Hello and welcome to the Times Tech podcast where every week we unpack how technology is reshaping business, culture and everyday life.

I am Danny Fortson out here in Silicon Valley.

And I'm Katie Prescott, Katie in the city, the city of London. And this week, we're talking about the people who are building the AI companies that are taking over the world.

People like, you know, Josh Payne, once a coal miner, who in his spare time read some entrepreneurial books.

And all of a sudden, he's become the CEO of a multi-billion dollar

data center company called N-scale, just raised $2 billion from investors, including

NVIDIA, valuing the company at $14 billion. Life happens fast. Life happens fast.

Raise a lot of money and raised a lot of eyebrows, I should say, as well.

But our big question this week, and there's no way we're going to answer this in half an hour, but bear with us.

What does it take to stand out and achieve that kind of success in the highly competitive

world of tech and especially in this mad wild moment that we're in of AI? Is it about access to

the right markets, the right people, the right capital, or is it a unique vision, great

leadership and a killer instinct.

That's right.

So later we're going to be talking on the pod with Alice Bentink. She's the CEO of Entrepreneurs First, which is a talent investor that is on the global hunt for the world's future founders, often before those individuals even have a business idea.

Yeah, a company that's just raised itself $200 million.

And we'll be asking her why you shouldn't start a business with a friend.

So maybe there's a lesson there for us and find out what she thinks it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.

And spoiler alert, as you'd imagine, it involves working all hours.

But first, Danny, let's talk about something that you've been following this week,

which is this extraordinary social media trial out in California.

It's been going on for a few weeks now.

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