NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:30:06 · Jamie Beaton
[00:30:06] S0: So at the core, I feel like I'm I'm truly obsessed with learning, and that can be, you know, a new academic concept in health care policy. It can be a new scaling challenge in entrepreneurship in India. But I I I hate to be static, and I think I like, you know, max challenge, max learning in all areas. So I think that's really drawn me to many of these universities to keep discovering new fields, whether it be law or journalism, whatever. And then in the business context, it really inspires me to push into new divisions, new units, embrace new technology, and try to push ourselves to grow at faster rates and achieve more excellence. So I I think for me, that desire to to learn drives a lot of things. Because if you do things slowly, you know, you you often will get into quite a routine and rhythm. But I think it's that agility to to learn that is very inspiring for me. Of course, there are many other things like impact, but I think I think probably if there was one thing, it's it's... I like to put myself in an environment where, you know, the learning curve is very steep. And so that tends to be perhaps why, you know, at Crimson, we go into a lot of different new units, and we're always trying new countries, new approaches, why I'm always studying at different university programs, and also the cast of characters that I've surrounded myself with in The US and in general, generally folks that, for example, are at the coalface of different industries. I think one of my best buddies is a guy called Apov who's investing in Altimeter Capital. You know, they've become become one of the biggest investors in open AI, and I just love chatting with him about all these different trends across different industries. Certainly, back when I was doing stock investing at Tiger, I loved it because you're studying many different industries, long, short, seeing which companies will be disrupted, which companies won't. And so it's just max, you know, learning and and challenge. So I think for me, that's probably what drives me the most.
00:31:41 · Paul Spain
[00:31:41] S1: And and how do how do you put it all together? You know, studying and running the business and, you know, having a personal life too.
00:31:51 · Jamie Beaton
[00:31:51] S0: Fortunately, in Crimson, I've I've found this, you know, beautiful vehicle in which all my learning curiosity basically helps. So every new program that I do at a great place like Columbia Journalism School or something, there's, you know, more more learning, more knowledge, more insights to help me build Crimson. And then, you know, Crimson ultimately is about taking the passion that many of our team have for learning and inspiring tens of thousands of kids around the world to really do so in their own journey. There And are many young people today who aren't inspired by learning. They go through high school, it's quite dreary and not so exciting. And when I come across a student that has a little bit of that spark, and we can kinda convert that into this burning passion of what comes next, I think that's really epic. And I think about, for example, a boy Ty Renna. I was just actually catching up with him in in the Joe's Cafe at Columbia. You know, he was the head boy of Wellington College, super ambitious guy. We helped him get into Columbia. He won his full scholarship there. And I think he's he's going to first perhaps do something like management consulting, but I think he'll be able to do big things for New Zealand in the future. And, you know, playing a role and igniting that curiosity in others has always been really exciting. I definitely have a fun personal life. I I probably like theme parks a bit too much. And, you know, I've built a great community around me in in New York in The US. But I always love spending time at home with my family back here in NZ, so looking forward to getting a couple of quiet days with them on this trip.
00:33:03 · Paul Spain
[00:33:03] S1: Yeah. Fantastic. And how do you, you know, look at things like time management and, yeah, other aspects of the way that, you know, life kinda intersects? You know, what are some tips and tricks? Are you up at, you know, 4AM? Are you, you know, what are those things that, you know, are your every day?
00:33:24 · Jamie Beaton
[00:33:24] S0: I am up at wacky hours, that's for sure. And I think part of that is because of all the different time zones of Crimson. I tend to have pretty scheduled structured days, and I think that really helps to get through all the different types of, you know, key meetings that I need to have with the various folks, get through all the various, like, you know, new projects that we're working on. So I I think, generally, you know, a a lot of structure in my working days, but I try to have a lot of fun adventures when I'm, for example, visiting a country like Japan for work, try to squeeze in a, you know, fun adventure as well. So I I think from a time management standpoint, I think if you don't really plan for things intensively... I'll give you an example. We have these work off sites every three months. It's very easy for a hectic, busy team to slip out of that cadence and, you know, maybe just do something online or whatever. But we find that when we have that consistency, the whole team's more motivated, more charged up, and it flows through the whole company. And so I think having that operating rhythm and cadence just by default is really, really effective. And if you've gotta practically go and schedule something or make yourself do it randomly, it's a lot tougher than just this auto running process. So I'm always thinking about, you know, does this exec meeting need to be running every week or whatever, or what cadence do we need to run things? And I think adjusting the kinda operating rhythm of the business for each new phase is very important.
00:34:34 · Paul Spain
[00:34:34] S1: Now, often the best learnings come come through the challenges and the hard parts of the journey. Yep. What stands out to you over these these last five years of the things that have been, you know, tough and more challenging to, you know, to deal with and and and any lessons that have fallen out from there?