One of my favourite interviews was with John Roberts, the former kitchen salesman who co-founded online white goods retailer AO World. Shortly after it floated in 2014, Roberts told me with glorious candour how he got up at 5am every day (“I can function on little sleep and lots of booze”) and why he’d rejected dinner with David Cameron (“I’d rather stick pins in my eyes”). There had been intense scepticism in the City establishment about AO’s £1.2 billion valuation, given that it had made just £8.7 million in pre-tax profits in 2013. “That’s why they are boring traditional fund managers,” Roberts retorted. “I honestly couldn’t give a shit whether they buy our shares or not.”SponsoredRoberts had reason to feel confident: AO had powered

Source: The Times March 27, 2021 18:00 UTC