Entrepreneur is a word, like many others, that has been devalued in recent years. Now anybody with a pitch deck and an idea for a recipe app can call themselves one, while burning through mountains of cash and never delivering real world value.
Michael Driver, on the other hand, is the real deal. He spent 15 years building one of the UK’s largest managed print services businesses from scratch with nothing but a £2,000 loan, which he and his business partner also had to live off.
Having sold the company, he spent the next 10 years or so helping other entrepreneurs navigate selling their own companies to outside investors. He’s now advised on over £3bn in transactions. This is serious market activity, and we need people with this kind of commercial nous to help us build out of the mess we’re in.
We first met after I publicly shared a very shitty letter to my former employer EY’s UK Managing Partner, Steve Varley, to question the firm’s involvement in the COVID scam and wider role in enforcing Global Tyranny as Strategic Partners of the World Economic Forum. I discovered that he was one of the first people in the UK to call out the government’s COVID policies in 2020. This was the first time I’d encountered anyone from the business world who was on our side of the fence. It was hugely encouraging. A standout moment amongst the craziness of the past few years.
Beyond business, Michael is heavily involved in, and is a regular contributor to, Kilkenomics, the Festival of Comedy and Economics which takes place in Kilkenny in Ireland every year. He also regularly shares anarchic nuggets of wisdom via the wonderful Winter Oak. And, as we discuss in the interview, he is investing quite a bit of time and energy experimenting with regenerative farming in Eastern Europe.
I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
Thanks again, Michael, for taking the time.
From the city.
Ben Rubin
PATTERN
