Daniel Priestley

Entrepreneur, author, public speaker.

Daniel Priestley is one of the rising stars of popular economics. In 2020, he co-founded the successful AI-assisted survey service ScoreApp. Today, he continues to fund start-ups through his entrepreneur accelerator firm Dent Global, and in 2024, he launched BookMagic.ai, an AI tool for aspiring writers. He has also appeared on Diary Of A CEO and Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom. To date, he has authored six books on business advice and entrepreneurship.

Why did we invite him on?

It’s no secret - Britain’s economy is in a precarious state. Millionaires fleeing, hopeful entrepreneurs taking their businesses abroad, and the everyman struggling to cover his bases. If this isn’t a recession, it’s starting to look like it. We all feel it, and many of us are seeking guidance. Why is it happening? What needs to change? What can we do about it?

Daniel is the kind of expert we’ve been looking for, and we suspect the kind everyone would benefit from listening to. His understanding of economics encompasses everything from global trade deals to the cost of necessities - a resolution of perspective we need right now. We’ve been wanting to have him on for a while, and there seems to be no better time than now.

What did we learn?

”Entrepreneurs love solving meaningful problems. They’re incredibly hard-working. They’re wired towards adding value for others. But ultimately, if you create the circumstances where they can’t get ahead, or they lose it all in taxes, you lose them.”

Daniel has spent his whole career around fellow entrepreneurs - he knows better than anyone what makes them tick. What motivates them, what incentives work, and how society and governments can help or hinder their success. In recent years, he’s observed an increasing hostility to entrepreneurs, especially in Britain; it’s no mystery as to why so many are taking their skills out of the country. As Konstantin has often said: “Almost everyone with the ability to leave is thinking about it.”

But why? Britain’s economy was once the envy of the world, far outsizing its population and landmass. Things have been rough since the 2008 crash, but they seem to be getting worse. What changed?

”In 2020, the Prime Minister told us all to work from home and figure out how we were going to live without leaving the front door. Most entrepreneurs discovered they could run their businesses remotely, so they did - they moved it into the cloud. By 2022, many of them had put everything in place to be living and working from anywhere - even those who ran restaurants and gyms. So if Britain isn’t the best place to run a business, if they don’t have to be here, they ask themselves: what would be better?”

Britain, despite everything, has so much to offer. The infrastructure and culture of Britain are admired internationally and, as Daniel points out, “London is one of the most exciting cities in the world, when run properly.” The UK didn’t grow such influence through its financial attraction alone - it was Europe’s centre for restaurants, theatre, and music. In many ways, it still is. And yet people are leaving - that tells you just how bad it has gotten.

”Britain has gone from a very desirable place to run a business to a very undesirable place. You used to be able to run a global company from London, but there’s too many things now - if you’re from another country, and you get taxed for everything if you work in the UK, why would you work here? Why would you live here?”

But why don’t the rich just pay their fair share? Why is that such an unpallettable idea to the nation’s uber-wealthy? Sure, you can always have more, but can you ever have enough?

Konstantin drills down on this line of questioning. We often hear about how we need to “make the rich pay”. It’s a thought-terminating cliche that, whenever anyone questions how costs will be covered, certain political ideologues instinctively resort to. ‘The rich’ (whoever they are) will ‘pay for it’ (whatever it costs). To the rest of us, it sounds appealing. Why doesn’t our government make them pay? Do they already?