11 episodes

Kamal Ahmed and Rohan Silva lift the lid on the realities of starting your own business, as leading entrepreneurs reveal their stories of risk, ambition and failure.

The Disrupters BBC Radio 4

    • Society & Culture
    • 3.7 • 6 Ratings

Kamal Ahmed and Rohan Silva lift the lid on the realities of starting your own business, as leading entrepreneurs reveal their stories of risk, ambition and failure.

    CEO of Netflix: Reed Hastings

    CEO of Netflix: Reed Hastings

    Kamal Ahmed and Rohan Silva lift the lid on the realities of starting your own business.
    Kamal and Rohan speak to founder and CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings.
    Reed discloses the mistakes made in his first business and how he overcame them. They talk about what it took for Netflix to take on a company 100 times their size - and win. Plus why creative industries need to break away from work practices tailored to the industrial era and what that means for Netflix employees: no bonuses, no holiday limits and why being 'on the clock' doesn't apply.
    Presenters: Kamal Ahmed and Rohan Silva
    Producer: Georgia Catt

    • 27 min
    Temie Giwa-Tubosun, founder of LifeBank

    Temie Giwa-Tubosun, founder of LifeBank

    At thirty weeks into her pregnancy, Temie Giwa-Tubsoun was in America when she was rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section. Had she been in Nigeria, difficulties locating and distributing blood supplies meant she may have died from postpartum haemorrhage. Nigeria has the fourth-highest maternal mortality rate in the world and the loss of blood following a birth is the leading cause of this.
    In response to the lack of infrastructure and poor distribution networks, Temie founded LifeBank, a business enterprise working to improve access to blood transfusions in Nigeria, which has today saved over 6,936 lives.
    She talks to Kamal and Rohan about how she built her company, and why she thought a business rather than working through non-governmental-organisations or government, was the best way to bring about the change she wanted.
    Presenters: Kamal Ahmed and Rohan Silva
    Producer: Georgia Catt

    • 27 min
    Sir James Dyson

    Sir James Dyson

    Sir James Dyson made 5,127 prototypes to create the cyclone vacuum cleaner. He talks to Kamal and Rohan about patience, persistence, and why the best businesses come out of a passion.

    • 28 min
    Surinder Arora, founder and chairman of Arora Group

    Surinder Arora, founder and chairman of Arora Group

    At the age of 11, Surinder Arora was living at home in Punjab, India. He had fallen in with a bad crowd and moved to England to live with who his Aunt and Uncle, only to learn they were not who he thought. He tells Kamal and Rohan the remarkable story of how he built up an empire of hotel and property assets.

    • 24 min
    Comptoir Libanais: Tony Kitous

    Comptoir Libanais: Tony Kitous

    Tony Kitous arrived in London from Algeria with nothing. Today he has thirty-five restaurants and employs over 1000 staff. He talks to Kamal and Rohan about sacrifice and risk.

    • 37 min
    Mumsnet: Justine Roberts

    Mumsnet: Justine Roberts

    Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, on the need for more women investors, maintaining a good culture at work and the benefits of scaling slowly.

    • 34 min

Customer Reviews

3.7 out of 5
6 Ratings

6 Ratings

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