This founder’s path makes no sense on paper…
History degree at Oxford, trader in the City, and then one day he walked past an army recruiting centre, walked in, and resigned from his job the same week.
Alex Cooper thought he’d do two years…
Then 9/11 happened. Twenty years in the military followed.
Intense Arabic training, operational tours, the lot.
When he finally left, COVID hit, and he ended up running the operational side of the UK’s testing programme. That’s where he met his co-founder, Ben Warner, who was the PM’s chief advisor on data and digital.
Now they’re building Electric Twin, using AI to simulate how customers actually think and behave.
In this episode of the pod, we talked about:
- Why formal education is becoming irrelevant (and what to hire for instead)
- Why “balance” is bullshit.
- Fundraising without the drama.
- The hiring filter that saved them.
One line that stuck with me:
“If you’re optimising for wellness, you’re probably not doing anything worth remembering.”
Agree or disagree, it’s worth a listen.