The Human Factor in Tech

More from The Next Five

1. 

   E41 · 23 Jun 2026 · 47 min

   Code and Conscience: The Logic of Trust

   It’s 2026. You’re the CEO of a global bank or the Head of Surgery at a major hospital. An AI system looks at a complex set of volatile market data, or a patient’s decade-long medical history, and gives you a directive. It doesn’t just give you a percentage of probability. It tells you exactly what to do. But here is the catch: If that decision fails, "the machine told me so" won’t hold up in court, in the boardroom, or at a patient’s bedside. For a few years now, we’ve played a game of ‘black box’ roulette, using AI that predicts the future based on the past. But in a world of sudden market…

2. 

   E40 · 9 Apr 2026 · 47 min

   The Trust Gap: Fraud vs Reality in the Age of AI

   According to the World Economic Forum's Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report, we've hit a historic tipping point. For the first time, CEOs now rank cyber-enabled fraud as their number one digital concern, officially overtaking ransomware. The threat is no longer about a hacker locking your files, it's about a machine mimicking your identity. But why does this matter? Well, because when trust collapses, the economy stops. If you can't verify who you're paying, you stop paying. If you can't verify who you're hiring, you stop growing. We are no longer just defending data. We are defending…

3. 

   E39 · 5 Dec 2025 · 33 min

   Leading The Energy Transition: Where Are We Now?

   As the UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres said in July this year, “Now, we are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.” Renewables and nuclear did reach an historic 40% share of global electricity generation in 2024, with renewables alone supplying roughly 32% of global power for the first time. But the length of this road and the speed we are travelling down it, will determine the success of the world’s energy transition. In this episode we explore where we are in the energy transition, the challenges, technologies and…

4. 

   E37 · 21 Nov 2025 · 57 min

   The Next Generation of European Tech Funding: Scale-Ups

   Late-stage financing plays a critical role in the growth trajectory of technology scale-ups, particularly as they transition from early innovation phases to market dominance and potential exits via IPOs or acquisitions. Larger capital injections can be found from multiple avenues; VCs, private equity, corporate investors, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and growth-focused hedge funds. While the volume of capital to European growth stage companies since 2015 has tripled, there is still a funding gap and bottlenecks in Europe compared to the US. In this episode three experts discuss…

5. 

   E36 · 14 Nov 2025 · 26 min

   Sustainable Skies: The Future of Private Aviation

   Across October 2025, 315,000 private flights departed worldwide, a 5% increase on 2024. While this is less than 1% of monthly commercial flights globally, private jet travel is still on the rise. The Covid-19 pandemic saw an increase in private travel for health reasons and with hybrid working now popular, private business travel is gaining momentum. But there are many areas the industry needs to focus on over the next five years to maintain growth. In this episode we look at the future of private aviation, exploring the trends, sustainability challenges and the technologies that could power…

6. 

   E35 · 7 Nov 2025 · 26 min

   Leading through M&A

   At the start of 2025 there was optimism that the global M&A market would strengthen with the expectation that inflation and interest rates would fall and a more favourable regulatory environment would exist. Yet it was a slow start amid uncertainty. The unpredictability of US trade policy under the Trump administration saw the global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index rise to a 30 year record high in early 2025, decreasing the appetite for deals. But M&A still remains a critical part of a companies growth strategy. So where will the M&A market be at the end of this year and over the next five…

7. 

   E48 · 6 Oct 2026 · 43 minNew

   Systems Rewritten: AI

   Supply and demand. The foundational backbone of market economies. And we’re in the AI era, where demand and supply is being rewritten. Behind this AI revolution, sits a monumental physical buildout and energy demand. Globally, data centre power consumption will double by 2030 toward 945 terawatt-hours, consuming more power than the entire nation of Japan. In some regions the strain is already visible: data centres accounted for more than a fifth of Ireland's national electricity consumption in 2022 and predicted to reach nearly a third this year. Stateside, in 2023, when less powerful models…

8. 

   E47 · 29 Sep 2026 · 39 min

   Systems Rewritten: Markets

   It’s Q3 2026, the systems that form the global economy are currently being rewritten by the digitally led, fourth industrial revolution and the geopolitical repositioning of power. You’re an investment banker, a portfolio manager or a retail investor looking at trading screens flash red and green. There’s a hive of activity. But what to make of it.The indicators continue to flash, but the signals are conflicting. On one side sits the bull case: real AI driven corporate revenue, strong earnings, record stock prices and the unprecedented cash flow of the Hyperscalers. On the other side sits…

9. 

   E46 · 24 Sep 2026 · 48 min

   Code and Conscience: Intelligence Within and Without Borders

   Sovereignty, by definition, is being updated. Sovereignty 2.0. Under geopolitical tensions, supply chain dependencies and competing regional regulations, the discussion around digital sovereignty is shaping where you're allowed to build, what models you’re allowed to train on, and who's allowed to see the results. Competing lines are being drawn. On one side there are those calling for the democratisation of AI and opening the global doors to innovation. On another is a fragmented map of regional regulations, like the strict mandates of the EU AI Act. Bubbling underneath is the geopolitical…

10. 

    E45 · 17 Sep 2026 · 33 min

    Code and Conscience: Freedom to Invent

    We’re at the start of Q3 2026. Every day that passes, individuals, managers, executives and boards are crunching their internal numbers. They’re working out if the millions of dollars spent on cutting edge agentic AI deployment over the previous 2 years is showing signs of meaningful ROI. If figures from the first half of 2025 were anything to go on, the juice was not worth the squeeze. MIT’s Gen AI Divide Report 2025 showed that ninety-five percent of generative AI projects in H1 last year failed to deliver demonstrable ROI. Ninety-five percent. But, what happened to that remaining five…

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