Luke Ward

speaker

235 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 4 Aug

Luke Ward’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Short Briefings on Long Term Thinking - Baillie Gifford · SpaceX: past, present, future – and finding the next world-changers · 4 Aug 2026 podcast

That is a perfectly reasonable thing to suggest, but it also limits the amount of upside you may be able to have access to there or over what time period as well.

We certainly haven't been worried about expressing our views about this company and many others in the past and having quiet words in private as well as words in public.

But I think it is something which everyone has to take a view on, on what level of control are they comfortable with in a situation like this and where does that sit in terms of the risk reward they have for their clients.

So I think the thing which separates good companies from great companies is where they build these flywheels that can improve their chances of success, but also the size of the market they can go after.

SpaceX, I think, is a quintessential example of something like this, where they've used a product innovation to develop a business innovation and use that to completely reshape the market, so a market or an impact innovation.

But in the process of doing that, they then complete the circle by reinvesting in a new product innovation, which then unlocks a further financial innovation, and again, allows them to reshape the market.

Those companies which can do that consecutively can compound their advantages over time, as well as compound the market addressability which they have.

So the thing which I look for in several other companies is how are the management teams thinking about joining the dots between the engineering skill set and the entrepreneurial skill set and what the market may be possible for in the fullness of time if they're able to execute well on those things.

The temptation for many people at the earlier stage is to just focus on product innovation and say, well, this product is just better and so everybody's going to adopt it for that reason alone.

And they miss out the optimization around, but is it cheaper?

Is it quicker?

Does it do something from an economic perspective that allows you to sell it in a more compelling way or allows you to change the rules of the game almost in the market such that you can help consumers unlock something they didn't even think they needed, but at the same time, generate the profits that allow you to reinvest in that R&D flywheel over a long time.

Yes, going screaming back to earth, the construction industry.

I was out in Texas recently visiting a company which we're looking at and they have a system which uses robotics, proprietary materials, software, AI to print homes far quicker and cheaper and in a better form factor than traditional methods are able to provide.

For most people around the world, housing is the most expensive cost which they have in their daily lives.

And that's if you're lucky enough to be able to afford one in the first place.

It's almost a universal challenge for society.

So I think there's a massive problem to be solved here.

But technology hasn't been able to make an impact because I think a lot of solutions have been point solutions which don't take into account the industry itself.

How do you get small building firms to adopt high technology?

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