Shows
How to Lend Money to StrangersUnbankable, making a movie about lendingLuke Willms is an award-winning writer, director, and producer... and he's interested in lending. Unabnkable is the culmination of a seven-year, seven-country journey to unravel whether Africa's rich tapestry of tradition, innovation and experimentation to find out if it holds the key to Western economic revitalisation.Find all the details at https://unbankablemovie.com/ (or watch it on https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/unbankable/umc.cmc.2b51h3w0b2lbdrvt0af8vklx2 or https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbankable-Luke-Willms/dp/B0F4767PNFFollow Luke on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin...2025-07-2436 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersEmbracing GenAI in credit riskMcKinsey recently surveyed senior credit risk executives from, among others, nine of the top ten US banks, and they asked them about their organisations’ adoption of GenAI, its current use cases, their future plans for it, and the challenges they expected. Twenty percent of the respondents had already implemented at least one GenAI use case in their organizations, and a further 60 percent expect to do so within a year. With how quickly AI is embedding itself in our daily lives, we have to assume that's already increased significantly, so I sat down with Arv Govindarajan, one of...2025-07-0754 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersAn AI-powered link in the chainSimplified funding for SMEs: pre-qualification in minutes, funded within a day, this is not the business lending of yesteryear. Credibly is at home online at https://www.credibly.com/ You can find Ryan on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-rosett-262b642/While Credibly is there at https://www.linkedin.com/company/credibly/I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangersYou can support the show by buying one of...2025-07-0330 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersWhat are the odds?I've just added a new section to the website, featuring affiliate links to all the books written by the great guests we've featured on this show - https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads. If you scan that list before you listen to this show, you'll find among them Dr Michael Orkin with What Are the Odds? and Probability & Statistics Made Interesting. Dr. Orkin is a statistics professor and consultant, and a nationally known authority on probability and gambling games who has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, on various conference stages, and, of course, on the cover of several boo...2025-06-3050 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersOutsourcing AIVery early in my career, back in the days when the details from paper forms had to be typed into a computer to get the application process started, I heard about companies scanning application forms and then sending the files to India to have the data capture done there. A decade later, the guy I was chatting to in a hotel bar in Nairobi promised me he could build a collection call centre in India, staffed by Swahili-speaking staff at a fraction of the local cost. And now, as I hear from Rajul Sood, we can outsource an entire...2025-06-2635 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersBehind the scenes: investing in loansYou can't lend money if you don't have capital. And you can't grow your capital if you don't deploy it. There have long been matchmakers to link those two sides together, but traditionally they've only come into play when the numbers involved started b's or even t's. Exaloan closes the global funding gap for individuals, entrepreneurs, and SMEs by connecting institutional capital with the digital lending ecosystem, digitizing the refinancing processes for lenders. So today we're taking the loan for granted and looking, instead, at what we do to generate fresh capital and strong returns for i...2025-06-2336 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersGrowing a business in vitroThe Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with high ability on a given task tend to underestimate their competence, while those with low ability overestimate theirs. It's typically examples of the second half of that antithesis that make the headlines, but the first half is problematic, too, because sometimes the experts best placed to start a new business are the ones most held back by doubt. And that's why I love the controlled environment that In Vitro Capital has created to, essentially, employ potential founders to build businesses without all the unknowns of traditional entrepreneurship. And it...2025-06-1938 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersFunding the green home revolutionThis is an unscientific guess, but I have to believe that the vast majority of us would prefer to get our power needs met by renewable sources in our own backyards - cleaner, yes, but also free from the price shocks that have become so common recently. That said, heat pumps and solar panels are expensive and complicated - a daunting combination that holds many people back, myself included. That's where Cloover steps in. Born in Sweden but now finding a lot of traction in Germany, Cloover partner with renewable energy professionals to...2025-06-1646 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersHow to Lend Money to BilldersRecorded live in Austin, Texas at the offices of Billd, this episode of HTLMTS explores the ways in which Christopher Doyle and his team are removing financing friction from the building process. Few of us look forward to a building project, but all of us make use of the end results, so let's take a look behind the scenes at how the money does (and doesn't flow) between lenders, general contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers.To find out more about how Billd's financial solutions built for subcontractors, head on over to https://billd.com/2025-06-1253 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersHow to Lend Money to Regenerative Farmers"I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it." - Wendell BerryThe world that Robbie Vitrano and the team at Mad Agriculture is striving to create is so vastly different than the world that is, that nearly everything that they do bears certain madness. From heart to head, poetry to science, financing to markets, and soil to shelf, MadAg help farmers thrive in regenerative organic agriculture. And sure, it's a little d...2025-06-0951 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersSelling clarity in a volatile marketTwenty years ago, the economy of Zimbabwe hit global headlines for its hyper-inflation: Wikipedia tells me prices rose 89.7 sextillion percent in 2008. And while the decimal point here may create the illusion of something measurable, in all real terms, it is an incomprehensible number - something which The Zimbabwean Newspaper cleverly circumvented when it ran a protest campaign using a trillion dollars of actual bank notes as a backdrop to billboards and posters. This was brought under control for a decade until, like something out of a Joseph fever dream, those ten stable years were followed by a fresh set...2025-06-051h 02
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesBuilding the communities that build businesses (and a little bit of football)Nicole Glaros is a community builder like few others: as arguably the very first employee at Techstars, Nicole helped scale the accelerator from one program to over 50 and, simply put, is a legend in the early-stage startup community. And not surprisingly so, Nicole has, amongst other notable achievements to numerous to fit in here: invested in more than 100 startups; co-founded the new professional women’s Soccer team in Denver; been recognised by publications like Business Insider, Marie Claire, and Entrepreneur Magazine; spoken at events like SXSW, TEDx, WebSummit, and Pioneers Festival; has been a competitive sportsperson an...2025-05-2754 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesTech for teacherWhen technology changes, society changes. When technology changes quickly, society changes quickly. And you might have noticed, technology is changing very quickly indeed. As a result, it's getting very hard to predict what the world will look like in ten years' time. This is challenging for all of us, of course, but the group it will affect the most are often the least equipped to embrace those technologies: our kids. So in today's episode, we chat about technology in schools and how embracing AI could lead to an exponential increase in learning outcomes....2025-05-1352 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesNothing beats a bird's eye view... especially if that bird is in spaceThese days, everyone has a satellite. No seriously, you do, they’re all up there just spinning around waiting for you to take advantage of their elevated viewpoints… it’s just that, traditionally, you needed a lot of training to understand their message. That’s where SlyFi steps in, making it easy to understand the earth in high definition.SkyFi, the earth's intelligence platform, can be found at https://skyfi.com/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/skyfi-imaging/Or go straight to the boss,and follow Luke at https...2025-05-0156 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesWhy be a common goal setter, when you could be a remarkable goal achiever?!As we wave goodbye to 2024, our thoughts invariably turn to what we hope to achieve in 2025. But while goal setting is common, goal achieving tends to be somewhat rarer - I'll personally be entering my 20th successive 'Year of the Body' with nothing but an even softer belly to show for the previous 19 years of good intentions. So how do we set this right?In this episode, we sat down with John Assaraf to find out how we can not just set bold goals but go on to achieve them. John is an...2024-12-301h 12
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesI come to scale the decision makers, not to bury themThe narrative about AI and human decision-makers often pits them against each other as foes. More often than not, though, AI's strength comes not from its ability to outperform a human expert in a single task but from its ability to perform almost as well over and over and over again. So, if we could harness AI's workhorse abilities and cap that off with a human expert's more multi-faceted intelligence, we might just have the perfect decision-making team.Shezad's business is still in stealth mode, so we won't name names but he is...2024-08-0644 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesMural, mural on the wall, who's the human after all?We hear about GenAI stealing artists' jobs, but, is this what the headline writers think or actually what artists think? Sarah Sculley is an Australian street artist & creative business mentor, and she's giving us the inside scoop on AI and artists, and on AI for artists. Sarah is at home online at https://www.sculleydesign.com/Check out her works for sale (including this awesome build-your-own urban art kit using plastic bricks) as well as originals, prints, skateboard decks, and more!...2024-07-3055 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersHow to try a new podcast aka the hAIghtened senses feed take-overI've been busy with the kids' end-of-year activities, with a bit of camping, with a bit of drinking in Belfast, with a bit of planning for a trip to Paris for the Olympics, with a bit of everything except podcast editing 😉 So, to fill the gap until next week, here's a taste of my other show: hAIghtened senses. From drones scanning the forests of Sweden looking for early signs of pest infestations to artificial noses detecting spoiled milk or the presence of mildew to innovators building businesses on top of this fast-changing tech, our podcast uncovers the...2024-07-2543 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesBonus: Outro MegaMixSorry we're late. And also, sorry, but with Brendan spending the last two weeks camping in England and then drinking in Belfast, we fell behind on the production of our full episode. However, we didn't want to leave you empty-handed, so we've put together a megamix of our episode outros. Those with keen ears may have noticed that every show ends with a unique and themed jingle—those are created using Suno and compiled for you here!If the technology intrigues you, stay tuned... but that's probably all I can say for now 😉2024-07-2417 min
How to Lend Money to StrangersInnovation for interesting marketsAdrian Pllay has an unusually deep understanding of some of the world's more interesting markets. We've heard a lot about the US and the UK on this show but today, Adrian takes us off the beaten path: having been based at times in Africa and at times in the Middle East, he now oversees both of those regions as well as a little in-between! We talk about what he's learnt along the way, we get teased with the possibility of a future book, and we hear how Provenir is helping banks, fintechs, and other financial services providers make smarter...2024-07-1833 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesToo much love will kill you. Hopefully. If you're a spruce bark beetle, that is.The larger eight-toothed European spruce bark beetle has a frightening name and an even more terrifying impact on northern forests, but does it have a weakness we can exploit? In today's episode, we discuss cutting-edge research into how we might use the beetle's pheromones to control its spread more targeted and effectively.Dinesh and Jana are both on LinkedIn, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dineshkumar-kandasamy-24110262/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/jana-burchards-a6b28b200/The University of Lund's Pheromone Group can be found at https://www...2024-07-1644 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesAn unshakeable mindset for a turbulent worldWe've talked about technology to heighten our senses, today we're heightening our minds.Your first stop for more Satori content is https://satorimateu.com/ but you can also find him on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.His podcast is Halfass to Badass and his book is Unshakeable WealthYou can email us at haightenedsenses@gmail.com or on LinkedInChristo and Brendan are both active on LinkedIn and open to all genuine new connections, you...2024-07-0953 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesSmarter headphones for faster runsYour favourite wearable tech has been counting each step of your run for the last decade and a bit. Your favourite headphones have been there, too, playing some high-tempo tunes. Maybe it's time we joined those together. In this episode, we're speaking to Carl Thomas of Audiowings who has spent the last decade building the ultimate bearable for the serious amateur runner.Audiowings is at https://www.audiowings.co.uk/ Carl is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlthomas/ (look out for the headphones) 2024-07-0251 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesDoes this wine taste fishy to you?In South Africa, the biggest manufacturer of glass bottles once ran an advert in which a university student, wanting to impress his new girlfriend who was arriving soon for a dinner date, decanted cheap wine from a box into an empty glass bottle he had to hand. That was tongue-in-cheek, but misrepresenting cheap wine And we're not talking about passing off a bottle of $5 wine as a bottle of $10 wine, of course, when we're talking about fine Bordeaux, the stakes are a lot higher: I've previously supported my long-lost cousins by splurging on 6...2024-06-2542 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesZoom out to see moreI'm not a great gardener, so I was really impressed when we first got an app that could look at the leaves on my trees and give me some insights into their health and needs. Turns out, that was nothing, Imeshi Weerasinghe has been doing the same thing... but from space 🛰️Imeshi is the co-founder and CEO of WEO - a company that specialises in environmental management using Earth Observation data, deep learning models, and citizen science.You can find Imeshi on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/i...2024-06-1840 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesA predictable harvest from a random forestA good friend of mine has recently graduated MIT. From the business school, to be fair, but close enough to those hallowed labs that I knew she'd have some good ideas for guests, and the first name on her lips was Aerobotics: a globe-spanning tech firm that is working with the agriculture industry to transform everyday farming operations, using technology that supports smarter business decisions and ensures a sustainable future.This clip was enough to hook me (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zx6DMZVez9E) but talking to Benji firsthand...2024-06-1131 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesLava and lenses (in the sky)We've chatted about drones before, and the ways they can give us a point of view we couldn't easily achieve on our own. Today we're looking at them giving us a point of view we couldn't safely achieve on our own as award-winning nature photographer, Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove talks to us about learning to fly over volcanoes. Look, volcanoes are just awesome to talk about, so there's that, but there's also so much to learn about pioneering new techniques in the most challenging of environments.Do yourself a favour and visit https://jvn...2024-06-0442 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesComputer vision (all the better to see you with)Image recognition has become so common that it almost fades into the background of any app or online experience, but how does it actually work? How can we train a model to distinguish between dogs and wolves or between potato moths and flies? And how is this technology used by industries ranging from medicine to banking? We cover all of this in today's episode of hAIghtened senses.Viviana Siless is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/viviana-siless/You can read more about her work as...2024-05-2846 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesPlanes, Drones, and AutomationsAI is going to change every industry, sure, but it's not going to change every industry evenly or at the same pace. To get a better handle on this, we're speaking to an aerial photographer who's seen his industry completely disrupted by drones, and a drone pilot to hear how complicated it can be to be the disruptor!If you want to start a conversation with Grant Duncan-Smith, you can find him at https://www.subiaco.co.za/ and check out his helicopter photography at https://www.instagram.com/grantduncansmith/2024-05-2132 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesGet out of my (own) way!We all face a number of hurdles in our life, some bigger than others, some more permanent than others, but one alone is constant - ourselves. In this episode, we're with Hariett Sloan, a self-development coach and speaker, talking about how to mentally set ourselves for an AI world but, more importantly, to get out of our own way.You can - and should - follow Harriet on Instagram using the handle @iamharrietsloanIf you'd like to participate in the show, you can email us using haightenedsenses...2024-05-1458 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human sensesSome of my best senses are artificially intelligentHow did a South African helicopter pilot become an AI entrepreneur? Why is he using drones to hunt beetles in Swedish forests? And why is his friend, a career banker, getting involved in all of this? Well, you can find out in this first episode of hAIghtened senses, in which we lay the foundations upon which we'll build the first season of the show.If you'd like to participate in the show, you can email us using haightenedsenses@gmail.com or message us on LinkedInChristo and...2024-05-1441 min
hAIghtened senses: how AI and technology are enhancing and expanding our human senseshAIghtened senses: how technology is enhancing and expanding our human sensesDive into the fascinating world where technology extends the capabilities of our human senses - in ways and into places that are beyond us.From drones scanning the forests of Sweden looking for early signs of pest infestations to artificial noses detecting spoiled milk or the presence of mildew to innovators building businesses on top of this fast-changing tech, our podcast uncovers the innovative ways AI-empowered machines are enhancing our understanding of the world around us.If you'd like to participate in the show, you can email...2024-04-0103 min