Greg Jackson, entrepreneur

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Greg Jackson is the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy. The company is the UK’s second largest domestic energy provider with over five million customers and is one of Europe’s leading investors in renewables. Greg was born in Germany in 1971 where his father was a surveyor in the army. The family returned to the UK a few years later and, following his parents’ divorce, Greg and his two younger siblings were brought up by his mother in Halifax. He describes his mother’s fortitude in bringing up three children on a tight budget as inspirational. Greg left school at 16 to write video games but returned to education a few years later to complete his A-Levels. He went on to study economics at Cambridge University and then joined Procter and Gamble’s graduate scheme where he worked in marketing. He became managing director of a mirror business when he was still in his twenties and then began flexing his business acumen by investing in a series of tech start-up businesses. In 2015 he secured £10m in investment to start a new energy company. Greg has two sons and lives in west London. DISC ONE: The Only Way is Up - Yazz & The Plastic Population DISC TWO: Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden DISC THREE: Shipping Forecast (BBC Radio 4) Read by Eugene Fraser DISC FOUR: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For - U2 DISC FIVE: Dizzy - The Wonder Stuff and Vic Reeves DISC SIX: The Gambler - Kenny Rogers DISC SEVEN: One Day Like This - Elbow DISC EIGHT: Rockaway Beach - Motörhead BOOK CHOICE: The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation by Frank O'Brien LUXURY ITEM: A pinball machine CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: One Day Like This - Elbow Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.
0:08.6	Every week I ask my guest to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they
0:14.3	were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons the music is shorter than
0:19.7	the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My cat is My castaway this week is Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy.
0:50.0	In just seven years it has become the UK's second largest domestic energy provider with over 5 million customers and is one of Europe's leading investors in renewables.
1:00.2	The company shook up the established energy market through innovative technology.
1:04.1	Its operating system, the enjoyably named Krakhan, is now used by suppliers,
1:09.2	including many rivals around the world and is estimated to be worth billions in its own right.
1:15.3	But as well as being a CEO who understands the global market, he's one who knows how it feels
1:20.0	to be scared to open a gas bill.
1:22.4	He grew up in a single parent family in Halifax where money was tight
1:26.2	and the supply was sometimes cut off after a final demand went unpaid. He was entrepreneurial from
1:31.7	a young age. He tinkered with tech and became so successful as a bedroom coda that he left school at 16 to work for a games manufacturer.
1:39.7	Later he returned to education and studied economics at Cambridge where he began honing his business strategy.
1:46.0	He says, I'm not going to tell everyone this should be an entrepreneur and go and do it, but what you shouldn't do is sit there wishing for a different life. Either do it is is sit there wishing for a different life.
1:54.0	Either do it or don't.
1:56.0	Greg Jackson, welcome to Desert Island Disks.
1:58.0	Thanks for having me.
1:59.0	So Greg, you are clearly someone with drive.
2:02.0	Is it a powerful motivator for you today as much as it ever was?
2:06.0	Yeah it is. I don't necessarily think Drive is a good thing by the way. It enables you to do a lot, but I think it also means you're often very restless and certainly for me
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.