About this podcast
The Difference Engine helps founders and funders maximise business growth through category design.
Hosted by two British northerners with decades of experience in launching, managing, and marketing disruptive tech companies.
Paul Maher and Jonathan Simnett have been there, done it and thrown away the slogan t-shirts - now they'll help you become a category king.
The Difference Engine - Disrupting Tech Strategy
https://www.becategorical.com/
Episodes
The newest 20 of 90 episodes
- 89. Apple Duo. A Category design disaster? · 19 minApple product launches have always generated enormous excitement and anticipation. Historically, the company’s innovations have sparked technological revolutions, reshaped…
- 88. Tech Sovereignty: Who really controls your tech · 39 minWho controls our tech? Technological sovereignty is about far more than just geography. It’s a story of power, politics, law, ownership, and innovation. In this episode, we…
- 87. Sifted Summit 2026: Legaro’s Europe Complaint, Who’s Courting Clegg & Labour’s Two Technophones · 38 minThe Sifted Summit sparked some big questions about Europe’s tech future. We unpack the conversations that caught our hosts’ attention, from why European founders struggle with…
- 86. Matt Clifford and the Government’s AI Pipeline Problem · 38 minWhat happens when the person shaping a country’s technology strategy suddenly becomes the person building the companies it was seeking to regulate and compete with? To explore…
- 85. John Whelan: Being charged with fraud forced me to build a business · 53 minWhat would you do if everything you’d worked for suddenly came crashing down? For John Whelan, life took an unexpected turn when he found himself in a courtroom facing a charge…
- 84. What do DeepMind & Demis Hassabis teach us about the new era of Category leadership? · 40 minWhat happens when the person who created a Category is no longer the best person to lead the Category they built? Historically, Big Tech has often pushed exceptional talent into…
- 83. How to Strike in 2026 · 24 minGreat products don't break markets. Great Category strikes do. In this episode, we break down the 2026 playbook for orchestrating a coordinated launch across events, paid media…
- 82. Is the AI Bubble About to Burst? The Warning Signs You Need to Know · 46 minIn the midst of record AI investment, soaring valuations, and relentless hype, a growing question is emerging: are we witnessing a technological revolution or an AI bubble? We…
- 81. What we learnt from the Meta whistleblower · 28 minMeta doesn't want you to read this book. Yet despite its efforts to suppress it, Sarah Wynn-Williams' Careless People has become one of the most talked-about books in tech. Is it…
- 80. Crossing the Vibe Chasm: The Most Important Tech Skill of the Next Decade · 29 minIn this episode, we return to The Vibe Chasm, the growing gap that appears when AI-fuelled, solo-founder speed collides with the messy realities of scaling Category leading…
- 79. Roman Stanek: "Assume the worst scenario and then double it, and then double it again" · 30 minIn this episode, we sit down with Roman Stanek, founder of GoodData and one of Europe's most experienced technology entrepreneurs, to discuss the realities of building businesses…
- 78. We need to talk about The Vibe Chasm · 22 minAI has made it possible for individual founders to build businesses that once required entire teams. But solo success creates its own challenges. As customers, systems, and…
- 77. The Rise and Risks of Sovereign Wealth Funds · 48 minWhilst the UK squandered its North Sea oil and gas revenues, Norway's Government Pension Fund Global used them to become the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, managing over…
- 76. Inside the $1.1B Seed Round and How The UK Government is Trying to Leverage it · 46 minSo the UK government wants to play with the cool kids. It's $20 million investment in Ineffable Intelligence’s record-breaking $1.1B might seem mini in comparison to the total…
- 75. 30,000 employees gone overnight: What can we learn from Oracle’s cull? · 34 minLarry Ellison needed to find 8 to 10 billion dollars to fund his AI data centre gamble. So what did he do? On March 31st, without warning, 30,000 Oracle Corporation employees…
- 74. David Friend: From Synth Legend to Cloud Storage King · 35 minWe’re joined by David Friend, co-founder and CEO of Wasabi, for a deep dive into building category-defining tech companies. A six-time founder alongside Jeff Flowers, David’s…
- 73. The AI Impact Episode · 54 minTactics don’t last forever. We’re seeing it right now in the Premier League. The era of Pep Guardiola’s possession dominance is coming under pressure, as teams like Mikel…
- 72. OpenClaw: Analysing the hype · 43 minOpenClaw is making waves as an open-source, self-hosted AI agent platform. But is it a true breakthrough, a passing fad, or simply another feature dressed up as a revolution?…
- 71. How Europe can fight back! · 33 minYou would be forgiven for thinking that Europe has missed tech. As the US and China become global tech powerhouses, it’s easy to think that Europe is simply waving from the…
- 70. Why is Freemium Back in Fashion? · 30 minPeople say that style moves in cycles. From skinny jeans to mullets to Northern Soul, everything waits in the wings before returning to centre stage. So, is it freemium’s time to…
