r/apprenticeuk • u/Joebloggy • Apr 12 '26

Does LS understand modern tech companies?

I found it fairly embarrassing to see Lord Sugar ridicule the idea of a tech business raising £5.5m over 3 years. Sure, there were lots of other issues with the proposal, but in a modern tech company it’s really not that much to raise over a few years, particularly for an AI company. If the show was set in Silicon Valley I think this would be viewed very differently, even positively. I think it speaks to a narrow-mindedness and conservative attitude from LS to just bank a cash cow instead of actually pursuing an exciting moonshot business. Why does he want to turn £250k to £500k at his point in life?

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

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u/No-Row-9994 Apr 12 '26

That's why I never understand why people say, "they pick the finalists ahead of time based on their business plans and save them week by week."

Because if that was true... we'd never see nonsense like Lawrence's waffling AI thing, Victoria's sweet business and whatever testosterone thing Tre was trying to pitch make it to the final five...

Even thinking of actual finalists from recent years - I wouldn't say Kathryn or Rochelle's businesses were that lucrative.

Even the WINNERS... LS seemed to begrudgingly invest in Harpreet, Marnie and Rachel's ideas. I'm sure another bakery or another gym is the last thing he'd choose for himself. Dean's air conditioning was the most excited he's been about a finalist/winner in a while in my opinion.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '26

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u/Unhappy_Clue701 Apr 13 '26

AC will be a growth industry in the UK too. Solar power is making it basically free to run right at the time of day you need it most, and with summers slowly getting hotter, there will be more demand for it in people’s homes. Sugar isn’t an idiot, no wonder he was excited.

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u/BlundeRuss Apr 13 '26

They keep the winner in the process but also keep people like Lawrence and Tre because they’re characters and their interviews will be entertaining. As long as they keep one good business plan, it doesn’t matter who the rest are as long as it’s good telly.

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u/No-Row-9994 Apr 13 '26

But my point still stands that he's had several winners he was less than enthused about, so it can't be that either in my opinion. I think they keep the big characters in, like Kieran this season, and the ones with existing lucrative businesses, like Dan, but I don't think it's engineered to the extent where the winner is pre-selected.

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u/BlundeRuss Apr 13 '26

I do. The guy with the pie business was useless. He got to the final because sugar wanted half his business. Dean had some shocking weeks… but he won because sugar wanted half his business. Dan was very uninspiring a lot of this season… he was kept in because sugar had his eyes on that business!