hear market sentiments from investors, and question policymakers on the decisions shaping technology businesses across the country.
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