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Podcast-platform show notes for SoundCloud, in your functional reference format and under the 4,000-character limit. Fear is the problem, not AI | Mark Bentley returns | Bits, Bytes and Business with Bhairav Patel About This Episode Mark Bentley's first appearance became the most popular episode Bhairav Patel has released in ten years of podcasting, so he is back for part two. This time the self-awareness conversation runs straight into the middle of the current AI panic. Mark's argument is that the thing everyone fears was never the technology itself. His central idea: you are already running on a "biological AI" trained by your upbringing and education, and self-awareness is what lets you take back the controls. This is also the first filmed episode, so you can watch on YouTube as well as listen. What We Cover Why the difference between artificial and genuine intelligence is not processing power Mark's "biological AI" theory and what it means for how you think Using self-awareness to edit your own conditioning instead of running on autopilot Why trying to stop AI is wasted energy, and the better question to ask What actually changes for your business in the age of AI, and how little is new The one-minute habit for cutting through overwhelm and noise Raising a teenager to think independently in a world built to do it for them Why fear, not the tool, is the real risk Key Takeaways The tool is neutral. AI can build or destroy, and how it is used is the only variable that matters. You cannot halt AI, so spend your energy deciding how it fits your life and work. The fundamentals of a good business have not changed. Customers, execution, and judgement still decide outcomes. Critical thinking and self-awareness matter more now, not less. Manage the overwhelm by slowing down and creating deliberate pauses rather than consuming every update. Links Mark Bentley, breakthrough coaching (Gene Keys and Human Design): markbentley.com.au Watch the full episode on YouTube Listen to Mark's first appearance on the power of self-awareness in business Subscribe to Bits, Bytes and Business for more conversations with Bhairav Patel

Mark Bentley is back for part two, and this is the first episode we have filmed. He answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone struggling with all the AI right now? As ever this is the trailer to the main event, where we pick up the self-awareness thread from Mark's first appearance and bring it right up to date. We get into staying grounded when AI has everyone overwhelmed, why the tool itself is never the problem, raising kids to think for themselves, and Mark's belief that the most powerful AI you will ever manage is the one already running in your own head. The full episode lands in a few days.

Sorcha Lorimer built Trace, a boutique data privacy consultancy, from scratch. She bootstrapped it, landed enterprise clients across the UK, Europe and North America, and sold it to a private equity backed business. In this episode, she talks openly about what that journey actually looked like, from leaving a comfortable corporate role to navigating COVID, scaling as a lean team, and going through the opaque process of selling a business. She also introduces Onyxio, her new venture helping health tech and life sciences companies build confidence in how they use sensitive data. What We Cover - Sorcha's background in the NHS, digital agencies and financial services, and how that mix shaped Trace - The emotional reality of leaving corporate life and building from zero as a solo founder - Why she started with the end in mind and set an eight-year timeline to exit - How Trace pivoted from SaaS-led to consulting-led and what that taught her about business models - Navigating COVID as a small business reliant on enterprise relationships - How her corporate background helped her win enterprise clients and anticipate procurement blockers - The sale process: kissing frogs, dummy runs, knowing your numbers and being ready when the right buyer appears - Why selling to an experienced acquirer matters - Gotchas in deal structures: clawbacks, lock-in periods, IP clauses and leaving money on the table - What Onyxio does: a "passport office" for sensitive data, bringing legal, security and technical lenses together - Why data confidence matters more than ever in the age of AI - Her advice to her younger self: start earlier and stay curious Key Takeaways If you plan to sell, keep your house in order from day one, not just when a buyer appears The zero-to-one phase strips away your corporate identity and you need to be prepared for that Enterprise sales cycles are long, so diversify your client base with well-funded startups too Around 30-38% of deals succeed; many fail on compliance debt and poor documentation Stubbornness is an asset, but you have to be able to read the data and know when to pivot Selling a business is opaque and there is no standard playbook, so treat early conversations as dummy runs Links Sorcha Lorimer on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sorchalorimer Onyxio: onyxio.co

Sorcha Lorimer was the founder of Trace, a data privacy consultancy she bootstrapped, scaled to enterprise clients across the UK, Europe and North America, and sold to a private equity backed business. She's now building Onyxio, which helps health tech and life sciences companies prove their sensitive data is safe to use. She answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone looking to become an entrepreneur? As ever this is the trailer to the main event. In the full episode, Sorcha and I get into how she built and sold Trace, what she learned about navigating the sale process with private equity, and what she's building now with Onyxio in the world of sensitive data and health tech.

Alfie Elliott is the Director of Select Group, a boutique recruitment business covering IT, business operations and consultancy across the UK and US. Starting as a 16-year-old apprentice in East Croydon, Alfie has spent just under 15 years in the recruitment industry, working primarily across financial services and consulting. In this conversation, Bhairav and Alfie dig into what the UK job market really looks like right now, from graduates with first-class degrees struggling to find work through to senior banking professionals out of a role for over a year. They cover how AI is reshaping hiring at every level, why relationships and proactive networking still outweigh a polished CV, what the over-50s job market actually looks like versus the myths, and where the opportunities are in consulting, financial services and startups. They also talk about Alfie's decision to stop drinking nearly two years ago, how sobriety has changed the way he networks and operates, and what the shift away from alcohol means for business culture more broadly. What We Cover - How AI is filtering candidates out before they ever speak to a human - Why the same networking advice applies whether you're a graduate or a senior executive - The reality of the UK job market for over-50s - LinkedIn as a recruitment tool versus a social media platform - Where the opportunities are right now in consulting, financial services and startups - How the role of a software engineer has changed with AI - Why fractional and consultancy work is growing - Sober networking and the cultural shift away from drinking in business - The physical and mental health impact of giving up alcohol - How Gen Z's relationship with technology is affecting communication skills Key Takeaways The UK job market is tough at every level. Being proactive and building relationships is the single most important thing you can do, regardless of your seniority. At junior level, candidates may not speak to a human until the third or fourth stage of the hiring process. AI screening is now standard. Keeping your technical skills current matters more as you get senior. People who haven't moved with the technology are the ones most at risk in redundancy rounds. Networking is a numbers game at the start and a quality game once you know where your time is best spent. Don't wait for permission — go to events, approach people, follow up. Sobriety doesn't mean opting out of business culture. Non-alcoholic options and the broader cultural shift are making it easier to network without drinking. Links Alfie Elliott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfie-james-elliott/ Select Group: Mentech Select (IT) | Insight Select (Business Operations) | InScope Select (Consultancy)

Alfie Elliott is the Director of Select Group, a boutique recruitment business covering IT, business operations and consultancy across the UK and US. He started as a 16-year-old apprentice in East Croydon and has spent just under 15 years in the industry, working across financial services and consulting. He answers the five questions I ask everyone: What is your morning routine? What are you most proud of? What annoys you? What do you do to relax? What advice would you give to someone who's looking to get recruited right now? In the full episode, Alfie and I get into the realities of recruitment in 2025: how AI is filtering candidates before they ever speak to a human, why networking and relationships still matter more than a polished CV, what the job market actually looks like for over-50s, and how sober networking is changing the way business gets done.

Mark Peacock, The Pricemaker, returns to the show, one of only a handful of guests to appear twice, to talk through his new book Pricing for Success. Most small and medium businesses default to whatever pricing method they inherited: hourly rates, project fees, or cost-plus margin. Mark makes the case that these are the weakest options available, and that a bit of structure and discipline around pricing is one of the simplest ways to become more profitable. Across the conversation, Bhairav and Mark work through a practical toolkit: how to price something genuinely new, why three tiers beats a single take-it-or-leave-it number, how to discount without bleeding margin, and how the way you present a price matters as much as the number itself. It is a genuinely useful listen for anyone launching a product or quietly suspecting they are undercharging. What We Cover Why Mark wrote the book, and why inherited pricing habits hold businesses back The seven-step pricing framework: company, customer, competitors, product, pricing, proposition, profits How to price a brand-new product when there is no obvious benchmark Asking customers directly: highest, lowest, and acceptable price ranges Conjoint-style testing of which features buyers actually value Why three tiers is the magic number, and using a premium option as a price anchor Discounting done badly, and the trick of halving your discount increments Value defined as benefits minus price, and the difference between value pricing and value selling Handling the "that's too expensive" objection Presenting prices as a range, high to low, to reduce buyer resistance Decoy pricing and the Economist subscription example Writing a simple one-to-two page pricing policy Key Takeaways Start as high as you dare. It is far easier to come down than to push prices up later. Three options outperform one. Buyers gravitate to the middle, and the premium tier anchors the whole decision. A 10% discount does not come off your top line, it comes off your bottom line. Treat unplanned discounting as margin leakage. How you present a price shapes how it is judged. Lead with the highest number and work down. The magic ingredient across all of it is understanding value from the customer's point of view. Writing down a pricing policy, however short, imposes a discipline most businesses never apply, and it makes you more profitable. Links Pricing for Success is available on Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smith and The Bookseller Download the first chapter free (no email required) or book a conversation with Mark at pricemaker.co.uk

Jan Cavelle returns to the show, this time with her new book Start for Success, the prequel to Scale for Success. Where a lot of startup books are written by people who raised a billion dollars in Silicon Valley, Jan's is built from the honest, often raw stories of real founders, including the smaller and less glamorous ones whose journeys actually resemble most people's. Bhairav and Jan work through the full arc of starting a business: why people really do it, why you still have to make money even with the most altruistic mission, and the fears, funding traps and hiring mistakes that catch founders out along the way. It's a candid, reassuring listen for anyone thinking about taking the plunge, or anyone already in it and second-guessing themselves. What We Cover Why Jan wrote a second book, and why the timing suits Start now The gap between the glamorised idea of entrepreneurship and the reality The real reasons people start businesses, and why yours only has to be good enough for you Why you are not running a charity: even mission-led businesses need a model that makes money Values and mission that are true to you, not written to impress others Co-founders versus going it alone, and treating a co-founder relationship like a marriage Fear of failure and imposter syndrome, including why success can make the doubt worse Starting small to overcome fear, and why failure is rarely as bad as you imagine Coaches versus mentors, and why a good mentor in your field is gold dust Incubators and accelerators: an unregulated, wildly variable industry worth researching hard Why founders neglect their own personal development, and why that is a mistake Funding myths, the reality of investor scrutiny, and the case for bootstrapping Hiring the right people at the right stage, and protecting culture as you grow Staying relevant amid constant change, and keeping the ChatGPT panic in perspective Key Takeaways Most people start a business for lifestyle, freedom or necessity, not to get rich. Know your real reason and own it. A business has to make money to survive, however altruistic the mission. Break-even helps a few people; profit lets you help many. Fear paralyses more founders than failure ever does, and the reality of failure is usually far milder than the fear of it. A mentor gives advice you can take or leave; a coach encourages you to run your own race. Neither should tell you exactly what to do, and neither knows everything. Raising funds is not a sign of success, and funded businesses are not automatically better ones. An investor is someone else looking over your shoulder. Hiring expensive people too early breaks things. Bring in the right people at the right stage, and protect your culture as it spreads. Links Start for Success and Scale for Success are available on Amazon in paperback, hardback and Kindle, and through the usual booksellers More from Jan, including links to the books, at jancavelle.co.uk

In this episode of Real World Entrepreneurship, Bhairav and Alan dig into a question every business owner wrestles with: what’s actually worth worrying about? Between cash flow, co-founders, market reception and the things you genuinely cannot see coming, it’s easy to spend energy in the wrong places. Alan and Bhairav talk through how they’ve each dealt with the unexpected over the years, including a deeply personal story from Alan about a cancer diagnosis that tested everything he believed about planning and control. What You Will Learn From Listening - A simple test for deciding whether something is actually worth worrying about - Why detailed planning gives a false sense of control, and why that’s not actually a problem - The difference between risks worth preparing for and risks not worth the effort - How COVID exposed which businesses could adapt and which couldn’t - Why Eisenhower’s two quotes on planning are more useful than any risk register - How Bhairav’s experience selling Atom challenged his own assumptions about strategy - Why founders should run a “hit by a bus” scenario on themselves, not just key staff - Alan’s personal account of being diagnosed with cancer two weeks after buying a company - What the “trough of disillusionment” is and why it hits most founders around six months in - How to tell the difference between problems worth carrying yourself and problems you can hand off

**About This Episode** Bhairav sits down with Ramit Mehta, founder of Commfy, a community marketplace app connecting individuals, organisers, venues and brands. Ramit shares his journey from Mumbai to Silicon Valley to London, why he left the US behind, and the thinking behind building a platform to fight rising loneliness and the disappearance of "third places." **What We Cover** - Ramit's winding career path: engineering at BITS Pilani, a master's at Duke, years in Silicon Valley business strategy and ops roles, including launching a gaming brand and doing Twitch talent work - Why he left the Bay Area for London: layoffs, US green card wait times, family, and health - Comparing work culture and diversity between Silicon Valley and London - The idea behind Commfy: a marketplace for real-life communities, built on co-creation and asset-based community development principles - The closure of youth centres and libraries in the UK, and what that means for community spaces - How Commfy plans to work with community organisers, venues, and brands - Ramit's advice to his younger self on anxiety, perfectionism, and self-acceptance **Key Takeaways** - Integration is not just about language. It's about finding your niche and your people, wherever you land. - Loneliness has been described as an epidemic, and shrinking "third places" (neither home nor work) are a big part of why. - Building community isn't just about ticketing or chat apps. It's about giving organisers real support and rewarding participation. - Being an immigrant twice shaped Ramit's thinking about what makes people feel like they belong somewhere. **Links** - Commfy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/commfy/ - Find Ramit Mehta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramitmehta/

This is the trailer to the main event, this week's guest is Ramit Mehta, the founder of Commfy https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramitmehta

About This Episode Bhairav sits down with Sanjay Rakshit, now at Poppulo, for his third or fourth appearance on the show. The conversation was sparked by a quote Sanjay gave at DSE (the digital signage industry event run by Invidis): "LLMs are the most overrated part of AI." They unpack what that actually means, and dig into agents, agentic systems, context engineering, data fidelity, AGI, robotics, and the future of engineering jobs. What We Cover - What Sanjay meant by his "LLMs are overrated" quote, and the DSE event where he said it - The difference between an agent and a chatbot: agency, planning, and achieving an outcome versus reactive output - Where LLMs actually fit inside an agentic system (as one tool among many) - Why context engineering, not the LLM call, is where most of the real work happens - Data fidelity versus data quality, and why it matters more than raw data volume - The mathematics underpinning AI, and why understanding first principles beats following influencers - Quantum computing's potential impact on AI going forward - AI, jobs, and the "power tools" analogy for engineering productivity - Sanjay's take on AGI, and why he remains sceptical - Robotics versus AGI, and his work with the Bayes Institute in Scotland Key Takeaways - An agent is any entity that can think, plan, and act to achieve an outcome; a chatbot just responds - Roughly 70% of agentic system work is context generation and systems engineering, not the LLM call itself - Data fidelity (relevance to the use case) matters more than raw data quality - AGI scepticism rests on the argument that the brain's capacity may be too vast to model - AI is compressing the mechanical effort of coding, freeing engineers to focus on solving the actual problem Links Connect with Sanjay Rakshit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-rakshit/

Sanjay is back! But this time he answers the famous five questions... https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-rakshit/

Guest: Mateo Bervejillo, CEO of Xseed and author of Back to Basics Mateo started his career as an attorney in Uruguay before moving into outsourcing operations, growing into VP-level roles leading teams across the US, Uruguay and India, and eventually becoming CEO of Xseed, a LATAM software talent company he helped grow from five people to a hundred. He has spent two decades in the gap between being good at a job and being good at leading people who do that job. What we cover in this episode The conversation covers what actually happens when you get promoted into leadership for the first time, and why the skills that earned you the role are rarely the ones the role requires. We talk about inheriting teams versus building them, the mistake of leading by authority rather than trust, why scaling a business means changing how you work rather than just working more, and how to tell whether you are actually succeeding as a leader. Key topics and timestamps [00:02] Why a legal background can become a "business prevention syndrome" and how to get past it [08:00] The transition from corporate to entrepreneurship, and losing the fear of rejection [11:00] Building a network before you need it: your 20s, 30s and 40s [14:45] The book: what nobody tells you when they give you a team [19:50] Inheriting a team, taking it slowly, and giving people the right chance [22:30] Leading by authority versus leading by alignment [26:45] Building a team from scratch, cultural fit, and hiring for the stage you are actually at [29:00] Why unconscious bias in hiring is unavoidable, and how to design around it [33:50] Scaling and the player-coach problem: when letting go of the work feels like not working [41:00] Leadership myths: you are on camera constantly, and the little things matter more than you think [45:50] How to know if it is actually working: results, attrition and growth [48:00] Advice to his younger self: network outside the company, and start early Mentioned in this episode Back to Basics: Bridging the Gap Between Expectations and Preparation for the Leader Role by Mateo Bervejillo, available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback and hardcover. Also at www.xseed.com.uy/back-to-basics-book First Break All the Rules by Gallup (on employee motivation and engagement) Connect with Mateo Company: www.xseed.com.uy LinkedIn: search Mateo Bervejillo Email: [email protected] The Atom CTO Podcast is hosted by Bhairav Patel. New episodes cover technology, entrepreneurship and the people building things that matter. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

This week's guest is Mateo Bervejilo - CEO of Exceed Solutions, who will be answering the famous 5 questions