Public evidence record
Published podcast speaker
Claim ledger
18 transcript-backed records
01 / belief
“I think New Zealand is about, as you know, one of the most analyzed or overanalyzed countries in every area of reform.”
02 / belief
“In my view, the governance issues here and in most of sub-Saharan Africa mean that these problems won’t be solved for the next 25 years at least.”
03 / belief
“I think fundamentally, we’d had quite an entrepreneurial society. People went to New Zealand; Indigenous people went to New Zealand.”
04 / belief
“Auckland has some of the least affordable housing in the world, I think number five, last time I looked.”
05 / belief
“Quite a lot, I would say: Not prejudging people. Not believing in stereotypes. Really, really doing your homework and understanding issues deeply — and the history of issues, and how history has shaped how people think and how they behave — before you judge them or let alone try and influence them.”
06 / belief
“I think countries that have been successful, they have wave after wave of reform, change, innovation and they’re good at it.”
07 / belief
“You can make it just for the elite in a shopping mall, or you’re going to have a variety of formats where you accommodate everybody. We go out of our way, and it’s very unusual how we think about that.”
08 / belief
“I’m trying to understand, and I’m trying to help my team to understand, the best way to manage and work with people in Africa. Because I think we thought we knew a lot, but I think there’s some things we don’t understand as well as we might.”
09 / belief
“Flowers — it’s a massive success story, but I think there’s more that can be done there as well.”
10 / evaluation
“I think that technology is really — it’s like so many economic problems. They’re technically easy, but they’re politically complicated.”
11 / evaluation
“We find Australians offensive because they’re in your face, but they’re actually just telling you the truth, and they’re cutting to the chase and they’re getting stuff done.”
12 / prediction
“We’re in seven projects in five countries; I think we’re aware of every project across the continent, but there’s very little doubt at all that this will be the leading new city and the largest new city in sub-Saharan Africa.”
13 / evaluation
“I think that’s like a cognitive default, but that’s actually at variance with the world’s experience since the Industrial Revolution.”
14 / evaluation
“There’s not so many projects that literally have a 50-year time horizon because there’s not really very much 50-year capital.”
15 / prediction
“It’s probably urbanization, because once people move into an urban setting, those tribal barriers and differences, they gradually melt away, and you can see that — and you’re going to see it this week in our office.”
16 / prediction
“In my view, there’s a qualitative difference between those two, because if you have a world-class school, you will bring world-class professionals.”
17 / evaluation
“We don’t need to do any of that, but you need to embrace those principles in a very wholehearted fashion. It takes more time, it takes more effort, but the payoff, I think, is going to be massive in the medium term.”
18 / evaluation
“We certainly can’t quantify them because the development’s happening in such a wide range of settings, from communism dictatorships through to very liberal systems and with all different kinds of industrial — on every dimension, there’s a huge range of variables.”