The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:29:06 · Rhea Nielsen, Vidit Agarwal
[00:29:06] S3: Thankfully, there is some good news there. So the government has thought about this and proposed a new innovative business CGT concession, which essentially preserves that CGT discount for qualifying equity holders in innovative startups. And that's the CGT discount that we have at the moment that we talked about earlier on the podcast. But the keyword there is qualifying. So there are actually quite a few conditions that need to be satisfied in order to access this concession, including pretty strict innovation criteria and generally also a three year holding period. So overall, the headline is pretty positive. We have the government listening to feedback and recognising that investment in startups is important. But the detail really will matter here because the concession is not law yet, and the eligibility rules are pretty strict and fairly targeted. So we really need to wait and see where the final legislation lands. [00:29:58] S0: Interesting times. Thank you Ria and now back to the episode. How would you just quickly on this and then we'll come back to your life and career in a moment. How would you change that? Let's assume you were brought in as a consultant and 20 of the leading CEOs were in the room and the chairs of their board were in the room, how would you change that attitude?
00:29:58 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[00:29:58] S0: Interesting times. Thank you Ria and now back to the episode. How would you just quickly on this and then we'll come back to your life and career in a moment. How would you change that? Let's assume you were brought in as a consultant and 20 of the leading CEOs were in the room and the chairs of their board were in the room, how would you change that attitude? [00:30:24] S1: I think it's important for the boards and for the shareholders to make sure that they are picking and assessing the CEOs on what they believe is the right outcomes for the business. I think that's a dilemma in some cases because a lot of the shareholders are looking at the half year, full year results and are looking at in The US, it's every quarter. So I think there has to be more incentives for those shareholders to have a longer term view and to incentivize them around it. And that longer term view, I don't know if you change the REM structure, have the focus of the CEO and the REM to be structured on after they've left how the company is going. And what happens to the company well after they've left, given that that may be a way to actually improve on it. But I think in some cases, I think we were lucky. We had a chairman and a board that was very long term focused. We had shareholders that were long term focused. And if you have that and have those combinations, then I think it gives the CEO permission to go off and make those hard calls to have that long term focus.
00:30:24 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
[00:30:24] S1: I think it's important for the boards and for the shareholders to make sure that they are picking and assessing the CEOs on what they believe is the right outcomes for the business. I think that's a dilemma in some cases because a lot of the shareholders are looking at the half year, full year results and are looking at in The US, it's every quarter. So I think there has to be more incentives for those shareholders to have a longer term view and to incentivize them around it. And that longer term view, I don't know if you change the REM structure, have the focus of the CEO and the REM to be structured on after they've left how the company is going. And what happens to the company well after they've left, given that that may be a way to actually improve on it. But I think in some cases, I think we were lucky. We had a chairman and a board that was very long term focused. We had shareholders that were long term focused. And if you have that and have those combinations, then I think it gives the CEO permission to go off and make those hard calls to have that long term focus. [00:31:32] S0: I want to come back to some of these topics, but I want to reconnect back to your journey. So I'm most curious if I met you at age 18, you've got some understanding of the world, you've just finished high school, you've had all these experiences in Ireland, what would I have assumed you'd do with your life?
00:31:48 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
[00:31:48] S1: I think at that stage, I didn't have any view about where I was going to end up. I didn't want to go to university because I wanted to go out and earn an income. I was very focused on just helping my parents out. I knew they were struggling. And I think, lucky enough, I had a father and I have a teacher that encouraged me to stay on and do university, and that they had an intervention to say, need to go to university, you need to do a degree. I was very resistant to that. So... And I think you can have an overwhelming desire that's maybe not in your long term best interest as a kid. And if you have a good mentor and a good parent, I think they can make your life very different. So I was encouraged to go on and go to university with no prospect about what the idea was at the end of that. And it was only when I finished my master's degree, I literally saw an ad in the newspaper for a job in a in an airline. I had no interest in working for airlines at the time. A job in an airline that happened to be for the branch of mathematics I had just done, and it was just pure coincidence that career path happened and got me into aviation. But I think at 18, I could have gone a number of different ways, and it was thanks to the intervention of my teachers and my parents. They encouraged me to go to university, and I may not have done that if I had my own way. [00:33:14] S0: As in you wouldn't have gone to university if you had your own way.
00:33:14 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[00:33:14] S0: As in you wouldn't have gone to university if you had your own way. [00:33:16] S1: Yeah. I was... I... If I had my own way at the time and hadn't been persuaded, I would have just gone out and got a job, any job to help my parents out. And that was the wrong, that was a short term decision instead of taking in the longer term and looking at my father and my teacher had a more long term view of where I should have gone. [00:33:35] S0: That is such an interesting reflection because most people would say your career, for most of your career panned out really well. You're saying the university thing you think impacted your career perhaps? [00:33:48] S1: It was very positive for my career. If I hadn't done the university course, there's no way I would have went into aviation. There's no way I would have had discipline in my decision making, because I think my university and science degrees really formed the way I think and the way I make calls. And I was lucky I did that because if I hadn't done that, hadn't taken that course, I would have been a very different person.
00:33:48 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
[00:33:48] S1: It was very positive for my career. If I hadn't done the university course, there's no way I would have went into aviation. There's no way I would have had discipline in my decision making, because I think my university and science degrees really formed the way I think and the way I make calls. And I was lucky I did that because if I hadn't done that, hadn't taken that course, I would have been a very different person. [00:34:12] S0: Talk about the topic because you studied science, You did a bachelor's and master's in science. I'm simplifying it, but I think it was a bit more detailed than that. How did that shape your career? Because I think most CEOs, a lot of CEOs actually come from a history background, like history background or they have an MBA and they've kind of come out of central casting and they've studied commerce. How did that science background shape your decision making as an exec as you rose through the ranks and eventually became CEO?