As Eamonn discussed last week, we recently released the first Risk Readiness Report with Mishcon de Reya.

There is a lot in the report, but Eamonn, and the media at large, understandably focused on the fact that our survey revealed that Labour politicians received a net approval score of +17% on the question of whether entrepreneurs thought they understand the needs of their businesses. This is versus +5% for Liberal Democrat politicians, -2% for Conservative Party politicians, -2% for Greens and -3% for SNP. While it’s easy to be popular in opposition, it’s even easier to forget how far and how quickly Labour has come since the days of Jeremy Corbyn.

Nevertheless, whoever wins the next election has their work cut out, as the report makes clear.

A significant proportion of entrepreneurs (39%) believe the overall level of risk in the business environment is higher now than it was 12 months ago, and the same proportion (39%) think the level of risk will only increase in the coming year. Less than a quarter (23%) of entrepreneurs think the level of risk will be lower in 12 months’ time.

The most common risk affecting entrepreneurs’ businesses right now is the difficult economic climate – with 49% of founders stating it is impacting them. This is followed by supply chain disruptions (38%), and Britain’s unfavourable tax regime (27%). Entrepreneurs expect these three challenges to remain as the biggest risks impacting their businesses in 12 months’ time.
Despite this, nearly three fifths (59%) of entrepreneurs believe it will be easy to attract the funding their business needs or to achieve an appropriate market valuation within the next 12 months in Britain, against 13% who think it would be difficult. We will wait to see whether this optimism on funding is misplaced.

I urge you to read the report in full (or at least scan the charts). For example, it may surprise you that potential investors were seen very positively by entrepreneurs (+50% net positive), and regulators are looked upon kindly too (+35% net positive). Universities, in contrast, have some work to do (+14% net positive) – we expect the government will go some way to helping this by implementing some of our recommendations for overhauling the spinouts regime.

As Ed Turner, Chair of Mishcon Future writes in his foreword: “Entrepreneurs are pivotal actors in ensuring that we continue to innovate and grow. Their ability to do this, however, is limited if they’re preoccupied with battling headwinds. Some risks are inherent, but many others can be reduced, and we hope this research gives policymakers a better idea of how to go about doing that.”

Coding Enigma
The inaugural Risk Readiness Report also finds that 76% of founders see AI as an opportunity for their current business model. Which is why it was great to see Startup Coalition, Onward, and Tony Blair Institute for Global Change join forces to release The UK’s AI Startup Roadmap.

It won’t surprise you to know that we agree with much in the broad-ranging report. One area it touches upon is the lack of clarity over copyright. It’s a genuinely thorny issue, as Benedict Evans shows in this typically insightful essay. Some questions he asks:

What happens if I “make me a song in the style of Taylor Swift” or, even more puzzling, “make me a song in the style of the top pop hits of the last decade”?
What if I use an engine trained on the last 50 years of music to make something that sounds entirely new and original?
Ultimately, if you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns that and who gets paid?

Behind the scenes, Dr Anton Howes has been working for months on trying to crack the code. We’ll have more to say on this next week to coincide with the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit.

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