The Refugee Who Led a Software Revolution - with Ben Walter

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

History, Society & Culture

4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Millionaire-making tech start-ups are most often associated with Silicon Valley. But this software revolution begins on a woman’s kitchen table in rural Britain in the 1960s. Steve Shirley faced extraordinary odds. After escaping Nazi Germany as a child, she later encountered workplace discrimination and endured deep personal tragedy. But she persevered to build a business decades ahead of its time, creating opportunities for hundreds of women.

Tim Harford is joined by Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakeables podcast, to explore the life, legacy and lessons of an overlooked titan of tech.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. Hello, Tim Harford here with a bonus episode of cautionary tales. Today I've got a story about someone I think everyone should know about, a trailblazing
0:21.7	entrepreneur who changed the way we think about tech, redefined roles for working women,
0:27.1	made many members of staff, millionaires, and founded the first autism research charity in the UK.
0:34.8	This episode is sponsored by Chase for Business. And joining me again is their CEO,
0:41.8	Ben Walter, who also hosts the very excellent podcast, The Unshakeables. Ben, welcome back to
0:48.8	Cautionary Tales. How are you doing? I'm great. Thanks for having me, Tim, although I'm very cold.
0:52.6	I'm in New York City. It's about nine degrees Fahrenheit, or for those of you across the pond, about minus 12. So it's a bit chilly
0:58.8	outside. There's ice on the Hudson.
1:00.4	Nine Fahrenheit. You know, Ben, I discovered just today that the, you know, the Celsius
1:05.7	scale begins with the freezing point of water. I did not know that the Fahrenheit scale, zero is the
1:12.4	freezing point of brine. You maybe knew that. I did not know that either. So it is at least based on
1:18.0	something as opposed to haphazard, which is what it seems like for everything else in the imperial system.
1:22.5	It is based on something. But anyway, look, we're digressing already and we shouldn't. Last time we spoke,
1:29.1	I told you about a 19th century champagne baroness. This time we're going to leap forward in
1:36.2	history. This is a 20th century story. It's a very 20th century story, I have to say. How
1:43.0	tech savvy are you, Ben? In absolute term,
1:46.1	or are a relative to my kids. We're all well behind the curve relative to our kids. But
1:52.5	you know, do you know which way up is in a computer? For a 50-something gentleman, I think I do
1:58.2	okay. I mean, we certainly, I work in a tech forward business,
2:06.2	so I keep up with the latest on most things. I mean, I feel reasonably tech savvy. Actually,
2:11.9	you compared yourself to your kids. I compare myself to my parents. My mother was a computer hacker, and my dad worked in information technology his entire life. Wait, Tim, your mom was a hacker?
2:18.0	You got to say a little more.
	...

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