Brewdog Founder: The Untold Story Of One Britain’s Fastest Growing Companies: James Watt

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2022

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Watt is the CEO and founder of Brewdog, the Scottish craft beer sensation that is now valued at $2 billion. A former sea captain, he’s had to navigate increasingly choppy waters at Brewdog. But after a string of allegations rocked the company, ranging from personal impropriety to financial misconduct to marketing scams, James has had to start from scratch in Brewdog’s reputation, and on his own management style. For the first time, James walks us through his mistakes, what he denies, and what he defends. Where does the line blur between a hard-driving start-up and a toxic culture. It’s a tricky balance many challenger companies have to contend with. James’ is a story where he sailed a little close to the wind, when the revelations dropped it looked like everything he built could slip away. Can he navigate Brewdog back to dry land? He tells us exclusively how he plans to. Follow James: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brewdogjames Twitter - https://twitter.com/BrewDogJames Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You've had a lot of controversy over the last two years, bullying, lying, unfair dismissals, all of this stuff.
0:05.0	What do you say to that?
0:06.0	I did, I did preach people too far.
0:10.0	How fast did Bruod grow?
0:12.0	We have drawn on average 87% a year.
0:15.0	Fucking out.
0:16.0	Everyone told us, make your beer cheaper, change your name, change your packaging,
0:19.0	and we didn't listen to any of that.
0:21.0	How can we get our name out there with no money at all? So we had to
0:24.4	do things that were intentionally provocative and sometimes we can across that edge as well.
0:29.8	The best entrepreneurs, they've got to find a way to do things
0:32.5	differently to how other people are doing things.
0:34.4	We've got two very simple tests
0:36.2	that we apply to everything that we do.
0:38.0	So the first test is.
0:40.6	This is the worst public health crisis for a generation.
0:45.0	I've only ever been in tears once in my job and I broke down in tears addressing her team in March of 2020, thinking that we're not going to be able to pay
0:56.3	you, we're not going to be able to keep you on a job.
0:58.9	I think people don't realize like being a CEO is a very, very lonely job at times.
1:06.1	That day, talk me through what it's like to be a CEO
1:10.5	when 300 people sign a letter,
1:12.4	making these allegations about toxic workplace
	...

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